Latest Fieldnotes

Coming out of Birsay village take the A966 and go down the Vinbrake turn. The Stanerandy Tumulus lies in a field to the left and very soon the road hangs a right. Instead continue onto the farmtrack at the bend. At a house it turns left again, leave your car here if you have not already done so. The Newan cairn lies up by the field fence of the second field from here but you have to go halfway round the outside to reach it as the barbwire is taut and just too high to go over. Where that side of the field meets the track is a standing stone. A little further along the field boundary is another standing stone that points at an angle. It aims straight for the cairn (one of those little anomalies – the place Newan is actually the other side of the Stanerandy Tumulus f.k.a. Stanerandy Stone). Go around the second field edge and there is an ‘Orkney gate’, lying down across the farmtrack at the time of my visit, where you can see a disused quarry.
From this field corner I made my entrance. Still the site disguises herself as a plain grass mound. Only coming closer to do you see a few small stones scatttered around the base . Once on top more is exposed, pattern emerges. Looking on the fence side (the mound doesn’t go to the fence itself) there is a stone 0.8x0.6m with an orthostat 0.5x0.1m sticking a fraction out of the ground to its top left. to the other side of this is a roughly ring-shaped collection of stones 1.6x1.8m the most obvious of which is 0.8x0.3m. Possibly part of this are two apparent orthostats to the direct left at right-angles to each other, like sides of a cist (0.5m along the shorter edge) maybe.

Friday 21/9/01
The last time I tried to visit this site was in the middle of summer- a bad idea. The whole well house was covered in vegetation, most of it consisting of brambles and nettles. The only thing which was visible was the finial on the roof known as the cardinals hat. I didn’t get very far before being scratched to bits! So a return visit in the autumn on the way back to Edinburgh after a visit to Traprain Law. This time you can actually see most of the well house which sits in a ditch below road-level. Most of the offending plant life has been cut back too so I can actually get round the outer wall. I shuffle round it on me arse and jump down to the well house. The well house is relatively modern and there’s a metal plaque above the door with a thistle motif which reads ‘16th century historic building’. For such a small well-house the walls are still 25 cm thick, and the building (excluding the roof) is 1.25 m high. An old iron gate, which seems to be permanently open, is attached on the left. Inside the well is almost filled in, though there is still water in the base.

Can only add to the praise already heaped on this site. I think it was the 360 degree view that did it for me.

Or maybe it was coming here after Callanish, Cnoc Ceann a’Gharraidh and Cnoc Fillibhir Bheag, looking back over the whole landscape and becoming even more aware of the linkages between the sites. Breathtaking.

Looks like access has recently been improved too. There is now a raised wooden walkway from the road and a kissing-gate at the fence.

Visited 30 July 2004

Headed for here after Airigh nam Bidearan. One barbed-wire fence to cross.

You need to aim for the modern cairn but, once there, we found it difficult to identify which stones were supposed to be the site.

You need an eight-figure grid reference for this and Canmore gives only six. There are lots of stones in the area that could be taken for fallen stones but are natural.

We quickly began to wonder why we were bothering with such a dubious and elusive site. I took a couple of photos (none of which is convincing) and left quickly.

Visited 1 August 2004

We visited this (or tried to) on the way to Airigh nam Bidearan and Druim nam Bidearan.

The problem in viewing the site is that, as stated in Canmore, an estate road now runs through it and it has subsequently been widened.

Also Canmore (unusually) gives no more than a six-figure grid reference – not accurate enough to know if you are in the right area of whatever remains.

What I can say is that, on the right as you ascend the estate road, a small excavation has been carried out by the side of the road near the (reconstructed?) beehive house. You can still see the pegs for laying out the grid. What looked like a back wall was all that was exposed.

Nothing in Canmore about this but it seems to be adding confirmation to the theory that this site was no more than a kale-yard belonging to the beehive house.

I took a photo of the excavated wall but I’m not going to post it since it has no TMA relevance.

Still worth a walk up this track though even if you are not going to the other sites. Good views over to Ceann Hulavig.

