Latest Fieldnotes

To get there: It can be pretty bleak and wet up here, so make sure you’re well wrapped up and if its wet, suggest good boots as it’s quite squishy. Park outside the pub and head across the road, due South. Make your way through the fence and follow the dry stone wall on the moor side avoiding the sheep poo. When the wall runs out, make across country towards the right hand side of rocky outcrops as shown in photo above.

Following round the right hand (West) corner of the outcrop, you come to the slightly surreal mushroom (or phallic) weathered escarpment shown above. The main stones are further down.

Also worth a look is the main face of the crag, that in my opinion has what looks like a remarkably human face protruding from it – I tried to capture it in the photo above but it doesn’t really do it three dimensional justice. Maybe it was a trick of the light and wet rock – curiously the rain enhancing the appearance of the stone.

Really quite special and feels very isolated.

Crikey Me!

What’s happened to the Bull Ring...? This is still Dove Holes ain’t it?
All nicely mown, no motorbike tracks and totally devoid of any rubbish. Even a little information board has appeared on the path between the henge and the oval barrow.
Looks as if the village is finally taking a bit of pride in the Bull Ring and what is one of Northern Britains best upstanding henges.

It’s always been a worthy place to visit and in its present state perhaps more so. Even a typical wet October day in the High Peak didn’t put a damper on the experience.

There was no sign of the “discarded cack” on this visit – just the “beautifully tranquil place”

Visited 18 October 2005

The ruined farmhouse is now a rather grand residence not connected with the farm. Happily, the landowner was working in the next field and was able to put us right before we went badly wrong.

The only access to the field which leads to the circle is now via the gate on the public road (where parking is also possible).

Visited 18 October 2005

S**t! Uuughhhhh...... crap. F**K!!... B****X .......ARRRGGHHH slime!!!!.... ugh, at last.. Wwwwwwwwwwwoooow, maaan!!!

This is the sound of a person visiting Uragh for the first time, even the second or third time. The donation box now politely demands an ‘entry fee’ of one euro but if they are going to charge the least they can do is lay even a third-rate causeway or stepping stone path towards the hill. This weekend the ground was atrocious and I had to encourage an Australian couple to keep going after they turned back. They weren’t convinced. If you could only see the circle you would know it was worth every slip and slime.

Now I’m back again and its before dawn, not quite pitch black but there is not even a breath of wind and it is so quiet it feels unreal. This circle is like a painted back drop for a film, you simply couldn’t dream up a location like this.

Visit this place now, you have to see dawn breaking above the hills and waterfalls before you shuffle off this planet.

Easily visible from the road, I’m surprised I’ve not noticed this one before. Parking in the farm driveway is possible without blocking access, so I risked it for a quick grab shot, as no-one was around though the weather was closing in.

Managed to get here last Friday, on a glorious day (heavy rain was forecast but never appeared).

Builders were working on the farm buildings, the first time in many vists that I’ve seen anyone here. I asked them for permission to visit, they thought I wanted Chun, or Lanyon Quoit. As the farmer wasn’t around, and I had a copy of the map from Magic, they were happy for me to whizz across and take a look.

Into the field to the right of the farmhouse, and over the gate to the rear. On into the next field back from the farm (another gate), then turn right to the bottom of the long field. Over the last gate, and the quoit remains are in the field. Basically, two large stones, one leant against the other with many packing stones at the base.

Magic shows a ‘settlement’ in the corner of this field also, but before I could investigate, a brief shower started up. As I was carrying my camera without a bag, I hurried back to the car before it could get too soaked.

I have visited the Howe several times over the years and would suggest spring before the crops take over as the best time to get a real sense of its scale. There is a lot of flint in the adjoining field including evidence of tool working (just look under foot if its dry enough).

Cley Hill is, as Julian points out in his book, quite clearly a recumbent mother hill, with Little Cley Hill forming the head. Most interesting is the vulva shaped area between Little Cley Hill and the main hill itself, which is very rich in flint (light area in plowed field) and flint knappings and discarded flint scrapers are all over the place. The round barrow is not on the highest point of the hill, as you would expect, but is instead perfectly placed to overlook this vulva area, with cup and ring markings beneath (damaged by medieval plowing). Does this indicate that the vulva area itself was considered sacred?

I grew up around this area and saw my first crop circle in the far corner of the field bordering the vulva area in 1986, which appeared within the time it took me to walk around the hill. Of course this is area of high military activity and farmers with a strange sense of humour!

In the 60’s and 70’s this area was apparently also associated with “earth lights” and UFO activity, as reported in the Warminster Journal and various Ufology texts, although these reports have subsequently been disputed as hoaxes.

The location of Cley Hill in the surrounding landscape is interesting, being visible from all side of the surrounding valley and escarpment of Salisbury Plain.

The photos are from a visit in 1999. I have blanked myself out from the picture showing the vulva area, cup and ring marks and round barrow.

This circle is easy to find and also easy to reach. If you are on a hanglider with a pair of binoculars taped to your face that is...

