Latest Fieldnotes

This barrow nestles high upon the chalk downs of Purbeck Amongst an assortment of round barrows.

A nice hike uphill through atmospheric ancient woodlands brings you out onto Nine Barrows Down Cemetery where you are greeted with stunning views of Purbeck and a stunning array of barrows in all shapes and sizes. There’re two large round barrows with ditches five smaller round barrows and one long barrow combine this with Rempstone Stone Circle and you’ve got a perfect day.

There are many standing stones on the headland’s cliff edges, and these seem to be in association with the field boundary as they practically begin and end in tandem with it over the other side of road and track. Most had visible, or at least uncoverable, stone settings. I was reminded of Yesnaby a little, though those bestride the landscape magnificently rather than only hugging the actual lines of the coast.
Age – In the final analysis no-one knows for a certainty.
b: The first stone HY24532843 0.4mx0.3m aligns with the eastern fieldwall and has a low stone and a setting eroding in the cliff face.
c: HY24502842 1.2x0.6m, setting at front 0.3m deep and 0.2m high.
d: HY24452840 1.2x0.6m aligns with the Point of Buttquoy mound 1/’A’ HY24462835 and has a setting extending right and front of it 0.2m. You would expect it to line up with the more prominent Knowe of Buttquoy in the same field but it does not. Point of Buttquoy is decent enough, though the many stones one sees on it are mostly from a far later sheepfold.
e: HY2443240 1.0x0.4m with a complete stone-setting 1.2x0.6x0.1m. In the field opposite this is Point of Buttquoy mound 2/’C’ HY24432826 but I don’t have the two lining up.
f: HY24422819 1.2x0.6m.
g: HY24412817 1.1 (I think,ink damp) x0.5m.
h: HY24462010 1.2x0.5m with a stone-setting 0.2x0.8x0.3m is photogenic, but alas the back is now the cliff face itself. I think it aligns with the eastern wall of the stone-walled field.
i: HY? 1.2x0.5m.
j: HY24582814 1.5x0.5x0.3 with complete stone-setting 0.9x0.5m. Nearly opposite this there is a length of wall inserted where some time past a gate was. Or at least a long gap in the wall filled in. Where the stone-walled field turns the drystane wall itself only continues for a few more metres.
k: HY24602814 1.0x0.6m the last stone 28m from the spot of cliff opposite the field corner.

This is a pretty big stone, around seven and a half feet tall. Ask permission at the castle first (posh house...) and watch out for the electric fence!

I visited this site in August 1998 and wasn’t aware of the fact that it actually consists of 6 sites along a ridge in the field. We visited the site again in May 2004. Parked the car in the parking lot of the Wooler Golf Club and walked East, along the Hill Fort. This is a place of peace and tranquility and great rock art motifs! We even found a new small panel along site 1. The pics are in sequence, starting with the large panel along the stone wall to the last one (nr 6), a very small panel, in the field.

I never tire of this place. Been here more than any other ancient site. It sometimes looks exactly as the last visit, other times it’s seemed totally different, like a different place, depending on the season/weather etc.

For the sake of a change, we decided to approach this time from the east. Not wise, the roads are narrow, the bends tight and the tractors large. In future, I think the more sensible route from Little Salkeld is the way to approach, it has signposts and everything. It even used to have piles of gravel to block solstice access to hippy vehicles, but I think they’re gone or overgrown now (the piles of gravel, not the hippies).

Tombo makes ref to a possible recumbent figure to the west. I’ve wondered if this is Lazonby Moor (it must be...). Annoyingly, the air was muggy on this visit, so I couldn’t check, but I recall a december with crystal clear air, and low light, where the recumbent figure was unmistakable.

This time I noticed the increased shinyness of the spiral carvings, presumably from traces of fingertip skin cells accumulated over the years. Maybe one day this will be C14 dated by future archaeologists to prove the stone was erected in the early 21st century.

