Latest Fieldnotes

1600hrs Wednesday 20th August 2003.

We approach the site along a farm track, and our first glimpse is through a gateway on our right, when still 200 yards away. Crouching alongside a sparse West Wales hedge the stones hunker down against the scrub and gorse backdrop, as if sheltering from the winds that must tear across this exposed landscape.

Our pace quickens as the tomb slips away from view until we find ourselves in what appears an abandoned farmyard. A faceless farm stares down at us. A sign points to ‘footpath’ but there appears no way ahead without opening tied gates. Are we welcome? A dog crouches beneath a gate and studies us curiously. The atmosphere is oppressive and after studying the map we decide our course lies across a rusted cattle grid and along the left hand hedge. Retying the gate behind us we find ourselves approaching this great chamber, growing in stature as we approach.

The capstone appears finely balanced, a huge slab of raw rock, shot through with the famed rose quartz. Warm to the touch, tactile and smooth, one feels that with just a push of the arm it would rock, being balanced beautifully on 3 stones only. From certain angles is appears almost to be levitating, the point of contact being so difficult to see unless up close. A Naum Gabo sculpture hewn in stone.

The interior is clean, almost swept, and there are none of the usual offerings here. The sheep happily graze in its shadow but there are no droppings within the tomb. The position on the landscape is strong, visible to all who approach along the north east cliffs, the pathways of old. A fallen stone lies some 30 feet distant, and it is on this which I sit and write my notes, gazing back at the squat, powerful hulk that still stands guard. I would not like it, if it were angry…

Access if on the flat. Park at the end of the farm drive, walk along a tarmacaddamed road into the farmyard, then cross an old cattle grid to join a well trodden, wide, dry path to Carreg Samson. Approximately 10 minutes leisurely walking from where you park.

The farmer was in the field when I visited, hence the poor shots. This barrow is surprisingly well looked after, and is approx. 20m across.

On the verge of being lost this barrow looks to be largely ploughed out, although it must have been quite some size originally, the mound today is approx. 20m across.

This barrow is a double ditched barrow, measuring approx. 20m across. It is one of the best preserved barrows at Thornborough, but having said that the probably later burial that I watched being excavated had clearly been part ploughed. Close by was the early digging of a possible large post pit.

After driving back from Mayburgh henge one fine summers day I was on the M6 heading south and had a sudden urge to look to the left of me for some mother hills to pass the time as I took the long drive back to Blackpool. To my surprise I saw this strange stone circle in a field to my left.

Not knowing what it was I logged on as soon as I got home, and discovered it to be Gunnerkeld, which I’d never heard of before.

One week later I was at Gunnerkeld, and what a beautiful place it is. Even the bustle of the M6 couldn’t spoil it for me. This is a truly remarkable place. There is a huge boulder that seems to be made from pure crystal, situated directly opposite the entrance to the circle. There seem to be three circles here in all, a mound in the middle and two concentric outer ones. The place itself definately has an ambience. I got a sense of overwhelming sadness here and I’m sure the place was crying out to me about the indignity of the M6. This truly is a sacred place. The farmer seems to care about it too, but alas the M6 is here to stay. A nice touch was the numerous people who beeped their horns at us knowing where we were and acknowledging our presence here.
Directions

As always I’m submitting precise directions to make your journey easier. Don’t forget to ask the farmer’s permission first. So far we’ve found all the Cumbrian farmers friendly.

From Shap follow the A6 north towards Penrith. Around half a mile north of Shap take a right turn. Follow this road passing over one half of the M6 and under the other half. Take the next left and then left again down a farm track about a third of a mile later. The track leads down to Gunnerwell Farm it also worth noting that if you go south through shap towards junction 39 of the M6 you’ll see a railway line at the end of the village. Towards the left keep looking, and poor old Kemp Howe appears.

mon 18 aug 2003
On our way from the Hoar Stone to Lynemam Longbarrow we found this beautiful stone (o s map 164) it was a perfect summer day,and finding it was not to difficult,even the two tractors building hay stacks added to the scene,all in all a it is an amazing site.

Hard to distinguish, mainly overgrown with heather. Live badger set into largest barrow. More impressive when there than in photograph. Close to Chobam Ridge – sarcen occurs here naturally.
Wildife Trust sign says “Bronze Age Burial Mounds... 4,000 yrs of human history....these are bowl barrows.... unusual to find 4 together and this is the only example in Surrey...built at same time because traces of a ditch survive which surrounds the barrows. Not many burial mounds in Surrey have survived so well.”
Recumbant Sarcen (rough size 5’ x 4’ x 18’)
A spectacular place to visit!
notes by Collette

Recumbent sarcens (2 of 6ft x 2ft x 1ft) outside church, circular church yard on site tumulus? Sarcen in foundations, varies pieces of sarcen around grounds, some 4ft “posts”.

