The Fowberry Cairn is one of those places that just leaves you reeling. The rock art and the kerbed-cairn are just too heavy for a light visit
Stan Beckensall says it all
“This is one of the most important sites in Britain, not only for the variety of its motifs but also for the existence of a double-kerbed mound on the outcrop that contains many decorated cobbles and four kerbstones which have cupmarks”.
Prehistoric Rock Art in Northumbria 2001
Kemp Howe stone circle would have been a beautiful monument today, but some prat built a railway over the top of the eastern half of it. The other stones are supposed to be still in-situ under the railway banks.
When approaching Shap from the south on the A6, the circle is situated in a narrow field between the railway and the road, just short of the first buildings of Shap, on the right hand side. A gate gives access, but please close it after you to keep in the farmer’s good books. It is easily seen on the approach, and at first appears to be a stone avenue.
Six large stones remain, along with a number of smaller ones. In the middle, at the western edge, a number of small stones form what appears to be a small cove.
The rough, pink Shap granite, used to construct the circle, has to be seen, as no pictures do justice to the striking quality and appearance of this rock, especially after rain.
This low outcrop lies just off the B3212, about 2 miles outside Princetown. It is supposed to have a logan Stone amongst its piles but I found nothing that would rock. It is also an easy way to access the stone row below Hart Tor.
This huge rock sits on the southern slope of Combshead Tor and is a popular place for walkers to the area. It is I would guess 15 ft high on the shortest side.
Just to the north of it is a wonderful walled settlement featuring about a dozen hut circles in reasonable condition and beyond them it is a short walk to Down Tor stone row.
The rock is easily reached up the Deancombe from Burrator Reservoir.
A local tells me that the sun rises in line with this row at Midsummer...It is not facing due NE but taking in to account the dip in the hills to the east he may be right. The row dips in the centre as it crosses the hillside rising to the cairn (Stone Circle) at the western end. I did not get to look at the cairn as it was full of French people standing bolt upright pretending to be stones...
Earthwork remains of a trapezoid-shaped enclosure, possibly an Iron Age hillfort or defended enclosure.
[Source EH]
A univallate Iron Age hillfort, set above what was once the valley of Mardale. In the first half of the 20th C the valley was damned at Burnbanks, and flooded to quench the thirst of Manchester.
It occupies extensive views down the valley eastwards, towards Shap, and up to the dramatic valley head, thronged by mountains rising steeply.
It was excavated in the 1920s.
Also known as Scale How, this is a low mound in a field, just over a drystone wall. There are stone “steps” built into the wall for access.
It is a Bronze Age bowl barrow, constructed of earth and stones, 17m in diameter and 1.5m in height. Human remains were found during 19th C excavations.
It is part of the huge Shap complex of circles and avenues, most of which have sadly been destroyed.
When approaching on the road from Haweswater (from the NW and W as it winds) the barrow can be seen outlined against the sky.
Visited 3rd and 6th August 2004: Lou and I visited Na Dromannan on two occasions, partly because I left the camera in the car on the first visit, but also because we were bowled over by the stones and their location.
It’s such a peaceful spot up on the hill overlooking the other big Callanish sites (most clearly Calanais itself). We took the opportunity to sit in quiet contemplation (in a Swarth Fell stylee). You’ve got to make this little pilgrimage if you’re able!
This route is not very exact, so use it as an aide rather than relying on it. I’ve based it on memory and some photos that I took. I wouldn’t recommend the walk for anyone with limited mobility. Pushchairs or wheelchairs are out of the question because of the frequently changing levels of peat. Good footwear with ankle support is advisable, and if it’s been raining be ready to get wet feet.
Starting from the A858, park in the lay-by nearest to Cnoc Fillibhear Bheag. Cross the road and follow it, heading away from Calanais, until you are past the cottages on your left (I think you may cross over a cattle grid, but I’m not 100% sure). Here there’s a gate taking you into a small paddock on the other of which is another gate. From this point on you’re in open countryside.
Keeping to the east of the little hill behind the cottages you should find a peat cutters track. This track starts off being well defined, but very uneven, leading off to the north-east. You can follow the path for about half a mile before it becomes almost impossible to distinguish from the heather and peat. At this point you should change course and head north towards high ground. You should have the lake off to your right at the point when you change course.
