Not much survives of this Clava ring cairn. Two circle stones (the taller 2.5m) and some bits of inner and outer kerb.
Access in this case was just a straight line from the nearest road. Through some marshy ground, up a hill and over two fences. Unsubtle but quick.
7.6.05
This one eluded me a bit at first but then I discoverd it in a back garden. In fact it IS the back garden, all of it. No one around to ask so the picture is the “best” of a few taken over the wall.
Clava passage grave with the unusual feature of a chamber no wider than the passage and really just a continuation of it.
7.6.05
Charlie and I visited Hambledon & Hod Hill for the first time on saturday. We climbed Hod Hill first, trying our best to avoid the cows coming straight for us. It was a beautiful sunny day and on top of the hill the views were amazing as we walked around the top of the hill with nothing but the birdsong and butterflies to distract us.
Afterwards we made the steep climb up to Hambledon. The hill looks so impressive on the climb up to the top and once there the views are even more incredible than from Hod Hill. We saw a deer on the way up and horses running through fields. There is actually a small lay by by two houses at the bottom of the hill if you want to park as close as possible. If not the car park at Hod Hill is only a short walk away.
This Clava ring cairn is worth a visit for two reasons.
It is the largest of the Clava group (27m diameter) and, better still, one of the surviving upright circle stones is an incredible 3.4m high x 3.0 wide.
Large stretches of the outer kerb are still visible but almost nothing of the inner kerb. Cupmarks on a fallen stone to the N.
Access over a low fence from the roadside where parking is possible.
7.6.05
Probably the best preserved Clava passage grave outside of the guardianship sites at Balnuaran and Corrimony. Unusual SE quadrant (just) orientation.
Six circle stones remain upright, the tallest being 2.7m. The passage and chamber are not too clear now but the kerbstones are well preserved.
Ask at the farm. The route involves three gates including a pedestrian one into the grove containing the site.
7.6.05
Three stones, each about 2.5m high running NE/SW not quite in a straight line. They are well spaced and the first and third are not intervisible. Great views over to the Cairngorms.
Ask at Ballintomb farm. Access along the disused railway line until it is blocked by a gate then head right. Two gates, one locked.
6.6.05
A well preserved Clava passage grave which can be a bit overgrown in summer.
The chamber and passage were left open after the 1909 excavation and are still very clear. There are no surviving circle stones.
Turn E off the A95 at NH87991680 and park at the end of the houses. Continue along the track to just before the railway bridge. The site is on your left amongst trees. One gate, which was open on this visit.
6.6.05
An well preserved Clava ring cairn and the most southerly example of a Clava site.
Large outer kerbstones complete for most of the 55m circuit and one upright circle stone 2.9m high. Great views!
Turn W off the A9 at NH85030850 (not on current Landranger). This is immediately after layby 127 (that’s precision for you!) if travelling N. If you miss it, the next exit will also do. You can drive up to the site where there is parking for a riding school. There is a stile into the field.
6.6.05
Visited the Harpstone again this afternoon and found that the approach to the field containing the Harpstone has been cleared and is no longer overgrown. The once slippy steep climb down to the stone is no more. The land has been cleared of all the overgrown trees and plants and a railing has been put in place with a “footpath” sign attached. It is so much easier to get to the stone now.
The extremely large Ballyganner tomb was the first visit today, this was the last, therefore I could appreciate the massive size of this with not too much of a comparison to the more visited site.
Its fairly easy to spot as you reach the top of the hill on the farmtrack, you can see the front edge of the huge capstone. As you get nearer though it dissapears from view and you have to keep your bearings to find it.
Its BIG! Probably second in size to BGS I. The capstone is in place but is either two seperate stones or has broken, the inside has cairn debris piled up. It now also has a large tree as a companion and it seems to be growing from the tombs rear end. In front is a small altar like outcrop.
What a little gem this is, so close to the road too!
I noticed something interesting in the next field that got me excited, something I haven’t seen mentioned before anywhere. In the next field south of the tomb there is a set of large stones in a rough line very close to one another. The middle stone has a very clear U shaped groove in it and on each side is a large boulder. If you stand on the south end and look through the groove from where the south boulder is, your looking straight at the tomb above! If you look from the north end (from the tomb entrance direction) the groove points directly at a notch in the horizon where two hills meet. Very intriguing. This tomb, as has ben pointed out before, is unusually aligned north-south.
See the image above for a view looking northish at the tomb.
I spent quite some time here, scanning the tomb and scanning the countryside for something that would make the little red dots on the OS map make sense. Too many thornbushes and too little time..
Been past these rocks all my life, but the rock art stuff was only discovered fairly recently. It’s all pecked stuff, and harder to see close up. Low, slanting sunlight shows it up best, when shadows are cast. Unfortunately, I’ve never had a camera with me then.
The photos I’ve posted were taken at 9:00am on 10th June 2005, when the sun was too high to provide decent shadow. Alright, it’s my fault for having a bit too much vino collapso the night before, preventing me from getting up early enough.