Absolutely amazing place! The church has an unusual square wooden tower. Sign proclaims church to have stood there for 1000 yrs. Graveyard circular and definitely looks like an earlier earthwork. Highest point around. 2 large sarcens just outside gate, church sign has sarcens at base, much of the foundation clearly contains sarcen, abutment of NW wall too. A path to the North of the church through trees looks to have sarcens underfoot, sarcen debris under large yew on NE of church including 4 “posts” 4’ x 18’ x 87’ and large( 3’ dia) sarcen boulder.

Ooooh, I really liked this site! We had spent the previous day at various sites of stone circles, so to come across this monster menhir was quite refreshing....I think of all the sites on Lewis, this was my favourite, just for the pure majesty of it. We were followed up the path by an aged labrador who seemed happy for us to be in his territory, and the backdrop of the sea and the sky was just awesome.

After the complexity of Callinish and its sister sites, the single huge monlith seemed understated and yet even more impressive.

Shame someone has seen fit to open a haulage site right next to the stone though!

I’d only planned a quick visit to Long Meg this time but ended up staying far too long. The circle is a real grower and every visit seems to turn up something I haven’t noticed before, perhaps it’s the way that it’s difficult to see the whole circle at any one time, the gentle slope and the trees near to the track always seem to obscure some of the stones. The small size of the field makes trying to get a wider perspective of the site impossible too. Two things struck me this time, the first was the sheer size of some of the stones, they seems much larger than I’d remembered them. The other thing was that Long Meg is offset from the entrance stones, again I’d not really noticed that before. Burl suggests the stone was here before the circle based on the fact that the flat face with the carvings is 20 degrees off from the perpendicular of the axis through the centre of the circle. My own feeling, not based on any evidence, is that it may be the other way round, the circle was already here when an existing expanse of carvings were quarried out of bedrock (or even a boulder like Copt Howe) and brought to the site as Long Meg, some of the carving seem to run off the edge of the stone and the whole design looks like it should be rotated 90 degrees. The carvings themselves which are on just one side seem to be arranged in 3 groups. Those at the bottom consist of a spiral, an unfinished spiral or set of rings and above that a semi-circle of rings. The middle section is clearer and has a prominent set of concentric circles and a spiral below and to the right as well as some other fainter rings and grooves. The mid-upper section is faint but has a spiral and worn or shallow rings – there are also quite a few straight and curved grooves that may form an unrecognised design but natural marks over the whole of the surface add to the confusion. There don’t appear to be any marks on the top section of the rock.
Stan Beckensall mentions other marks on some of the stones in the circle but he’s not quite clear where they are. He talks about stones to the west of the road and as the road passes through both sides of the circle this could be either side. From his illustrations I think he means the side closest to the farmhouse with the marked stones being numbers 5, 6 and 7 counting west from the road, I can’t be sure as I couldn’t see any definite marks on any of them.

After spending the last three days tramping around Harris & Lewis, I have to say that this is one of my favourite sites. We had abandoned our trip to Callinish after bad weather and loud Norwegians had kind of ruined the moment, but came across this site in better weather a happier mood!

It was worth getting VERY wet feet for, and the site just filled me with the kind of joy I had been hoping to get from my trip to Callinish. We were the ony people there, no others cars even came by whilst we were up on the hill, depsite being on the edge of a main road and it was blustery and wild.

I would urge visitors to Lewis to look around at the other sites the Island has to offer rather than just sticking to the tourist routes...you may just discover a beauty like this one!

I would suggest a different parking spot to Ironman. When I got to the site there were already a few cars parked opposite the gate and talking to a climber later he said that space could often be packed during busy times. About 300-400 metres further northwest along the road there is room for several cars next to a track and footpath that lead south to Great Langdale Beck, from here it’s an easy walk back up the road to the gate. Once I’d actually got to the huge boulder I was a little disappointed that the carvings weren’t more clear, it was about 5.30pm so the sun was behind the flat east facing side with the carvings and there was no shadow to add definition to the marks. With a plan of the site it is possible to trace the position of the rings, grooves and cups and the layout slowly unfolds before your eyes, Ironman’s map theory seems particularly appealing – this valley would have made an easy route for the movement of axes. While chatting to the climber he said he was aware of the carvings but didn’t know much about them, when I showed him the plan he proved remarkably adept at finding the various parts of the carvings – better than I was.
For anybody planning a visit, morning up until midday might be the best time to see the carvings, but the site is in a beautiful location and would be worth a visit at any time of the day.