This is where the going get tougher. You’ll find yourself going from one heather covered island of peat to another. The ‘valleys’ between each island can get very wet very quickly if it rains. Wherever possible keep on the high ground. The first ‘bump’ to aim for has a couple of distinctive boulders on the summit which make it quite distinctive. Once you’re on the top of that you can potentially see the bump that Na Dromannan sits on. We were lucky because the spoil heaps from the archaeological dig made for an excellent target, but once they’re gone it could be tricky finding the site without a GPS or some top notch map reading.
Ambience cannot be captured by pictures, only a visit will reveal it’s scale and feeling.
Access Notes: This fort appears to be on Private Land. The road past the fort is public access. Park just after M-Way bridge. Walk is about a Mile on rough track. The wood is used for pheasant rearing. Try and obtain permission first, I don’t know who to ask in area.
I actually aproached this circle from the north, having followed the stone row from where it crosses the Erme River. A REAL adventure!
The “easy” way would be to come up the track from the hamlet of Torr near Cornwood, and then head out over the open moor, this is still not easy or a short walk.
Is it worth it? My photos may not do the circle justice...it was a very overcast day with the mist dropping down one minute and the next lifting. The whole Erme valley is full of antiquities...I think I past four stone rows and missed about four others on a eight mile walk, not including all the cairns and settlements, pounds, cists, and the odd standing stone...
Of the circle itself, there are 23 of the original 26 stones still standing, none taller than about three foot. It is a wild area....lots of soggy ground all around, even on top of the hill. Not a place to go if you are not sure of your map reading skills...but if you are, well worth it, the landscape is stunning.
Small cist found to the south of King Arthurs Hall. Burial chamber is surrounded by several stones in an area where quite a lot of stones lie at random on the open moorland.
King Arthurs Hall can be clearly seen on the ridge to the north.....but which came first?
17 May 2005
Visited this time from the road to the south...passing by the leaze cist on the way. Despite the wet spring that we have had, the hall is reasonably dry. Myself and Karen, a friend from Canada, decided to walk out into the centre of the hall. At one point I stuck my trusty stick down into the ground. After it had gone in about 4 feet I decided to pull it out...Karen stuck hers...then tried to pull it out. It broke and now remains sticking out of the “bog” like excaliber!
Has anybody ever put forward the idea that this could have been a pool?...the high banks and stones used to keep the animals out.
On a short visit to Barrow, I decided to hunt down the Druid’s Circle on a free morning. As I’d no details to hand, I asked several people in the area for info with no success. No one seemed to know of it’s existence, not even the owner of the farmhouse where we were staying, and it turned out to be only a 5 minute drive from his property. Luckily, the Tourist Information Office in Barrow provided me with a printed off page from ‘visit cumbria’ that pictured the circle with the spire of Bardsea in the background. Once over the brow of the hill on the common road, the very same spire came into view. A short walk from the road took us to the centre of the circle. Success!
Unfortunately one of the larger stones has been spattered with what looks like red paint, but this does nothing to detract from the beauty of this little inner-circle. Much of the fern I’d read about has been cleared away, making the circle very visible from a distance, but fresh new shoots have emerged from the ground all around it. I guess it’ll be shrouded again before too long.
On my way home yesterday I detoured through Keswick for my first ever look at the Big One. From one extreme to the other.
It should have been perfect! Such a beautiful little circle in an amazing landscape, at sunset...
Its easy to find as long as you dont take the left at the fork in the lane, its signposted well apart from here. The little honesty box really bemused the people who were leaving as I arrived, I gave the ‘subtley suggested’ donation of €2. From the other photos I assumed it was very high up on a mountain side but its on quite a low ridge compared to the surroundings. The waterfall in the photos above seems to be very weather dependent as I could not see it at all but I could make out its path down the mountainside.
There had been glorious sunshine all day so I was a bit dissapointed that it clouded over as I made my way across the soggy bog. When the sun did eventually come out, so did the flies, the most savage swarm of the little buggers I’ve ever had the misfortune of walking into. They were truly vicious, they got in everywhere, down my neck, and up my sleeves. I had to retreat to the car defiantly taking zoom shots from the top of the hill on the way back.
