Latest Fieldnotes

Longsdale View Barrow – 24.5.2003

To the west of Setley Plain a lone barrow exists barely 50m from the main road, lying on the left hand side of the dead-end track that leads to the view point called Longsdale View. It is quite sizeable, maybe 20m in diameter and 2m high. There are no clear signs of a ditch/bank surrounding it (except a probable modern ditch that runs alongside the track) so I presume it’s a plain round barrow. Several enigmatic trees top the barrow. The view from the car park 200m further along the track is pretty stunning.

Buckland Rings Hill Fort – 24.5.2003

It’s a funny old hillfort this, because it’s barely 30-35 metres above sea level, and not surprisingly is not on much of a hill at all. Does this qualify as the lowest hillfort in Britain?

It also all seems to be on private land and with no friendly ‘welcome’ signs around. Two houses (‘Little Rings’ and ‘Buckland Rings Cottage’ – I think, didn’t write it down…oops) seem to have its roadside part. The driveway and woods up to ‘Little Rings’ contains the ramparts of the north-east corner. I walked along the road side (which has a clear gap in the trees near this north-east corner but also has a ‘private’ sign) to the south-west corner where I made my way through the trees to sneak a peak and some piccies of the southern ramparts.

Beaulieu Heath Barrows – 24.5.2003

I only had time to visit two of the barrows doted around the large Hatchet Moor / Beaulieu Heath area. The first was at SU345012, only 500m from the main B3055 road. It looks a bit ravaged, in a scrubby area populated by rabbits, and it trapped on two sides by old airfield roads. The barrow is about 25m diameter and 1.4m tall. The second is the Pudding Barrow, which already has an individual listing.

Pudding Barrow – 24.5.2003

This is now part of the grounds of Round Hill caravan / camping site, but you can certainly walk straight into the site from Hatchet Moor / Beaulieu Heath.

The barrow is now fenced in, presumably to stop kids and mountain bikes damaging it. It certainly looks a bit worse for wear, but the fence should now protect it, and it’s nice to see a good English Heritage / Forestry Commission info board on the East side which should help educate a few bored campers. A brief conversation with a charming extended family of campers who had been having a piss-up on the airfield suggested that it had only recently been fenced in. The board says that most of the Beaulieu Heath barrows were destroyed in 1941 when they built the airfield. This one is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It’s a similar size to the other barrows I saw in the New Forest (about 20-25m diameter, 1 to 1.5m tall)

Bushy Park Barrow – 26.5.2003

I haven’t looked this up on any national monuments record and the OS Explorer map 161 shows nothing, but its provenance seems secure as it is mentioned on the Royal Parks website and by local walker/historian/writer David McDowall.

The Royal Parks website says that “The flat site of Bushy Park has been settled for at least 4,000 years. A Bronze Age barrow & burial mound was excavated near Sandy Lane and the contents are now housed in the British Museum.”

It also adds that the park contains “clear remains of mediaeval settlements, with the finest example found South of Waterhouse Woodland Gardens, where there are traces of the largest and most complex mediaeval field system in Middlesex.”

To find the barrow walk into Bushy Park by the Teddington Gate, turn left and walk along the path for about 250 metres. This is it – only a small hump, and now of an irregular shape, but it is a barrow, unbeknown to all the walkers and cyclists who go straight over its top. David McDowall says that it originally ran beyond the park wall.

Setley Pond Barrow – 24.5.2003

This nice, but poorly treated barrow, lies on the left hand side, 100m down the track that leads to Setley Pond from the main road that crosses Setley Plain. It looks a bit ravaged, with a slightly hollowed top, and is in a gorsey scrubby area populated by rabbits. It’s not totally clear if it is a bowl or bell barrow, but the bank and ditch around it is very strong. The barrow is circa 25m in diameter.

I was on my way to Penryn from Constantine and saw this marked on the map. Easy to get to, park in the church car park and the stone is in the church yard to the right of the church. There was a service on at the time so I couldn’t get any information.

This circle is of the same type as its close neighbour Clach na Tiompan, but is in a better state of preservation (although still quite ruinous). Two stones remain standing, and a further two stoneholes have been identified. The stones protrude from cairn material, which spreads to a diameter of approximately 5.0m. The circle itself is nothing much to look at, but it’s location, between the steep sides of Glen Almond, is stunning.