A welcome evening return to Castlerigg this time, a sunny summer evening brings out the tourists though, there were kids clambering over the stones, a frisby throwing competition in the middle and even a group of elderly couples with a fully laden picnic table at the site. Not too much of a problem for me though as I was here this time to look at the carvings on the stones particularly the elusive spiral – second attempt, second failure. I managed to find the other 4 known marks, 2 of them are very faint and none are spectacular. There are several other stones that *may* have carvings that have yet to be recognised but the geology of the rock makes imagining cups, rings and grooves on their surface too tempting.
Working from Fitzcoraldo’s plan of the circle, Stone 1 has the spiral on the inward facing side (facing towards the setting sun), Stone 2 has a faint wide ring, I thought I could see a central cup too but Stan doesn’t mention it. Stone 3 has a lozenge or hatching pattern but there are natural marks in the rock right next to it, while Stone 4 has a quite deep but difficult to spot partial ring and a cup at it’s top edge. Stone 5 is the easiest to see and is a clear narrowly cut lozenge.

Lovely place.

Approach from the road to the east and scramble up through the undergrowth.
On top is a large cairn which has been tweaked at some point to include a rectilinear side space and a smashing cupola on top. Another smaller cairn a few yards to the north

It’s got a excellent view of both coastlines to north and south, across to the hurlers and cheesewring to the east and some overgrown industrial nastiness to the west.

One of the best things is that the cupola makes a brilliant place to sit out of the wind and enjoy the place. Nice way to get a feel for the moor and look for cropmarks etc.

There are also extensive bronze age settlements on the SW side of the tor.

A lovely little site but a real jumble of stones. One stone struck me particularly, the large block to the right of the carvings is much bigger than the rest and wouldn’t look out of place as part of Long Meg’s circle, but it’s the low rounded carved stone that obviously stands out. The mix of a spiral on one side that partly interlinks with the concentric circles on the other side really intrigues me – as usual trying to find an explanation is guesswork but it’s tempting to suggest some kind of sun/moon symbolism in the carving. Alternatively, the layout is suggestive of a representation of the positions of the circle at Long Meg and the large ditched enclosure just to the northwest – the two structures intersect along one edge. The stones look like they have been moved but if this stone was facing into the cairn was it meant as some kind of map or reminder for the spirit of the person whose remains were found is the central cist?

Two good sized rows of stones. Tourist guff suggests “gateways to the land of the dead etc.”
Very close to the B road so convenient parking, but get there when there’s not traffic (i.e. early or late), lest the ambience be poor. Alignment is east-west (ish) so maybe sundown would be good as this might afford a nice view into the sunset.

Look out for the cracked burial cist in the middle of one of the rows.

A easy site to find but not an easy place for parking. Leaving the village of Glassonby a road leads northwest past the gate into the field with the stones but it’s difficult to park without blocking the gate. 200-300 metres further on there is a sharp left bend in the road where there is some room on the right hand side, but it’s still a bit awkward. Carry on another couple of hundred metres and just as you get to the bridge over Hazelrigg Beck there is room on the left for 2 or three cars next to a footpath, from here walk (carefully, it’s quite busy) back up the road to the gate. Once in the field the ring of stones is easy to spot ahead and to your right.
When I got there it was heavily overgrown with grasses and various stinging plants and didn’t look anything like most of the other pictures on this page but it was still easy to trace the oval of 29 small stones, the size is roughly 16 metres by 14 metres. I’d really come to look at the carved rock which again was easy to locate but the carvings on the inward facing side of the stone were just about impossible to see. With a bit of imagination and with Stan’s drawing I could just about kid myself I could see them and slight indentations can be felt in the rock, but it was a bit of a disappointment. There was once another carved stone on the southern edge of the cairn but this has since disappeared.

There were once three cairns here, dating back to around 1700BCE. The remaining cairn is about 6m tall and 20m accross.