Visited 1 August 2004

Friday 21/9/01
In the hedgerow next to a quiet and lonely road stands this small megalith only about 50 cm high and almost hidden in the hedge and undergrowth were it not for the iron railings which surround it. Why on earth surround this small stone with tall spiked iron railings? Was it to protect the stone? From what? It’s a little used country road. Or was it to try and stop folk performing rituals and lighting candles here as could be seen from all the wax on top. A lonely and unsettling place.

Wednesday 21/7/04
I collect the keys from St. Margaret’s House in Lochend and drive up here. Restalrig has changed a lot since I were a lad! This part of the city has been beautifully renovated with lovely steel benches and some great masonry work. I make my way in to the churchyard and round to the wellhouse. From a wooden door steps descend down to an old wood and iron door. As I turn the key in the lock it echoes round the wellhouse behind it. The door opens and the air is damp and musty. A vaulted ceiling greets me and I descend the stone steps to the wellhouse floor which is slippy and slimy! The central pillar holds the five sections of the vaulted ceiling and high above on the left hand side there is a statue of St. Truduana. This wellhouse is actually below both ground level and the water table and therefore floods regularly. On the right hand side there is a large (and very heavy) stone slab which can be lifted to reveal the well/water table where one can bathe ones eyes.

Callanish. Once in a Blue Moon

First trip here. Strange that. All these years of megalith spotting but never Callanish. Until now.

Couldn’t manage a southern major standstill but did manage to be here on a blue moon day. Some consolation there, perhaps.

Yesterday was Walkabout. No camera just the guide book and my notes – trying to get to grips with this complex, beautiful site without thinking about it in frame-sized bites.

The weather is even better today. It’s around 6pm and we park at the avenue end waiting for the crowds to thin.

It starts badly with the arrival of a tourist bus at the same spot but they are Americans so are away in about 15 minutes.

I have the place to myself. I keep expecting someone to turn up. No one does. I keep filming. At about 7pm, I call it a day. A perfect day.

As we leave, I try to explain again to Mrs G my theory about how using a digital camera distorts time. She simply smiles that smile. She understands, you see. She had been to Callanish before.

31 July 2004

The lower of the two parallel lines of the burn as it passes NE of the community centre. Unlike the other stone walls line the sides to a height of 1.4m at a distance apart of 4m. But where it passes under the road the bottom is lower, giving a total height of 2.5m. So the main dimensions are the same as those of the Kirk Ness Dyke themodernantiquarian.com/site/6446 and it would appear to bear the same relationship to the Round Howe “pseudo-broch” themodernantiquarian.com/site/5630 as that does to the coastal Kirk Ness mound themodernantiquarian.com/site/6434. Which would appear to make it a drystone dyke boundary and cru also.

Tootling – nah, whizzing along the cycle path this morning I could see the barrow quite well. Admittedly it looked a bit more like a mound of dirt covered in weeds from this elevated angle. But I still like it. And not only does the fantastic Kelston Round Hill stand out like a beacon on the horizon, but now I could see that in the opposite direction was the distant but distinctive Maes Knoll. It’s very flat here down here on the floodplain, so it seems an unusual place for a barrow. But there’s no point in trying to compete with such monumental landscape features as the Round Hill by putting a barrow on the hillside. And besides, if the people lived down here on the fertile flat bit, then I suppose that’s where their barrow ought to be. And perhaps the confluence of the stream and river has its relevance too.

To be honest I wasn’t looking for a stone row...I was just out for a walk after visiting the remains of the nearby clay works.
And I was lost....well not exactly, but I had given up on finding the footpath and was just heading west into the sun hoping to find a wall somewhere....
Next thing I know there is this hugh great stone leaning at some precarious angle in front of me. Could this be the stone row that should be further to the north?
Well, yes it was and although the gorse bushes prevent you from seeing no more than three stones at a time I managed to find the northern stone quite easily.
Compared with the other rows I have visited on Bodmin Moor this one is made up of giant stones. The southern one I would reckon to have been about 6ft high when upright. Compare it with Craddock Moor where they struggle to be seen above the grass.
Also this one is built where it would be seen, on a ridge with views to the east and west. The view this evening to the west was of the shining waters off of Padstow, fantastic.
After deciding I had found both ends of the row I march off towards St Bellarmins Tor. On the way I came across another standing stone, it is not marked on maps and I could not work out if it was in line with the row but....as my picture shows it has lovely views of Brown Willy, Roughtor and in the middle Hawks Tor with the Stipple Stones on its southern edge.