At a quick glance, one standing stone and some cairn material is all that remains of the Clach na Tiompan stone circle. Considerable damage was apparently done to the neighbouring chambered cairn when the road (on either side of which the cairn and circle sit) was driven through Glen Almond in the 19th century, and it was probably at this time that most of the circle was destroyed.

The circle was originally a four-poster, enclosing a low cairn at the centre. Excavation in 1954 revealed the stump of a second stone, and the holes belonging to the remaining two. The cairn was found to be made up of boulders, amongst which were found more than one hundred quartz pebbles,. At the centre of the cairn there was evidence of burning, with pieces of wood and charcoal. The cairn material extends to a diameter of about 6.0m, spreading beyond the edge of the circle. One of the missing stones was found lying 5.0m to the S.

I’d failed to find this site on a couple of previous occasions, and had been told it’s tricky to find, but strangely went straight to the stone this time round with no problems whatsoever.

From the A229 southbound, take the slip road immediately after the Shell garage, and park. Walk back toward the garage, and follow the path round to the right. There is a bridge across the railway line, the stone is less than 100 yards up the footpath on the left.

I was so angry after visiting this, the last stop of the day. Some idiots had set a camp fire within about 8 feet of the stones (see picture). The ashes were cold, but didn’t look as if they’d been rained on, so were obviously recent and fresh. In addition, one of the rails of the surrounding fence had been broken, presumably during the camp’s high spirits.

On the positive side, I learned something new. This was originally though to be the remnants of a stone circle, as shown by a plaque at the base of the terrace.

Mentioned in Dyer’s “Discovering Prehistoric England” as “a late Iron Age, univallate hillfort of irregular shape and about 10 hectares in extent” .

We drove right by it, according to the map, but couldn’t see much at all through the trees.

I also asked the lady in the garage who looked at me like you do to to the slightly bewildered. I followed her instructions to take the next right and to look for it in the large gorse infested moorland behind the garage. I walked to the end of the road and then found my way into the gorseland. After much searching I found the stones at the high gorse just to the left of the garage. I then saw the mechanics watching me with much amusment, after shaking my fist at them I had a look at the site, I can’t add any more than the other two postees except that if you park just where you turn right then walk carefully scanning the hedge on the right, about twenty metres down you will see a vague path which leads straight to the stones about twenty five metres away, saving you a very painful trip.

It was a rather wet day when I went here,parked in the layby where there is a gate into the moorland.Here there is an information board telling you what is in the area including the Dry Tree Menhir,You walk along the foot path keeping the perimeter fence on your right, when you are faced with a hedge still keep the fence on your right and step into the mud,negotiate this quagmire till you come to the stone.Well worth the grim passage here.I tried to find a better way back but got into worse trouble,go back the way you came is the motto.

I am adding some sites on Windover Hill, the site of the Long Man of Wilmington. These photographs were taken nearly 4 years ago and I have only just dug them up!

The landscape above the Long Man is well worth a visit for those who don’t mind shapes in the grass with no interesting rocks cluttering up the place. We don’t really do rocks in this neck of the woods.

(See the Goldstone, in Brighton, for a notable exception. The only megalith to have had a football ground named after it!)

The fact that a large Neolithic Long Barrow and a large Bronze Age Round Barrow seem to be aligned with the space on which the Long Man now stands is something that I find intriguing. While the Naturalistic figure of the Long Man could only be Roman at the very oldest, I believe there to have been something on this site for a very long time. If only we could see what were the original designs on this hill.

I am adding some sites on Windover Hill, the site of the Long Man of Wilmington. These photographs were taken nearly 4 years ago and I have only just dug them up!

The landscape above the Long Man is well worth a visit for those who don’t mind shapes in the grass with no interesting rocks cluttering up the place. We don’t really do rocks in this neck of the woods.

(See the Goldstone, in Brighton, for a notable exception. The only megalith to have had a football ground named after it!)

The fact that a large Neolithic Long Barrow and a large Bronze Age Round Barrow seem to be aligned with the space on which the Long Man now stands is something that I find intriguing. While the Naturalistic figure of the Long Man could only be Roman at the very oldest, I believe there to have been something on this site for a very long time. If only we could see what were the original designs on this hill.

I am adding some sites on Windover Hill, the site of the Long Man of Wilmington. These photographs were taken nearly 4 years ago and I have only just dug them up!

The landscape above the Long Man is well worth a visit for those who don’t mind shapes in the grass with no interesting rocks cluttering up the place. We don’t really do rocks in this neck of the woods.

(See the Goldstone, in Brighton, for a notable exception. The only megalith to have had a football ground named after it!)