This was my second time looking for this place, I gave up the first time and I have quite good eyesight. I actually ‘saw’ it and was glad to see the farmer was tending his sheep, until he pointed out a different spot, much further away! ‘You have a pair a tough boots with ya, dont ya?’ ‘Um no... but um, these walking shoes are watertight..’ Cut to farmer laughing, sort of nervously at first then building up to a hearty belly laugh bordering on the evil. Great start.

They should use this place to train the SAS, its murder getting across the bog after rain the few days beforehand. Barbed wire, super-slippy rocks, swamp holes disguised as tufts of grass, those rocks placed and balanced carefully so that when you stand on them they fart out water and muck onto your other shoe...

When you are there, you dont even think about your trousers being knee deep in crap, this spot is like a 3D postcard, spectacular doesn’t do it justice.

The stones are all high and have a craggy pointed-ness that makes them human like in stature similar to Ardgroom Outward up the road, they must be good to hold your attention up here but they were chosen very well. I didn’t want to leave here, and that wasn’t just because of the dastardly trek back to the car.

The Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network have recently done some clearance work at the cairn, uncovering a stone on the cairn with an amazing quartz vein. See Meyn Mamvro #58 for details.

Thanks to Mr Hamhead’s instructions below, I finally found this at the third time of trying! All I’d add is that the wall on the right is located just after the stream on the left (which tends to make the pathway extremely muddy), and there’s a minor barbed wire fence to navigate at the top of the wall. Once in the clearing of the field, just follow the pathway up the hill.

A massive stone, covered in that hairy lichen. Due to the weather I didn’t tarry long, or look for the other nearby stones. Another day maybe, now I know how to get here!

In 1915, Wedderspoon described it as “a beehive shaped structure”. RCAHMS say that according to local fishermen it is a natural rock formation – and is “similar to others in the area”. This is also what they say about the ‘circle’ in the Pool of Borodil – except in that case they say it’s similar to “several others”.

Ballyrenan Portal Tombs, 16th October 2005.

Very sad to see this place completly overgrown again, only the capstone poking out of the undergrowth is visible as you pass. The side opposite from the road is better, slightly. I did find however that a camera monopod makes a good swiping implement for claring vegetaion, after 15 minutes you could see the whole of one side again but I was too tired then to even make a start at the more overgrown side where you cant even walk.

I really liked it here, the morning was still bright and the tombs still retain a lot of presence despite their state and overgrown surroundings next to a barn.

The capstone-less tomb would have been very nice in its original state, I think I would have liked it better than its larger mate. The larger tomb gives the impression that it was a ‘throw it up and see if it sticks’ affair, still very nice and a little eccentric.

Maybe a discrete word in someones ear might bring some sunshine back into these tombs existence.

Drumskinny, 16th October 2005.

After a spectacular sunrise at Beltany Tops, the morning took a more gloomy and dank feel by the time I got to Drumskinny. It was 10.30am on a Sunday yet I wasn’t the first here, a couple were leaving just as I arrived.

The circle is really nice, ‘nice’ is a good word because it does feel ‘nice’ but not quite ‘right’. It can be hard to ignore the newness of the place though the stones are quite charming, it feels like it could be one of those modern public artworks you see in pretentious ‘Business Parks’. Its even been signed by the heritage people! (The missing stones have been carved to indicate they are not original). I didnt notice from other photos that its on such a slope, maybe this adds to the unrealness of the place, maybe the weather was affecting my mood...

Beaghmore Complex, 15 October 2005.

Fourwinds and A. Weir have some superb shots of this site with sunlight raking over the stones and grass and this is what I hoped to see before sunset today. Unfortunately I wasn’t counting on Saturday rush hour traffic in Armagh and Dungannon and missed the best light.

Arriving on a very windy evening I was not dissapointed for long, this place is incredible. You can almost feel the frenzy of activity here, the fervour with which the rows were scattered around the rings as if the world was about to end. Some theories consider this could well have been the scenario the builders thought they were facing as the peat bog swallowed up the workable land.

Trying to understand this place is like trying to square the circle using an abacus. Excuse the pun!

Beltany at dawn, 16th October 2005.

After the mind boggling Beaghmore at sunset the evening before, Beltany feels a wilder, more foreboding place than the almost amusingly scattered Tyrone complex. Maybe this was due to the fact that I arrived here while it was still dark and the tree lined laneway up to the circle was much longer and spookier than I had anticipated.

There are lots of curiously shaped stones, the two largest stones are extraordinary. This site was once a true masterpeice, now in its slightly ruined state it still hits the psychological nerve ends.

Even after dawn there was not enough light to find all the marked stones but I did find the large stone with dozens of cup marks on its inner face and attempted to get a good photo of them.

From reading Jimit’s post below I get the feeling he parked at the first entrance to Dumpdon. Continue another 100m along Dumpdon Lane and there is an another entrance on the left (not that obvious until you get to it and assuming you’re travelling north).
This splits in two, to the right is a farm track. To the left is a proper parking area with a small visitors board and the footpaths around Dumpdon Hill marked on a map.
If you go a short way up the farm track and through a field gate you can enter a field and from there walk across pasture up the steep hill to the northern entrance of the hillfort.
Of course this wasn’t the route we took... but set off up the path from the car park and headed south, circling right around to the other side of the hill before we could find a way up. The path became indistinct at this point, but the side of the hill here had been recently mowed so it was possible to walk up and enter through another entrance into the hillfort.
As per Jimit’s post, the views out aren’t that good due to the southern end of the hillfort being planted with trees. The best outlook seemed to be from within the enclosure near to the triangulation point pillar.

