Latest Fieldnotes

Easy to find, clearly signposted and just a short walk from the nearest place to park Mitchell’s Fold is a cracking stone circle up on some heathland with glorious views all round.

Overlooked by the very close Corndon Hill, itself the site of a whole bunch of bronze age burial sites, most of the stones are just small stumps now, but one of two larger, taller stones remain. Here it definitely is a case of the sum being greater than the parts. We spent two hours here without even trying, just looking, enjoying the sunshine, lying in the grass, drinking in the tranquility.

Under the crackle of a very nearby pylon, this tiny, fragile circle has somehow survived in this sacred Tal-Y-Fantastic landscape. The fourteen small stones are all very loose and wobbly, and close investigation revealed that many of them were not set into the earth at all, but placed into rubble sockets. One of the taller stones had fallen over. So treaclechops and I carefully stood it upright again into its rubble socket. No doubt the next time a sheep farts within five metres of it, it’ll be over again.

Not as picturesque as it’s neighbour Maen-y-Bardd Rhiw Burial Chamber, also known as the Greyhounds’ Kennel, is dug into the hillside rather than standing above it. With big flat capstone and large flanking uprights lining the chamber, this has plenty of remnants of its larger shape lying about the place, some kerbstones and a distinct mound of barrow. Lots to unravel and think about. I loved it!

Maen-y-Bardd is also known as the Poet’s stone but should be called The Dinkiest Dolmen in the World Ever. I have not superlatives enough for this place.

Like a rat up a drainpipe, I crawled in and sat down, lit a Camel and grinned like a mad woman for 20 minutes as Moth and treaclechops tore round and photographed it from every angle.

Trust me, if this doesn’t make you smile, nothing will. It is perfection!

The Druid’s circle is gorgeous and perfectly proportioned – not too big to overwhelm, not to small to underwhelm – and the stones are the ‘right’ height for its diameter. Many big tall ones still stand, including an anthropomorph of a be-robed monk. Nearby are a stone ‘something’ (perhaps a trashed stone circle, who can tell?) and a collapsed cairn ring of tiny stones. This is the remaining ‘A-list’ monument forming part of a vast sacred landscape behind Penmanmawr of which there is much to see round the back of the mountains at Tal-Y-Fan.

The ghastly hike would have been worthwhile if we’d had more time to spend up there. I didn’t even a chance to paint. If you can walk and look at the same time I’m sure the hike might be quiet enjoyable.

Not easy to find this. Drive up to the car park/picnic area just before the cemetary and park. Walk along the track that heads north west for about 350ms. There’s an information sign. Walk about 50ms beyond this then change direction by 90 degrees and head off north west for about 250ms. Now you need to activate your megalithic radars! We hunted round for quite some time before we located it. There are tons of erratics up here and in the summer with the vegetation high it might be ever harder to find. The OS map really helped, but once you find it. it’s unmistakable. This was treaclechops’ first stone row and as the weather was so gentle and clement we decided to have our picnic here.

A pair of rows, 2ms apart, run down an incline towards the sea for 30 ms or so. Most of the white stones are reasonably small, but one or two of them are perhaps 3 feet tall. Stylistically it reminded us of Dartmoor stone rows. The view into the Irish sea is stunning from up here, perhaps 150 feet above sea-level with more a less a sheer drop below.

Just 50ms from the great open gash of Great Orme copper mines, down at the end of Cromlech Road is what is left of Llety’r Filiast burial chamber, standing in a field by some houses one of which is clearly inhabited by a dog-lover.

The chamber is exposed and quite trashed with half its capstone broken off, pieces of rock strewn about. But it still stands, supported by great flat slabs upon which grows great white blotches of lichen. Stretching out behind it rises a massive tump of cairn material. No doubt the people who were laid to rest here were those from the mining community who worked the awesome*(!) copper mines just beyond.

Moth and treaclechops didn’t like it as much as I did. I loved it. I felt a real sense of connection with the people who build the monument because the fruits of their day-to-day labours were still visible at the mine. These were people who founded the first great British industrial revolution.