This whole area to the east of Colvannick Stone Row is littered with small barrows. It is also a Danger Area due to the firing range to the south. Because of this it is not well visited and even though there are several footpaths crossing the area none are signposted and navigation is not easy.
On the east facing side of Great Care Hill can be found a couple of hut circles hidden amongst the gorse.

In this Ancient woodland are two oval ditches with a central table which is sunken in the middle. The bank is surrounded by a deep ditch and further out is a second ditch.The earthwork has been described as Late Neolithic and also as Early to Middle Iron Age. It has been there since the people in this region were peasant farmers. For many years it was called Caesars Camp as the locals thought it to be Roman. In the countryside nearby are at least two very large ridges which are also casually named “Roman” (one is Hoober Stand) but could be part of the same earthwork. This is an issue under contention, some people hold the view that the surrounding large ridges are not connected to the central and adjacent monument.

As mature trees are felled and culverts for taking excess water run-off have been filled in, it is being destroyed by water damage. This is also a conservation issue as wild flora and fauna and the Ancient woodland in the area are being irreversibly damaged. Water that ran down the edge of the wood from culverts now runs directly into the monument site.

The stream fed by the culverts used to flow through land nearby, which residents successfully prevented being used for building houses, shops etc.

Only one tree has been taken from the monument itself, the long term plan of RMBC and Heritage is to remove all trees on the monument leaving roots in situ. The trees felled have been from other places in the woods.

I RECENTLY MET WITH COUNCIL MANAGERS AND HAVE UPDATED MY SITE holisticfraternity.co.uk WITH DETAILS OF THIS MEETING

Surprisingly, it’s quite a long drive down to the southern end of South Ronaldsay island, which you can reach from Mainland thanks to the Churchill barriers. But the Tomb of the Eagles is SO well worth it.

The tomb was discovered, excavated and is now run as a family business by Ron Simison, now well into his 70s, who had the vision to understand and realise the potential of the tomb and it’s contents as a major tourist attraction. But don’t be put off by that. This ain’t Disneyland.

Part of the Simison family farm has been converted into a visitor centre with car park, shop and ticket booth (where Ron’s daughter-in-law took our entrance fees of 3 quid) and a splendid exhibition area. Ron’s granddaughter gave us a lecture on the artifacts found in the tomb and allowed us to handle some of them. She showed us the skulls of people buried there and put the whole of the place into the context of neolithic Orkney. We hadn’t even seen the tomb yet and were already having a great time.

Next, donning foul weather gear to face the best of Orcadian summer days, we made our way down the path towards the Bronze Age house and Liddell burnt mound which Ron had also discovered and excavated. To my delight, Ron was there and would be our guide. Softly spoken, witty, knowledgeable and, refreshingly, without a care for diplomacy, he launched into his fascinating spiel. He showed us quern stones and tools he’d found and described everyday Bronze Age practices based on what he’d dug up here. All six of us thought Ron was a wonderful, admirable man. I felt quite starstruck to have met him, actually.

And then on to the main event: a short walk towards the cliffs and the tomb itself!

The tomb, built into the cliff edge like an eyrie, is certainly no more dramatic or unusual in it’s construction than other Orcadian tombs, like Wideford or Unstan. What makes this special is the fact that it’s so much part of the landscape; no wonder it wasn’t identified until Ron stumbled across it.

The entrance is low and long and you get in by lying on an oversized skateboard and hauling yourself along with a conveniently placed rope. Inside the tomb there are stalls and side chambers, a bit like a cross between Blackhammer and Fairy knowe. For striking dramatic effect, one of the side chambers is lit from within and houses a collection of skulls.

