Latest Fieldnotes

Duddo Five Stones have been described as “... undoubtedly the most complete and dramatically situated” [of Northumbrian stone circles] by Roger Miket in ‘Duddo Stones’, Archaeology in Northumberland, Vol. 15, 2005, Northumberland County Council.
Much of the magic of this site is in its relationship to the Cheviots. Seen from the Grievestead-Grindon road to the north, or even more dramatically from Ewe Hill (highest point on the ridge to the north, near Shoreswood), the logic of its situation becomes evident.
Unfortunately, wind turbine developers are proposing to severely damage this landscape. Up to twelve 125 metre (410 ft.) turbines are proposed for the Toft Hill site within 1km. to the west of the stones and another proposal for fourteen 110 metre (362 ft.) turbines are in the planning system for the so-called ‘Moorsyde’ site within 3km. to the north.
Check out the ‘Moorsyde Action Group’ website to see what is being proposed.

Dbnlys

Visited on New Years Day – first time, and only five miles from home!
There’s no signage from the main road to the site, but the gardens and restaurant are marked. There’s a useful car park with essential facilities.
Astounding views even on a murky day across to Chanctonbury, Cissbury to the East and towards the Trundle in the West. Very popular with families, dog walkers, joggers today, but still managed to be peaceful somehow.
Will go back with proper camera and make more notes next weekend. This is first post and pic so please be gentle with me, I do aim to contribute something worthwhile...

[visited 28/12/05] I almost crashed first time I drove past this on the way to Dorset, not only are the ramparts immense but there was a gert huge nipple on top of a giant breast, just to the right of my vision. Cut to 1 1/2 years later, I finally had the Warminister map and went “Oh thats Cley Hill”. This is a popular place and I was fortunate to get a parking space as I headed up here for sunset.

The defenses are steep, in fact the whole hill is steep, I imagine they had all sorts of fun trying to get the carts with provisions in up to the top here. Now perhaps my brain just sees breasts, but the barrow is large and very carefully placed... As a whole the hill is still in great condition and sees a lot of use, not surprising given how prominent it must be from Warminster.

Access is up a steep hill and through a gate from the car park.

[visited 27/12/05] After 20 mins eating my lunch and warming up in the car after a visit to Hod Hill, I set off for Hambledon Hill. A neolithic enclosure, long barrow AND a hill fort? Its enough to make a megarak go weak at the knees. I parked at the carpark between hambledon and hod, which meant the view to the North was saved till last, delaying gratification is always for the best I find.

So I came to the long barrow marked on the OS map and the neolithic enclosure first, the barrow is denuded but still obvious to an observant seeker. As is the enclosure, split with a fence but still followable as a line of bumps in the grass. I’m surprised the enclosure isn’t further forward tbh, there is a lot of hill to the North untouched. Eager for the view I hurried on, down and then back up to the fort entrance and onto a melange of weird banks. I think I picked out the fort from the medieval lynchets, but with a Maes Knollesque cross bank, I’m not convinced the fort itself went right to the end of the hill.

And what is with the large long barrow shaped top of the hill, just to the north of the cross bank? What possible defensive function did this fulfill? Is this related to the strip lynchets? Reading the notes here on TMA, this is actually a barrow? Did the farmers fill in the defenses at the North end of the hill?

Confusedly I struggled against the biting wind to the View. And what a View. I couldn’t stand and stare for long as I wanted to leave the hill without losing bits of my face due to frostbite, but on a clear day you must be able to 20miles from up here. I’m coming back in the summer, because this is one of the best views for miles about and I love my Views.

Access is a mile or so from the carpark, up a fairly steep slope and through a few gates.

[visited 27/12/05] I’ve been pondering on visiting this place for years, finally getting off my arse to see this and hambledon in the same day. So, firstly, this place is huge. I’m not surprised the Romans went to the additional hassle of cornering off part of this massive fort for their pad, the iron age ramparts would have required many hundreds to defend properly. Walking the ramparts in December is a chilly affair but the views either side of Hambledon are awesome, looking out down the side of Cranbourne Chase and onto the vast plain in front of you.

Access is for the reasonably fit, the car park is at the bottom of the hill then its up a steep slope to the fort.

Up on Rhossili Down there are cairns, burnt mounds and Sweyne howes chambered tombs. The fact it faces west must be of significance.

It’s a hard slog up, though!

A short walk through the woods following the line of the river Usk brings you to the Fish stone... in theory! Actually the path through woods is 30 feet up a steep slope and the stone stands in the grassy inaccessible valley below. Being a confident walker, Moth decided to head off down the slope and seek it out, trespassing merrily. I didn’t! I could see the stone tantalisingly close below, but there was no way I was going to be able to reach it. It’s crackingly tall – perhaps 18 feet or more and intriguingly fish shaped, with distinct fins projecting from its narrowest sides.