Friday 27/8/04
Absolute genius. The vision to place these stones atop this hill as a monolithic mirror image representation of the Eildon Hills is phenomenal. I am blown away by this (almost literally- it’s a howling gale up here!). It’s not until I visit the Cow Stone, just 320 m ENE and slightly downhill from here do I appreciate that these stones feel also like a gateway. I don’t think that the Cow Stone should be seen as a completely separate monument as the three work so well together. I walk back up the hill from the Cow Stone to the Brothers Stones- and, in between these giants, the land to the West opens up and right in the middle- the Eildon Hills. I actually said ‘WOW!‘
The pair are aligned NNW/SSE. The northernmost stone is rectangular in section measuring 75 by 57 cm. The stone tapers to the top (2 m high) and the rectangular top is angled and slopes up from E to W in the direction of the Eildons- as does the southernmost stone. The S stone is triangular in section and measures 90 cm by 1 m by 1 m. It’s a beast at 2.5 m high. One side is aligned perfectly N/S.

Friday 27/8/04
Only about 320 m down a slight hill from the Brothers’ Stones is this massive irregular lump of a monolith. It’s 2 m high by around the same in it’s greatest width. One of the major axis is aligned NNE/SSW. There is a great notch at the top through which to view the Brothers’ Stones. Taken with these pair, this monolith forms a huge triangle on Brotherstone Hill and the walk from here, back up to those pair is like passing through a megalithic gateway.

Friday 27/8/04
This site is marked on the 1:25000 OS map as ‘standings stones’, but there is definitely only the one here (as confirmed by the RCAHMS notes). It stands next to a dry stane dyke at the entrance to a ploughed field. It’s aligned NW/SE and there is a very curious ‘seat’-like shape to the stone- whether natural or sculptured it’s difficult to say, but there’s a seat part and the bulk of the stone forms the back part! The stone is 1.47 m high by 1.2 m wide and around 36 cm thick. The E side has the ‘seat’- it’s 42 cm wide and 1 m long. Nice spot for a sit down!

Friday 27/8/04
A kilometre SW from Bruntaburn standing stone is another- but this one is not marked on the 1:25000 OS map- dunno why- it’s a big as Bruntaburn. Almost square in section the sides are aligned approximately NE/SW. It’s 1.8 m high and about 1 m square. The W side has two holes drilled as it looks like it was used as a fence post sometime in the past. There is no note in the RC notes though of a series of four vertical holes/hollows on the E side. Making my way back to the road I meet with two women on horseback who stay here. They tell me about the other stones in the vicinity and note that they feel this place to be magickal- ‘it’s as if someone is watching you all the time you are out here’. It’s true- this tiny lane and the country about it has a certain forgotten otherworldliness feel to it.

Friday 27/8/04
A great country road leads you to this stone- there are elaborate stone arches across the road in two places- one almost completely covered in ivy. As is this standing stone- especially the NE side. According to the notes from the RCAHMS I have with me this stone was not noted by RC surveyors in 1980. It may be partly ivy covered, but they couldn’t have looked very far as it’s about 2 m high and almost 1.5 m wide at base (and about 55 cm thick). It’s aligned NE/SW and there’s a natural cup mark on the top. The E face of the stone is almost flat, the W side is curved slightly.

I was very taken with the small raised circular platform in the middle of the henge. It’s just off centre, only a few inches high. It put the fancy into my head that this was a cousin to the aboriginal Australian bora circles, and that the henge was built around a pre-neolithis ritual platform.

Probably totally tosh, I know, but if there’s another more sensible explanation, I don’t know that I want to hear it, it would spoil the delusion.

Even dodgier idea, is that the big stone planter in the carpark of the pub is the remains of one of the two stones alleged to have stood over the entrance to the henge. The pub Landlord was adamant about the truth of this claim. It it is such a large thing, it must have taken some effort to reduce it to an oversized garden ornament. Though it looked more like sandstone to me, and not of the same stuff as the central stone of Mayburgh, not that that means anything either way.