Le Trepied Tomb is situated on the west side of the island in the St Savior’s District.It is near to Le Catioroc on the edge of Perelle Bay.The tomb is easy to get to as it is on the side of the main road that runs around the island,and is close to a car park.There is nothing left of the cairn which covered the tomb.

Le Creux es Faies is on the far south west side of the island.It is situated on a small peninsula that juts out into the west side of L’eree Bay.It is easily found as it is on the right hand side of the road that runs up to the headland and is not far from a W.W.II Watch Tower that is very prominent on the hill.There is an entrance which is always open,so access is allowed.There is also a very informative notice board near to the entrance.

Visited 3rd August 2004: We parked above the harbour in Cealagbhal (aka Port Nis) and walked to the Clach Stein. It was a pleasant enough stroll, but it would have been easy enough to park a lot closer.

I don’t recall seeing a sign for the stones, but they’re easy enough to find with a map. They’re sited very close to a croft in a small paddock (home to some very jumpy sheep when we visited). The scene was rather bleak. They look like they’re huddling down to keep of the chill. Belligerent stones!

Visited 3rd August 2004: Carnan a’Ghrodhair is easy to get to, but not really worth the journey. There’s nothing much to see of the souterrain, but if you’re interested in Second World War architecture you may want to ponder the Home Guard bunker that’s been planted on top of it.

This was my first visit to a souterrain, and based on what I’ve seen so far I’m a bit disappointed.

This one is easy to find! In a field beside the B62 Portrush to Ballymoney road, just north of the intersection with the B17 Bushmills to Coleraine road.

On a very slight rise with good views to W & NW. This is a NE-SW orientated wedge tomb which abuts a modern field boundary. It consists of a gallery 4.43m long& 1.3m wide internally. This widens out slightly at the SW end to 1.45m. Two of the capstones remain in position, one 1.68m x 0.59m & the other 2.25m x 1.34m. Outer walling can be traced along the sides of the gallery, at varying distances out from it. The whole is enclosed in an oval cairn, 10m x c.3m across, although a mound around a thorn tree to W may be a part of the cairn, making the total width 7.2m.

Hendre Waelod, also known as Allor Morloch, is in a lovely position overlooking the river Conwy on the edge of the valley on a gentle slope 300ms from the river. But it has suffered from neglect and screams to be cared for or it will be lost.

But you don’t have to look too closely to see the power and the glory of this monument. It mostly consists of a giant capstone, perhaps two and half metres in diametre and certainly three feet thick. I’ll repeat that in case you missed it, because it forced me to do a double take. A giant capstone... three feet THICK! WOW! The supporting stones are small and appear to have buckled or melted under the weight. But they are still there, in pretty poor condition, granted, but they still hold the capstone up.

Festooned around with rusty barbed wire, it now forms part of an evil fence on which I almost tore off some highly sensitive parts of my anatomy. (Warning, don’t try to ‘scissor’ over the fence, use the kissing gate further up the hill). It is largely this sense of it being rudely used as part of a fence and a sheep shelter that contributes to its forgetten, abused unkemptness.

Crikey! Didn’t expect to come face-to-face with a typical Cotswold-Severn tomb in North Wales.

The lovely horned forecourt and shape of the entire structure is marked out with little kerbstones placed there following an excavation in 1925. The main passageways are open to the elements now, save for one large capstone flaking like tasty French patisserie.

The interior of the open passageway has large pointy uprights used as walling materials with drystone walling in between. The construction reminded me of Orcadian stalled cairns.

Though much of the cairn material is gone, there is enough left to indicate the vast height and bulk of this place. The rolling irregular contours of the grass on the monument undulate and flow in the same way as they do on Hetty Peglar’s Tump. Gorgeous.

This is an ‘A-list’ site in the most beautiful valley overlooked by a corking gorsedd stone. What a shame the wretched information boards are sited too high and the large metal kissing gate is just a bit too close to the monument.

A chunky stone near Birds Rock in the beautiful Dysynni Valley. Sadly now used as a gatepost and half hidden by a hedge. The stone is marked on Ordnance Survey maps at the crossroads.