All six of us were all very excited about this place. The whole ‘Tomb of the Eagles Experience’ was thorough, in good taste, personal, meaningful, informative and thought-provoking. Even Cloudhigh and Jamesie, who are not tomb-chasers like the rest of us, thought so. Certainly one of the highlights of Orkney.

We took the cliff top path back to the farm and below us watched fulmars and kittiwakes soaring, gullimots and razorbills diving and seals bobbing around in the sea below us.

Second time lucky I managed to find this place, no mean feat as it is not listed on the OS map. From White Wells we took the path leading upwards towards the crags. The path breaks into two and the left hand one should be followed. This takes you through a small rock laden valley known as rocky bottom which runs parrallel with the overhanging crags. Once out of the valley another intersection of the path appears, take the left route and head down towards the stream which is known as Backstone Beck. Instead of crossing the stream, turn right and follow the path along it. After around half a kilometre you will come to a very distinct cup and ring marked rock slap bang in the middle of the path. A little further on over the beck on the left hand side you can see the remains of an ancient enclosure. To the right about 50 yards across the heather can be seen what looks like the remains of an old sheep pen. It is here, within these walls that the circle can be found.

A sight for sore eyes indeed. There is debate as to its authenticity and indeed it is unusual in its setting. Why would a circle be enlosed by a sheep pen? But after hearing stories of this mysterious circle, only recently discovered on the moor, an antiquarian trip to the moor could not be complete without attempting to find this place. Especially as by following the route given above the weary traveller could continue along the same path towards the much more famous Twelve Apostles situated much higher and further into the moor.

This site has been the subject of an hour-long TV programme which centred on the presentation of evidence for mummification of the burials in the roundhouses. This is summarised in Miscellaneous below.

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A recurring theme of the Uist postings is the way in which important sites are badly signposted (if at all) and poorly presented.

Perhaps you could argue that this leads to lower visitor numbers which helps with preservation and this site certainly needs all the help it can get.

Excavated out of a sand dune the sides of which are currently restrained by decaying plastic matting, it can only be a short time before windblown sand once again recovers the site – one which has produced a tantalising glimpse of life in late bronze age Britain.

This is not at all a criticism of the excavators who have done an excellent job in partly restoring the site when backfilling it might have been an easier option. Presumably there was just no local money available to make the job a more permanent one.

Strange. You would have thought that mummification is one of the few things that gets the general public interested in prehistory.

Visited 28 July 2004

Just beyond the coastal Kirk Ness mound I found a deep straight channel coming to the coast, where it is ‘sealed’ by drystane walling at ND47439119. To me it screamed vallum. Though I think of it as V-shaped because I had to through the tape measure out to get the full depth the sides were too steep for me to risk going down alone. As it is now it is 4m across by 2.5m high and there are stones along the top. If the Kirk Ness Dyke is one boundary of whatever the mound is then a brown standing stone I’d passed already was likely marking the other. Having another site incorrectly placed by me I looked for it by climbing over a drystane wall field boundary using more than adequate set of stiling stones. Where the dyke turns a bed of yellow flag, not in bloom, would seem to mark the vanished loch’s edge. So did the dyke (described in NMRS as drystone dyke boundary and cru) seperate the mound from the loch, keep the mound within, both or neither ?

Below St. Peter’s Church in South Ronaldasy is a storm beach of large stones of all shapes. Even above the shore there are many, increasing in frequency as you progress to Kirk Ness. You think of standing stones being quarried and shaped but here they are, like an open-cast mine for megaliths of all shapes and sizes. Perhaps this is why the Sorquoy Stone is so big, not importance, purely material to hand. Such an abundance marks this area as mucho importante surely. Near the beginning a relative few stones are upright, including some about a depression in a rise ND472908. Despite the orthostats Kirkhouse Cairn is, as I surmised when I saw it, not for the dead.