Having read Fitzcoraldo’s tales of stone hunting in Shap, I was well keen to revisit the area, and this was a logical place to go, it’s so close to car access it would have been silly not to.

We had time to ponder the stone, where did it come from? Was it carried by glaciers? How far did the Hengineers have to shift it?

But then my attention was drawn to the small prannets of the bank, which poke through in patches all over. How many are there? How long did it take? Were they brought after the central stone, or was it brought after them? Are there any buried that might have cup marks on them? Why only one entrance?

Then the henge started playing tricks, like nicking my camera twice, sending a bull to come snort, and generally behaving in a Loki-esque manner. It’s got character.

The stones Nigel mentions below are pretty unconvincing, being rather small compared to the ones lying prone in the field across the road (the field on the map). They’ve got the reddish cast that implies they’ve been underground for a goodly while, whatever that implies.

If you hadn’t read of the contoversy, you’d think ‘blimey these circles have been well and truly wrecked’, and would probably be dissapointed. But if you have read the controversy, and like whodunnits, you could have a whale of a time here, trying to piece the clues together.

One thing I’d add, is that the distribution of the prone stones if unlike that of the natural sarsen drifts on Fyfield down. They seem buried a lot deeper for a start, just barely peeking above the turf for the most part. But that’s just my perception, and even if accurate, is proof of nowt at all.

Standing in the middle of a deserted farmstead there is a another possible standing stone to the South incorporated in a doorway , it’s visible to the right of the stone in one of the pics.

There are over a hundred cup marks on this outcrop , easily accessed from a layby on the A 827, then a short walk down a private tarred drive leads to the obvious outcrop to the West.

We found getting here reasonably easy with a 3-wheel buggy. Gate rather than stile.

Only saw one other bod, in over an hour and a half, compared to the afternoon crowds at Avebury, it was bliss. Peaceful place, even despite the military transport droning overhead. The barrows are well defined, as are the ditches. We had a picnic as it seemed the thing to do at a causewayed camp.

It struck me that it would be an excellent place to watch the sunset, you’d get a really good idea of the local topography watching the shadows change. When you read about the Avebury area, and stare at the maps, you get an illusion of familiarity with the landscape and how the monuments are set within it. But I reckon spending an hour or more up here is the way to try and get your head around it all, if only because there are no cars or crowds.

There are some strange patches of lichen, that made me think that someone has been painting the stones with yoghurt.

These are massive, Adam especially is on par with the Swindon stone and the Devil’s Chair.

As Moth says, the access is decent, we asked at the farm, no probs they said, we got an oversized 3wheeler buggy over the wire easily, no gate though so wheelchairs would be a bit more problematical.

Got buzzed by an attack ‘copter, the airspace around here is full of contraptions.

I visited this site e few days ago and was pleasantly surprised to get it to myself after a visit to Belas Knap a few days earlier was a lot busier than i thought it would be, a beautiful site in a beautiful setting very peaceful indeed.

Access: Approaching Peasedown St. John from the south via radstock drive all the way through PSJ till you get to the roundabout straight after the village, take the right turn there follow the road to another roundabout take the turn there signed for Wellow look out for that cemetry on your right mentioned in Julians directions in TMA just before you enter the village of Wellow theres a narrow road(now signposted for Stoney littlrton) take that track all the way to the end be warned this road is narrow! youll come to a farmhouse with a small carpark accross from it from there cross a stile and a bridge and a signposted 5 min walk brings you out at Stoney Littleton Bliss!

If, whilst mooching about the Avenue, you should happen to notice some anomalous concentric circular marks in the field on the hill opposite (not Waden, the other side), don’t get excited, it’s nowt more than the remains of last year’s crop circle.

Take the time to examine as many stones as you can. They all have their own individual features, in that smashing sarseny style.

What a strange and lovely spot this is.