It is scarily close to the road! It now signals the entrance to a posh hotel. The stones, all about 2 feet tall and 2 feet across, clearly mark out a main chamber and entrance passageway, but the rest of the tomb is long gone. No mound, no rubble, no nothing. The only thing to indicate the tomb’s original size and scale is a number of marker stones. Once, it might have been as big and impressive as Belas Knap or Stoney Littleton. My guess is that much of the cairn material was used to build and repair the road.

Out on the other side of Crickhowell on the edge of a village recreation ground is Carn Coch burial chamber. There’s not much left to see here, but I liked it. A grassy mound with a bit of rubble poking through here and there and a single flat capstone is all that remains. It’s been disturbed a bit too, as its outline is not smooth or distinct.

It has as tremendous view of the very unusually shaped Sugar Loaf hill on the other side of the valley.

In the village of Llangenny, very close to Crickhowell two standing stones are marked on the map. One stands very small and looking rather forlorn and alone at the bottom of the valley. It’s nice though, and I’d like it in my orchard!

Llangenny is a small picturesque village, tumbling down a steep hillside so we drove through in an attempt to find the second stone on the map at SO237188. In thick impenetrable woodland, overgrown with brambles and dry bracken we didn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of finding it, so we moved on.

The growing stone is a very tall, slender menhir, standing sentinel by the roadside about 12 feet high and provides a certain surprising quirkiness at the entrance of a military training establishment. It didn’t need medals or stripes or pips to give it authority.

In February 2004 I posted this news item. I’ve been keen to visit this site ever since. I have no idea what Brian Perinton and Claire Williams felt when they visited Carn Llechart, but I didn’t feel anything except relief to have found the monument and cold because the breeze was arctic! The monument itself is completely alluring and very beautiful. A ring of stones – once the outer walls of a cairn, not a stone circle – stand exposed now without any internal material to support. In the middle is a lovely stone deep stone cist with big flat slabs.

Today in weak midwinter sunlight and with frost picking the flakiness of the stones it looked gorgeous.

Did I mention the views from up here? Wow!! Thankfully you can drive almost to the very top of this hill, leaving just a short walk of 500ms or so.

What a strange place! In a wonderful position on common land near Pontypridd hospital are some natural rocky outcrops, one of which is known as the Pontypridd rocking stone. It is very large – about 5 and half feet tall and round, roughly in two pieces like a cottage loaf. I gave it a push. It doesn’t rock. In recent times a very nice small stone circle has been built round it. The whole place seems rather peculiar though.

Just 200ms away from Parc le Breos hidden in the wooded cliffs on the right as you approach is this lovely cave which is certainly worth a shufti. It has two entrances, one closed up with railings. The larger entrance, of a tall triangular shape, leads to a huge interior. It goes back a long way into the rock and has a number of chambers within it. I was thrilled and delighted at how cosy and warm it was at the back of the cave away from the frosty winter morning. When it was excavated in the 1960s very ancient human remains were found.

This is a well tended and large restored Severn-Cotswold type cairn. We got there early and the light was streaming through the frosty trees. The cairn has a central passage with two pairs of transepted chambers. The cairn is now roofless so the internal structures are all exposed. It was fabulous just lying there surrounded by woodland in a bright yellow crisp winter valley. We loved it.

You can park very close by and the approach to it is flat so it’d be great for those using wheelchairs or buggies to visit.

Lurking in the dunes on a promontory close to Penmaen village is a small burial chamber.

We parked at SS527885 by the bus stop and post box and walk down the path marked ‘Tor Bay 0.8kms’.

Once on the promontory be prepared for a stomp about! We scoured the hillside on the left of the path where the dunes dip down sharply to the dramatic beach below. It wasn’t there. We searched the tip of the promontory, but no cigar. Finally as we were about to give up, I spotted it 20 metres from the end of main path as it breaks up into many tracks through the dunes, on the right of the ‘mainest’ path.

It has a good sized solid capstone, now fallen on one side, and a few stones making up a short passageway. Surrounded by dead bracken, half buried in a dune, it’s not a burial chamber to write home about, but I loved it anyway. The views down to Threecliff Bay are breathtaking!

Up here on top of the dunes reminded me of Porth Hellick Downs on Scilly’s St Mary’s.

The site is found up on high open moorland with amazing views back over to Llanelli to the north. The moor was crawling with shaggy frozen ponies. As you approach it you can see it’s big but then – woooo!!! This is so much bigger and more impressive than I had ever imagined up close. The capstone is less of a cap and more of a mighty concrete helmet – perhaps weighing 40 or 50 tons (I kid you not!) – supported by really small uprights which look as if they have been driven into the earth under the vast weight of the elephantine lump above. The whole construction sits in a concave rubble cairn, so it’s easy to imagine the original size of this place.

As we drove around, we kept getting sights of the monument perched up there on that chilly heath from miles away.

Sampson’s Jack is a pointy menhir of white stone which soars out of its hedgerow setting! It is the texture and colour of rice pudding. What a shame you can’t see the whole stone – it must be 12 feet tall, but the bottom six feet are hidden in the hawthorn. Without modern buildings it is only maybe 300 metres away from the standing stone at Ty’r Coed farm and certainly on a sight line.

