Latest Fieldnotes

Sat here earlier this year before I left Cornwall (Boo Hoo!) sketching with pastels in the fog that suddenly dropped upon me! Wish I could’ve crawled into this place as I find myself doing so with other such places, Treen Entrance Grave being a fave of mine. Easily located and worth the walk up the hill, it’s a shame that the car park seems to be a meeting place for local swingers. I returned to my car to find several cars parked up, the couple in the knackered MkIII Escort really going for it (they didn’t give a damn either!).

Wait for low tide and walk round the headland itself for an adventure. Sit at the sea’s edge and lose yourself to the mermaids... wonderful place to meditate.

Also any dowsers would love the ‘hotspot’ that occurs alongside the pathway towards the headland. Take the right hand path at the fork... very over powering! Get yer copper rods out! Not that youll need them mind ;)

Saturday 20/12/03
These two stones stand in a field at the southern ends of the hills of White and Black Meldon which are both topped with forts, and all around are settlements, hut circles and cairns. The stones are aligned N/S and are 2.1 metres apart. The northenmost stone is approximately 1.1 metres high and is very angular with almost small steps up its southern side. The southern stone contrasts this by being very rounded and smooth, leaning back to the south. This stone is slightly large- about 1.3 metres high. Between the stones are some large boulders- one of which has a cracking cupmark on it- but is possibly natural. There are stories of other smaller stones being associated with these. I am busy with my notes when I suddenly feel like I’m being watched- I look up and meet the stares of around 200 faces- a line of sheep all watching with intent as to what I’m up to in their field!

Saturday 20/12/03
Over hills past ancient cultivation terraces, over old bridges and past hill forts ringing the tops of all the summits around, the road I travel leads me to this huge stone. I park on a muddy verge and walk over to meet this beast. From the SE face of the stone next to the road, the full extent of this monolith is not apparent. Only about 1.2 metres rises out of the dry stane dyke. The wall into which this stone is now built runs NE/SW from its sides. The SE face has approximately 11 natural cupmarks on it. This is no accident on the part of the ancients, though we have now lost the significance of these marks. Jumping over the dyke and the electric fence the full majesty of this stone is revealed. I am dwarfed by its presence- almost 1.9 metres high. There are two possible natural looking cupmarks on this side, though quite small.

NMRS No. HY21SE 41. Nothing to see now, move along. All that is left under the soil is the incompletely excavated tomb and whatever might have preceded that.

VERY multi-period: probable Viking longhouse, Pictish settlement, souterrain, broch, roundhouse, passage grave...

The passage was uncovered at the end of the 1981 season , my last time with the dig

This is the broch that most people think of in association with the howe

From the B5106, travel on the minor road through Henryd, right up to the top of the hill (parking to the left of the gate – you will see some partly destroyed buildings on the hill in front of you).

Following the footpath, which bears to the right you will see the stone in a field to your right. Continue along the path for the Hefodty Stone Circle.

More or less completely destroyed.

This circle can be seen on your right as you walk to Bryn Cader Faner. There are only a few very low stones remaining.

Clearly marked on most OS maps, the site is clearly visible from the road. Parking, however, is impossible so a quick gander over the fence is all you’re likely to get if travelling by car.

This stone is north of the Church at Bradbourne....Tall and thin limestone slab (riddled with them crinoid fossils) and leaning badly.

The top has a wide notch like looking thing along its top....hard to say whether it’s been shaped like that or not.

There are several vague references to another coupla stones that stood nearby. No sign of ‘em now tho’.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The two missing stones are said to have been used in the construction of the bridge over the stream before you get to the stone.
04/11

As a small contribution to the winter solstice celebrations, I’ve posted some images of the inside of Newgrange taken during a visit in the late 80s when you were taken round the tomb at a much more leisurely pace than today and photography was permitted.

Also posted are images from roughly the same time of some art on the kerbstones. Most of these stones already appear here but the new ones are from the days before the lichen started to grow.

The identification system in the images (K for kerb, C for chamber, L and R for left and right hand sides of the passage) are those used by O’Kelly.

This one is a bugger to find even if you don’t follow the directions provided by Mr Cope. No need to repeat what has been said below by others, but I will say this – as you walk up the path keep looking to your right and JUMP (if short, as I am) until you see it.

I managed to go on a day when the nettles on the side of the path were so high that I had to risk all limbs to even get close.....but it was worth it.

Spent 2 hours looking for this and still didn’t find it! Please could somone give CLEAR directions of how to get there!

This is such a beautiful area and I’m quite happy to come back and look for it again!

From others fieldnotes, I see that I am not the only one who has tried but failed to find this site. I couldn’t even find it on an OS map....so maybe it just isn’t to be....did enjoy the Sheepfold sculptures though

An easily accessible site with a variety of monuments.