The fact that a large Neolithic Long Barrow and a large Bronze Age Round Barrow seem to be aligned with the space on which the Long Man now stands is something that I find intriguing. While the Naturalistic figure of the Long Man could only be Roman at the very oldest, I believe there to have been something on this site for a very long time. If only we could see what were the original designs on this hill.

Visited 20th April 2003: Another stone in a garden, although you can see it from the road. It was just me and Will on this visit, so I decided to knock on the door and get permission to see the stone up close. The gentleman who answered was friendly, and didn’t mind us wondering round to the back of the house to see the oddity in his garden. He seemed a bit bemused, but I got the impression we weren’t the first people to ask. He told me that nobody really knows how old it is.

The stone is very large, and built into the end of a dry stone wall/hedge bank. Perhaps it’s position on the end of the boundary protected it from being destroyed. The shape and size of the stone reminded me a bit of Avebury, which isn’t an enormous exaggeration. Very impressive.

I visited the stones was when I was lost up on the moors to the south, coming from Drum, in thick mist, no visibility, I followed my compass north, across the moors, and from out of the mist came the stones, I was taken back at how they stood there, almost waiting for my arrival, and how I’d walked right into them, really atmospheric stuff.
Another time in strong rain and wind, I noticed, when I put my hand on the north westerly stone, (the one that’s a bit square) I’m sure it was vibrating. Could it be the ground it stands on?
The cist was excavated I think in the sixties and I read they found the remains of two people, one a child, so the site may have been used for sacrificial purposes. Michael Seniors book on the stones of North wales covers this area quiet well.
It’s a great area, rich in antiquities, and resonates the past perfectly, especially when you’re lost!

This is a magical place set in a megalithic landscape.
You can see evidence of the hand of man altering the rocks stretching way back into prehistory. There are at least two sets of rock carvings here that are unique, this is not suprising once you look at the landscape they are set in. Views across the valley to Cratcliff Rocks and Robin Hood’s Stride with Nine Stones Close just beyond, Doll Tor and the Andle Stone less that 1km away and Stanton Moor just beyond that. This is a beautiful and unique landscape and must have influenced the minds of the carvers.
The Serpent carving was very difficult to make out and will probably have to be visited in different light conditions to appreciate it’s true beauty. The quartered circle with cup and petal motifs is gorgeous as are the two ‘eye-like’ rings.
The none-prehistoric carvings are is amazing too. What was in the head of the barmy masons who altered huge swathes of the rocks. Caves, steps, seats, passages and massive rock faces have all been created from the altered rocks. Me and Stu checked out one rock cut room that had been worked on every surface, a small hole had been bored through the cave wall to allow a tiny shaft of light to enter the otherwise dark room. In this room I saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in the UK, it was supsended from the roof and guarding a huge silk ball.
Whilst admiring the view, a huge wagon drove by in the valley below, on the back of the wagon were three massive stone blocks, evidence that the Derbyshire stonemasons have an unbroken lineage from the present day back to the neolithic (that beats the phoney freemasons, with their Solomon’s temple crap, hands down dunnit?).
Rowtor Rocks is a magical place, take your kids, take a torch and take your time.

Visited 20th April 2003: On our way to St David’s to get milk, first thing in the morning, William and I detoured to visit this stone. There’s no public right of way through the field it stands in, but it can easily be seen from the road. I’d have liked to get closer, but the field is sewn with crops, and I didn’t have time to seek out the farmer (even though the farmhouse is very close to the stone).

Possible ring cairn with central cairn, Barnatt suggests a robbed cairn due to it’s closeness to the stone wall.
Tricky to find, wouldn’t like to say whether it’s worth the fight through heather and peat bogs.......but hey it’s there.

OK so this ring cairn is hard to find and when you do..... it’s a bit of a let down, just a ring of slightly higher than the rest heather. But the views are outrageous. With Win Hill, framed by Lose Hill and Mam Tor in the west and the Derwent Valley and Crook Hill to the north.
If there were stones remaining here......it would certainly be one the Peaks best sites.

A small cairn 6m in diameter, and may be 1m high surrounded by 5 standing stones, 2 of which lean badly. A bit of confusion as to what exactly the site is.....kerbed cairn or in-filled stone circle.

A real pain to find, and the moor is wet for much of the year round.

This circle has a North Yorks Moors groove about it, it’s wrecked, it’s buried in heather and there’s not a lot to see.
I love it!