The next rise along from Kirkhope Cairn is another Kirk Ness mound ND47389117 “locally believed to be ancient”. A single stone sticks out of the top visibly. If one boundary is the Kirk Ness Dyke just beyond then the other boundary is likely to be where a brown standing stone marks the corner of a field.

Can be reached by reached by two slightly different routes. If no-one objects I would say now to take the track that goes up the RH side of Roeberry House and past the quarry. The one I took was what appeared a more direct route further down, a fraction past Roeberry farm. Climbing over the rope-tied metal gate the farmtrack goes halfway up the hill where it becomes obscured by pasture. At the beginning of the second field was a stream outlet fallen into disarray, the dark brown stones marking it out as mediaeval or later. The stream and its walling ran across the hill to come to a halt near the corner here, well seperated from the fieldwall itself. The ?culvert (what I still think of as bridges myself) points downhill (perhaps aligned with The Wart), so my description is possibly incorrect. There are two large slabs across the top and the nearer has a large-ish semicircle out of the edge. A slab on the left has a small circular hole. Taking a second look at the arrangement I wonder if the slabs aren’t fallen orthostats. Maybe the ?culvert is a water tank or something. So unlucky to see it in this state. In explanation I now see a well marked on the map further up the field on the wall side.
This field where you can only sense the ruts of the farmtrack I can also feel stones, the remains of a wall or the hardpack of the track I suppose. At the top of the field I had to slip gingerly over the barbwire-fence at the extreme corner where there is a slight rise to effectively reduce the height that vital few inches. Here’s where it got tricky because of an expanse of gorse directly ahead. Tried a few ways to pass amongst the shrubbery but only succeeded in getting everything below the knees completely soaked. Quite a few stones in the area, making me consider whether this actually was my target. No. Eventually had to give in and go round to the right. Here I came upon the disused quarry, continuing to get damp the while. Above the lip I saw an earth section with some small stones that might just possibly represent a former structure here if not simply my wild imaginings. At the top end of the quarry is the farmtrack I should have taken. Visible and dry !
My thoughts were that The Wart would be gone or under cover or not up to much. Certainly hard to find. But there stood the chambered cairn exactly where the map showed it (ND433935), smack behind the triangulation pillar. A stone cairn with a circular wall incorporating slabs (I noticed a void under one at the left) and a slab coming towards the centre from the right (the interior was excavated down to floor level). There is a platform about it which seems deeper from behind owing to the building of a water tank (whose wooden superstructure looks like a very fancy bird hide). There are stones on the platform (I didn’t spot a rough modern wall about the central depression so I hope it isn’t the one I saw ;-), stones behind it and stones in the gorse. There must be something going on besides a quarry and the cairn site.

The shortest of the Bodmin Moor stone rows at just under 60M in length. It can be found by taking a footpath from Dryworks on the road from Bolventor to Golitha Falls. Descend down into the Fowey valley and cross a bridge at a lovely spot. Climbing up the other side, once in the second field wait until the northern end on the Fir plantation comes into line. Then head upwards and you should find the north end of the row.
None of the stones are very high.

I can find no record of these two stones, either as prehistoric or later. At first i though they could be a entrance to something but they are only just inside an old field wall and although there are stones littered between them there are known either side.

Not on a well use footpath, I don’t suppose anyone else will be heading this way...but you never know.

From the northern circle I lined up my map and walked off in a southeasterly direction. On the map a small pond is shown near the row and noticing the bumps in the ground I reckoned on where I might find it.

I must admit I took the cairn for a waste tip from the early mining in the area. I am still not sure if the three larger stones lying on the ground are part of the row or if it starts with the first upright.

I will let you decide.

I must admit I did not walk the whole length of the row, only as far as the workings.

My fieldnotes from 2 years ago said “try again when weather is better”
Could not have asked for a better day! the sun shone down, there was a nice breeze..and I had the place to myself.
The circle is easily seen from Leskernick Hill on a good day and not far from the footpath just south of it.

I actually found this by walking up from the farmhouse and studying the map very hard.....needless to say i found several other “circles” on my way.

It does not look like a circle and it was only on using the TMA and the Bodmin Moor survey book that I recognised it.