We visited on 24/03/05. Its an easy walk down from the mountain road/track to the east. Quite a large mound with most cairn material scattered around. A wall and a couple of shelters have been built across the middle of the cairn but the cist remains and is visible.
No sign of cows today but quite muddy because of them – they still around somewhere...

Brund Low is a corkin’ barrow, around 40m in diameter and possibly 1.8m in height.

One of a handful of barrows situated around the Upper Manifold Valley. Although Brund Low doesn’t occupy any of the local high ground like its neighbours. Instead it appears to mirror the almost ‘barrow-shaped’ lump of Sheen Hill, coupla hundred yards away to the NE.

Excavated by Carrington 1851 and Sheldon 1894.
A small cairn within the mound was found to be covering a small pit containing a human cremation. Flint scrapers, human bone and bronze artefacts were also recovered.
Carrington also found 2 small stones each with a single cup mark. (Stored: Sheffield’s Weston Park Museum.)

This is Loanhead of Daviot’s next-door-neighbour.... about 1km away.

I had read the earlier fieldnotes before I left but had forgotten them .... maybe just as well.

Suffice to say, there is nothing threatening here now (apart from an electric fence round the stones – why?) but then I went in from the W.

Visited 17 March 2005

Anything with a recumbent and both flankers in place is, in my view, worth a visit.

This is a nicely preserved site with possibly all of the stones still standing ..... but it’s so frustrating.

The setting, surrounded by the farmyard and trees, makes it impossible to experience it as a circle in its landscape.

But go and see it .... it makes a good little trio of northern RSCs along with Berrybrae and Strichen.

Visited 19 March 2005

A fairly average RSC with a 3.3m long recumbent.

What makes the site interesting are the results of the Burl excavation which showed that, half a millennium or more after the circle was built, some stones were damaged and the ring cairn was destroyed in a redesign of the monument.

Access Parking at the nearby crossroads. Through the field gate and then the gate to the copse.

Visited 19 March 2005

They say the devil has all the best tunes...Iron Age man had all the best forts

Although little remains on Kenidjack headland except three banks on either side of the narrow istmus it is easy to see how this place could easily be defended. Two ridges of rock run along its crest and according to Robin Payne in “The Romance of the Stones” it may have been used in the Bronze Age as a natural defence.

The area all around is heavily mined and tin streaming would have been going on in the valley below to the west since those far off days.

Forget Lands End...come here to experience the end of the world!

Oh...and if you come in the spring you may get to see the peregrins.

Mentioned in “The Romance of the Stones” as a possible menhir it was erected in 1980 when the road was being improved. Not easily missed! it sits beside the road not far from Chun Quoit. Is it or isn’t it? was it or wasn’t it?

Does it matter....how do we know every other stone is original, many of the stone circles in Cornwall were reerected in the late 1800’s early 1900’s and not allways using the original stones.

This is a rather good recumbent stone circle.

Both flankers are there although the west one is broken and only a stump remains.

Particularly impressive are the remains of the internal ring cairn which is linked by slabs to the recumbent.

Access It would be possible to reach the site from Tomnagorn farm but there is a track from the road N of the site (to Bankhead) and this may be the preferred access route. Park at NJ654081, go down the track for 50m and then take the right turn. At the double fence, head uphill and to the right.

Visited 15 March 2005

This is certainly one of the smaller RSCs – a recumbent of only 1.4m. But still worth seeking out.

Were there other circle stones? You wonder why they might have been removed but not the relatively small recumbent and flankers.

Parish records often talk about the destruction of circles and other sites but not here. Other RSCs have a similar absence of documentation and this has led to the view that, at some sites, only the recumbent and flankers were installed.

Access Near the road with parking nearby.

Visited 20 March 2005

I’d been here several times but I’d never looked at the outlier stones.

The north one, in the woods just up from the car park, is a beauty. The west one, disappointingly, is described by Canmore as a cattle rubbing stone.

Visited 20 March 2005