As for the cup marks, I’m certain they’re natural – gas bubbles when the rock formed. My reason for saying this? The rocks all over the fellsides around here exhibit the same characteristics. On the same day I found the same “cup marks” on the fellside directly above Copt Howe on many rocks, on the Blea Tarn road, on Silver How, Blea Rigg, Pavey Ark, Harrison Stickle, and back near the Old Dungeon Ghyll. Also, I know these features are common on Pike o’ Blisco.
This has to be up as a contender for the title of ‘rock art with the best view’. It really is in an excellent spot, with the big end of the cheviots arranged directly in front of you, leaving no doubt as to why this spot was chosen to be marked. I was particularly pleased on a recent visit to be able to confirm that the allegedly sacred hill of Simonside is also visible, which is unusual for this end of Northumberland.
What Fitzcoraldo says below about the ghostly appearance of the carvings is spot on, they do have an eldritch quality about them, an effect which is most pronounced in strong sunlight. At times, it’s possible to ook from angles that the motifs almost vanish into the quartzy glistening white surface of the outcrop. At other times, in different lighting conditions, they can appear totally different, and the surface of the outcrop looks much darker, and reflected light can pick the pattern out superbly.
You’d think that they’d be at their finest at sunset, but I found that the trees can cast annoying shadows which prevented the motifs from being highlighted as well as I’d hoped. Pah! One of these days I shall manage to get a good photo which shows the carvings and the view. It’d be great to spend a year or so standing over this outcrop watching it intently as it’s appearance shifts.
The panel Stubob speaks of at the top of the hill is one of the best examples of fresh pick marks, possibly evenmore so that the hidden motif at North Plantation. According to the Beckensall Archive, these fresh picks have been designated ‘Chatton 13’ (with only a 2m difference in the 10 digit refs, good going eh?!).
Whilst it seems a shame to expose such fresh cup marks to the ravages of the elements, they should provide a good indicator of the rate at which the stone hereabouts erodes. This in turn may help in attempts to ascertain the best preservation strategies for what remains of the area’s prehistoric rock art. Maybe.
Chatton 4 is in the middle of a little hillfort, (or a settlement with high banks), this is a lump of stone with carvings. It’s more or less in the middle of the earthworks, and it’s difficult to think that the builders of the earthworks were unaware of the carvings.
The cup and ring on the top of the slab are considerably more worn looking than the ones on the side. It’s tempting to think that this may have been because they were used in some way by the Iron Age (?) folk who built the earthworks. It’s definitely not just the results of natural weathering, more the kind of thing you’d get after years of people running their fingers over the motif. At least to my mind, but admittedly, I am just making this up as I go along
The panel to the east that Pebbles speaks of is that designated ‘Chatton 5’ by the Archive, and has an unusual little motif, both in it’s form and it’s position on a vertical surface.
One last thing to say about Chatton, it can be an infuriating place. There is so much that leaves nagging questions which will never be answered. There are maybe-cairns, maybe-cups, maybe-burnt mounds, traces of maybe-houses. Combine these maybes with the general mystery of the meanings of the motifs, add a strong sense that quarrying and erosion may have caused the loss of some carvings, and this is a place that needs to be pondered in depth.
Now this is a barrow! I’ve just got to walk the length of this thing, and
I am rewarded when I reach the other end and a deer springs out from behind one the two round barrows that sit next to each other just to the North of this incredible monument.
She runs through the crops to the hedge while I stand, exalted, snapping away like a madman, trying to capture a moment I should just be in, but I suppose that is the modern condition!
These 2 north flanking barrows aren’t shown on the OS map, but the round barrows at both ends are. The road runs between the east end of the bank and the round barrow at that end. This is Chalky Road, which interestingly runs straight up to Broadmayne and the stones/ earthworks there.
Looking around:
Barrows, Barrows everywhere!
An important spot,
I think.
This tree covered round barrow lies between the road and the east side of Came Wood itself. (It actually lies to the West of the road, and I hadn’t read Rhiannons folklore post so didn’t listen for fairy music – it was too early in the day anyway!)
This is an atmospheric place and I feel compelled to sit awhile and soak it up. Although I have mixed feelings about the old fashion of planting barrows and earthworks with a crown of trees, they certainly add to the sacred feel of this site, encasing me in a green chamber on this June morning.
The crater in the top tells of a ‘volcano’ excavation;
In 1858 four internments were discovered, one of which had a necklace of amber beads, two of which had gold casings.
Look East and you face towards a line of 5 round barrows, with the bank barrow just beyond.
Many carvings on the trees here, the earliest I can spot is 1939. Needless to say, I don’t add to them!
Think I’ll go and have a peep through the trees at the wooded long barrow down the path to the North.
I approached this fort from the disused quarry on Coombe Valley Road to the west of the fort.
Possibly not the best way as it involves scrambling up sheer cliffs and over a fence.
It was obvious others had come this way though, and it did give me the feeling of being an invading Roman (which I quickly shook off, with a shudder!). If you carry on further up Coombe Valley Road there are footpaths for a gentler approach.
