Latest Fieldnotes

Visited 9th February 2003: We were on our way from Llanidloes to Machynlleth, so we stopped briefly in Staylittle to see what we could find of the barrows. We were short of time, so it was a superficial visit. The easiest barrow to get a good look at is the one just north of the forestry plantation (the grid reference above is for this barrow). It strikes me as pretty unusual to find a barrow cemetery in a valley like this, at least in these parts.

The mountain road between Llani and Mach is really beautiful, with fantastic views of Snowdonia as you head north. It’s well worth taking this route if you’ve got the time. We stopped off at Maen Llwyd on the way.

The northern chamber I’ve recently carried out *subtle* restoration work to!. A gap had appeared between two of the three roof slabs. I feel prior to me discovering this wonderful place it may have been in this state for some time. The hole in the roof I re-constructed with what was used originally, and looking at the exterior of the mound you would never know it had ever fallen in at all!. Old tea light candles suggest ‘ritual’ has taken place of some form in the past by persons unknown, these have been cleared out.
The chamber itself is a wonderful example, I havent yet located the others in the area, the land is thick with gorse (my pet hate!!), damn stuff resembles ‘barbed wire’!!. Respect is due when visiting, you are ‘not’ alone as you sit there...guardians are appointed to such places for a purpose.
Five minutes walk up the road heading to ‘Penzance’ you’ll find the ‘Porthmear’ stone circle (treen common) in a rather dilapidated yet inviting condition!. ‘Carn Galva’ dominates the area, the giant lives on up there!!!...

I know this site as Ballowal Barrow, but whats in a name? This has got to be one of the most perfect spots in the British Isles. What a place to be laid to rest.
This is the Lands End...not that commercialised ediface to the south. On a clear day like what we had last Sunday (9.2.03) when you can look out and see the Scilly Isles....the sea below you white with spray....the sky blue as it can be, you forget all the troubles in the world.
I noticed that the information board has disapeared from the side of the road, shame because it was very informative. I hope it will be replaced soon otherwise the site can look just like a pile of mine waste which it was I believe before it was uncovered.
If you find yourselves in West Penwith and have done all th circles and standing stones...make your way out to Carn Gluze as the sun is setting over the sea.........you wont regret it.

I was born in Colerne, the nearest village to the Three Shire Stones, so I know these stones well as a modern monument to mark the point where three shire counties meet – Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Somersetshire. Colerne was spelt ‘Cullerne’ in the Doomsday Book, hence the few genuine Colerne survivors pronounce it ‘Cullern’ whereas the Bath-ites pronounce it ‘Col-arne’. Excuse my bitterness but I am annoyed that there is no way I can afford to live in the village where my heritage comes from (‘Bull’ is one of the traditional Colerne names).

Anyway enough of my soapbox, I hadn’t thought much about the Three Shire Stones possibly being based on an ancient monument until I read the ‘History of Colerne’ (no author) which says the stones are recorded as a burial chamber on an OS map of Neolithic Wessex and that a tentative date may be given of 2,000 BC. I have nothing else to back this up but will start looking. It is not included in Dr Glyn Daniel’s book, “The Prehistoric Chambered Tombs of England and Wales”. The present stones are certainly modern, apparently erected by public subscription in the Victorian era, and the ‘History of Colerne’ says it superseded three smaller stones which were allowed to remain undisturbed beneath the central slab.

Burr Tor is quite a large fort enclosing roughly 8 acres. On the ground there is not a great deal to see, there are faint traces of a bank and ditch toward the eastern edge of the fort.
The fort is now the airfield for the Derbyshire Gliding Club, they’re alright about you sniffing around as long as you ask and stick to where they tell you to walk.
The gliding club offer flights for around £25, should give you a good view of the fort.

Visited 9th February 2003: Maen Llwyd is marked on the Landranger map so it’s easy to find. There’s no public footpath to the stone, but you can see it from the road/track.

The stone is relatively large, especially in girth. Based on a photo I took of Louise standing next to it (unpublished because she’d kill me if I posted it), I’d say Maen Llwyd is about 5ft 10 high. It doesn’t really taper towards the top as is usually the case in the smaller stones further south. It’s a beautiful lump of rock, and well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

The RCAHMW records date Maen Llwyd as post Medieval, but this seems rather unlikely to me given its size. I’m not alone in doubting this date, because Cadw and the Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust both date the stone as Bronze Age.

As I was short of time I only had the chance to look at three of these barrows but what corkers they are. An ancient east-west trackway across the top of Towthorpe Wold forms the modern boundary between Humberside and North Yorkshire and is the site of a narrow plantation of young conifers and 5 bowl barrows. The 3 I looked at were all large and well preserved – the largest near the B1248 is between 35-40 metres wide and 3 metres high. The next 2 are around 20 metres wide and a still respectable 2 metres tall. This is another site that I will have to return to and spend more time investigating – parking is easy on the verge just before the county boundary sign.