Access seems to be considerably improved compared to most of the posts below! I didn’t have to climb any fences etc. Not easy for those with health problems or limited mobility though, as part of the walk is pretty damn steep!
I parked at the big layby-type car park on the south side of the A57 & walked back down the hill to ‘Cutthroat Bridge’. There’s now a pedestrian gate there which leads to a permissive path (’no dogs’ I’m afraid).
The path goes gently up thru trees for a short distance and across the moor following the bottom line of the ‘Edge’. After mebbe a few hundred yards, there is a fairly small wooded area on the right of the path.
From there, I struck off more or less straight up the steep slope of the ‘Edge’ itself. Unfortunately this steep slope means that mobility could be a serious ‘issue’ and the walk up is quite strenuous.
Reaching the outcrops at the top of the Edge, the circle is around 50 yards onto the moor, maybe less. Where I reached the outcrops, it was slightly to my left, but it shouldn’t be far away if you set off from the path at the trees and go more or less straight up. Though the stones are small, it’s reasonably easy to spot and doesn’t look like it’d get overgrown in the summer.
Sunday 15 May 2005
Bloody gorgeous!!!
Somehow I’d never got round to this one on my several previous trips to Derbyshire – goodness knows why as I always used to be coming from Leeds & this is one of the most northerly sites in the area.... As a result, it’s been nagging me for a while.
Anyway, the Stonehengineers event was going well and I didn’t seem to be essential to proceedings. So, upon discovering that Mr & Mrs Goffik had the requisite OS map with them, I decided I must take advantage of the sunshine (and their map) for a little jaunt.
A bit of a drive from Crich (where the Stonehengineers were), I was certainly glad I went for it!!! A lovely characteristic Derbyshire circle with plenty of stones left. A short segment at the north (?) has had the stones broken off at ground level, but this isn’t a really a problem. (Though it’d be better if they were there, obviously.)
And the views are wonderful, particularly towards Ladybower. A great place to sit and chill out in decent weather, though bleak and unwelcoming in wind and rain I guess! Lots of interesting nearby crags to check out too. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay long, as I was already feeling guilty for ‘bunking off’ from stone moving duties!!
What a great site to end the trip with!
“Turf covered and overgrown with gorse” was the most recent description I had of this site. Not now though. It’s all gone and you can see clearly all the features of a Clyde cairn.
The portal stones and many of the facade stones remain. There is one axial chamber with well-defined compartments and two lateral chambers. All this and views out to Ailsa Craig. Splendid!
Access You can drive down the farm road where there is room to park just one car at the end. Keep going past the caravan and into the field on your left. One locked gate.
Visited 11 May 2005
A 2.5m high standing stone close to a rather ruined chambered cairn.
A wonderful location with hills on three sides and the open fourth side leading down to Machrie Moor and the sea.
Access. There is a convenient parking space just off the main road on the farm road. You need to go up to the farmhouse to get the footbridge across the stream. There was no reply when I called.
Visited 11 May 2005
If all four-posters were like this, I could get to like them more.
Situated on top of a small rise in perfect weather, this was a great site to end the day with.
There is a 2m high standing stone in a clearing in the forest to the E of the approach to the circle (NR910345).
Access Park at NR904337 and walk a mile up the forest road. Two gates which could be opened.
Visited 10 May 2005
Just about believable as a chambered cairn, this jumble of stones lies on the opposite side of Machrie Water from the stone circles.
Visited 10 May 2005
Said in some accounts to be the remains of a stone circle demolished in 1836, this stone stands 2.7m high near the road.
There is another 2.7m stone nearby (Sannox Bay at NS016456).
Visited 10 May 2005
One of the few chambered cairns in the mountainous N part of Arran.
The remains of a three-compartment chamber and a cist can be seen. Great views of both the surrounding hills and over the Firth of Clyde.
Access Head for the S end of Sannox village. Climb the rocky slope behind the seat and keep going to the top of the slope. Head for the gate in the deer fence. There was a stile here but it is broken. You can still squeeze through over the gate. There is a prominent stone on the rise in front of you – head slightly left of that towards the cairn.