First visited 19th June 2004CE.

We found no evidence of the car park marked on both the OS Landranger and Explorer maps on the north side of the fort.

The enclosure is bisected by the B3179 and there is a car park on both sides of the road on the southern side. The one on the eastern side of the road is right up against the ramparts so you can’t miss the fort from there.

If you cross the road to the car park opposite there is a fantastic vista at SY031872 that overlooks the Exe valley estury, giving views of Exeter, Exmouth, and Dartmoor in the distance. Well worth a short walk.

Harproo is a stream-name, and at the time of my visit a shallow stream proceeded over the present farmtrack down to the beach from the Bu road. This was an old hill dyke similar in dimensions to that close by Kongarsknowe, being just over a metre deep and approximately 6m across where it meets the shore. Actually I took the Breck footpath from the kirkyard then rushed across the shallowest bit of the Bu burn. On the cliff-top either side the drystone wall is terminated in lichen-covered stones on the order of a metre high. Fairly standard. But sitting on the base of the ‘trench’ is a stone of a very different character (HY33190413). It is a head higher than any other stones in Orphir. It differs from the other stones in being completely devoid of lichen and having the colouration typical of stones that have been in the vicinity of a farmyard all the time. I am firmly of the opinion that this is HY30SW 11, the Bu of Orphir standing stone, transplanted. With the other stones it has several ‘loose’ modern gates roped across. This stone is 1.9m high and 0.2m thick, is 0.6m across the base (which appears to be stone-packed) tapering to 0.3m at the top.

The site of HY30SW 16 is in the area shown by by Johnston on the two maps between p.12-3 & 14-15 of his private printing, to both of which he has added the name Harproo in the relevant position – it is depicted as a square structure/foundations on the second of these. Though I was ignorant of it at the time my photos reveal I may have Yarproo (HY332042), in the cliff close to the E terminal stone, as several stones about half a metre below the cliff-top in an area about a metre across and ?under half deep.

It is simpler to come down the farmtrack. At the road end is a similar arrangement of two stones aligned plus a third slightly away. As all these are similar it is my guess that the farm stone could have been a replacement for one swept out to sea. My impression is that the W margin of the track is more like the original bank would have been, but I have not yet walked the track.

Belated fieldnotes.
I arrived at Carrock Fell after a long day on the hills. It had been a bitterly cold day of gale-force winds and sub-zero temperatures on the fell tops.
The final approach, from the E, was over ground that would be boggy in warmer conditions, with the top rising above all else. This was the only direction which didn’t involve a steep ascent to gain the fort.
Once there I found the summit rocks to be surrounded by tumble-down stone walls, which were obviously impressive in their time. Entrances exist to the four points of the compass, and the views are extensive in all directions. There is no way this place could have been approached by stealth. The ascent from the valley is strenuous.
Archaeologists are of the opinion that it was never occupied as a fortified enclosure. If that was the case, then why all the effort to construct these very substantial banks of stone?
This is a very beautiful place of great loneliness, with nothing to be heard, save for the wind soughing through the pale grasses and ancient walls, and the song of the lark.

This stone lies in a private field by the side of a road.
Unfortunately on this ocassion the field was full of very curious bulls so I only ran in took photos and left very quickl! There is also a huge mound in this field, I couldn’t get close enough to tell if it was man made or not but it certaintly looked it. There’re lots of lumps and bumps in this field. Another visit is required soon.

From a distance this fort is quite prominent. However the closer you get to it the more it disappears! Plenty of finds have been made here including bronze socketed axes and 4 Langdale axes were also found here as this place lies on the main axe route, but when you get up top theres really not much to see of the fort itself hardly any lumps and bumps remain, theres a vague outline of the original bank and thats it!
Either the top of here was full of timber buildings or its very silted up and reamains lay well below the surface. There are fantastic panoramic views which more the make up for it though. A very peaceful contemplative place with a Long Barrow at the foot of the hill.

The SMR lists this site as a Long Barrow although its the smallest long barrow ive ever seen! With maximum dimensions of 22M long and 13M wide by 1.5M high. Theres 2 stones that protrude out over a metre high from the barrow that really dont line up with the barrow but seem to frame a hill in the distance which imitates the shape of the barrow.
The barrow itself sits on a gently sloping plateau at the foot of Great Urswick Hillfort.

Last week I went to Gyre to look at the ‘urn’ site. Amazingly it is still unenclosed occupying an area several metres in either direction that lies between the section of road above the stackyard and the field boundary walls. There are a few stones that appear to be the top of a short section of walling, but as the late 19th century road cuts through an older arrangement they are probably connected with that rather than the findspot. On my diagram the approximate position of the modern road is shown in orange against the 1820 mapping.