Approaching from the car park at SX646787 and heading S for the clear area in the forest, you come first to the cairn circle marked on the OS map at SX64347777. 13 stones – 6.0m diameter.

Continuing S, you come to a low stone row running approximately E/W at SX64387765. 20m long.

From the E end of the stone row, head SE into the forest to a cist and stone row at SX64497760 (wrongly positioned on the OS map). The row is 12m long. The cist had been surrounded by a stone circle of which six stones remain.

Head back out into the clearing and continue S to two cairn circles at SX64347750 and SX64367747 (marked as one on the OS map). One is 6.8m diameter and the other (with a cist) is 5.6m diameter.

In the same forest as Fernworthy (not all forest tracks are shown on the 1:50k, you’ll need the 1:25k)

Double stone row running from a cairn at NE end downhill for 125m to a blocking stone at SW end.

There is potential for confusion here between this site and Stall Moor. Both are record-breakers. Stall Moor is the longest and this one has the tallest stones.

It has 62 stones still standing. 17 have fallen and others are buried. It is visible for 502m but is estimated to have run for at least 840m. It runs N/S and the ends are not intervisible.

The tallest stones are at the N end – 1.9m to 2.6m high. The average height of all the stones is 1.1m. There is a cairn in the row about 150 from the top (N) end.

This was a strange find. Turning off the main road, we came across a small sign for the stones and had to walk up past a couple of houses to reach the site – it felt like we were walking through someones front garden!

Even stranger is the flimsy little fence (which wobbled dangerously when I leaned over to try a take a picture) which surrounds these two remote stones. The views from this position are incredible but it felt like we were trespassing onto someone’s private little site and we didn’t stay long. The fence made me feel uncomfortable and like we weren’t really encouraged to explore further. A shame because they were beautiful and unusual.

After the slightly “over the top” nature of Lewis and its many sites, coming across this stone on Harris was refreshing and exciting. We actually drove straight by this site, so unobtrusive it appears and yet right by the road...

The backdrop of sea, sand and cliffs was perfect (with the highland cattle close by for a truly Scottish moment!)

The lichen almost covered the stone on both sides – a testimony to the endurance of the site. Despite the rain, I was quite happy to just stand there, taking in the landscape and the elements... I would strongly advise any travellers who make it over to Lewis to visit the Callanish sites, to also make the journey south to Harris. You will find incredible landscapes and a couple of sites that are well worth the visit – and with no other tourists for miles around!

Difficult site to describe without a plan so I have posted a sketch plan.

All rows run NE/SW and have cairns at their NE ends (uphill) and longstones at their SW ends.

Row 1 is 150m long and ends in a 3.0m high longstone – its broad face in line with the row. The SW half of the row is a single row which then becomes double for 47m then single again.

The Row 2 longstone is 4.2m high (the tallest standing stone on Dartmoor). Its broad face cuts across the line of the row. The row is 83m long – single with several large gaps.

Row 3 (like Row 1) is 150m long but is single throughout. Its longstone is 2.3m high.

The Giant’s Basin cairn (22m diameter by 4m high) sits to the SE of the Row 1 cairn.

There are several other cairns at the site not marked on the plan.

25m diameter stone circle restored in 1909 at which time only four stones in the SW quadrant were standing.

Burl certainly does call this a 530m row but Jeremy Butler in his epic Dartmoor – Atlas of Antiquities claims it is only 369m long.

The difference, he claims, is due to the the restorer who “mistakenly added 180 yds to its length”. He puts the original ending at the 1.2m high stone in the row of stones N of the low bank some 300m from the cairn circle.

He also claims it was probably a single row originally as in the areas where there is a double alignment some of the stones are set across the row suggesting they were re-erected incorrectly.

This is a wonderful site. Far enough away from the car parks at the E end of Burrator Reservoir to deter casual visitors but a pleasant enough walk in for the rest.

Its open location, the grading of the stones and the way they run downhill and then up make it look like a Richard Long landscape sculpture.

See the links below for directions, descriptions and plans.

This site is hard to get to, but worth it. It consists of a round barrow, at TQ370644, and a mound on a nearby hillock at TQ367643. And in between, you soon notice many less obvious possible tumuli.

It is unfortunately on a posh golf course, albeit tucked away from the main fairways. I accessed it with difficulty from Spout Hill lane, walking through the woods passing a spring at TQ372643. And over a trouser tearing fence.

Also on this site on the hillock, is a memorial with latin inscription, saying that someone to do with George the third was buried here.

The house that backs onto this site (which rivals Greenwich Park) belongs, I’m told by locals, to Ronnie Corbett.

The whole site is marked on Explorer map 161 as ‘tumuli’.