Visited 10 May 2005
This is a lovely little very accessible circle located beside the B6276 8 or 9 kilometers north of Brough.
I parked up beside the black shed opposite the entrance to Lune Head farm and then walked up the road to the circle. Be careful on the road it is a popular run for bikers especially in summer.
The circle is about 10 metres in diameter and comprises 8 small boulders with another two possible stones that are outside of ther ring.
The circle looks across the valleys of the Lune Head and Cleave becks with views to Seset reservior in the east along Lunedale.
This area is rich in mineral veins and has been heavily mined in the past. Just across the valley are the remains of the Lunehead lead and Barytes mine. If you check out the mole hills along the road side you can pick up large lumps of Barytes recognisable by it’s white colour and rhombic crystals.
Just behind the circle is a lovely example of a rake, a narrow deep channel cut into the rock to exract a mineral vein.
In the past I have overcome many obstacles that have been presented to me on my stone circle odyssey, rivers, farmers, keepers, bulls, barbed wire, bogs, dogs, nettles and even fighting sheep. But today’s challenge was a big one, possibly my biggest to date.
How to get safely across the trans-Pennine, four lane, full-on gladiatorial madness of the A66. I parked in a lay-by on the westbound carriageway of the road and got out of the car. Ray Mears could not help me here, there is no urban bushcraft solution to this one unless I could sit and whittle a set of traffic lights or a lollypop lady out of the discarded hubcaps and stripped wagon tyres. Standing there amongst the detritus of the road watching the wagons and cars hurtle by at frightening speed. ..Ah bollocks! I decided that all I could do was run for it.
I made it across the road and walked along the verge to the substantial earthworks of the Roman camp. The fence at the camp is low and quite easy to step over; armed with a copy of the SMR summary I located the most easterly entrance of the north wall and paced the 30 meters to the south.
Stone circle? What stone circle? I had risked becoming a road pizza for this?
If had walked past this site on a moor I would have barely given it a second glance.
I can’t sit and write a decent description of this site because there is very little to say about the physical remains of the site other than it’s pretty much unrecognizable as a stone circle.
There are two important things about this site.
1. It’s location
2. Continuity of use.
This site is 400 metres above sea level on one of the bleakest Pennine moors in England. So why put a monument here?
This is the point where you can see both the Cumbrian Fells and the North Yorkshire Moors, this is the point where east coast meets west. Surely a place of some power. We know that there was an network of trade and exchange between the peoples of the west and east coasts of our islands. I think that this may have been one of the main prehistoric routes. This monument may have inspired and offered hope to travelers crossing the bleak Pennine uplands.
The continuity of use links in with the location. The Romans knew it and placed a heavily fortified road along the route of what is now the A66. It was also a significant route for later travelers as can be seen by the Anglian, Rey Cross.
A hundred or so metres west of the circle is the boundary between Cumbria and Durham and this route was also once the border between Scotland and England. So east meets west, north meets south all within sight of the wrecked circle.
On the face of it the Rey Cross circle is definitely ‘one for the enthusiast’ in terms of it’s state of preservation. But on the other hand it is a site of extreme importance to anyone who is interested in the prehistoric and early northern peoples of our islands.
“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!”
The Ballard of East and West
Rudyard Kipling
As I walked up to this site, I thought “You’ll not see much here. It’s in a forest, Morris couldn’t find carvings seen by an earlier researcher and the last report in Canmore talked about advancing heather growth.”
How completely and utterly wrong I was!
Both panels are completely clear of vegetation and you can see not just the art recorded by Sommerville and Morris but also superb designs discovered in 1982.
Altogether, there are about 20 cup and ring motifs all deeply carved and with some interesting variations on the more “normal” designs. The length of the “tails” in some cases is particularly striking.
Altogether, this has to rank amongst the best rock art panels in Scotland. It was certainly the highlight of my trip.
Access There is a forest road and path to the site. Access is off the B880 and there is room to park two cars just off the main road. The forest road has a barrier across it but, otherwise, no obstacles.
Visited 10 May 2005