If you approach from the houses on the edge of Wooler, and go down the path from Waud House, you walk along a nice well defined flat path, through a really steep ravine, the Kettles fort overlooks from the right, and as you pass the Kettles, the ravine widens and bifurcates. The well is at the point where the ravine heads off to the right, towards the scree.

Immediately above the well is the natural rock outcrop of the King’s Chair, which sort of looms out of the side of the hill, silently having a sly neb at anyone passing. But you don’t see it until you turn around, it gave me a bit of a surprise.

It could be the fact that we visited at dusk, but this place really did have a magical quality to it. The well itself is a very rude affair, just piled stones really, but the ones on the top areobviously way younger than those at the bottom.

There’s been no excavations, so you couldn’t say for sure if there is any prehistoric signifiance to this site, but I defy anyone who visits to argue that this would not have been regarded as a special place since humans first explored these hills.

People still visit to drop bent pins into the water (you can see them as the water is nice and clear) and make a wish. I’m told this has been recorded going on since the 19thC, and that the tradition allegedly goes back much further. Make of that what you will.

As you can probably work out from the name, I’m not sure about these stones. For two reasons:

1) They are low, no more than half a metre.
2) I’ve never seen any mention of them anywhere, despite the area having been quite popular with antiquarian/rock art spotting/archaeologist type people (and golfers).

In defence, I must point out that they are conspicuously placed on the ridge, near shedloads of rock art, enclosures and a small circle. Furthermore, they display erosion patterns that indicate they’ve been stood up for very long time. Similar amount of erosion as the stones of the circle. The grain of the stone is perpendicular to that of the bedrock outcrops the nearby RA is pecked onto, so I don’t think they’ve gotten like this of their own accord.

Happily, they are within easy reach of the path that marks the east edge of the golf course.

Any one visiting Doddington without a guide who’s been there before, should bear in mind that the OS map is woefully out of date in regard to the footpaths.

The main panels are easy enough to find following the path from the Golf Club up the course (marked on map as a track). Other than this route, the rest marked on the map are all screwy.

The worst offenders are the 2 paths marked from the top of Dod Law and the one from the quarry, which allegedly cross each other, and head east across to Horton Moor. I dispute this vigorously. Insted, there is a path from the main panel, up to the trig point, which then forks.
The left path cuts through the east enclosure, and follows the line of the wire fence which forms the edge of the golf course, ending up at the quarry, passing the possible standing stones, and near the quarry site rock art on the way.
The right hand one leads to west plantation, and I think it’s the most reliable route to the circle.

The enclosure next to the circle is very faint, I could hardly make it out, and the Quarry site eluded me again. But it’s a damned excellent place is Dod Moor, so I’m glad, as it gives me the perfect excuse to go back.

I was most upset to see that one of the stones has fallen over since I last visited. It’s marked on the map as ‘rems of’, and it seems that’s a better description than ever. 3 down, 2 to go... :(

The hard way to find it is to try and follow the paths marked on the map. This involves bouncing through seriously deep heather, and annoyingly clingy bracken, trying to follow a path that isn’t really there any more, with optional extant paths that aren’t on the map and will lead you astray. But if you keep going downhill, you’ll hit the wall eventually, then you just have to decide on right or left. Whilst this can be fun, it’s not particularly recommended. It’s probably wiser to follow the path down from the Dod Law trig pillar, then turn left when you get to the wall, which I did this time, and it was quite straightforward to find the stones.

I am highly suspicious of the placing of this little circle, it draws a bead from Dod Law to the rocky outcrops of the Bowden Doors, an enigmatic site of mesolithic activity a few mile to the east.

As you follow the path past the trig pillar, you can just about make out the enclosure, the cairn and the RA are about 10m to the left of the path, where the land starts to slope down again, and the bracken starts to give way to heather.
This one’s actually a bit easier to find in summer, as the bracken doesn’t grow on the cairn, making the barer patch easier to spot.

Note that the paths marked on the OS map bear only a vague resemblance to the paths visible on the ground, largely due to bracken infestation.