The name Wharram Percy is most often associated with the DMV of the same name, but a short distance to the south-west is a collection of at least a dozen round barrows. Most of these, especially the barrows on the plateau of land between Toisland Farm and Wharram Percy farm, have been ploughed away but one survives as a slight bump next to a field boundary that leads north from SE837633. Others are marked on the OS Map running in a roughly east-west line to the north of the crest of Birdsall Brow but as this is private land (?) and someone was shooting game nearby I was reluctant to venture further to investigate. I did however get a picture of what is marked as a barrow as SE835637 although I’m not sure if the raised land it stands on is natural or man-made. There are some spectacular views from the crest of the Brow to the north – those Bronze Age people certainly knew how to site their cemeteries – and the whole area could do with some further investigation.

This hill really has to be seen to be believed! The Scottish Megaraks visited it on 9th February 2003 having been lucky enough to get the farmer’s permission (ScottY knows his daughter), and it is a real megalithic feast – prehistoric barrows, cairns, kerb cairns, hut circles, house platforms, four-posters and a cup marked rock.

There are multiple entries for all of these in Canmore, but the site has not been properly surveyed or excavated. That’s a great pity, as I feel that a lot more could be learned about this area. Strone Hill, which lies just to the NW of Brankam, also has a large amount of sites, and there are many others very close by – Meikle Kenny, Auldallan and Pitmudie, to name but a few.

You can stand at Hanging Grimston and look around you at three and a half thousand years of prehistoric history. There’s the long barrow, the earth works, the round barrows and finally the Roman road. Add to this the probable ancient trackway under the road and you could go back even further.
The long barrow is badly ploughed, standing less than a metre high and doesn’t look like it will last too many more years, many of the round barrows are hard to make out as well although one to the north of the group is still in good condition. What still remains however are the stunning views to the west as the land drops away dramatically down Open Dale and out to the Derwent valley. These views must have been all-important to the people who farmed the area over this vast timespan.

Actual location of two of these outcrops is NU018328.
The large, dark stone had just had the turf removed by an unknown previous (and very recent) visitor. Was it the great Stan B?

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Walked here from The Ringses.

The OS map says this is “rems of” a circle – not fair! There are still 4 visible stones, OK two left standing but it still has the right feel. Lots of stones underfoot too. One of the fallen stones isn’t quite horizontal, you can tell which was the top surface by the characteristic weathering patterns.

Unusually for this area, the Cheviot is not visible! (shock horror) – it is obscured by Doddington Moor. To the east however, Chatton, and Weetwood to the south.

Took a few moments to enjoy the silence and to watch a pale-coloured bird flying around which I’m sure was an owl, but it was broad daylight (?)

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It is best to approach the Quoit from the west, the footpath from the cottage disappears half way up the hill. If you park at the cross roads you can see the main path, it is very rutted and in the rain is a stream, but it is the best way I have found.

Not much to see at this site anymore, most of the barrows are long gone – indeed while I was there a tractor was doing it’s business in the fields. There are two reasonably well preserved bowl barrows behind some farm buildings though, one is around 40m in diameter and about a metre and a half high and stands on the highest point of Acklam Wold. Close by, the other barrow is about half the size and height and now has a triangulation pillar on top of it.
The site is probably one for barrow anoraks only but there are some fantastic views just a little further on. Following the road to Acklam the land drops away to reveal Leavening Brow to the northwest and views to the Derwent in the west.

The 2.5m long, recumbent Cow Stone (or Dead Cow) lies approx 400metres to the NE of Mitchells Fold stone circle, beside the footpath leading from the circle to Stapeley Hill.

In the right light, the stone looks like a resting (or dead) animal when viewed from the west.

GPS: SO 30912 98880

Haven’t been able to find out any history of this one yet. It stands, set in a rough stone base, so may well be of modern origin, although it may be re(z)erected.

A tall thin stone, over 10ft tall, it leans or points quite heavily. Views over towards The Cheviots to the West and Hepburn Woods to the East.

Of notable mention is a bit of modern architecture just oevr the hill – The Hurlstone Tower was built in 2000 by the local landowner and is a round 3 storey castle looking folly.

I found this after looking at the “cupmarked"stone.On the way back to the car I saw through the next field gate this fallen stone,so I went to have a look and take a photo.The field had just been manured,thats what is on the top of the stone.There is nothing marked on the OS map so when I got home I looked in the Old Maps.There was nothing in that field but there was one marked in the field just south,not there now,this may be that stone felled and dragged for what reason who knows.