Visited 25th July 2003: On my way to my brother’s Stag do, I detoured into Welshpool to find Maen Llog. At first I got the wrong church, and when I eventually found St. Mary’s Church, parking turned out to be a bit tricky. One of the two gates into the churchyard was locked, but once I’d found a way in the stone was obvious.

Maen Llog is very polished, presumably by people standing on it for various reasons, over the centuries. It looks rather inconsequential, standing as it does among the gravestones. Worth a visit if you’re in the vicinity, if only because of the numerous rituals attributed to it.

On a small gritstone block directly under a Silver Birch is a worn carving consisting of 2 cups each with a worn outer ring. The rings seem to overlap slightly.
It’s a bit tricky to find......from the ‘standing stone’ head due east for 0.25miles, go through the trees and over the ruined drystone wall. You should end up in a wide peat gulley.....the carving is on the western side of this gulley.

It’s Not surprising that this site has a strange atmosphere. Iv’e talked to a few people who’ve visited and most of the seem to have has a fairly depressing time. (no objective statistics availble). Personally, Iv’e had a spectacular argument with my spouse there. Which we both afterwards put down to disruption of the local ambient E.M fields caused by the combined effects of the copper mines and the T>V mast screwing up out central nervous systems. If ever there was a site that can mess with your mind, this one rates highly.

Having said that the next time we went there, it was lovely. No wierdness at all, nice and peaceful.

This is a very strange place indeed. Most of the stones in the circle have been split in two, possibly an attempt at clearing the stones but 5 stones still survive in the Circle this thing is so big it has 3 Grid Refs!
I visited this site three days ago and its still playing on my mind and im not entirely sure why?

Directions:
Take the road from Warton to Yealand Conyers village. On your left hand side as you drive through the village you will come to a lane called ‘Peters Lane’ (or it could have been St Peters Lane – I can’t remember now and I was driving so I couldn’t take notes!). Signposts are pointing this way to Leighton Hall. It’s probably best here to approach by foot.

On the first bend of the road take the hill up where there is a large wooden gate and a signpost just behind the wall. Follow the sign pointing to Leighton Hall. Basically it is very easy from here (I know you’ve probably heard that a thousand times). In the field behind the gate you’ll see a rocky outcrop at the top of the hill. Go to the summit of this hill/field and over the other side at the top you will be greeted by the Summerhouse/cairn itself.

Well, there’s not a lot I can say that the previous post didn’t say. This place is beautiful, peaceful but has an eerie sense about it too. The ambience and views are amazing. Me and the young lady in the photos aren’t very well prepared when we go to these sites, and like the challenge of finding somewhere. We always find it half the thrill, but we honestly thought this one had eluded us. We had travelled the way to Wennington Road for half an hour but couldn’t find the site at first (obviously we suceeded in the end!).

Here’re the best directions for finding Tatham Hill. Coming from Wray village towards Wennington follow the double bend in the road. Just after the bend you will see a cattle crossing sign on your right and a little further to the left you will see an extremely large brownstone farmhouse and a small bridge in the middle of the road (it just looks like 2 walls either side as the road passes over a small stream). Just past the bridge you will see a metal gate on your right with a gravel path this leads to another gate and leads you directly to the hill. You can just make out the banks on top from the side of the road. Enjoy this beautiful site in good old Lancashire :)

I have been visiting this site for years studying the radiation. It comes from radon gas which is in so high concentrations in the chamber that it can even be measured with a geiger counter. It is generally accepted that radon cannot be measured with a geiger counter, and perhaps radon gas itself cannot, but it decays into decay products which are themselves radioactive and can be measured with a geiger counter at concentrations exceeding about 5,000Bq cubic metre (compare with government action level of 200). We have measured it with a range of more sophisticated equipment, but for those without more sophisticated equipment, if you sit half an hour in the chamber breathing the air, your nostrils will register on a geiger counter – DON’T panic! The radioactive radon decay products are short lived and will decay to low levels in a couple of hours.

This is an amazing site... small, but for me, perfectly formed. Two massive uprights – one with a beautiful smile – and then a long chamber flanked with big, sparkling slabs. This is definitely worth a journey – it’s not that far from Lud’s Church. The only ‘problem’ are the guard dogs – two big rottweilers just beyond the site don’t make you feel terribly welcome. They are fenced in, but were a little intimidating.

To get to the Bridestones, you could walk from the nearby (about 2 miles) hamlet of Timbersbrook (parking, loos, picnic area etc), or else just beyond (c. 400 metres) the site towards Leek there’s a layby where you can park (just where Dial Lane becomes Beat Lane).