It’s a cute, roughly triangular little enclosure of about 4 hectares and was protected by a single ditch and a rampart of limestone slabs, obtained from quarry ditches inside the fort.
There is an entrance on the South East side and many hut circles were discovered inside the ramparts that suggest the site was intensively occupied around 450BC. I am just going to have a peek over the western ramparts and then get back to my bike. This fort looks cool from a distance,
and the view down the valley must have reminded the occupants that this was a land worth defending.
There are some barrows within the ramparts also, but I know nothing about them.
The original height of this standing stone would have been 5m. It was blown down on the night of 28th December 1879, the same night the Tay Bridge went down.
Early Sunday morning 31/11/2004 (Halloween) I took a party of four mates here. They were sceptical about mystic vibes and the like but we were all pleasantly surprised by how the day turned out. We parked on the road halfway up the hill next to a handy sign pointed barrow-wards, and found the walk up to be not too taxing, despite the fact that two of our party had been up all night and red wine was not proving good walking fuel.
First impressions were non-committal, kind of like, “now we’re here, where’s the magic?” but we ended up staying almost two hours, walking round the barrow, on top of the barrow and inside the chambers, smoking up some nice hotboxes... despite collective cyncism, all remarked on the chilled nature of the place; we had a good time, chatting and laughing and druid-spotting (there were a few other visitors who did not appear to be just ramblers). Myself I detected a weird feel around and about, almost scary, almost sinister but not negative somehow... hmmm maybe just some kind of power that should be respected, adjusted to and enjoyed. I imagine that if you went on your own at some less popular time it would be very easy to sit and zone out here. It should be noted that I was the only member of the party not to have a smoke...
The rest of day was spent in and around Winchcombe and the day continued to be good fun, as if we took a little of where we’d just been with us for a while. We met strange Winchcombe people and strange Winchcombe sheep, and enjoyed one of the best days out I can remember. Recommended.
Open between 10am and 6pm seven days a week between 1st April and 30th of September. Admission fees at time of writing were £2.60 for an adult, £1.30 for a child and concessionary fees are £2.
More details here:
Visited on Friday 3rd June, 2005.
Landowner friendly (ish) and happy to let me go and have a look for as long as I want – I imagine he would be happy for responsible adults to do as I did.
Mound seems to be aligned as Elderford says and is about 30 paces in length. A few slabs visible but much disturbed and covered in nettles at the western end, it took a while to get a picture in my minds eye of how it would have looked. This tomb would have been clearly visible to people travelling along the bottom of the Wye Valley.
There is a sunken track to the east of the mound behind the farm house which leads down to the valley bottom – I have no idea of its age.
It’s a comfortable 20 minute walk from Hay on Wye where you might be able to find a book that will tell you more, and if yr interested in Roman stuff there’s a fort about half way between the two.
Have taken some pictures but as yet haven’t figured out how to put them on the site (and haven’t developed them yet either).
Clyro Court Farm is almost opposite Baskerville Hall Hotel.
Visited 22/5/5
It’s a stiff old walk up from the bottom of the village, but just over a year on from the unintentional scorching the stones received (see News), they appear to be healing well. Most of the burnt lichen has been removed, and the stones look in good condition. I didn’t notice any obvious cracking on the stones I inspected closely.
Visited 21/5/5
I parked the car at Chysauster car park and walked along the road to the footpath at SW465347. The woman at the house next to the footpath advised me to avoid the horses in the field as they can become a ‘bit too friendly’. Following the footpath across the first stile (into a roped off corner of the horse’s field), this was easily done by jinking into the next field through a gate (horses in field), and returning at the far corner by dodging under the fence which appears to have been designed for exactly that purpose.
After the second stile, the footpath is poorly defined, but I headed straight across the meadow as depicted on the map to a stile hidden in the undergrowth of the hedge. After this third stile, the stone can be seen on the far side of the second field on the left. I couldn’t find a way into this field (the footpath carries on up to Try Farm, but is very poorly defined from here).
Sadly, in the evening I found that the photos I’d taken had mysteriously disappeared from the camera! This meant I had to return later in the week, when it was much dryer than the 8am dew flood I’d encountered this time round.
Visited 21/5/5
This is a neat little ‘fairy’ circle on the edge of the plantation with a stone cist in the centre. Plonkers had lit a fire within the cist. FFS why?
Visited 21/5/5
What a fantastic place! From the layby, walk up the steps then keep up the hill till the stream is heard. Keep the stream on the right until a ‘stone path’ is seen. Follow the path to the settlement – the path continues on up to Hookney Tor.
There’s a real sense of loss here – it’s easy to imagine the bustling community that once existed within the encircling wall with its three entrances.
Visited 21/5/5. Noted elsewhere as ‘Meacombe Cist’.
Parking is difficult. Best places seem to be the next gate up to the north, or a bit further to the south, by the farm entrance.
I couldn’t get close to the actual chamber without trespassing into a field full of a quantity of bovine population with young, so I chickened out and contented myself with the long view through the herd.