Visited on my way back from Blawearie, which is the burial ring cairn mentioned by some previous posters.

Tried but failed to find the piggy-looking stone, was getting dark! Very good reason to back again, like I need one :-)

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Very hard to describe this, it’s a circular, curbed site with a wall within, containing cists, with mounds inside and surrounding. I think it has been restored, but only marked on the OS map as a cairn, it’s much more.

The hillfort and carved stones of Old Bewick are not too far away and the mother hill visible as always.

The ruined farmstead nearby is also interesting (well it was for me), as are the rocky outcrops beside, which have been partly walled for shelters. You can see how people wanted to live up here. But you can also understand how it fell into ruin! Tried to work out when it was last lived in, perhaps early 20th century. Looks like it’s used a lot by campers, and is on a mapped cycle route.

A lovely day although very overcast. Definitely one to come back to when sunnier.

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This circular enclosure lays right next to the Roman road Batham Gate.
Over the years the enclosure was thought to be a Roman camp of some kind, until the road was found to built over and around the section of the enclosure it crosses over.
Nowadays it’s thought to be a stock enclosure dating to the Bronze or Iron Age.
A modern drystone wall cuts the site in half.

Access is easy as it’s by the side of the road, parking on the lane ain’t.

Muddy is really just an understatement. It was also freezing cold. Mrs IronMan decided to stay snug in the car with the heating on while I tramped out across the fields to find the site. A few minutes of picking my way through the least muddy parts of the track were swiftly cast aside as I shouted out an almighty “F*CK THIS” and waded through the thick ankle-deep sludge.

The Hellstone is in quite a location, and from here it was easy to pick out the barrows in the surrounding landscape. There seems to be some concern over the accuracy of the reconstruction of this site, but my main problem was with the muddy duck pond in front of the tomb!

I hung around for a while, till the sun began to set, then made my way back through the sludge.

I was last here a few years ago, on a bit of a random day out, we just stumbled across the place. A few weeks later I read about Brean Down in Ronald Hutton’s excellent ‘Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles’. In the book the focus is mainly on the Romano-British temple that once stood here, but very close by is a Bronze Age barrow, and there may well have been more. The temple fell into ruin and was built over with a christian shrine. This too has now completely gone. So in terms of sacred sites, there isn’t a lot to see. However in terms of the sacred landscape this place is completely awe inspiring – I can’t think of many places I have visited which are quite so elemental. You really do feel on top of the world gazing over the edge. The vastness of the sea stretches out before you, and behind the flat marshy plains of the Somerset levels with Brent Knoll clearly visible in the distance, itself the home to an Iron Age fort.

As we left Brean Down the wind howled and a storm was starting to blow in from way out at sea. This is a truly heathen place.

Information taken from “Prehistoric Sites of Breconshire”, Monuments in the Landscape, vol 9. Children/Nash, Logaston Pr, 2001

Precise location: unknown, destroyed.

“...George Clinch remarks in 1854 that about 250 yards north-east of a medieval enclosure within St Margaret’s Park Wood is a flat, horizontal slab of limestone like the upright of a cromlech”

capstone 9m x 3m, in places more than 1.8m thick

1804 “...stone slab stood wholly free from the ground on certain upright stones, there is still at the west end of the slab, but at a slight distance from it, an upright stone, flat at the top, which may have originally been one of those on which it was supported. It seems probable that these may be the remains of a cromlech”.

Grid reference is given for a lime stone slab found on a recent visit, which authors believe may once have been part of the capstone. May represent the south-eastern limit of the Black Mountains Group.

Eyam Moor II lays right next to the footpath but is probably the hardest circle to find on the moor. Despite its closeness to the path it was only rediscovered in the 1980’s.
The four remaining uprights are near enough totally covered in bilberry and none are above 30cm. It is a small circle approx. 8x8m, and there is a small dug out cairn in the centre of the circle.

Visited 11th January 2003: At Meini Gwyn are three quartz standing stones, two relatively close to each and one further off in the garden of a nearby cottage. Of the three stones, two are fallen, the third (in the middle) is probably in it’s original position.

The two stones to the east are easy to see from the road (the fence is so poor that you could slip underneath it without any trouble...if you wanted to that is). To the east of the furthest stone are the (probable) remains of a cairn and a small tumulus, but you have to squint really hard to make them out.

The stone in the garden is only just visible from the road. I asked at the cottage to take a closer look, and the man who lives there was happy for me to go in and take a photo. He was keen that I shouldn’t be in the garden at the same time as his dog, but I never saw the beast, so I can only guess at how big it was (6ft tall with fangs etc). The stone has been planted around, and made into rather a fetching garden feature.

Thanks to Rhiannon for drawing this site to my attention in the first place.