Note for pedants: On the map, the spelling of Sampson has a ‘p’ in it.

Park at the top of the lane by the farm entrance and ask at the farm to see it, because this is on private land.

The farm building is only inches away from this menhir which is made of the same rice pudding stone of Sampson’s Jack. Because it stands in a rise of land its size is deceptive. It must be at least seven feet tall. From here you get a very clear view of Maen Cetty on the ridge to the south about a mile and half away.

The stone is kept in a small enclosure with three dogs so mind where you tread – it’s very shitty!

Two menhirs stand guarding each side of the path up to the tiny old church.

The stones are curious. The ‘lower’ one is undoubtedly ancient. The size, weathering patterns and position all felt genuine. The ‘upper’ one was highly suspicious. It looked as if it were a more recent stone – which for sure had once been used as a gatepost – which had been plonked on top of a larger stone. The larger stone now lies down on the slope, but the size, type and weathering all matched the standing stone still up.

I wondered if they had once been part of an alignment as they followed the dip in the road which looked as if it had once been an old trackway down to the marsh just half a mile or so to the north

Cefn Bryn Great Cairn is just 25ms away from Maen Cetty and is little more than a huge mound of large stones. But it all adds to the atmosphere up there on that amazing ridge of moorland with those staggering views.

Remains of an Iron Age Hillfort just south of Barnsley, this hilltop has seen an active history. It is thought to have been reused in Medieval times, followed by the building of a gothic folly by the Earl of Strafford circa 1730.

The site is now included in the Gardens of Wentworth Castle, a country house built in 1672 by Thomas Wentworth on the site of old Stainborough Hall.

Coming down the Muddisdale track (the farm a likely looking site for a Viking borg) I thought to essay the Pickaquoy mound now I had a better idea where it lay. Looking across the pitch behind the Pickaquoy Centre I could see the likely candidate in the nearby field, just along from the Centre. So I went through the side gate and struck across to the diametrically opposite corner where I came to a burn I never thought to find, running by the lower boundary. Holding the field wall carefully I swung myself around and slide between two fence lines, so avoiding any pitfalls the grassy bank might hold. Going to the mound I passed over running water and several low humps and ?ditches, making this site feels very much like the remains of a settlement Amongst these I thought I detected an entrance way coming from uphill. I am reminded of the hollow curve across the Knowe of Geoso, also said to be from quarrying, though that is more geometric (also better defined) and far deeper. In one place it is denuded, showing only bare earth. But approaching from Muddisdale in what remains of the actual mound can be seen an excavation trench from last century that resembles burnt mound material, though the red stones amidst the black earth at the top of this section are rather small to my mind (being only a couple of inches or so across it seemed to me – certainly not of an order with those in the middeny material of the cliff-face below Scapa Distillery). At least one slice taken across the main body of the mound is still evident. From the top of the mound you can see the mill buidings where once was only a sand bar, so this place was once near the water’s edge just as the IA settlement in front of what is now St.Magnus Cathedral used to be (even in Viking times boats landed before where the cathedral now stands) . The other side of the mound is very marshy, my feet submerging several times before reaching the comparative solidity of the field boundary I can understand why there used to be a ford nearer the Peerie Sea. So was this formerly a stream junction ? Having said which this is still the easier entry point – coming along the Pickaquoy road from the supermarkets take the track turning off for Polrudden Guest House and the field gate is the other side of the modern mound at your left.

Earlier on this year part of the henge had keyhole excavation work done by Richard Bradley and team. We are waiting for the results of the total findings... but the day I was there bone fragments had been found in the inner circle, a possible wooden post hole was being pursued and the henge looked like it was actually ‘U’ shaped with straight vertical walls and much deeper than what we see today. Fantastic to see what lies under the grass and how big this site must of been with its stone avenue of 72 stones and possible recumbent stone circle at the end of the avenue past the henge which possibly housed 6 stones.

Surely the most important site in the NE and usually the most over looked. I love this site, alone in its field surrounded by the paper mill, housing estates and petrol station... under the moon all this is forgotten... ancient connections still being made!

I watched the sun go down from here last night (threading its way through the pylon lines. How romantic). It’s amazing how different places are in different seasons. The mound itself has been largely cleared of vegetation and is covered in tiny nibbled clumps of grass surrounded by thousands of tiny sheepy footprints. No sheep about this time though, but their trails led up to the mound as though they like this for a place to hang out.

What I was delighted to see were some largish stones at the edges of the mound (the barrow being too overgrown for me to have seen them before): the largest 2-3ft long on the top of the barrow, right at the middle at the far end from the tree. Whether the farmer moved it here deliberately I don’t know but it is in the perfect spot. I sat on it and realised that the mound is aligned towards the midwinter sunset. My shadow and that of the big oak tree stretched out behind us in the low light.

It’s so noisy here though – the sound of the motorway is so loud and constant. But sat freezing on the barrow I tried to let it wash over me. I tried to think of nothing at all.

I really should do this more often.