There are 2 barrows here, the map ref is for the largest, which although has been robbed in order to build the wall that crosses it.
The smaller one is 100ft or so away, pretty wrecked, there are several visible limestone kerb stones.
Bateman dug here in the 1840’s the only recorded finds are flints.
Stanton Drew (circa summer of 1993)
I have racked my brain and cannot remember exactly when I visited Stanton Drew. I would guess it was the summer of 1993. The main circles were often considered ‘closed’ and I took a lovely photo of the ‘Druid Stones Closed’ sign, with the telephone wires seemingly radiating out of it. I asked at the farm next door, and a man told me that the guy who owned the land was a ‘miserable sod’ and a bit of an absent landlord. He suggested that I wander down on his (the farmers’) land and get as close to the stones as I could, or even duck under the fence and take my chance – it was unlikely that the owner would be around. My natural aversion to shotguns meant that I wimped out of going closer, so I just looked at them from the fence. Also I was a relatively local lad so I knew I could visit again sometime.
Anyway, that’s all in the past. This website has encouraged me to go back soon and see them properly.
Figsbury Ring (Summer 2000)
I visited this as a ‘detour’ on my way back from my friend’s house in Newbury. You know, one of those diversions you take to fix it to make sure you can go past an ancient site on your way somewhere – i.e. a big detour.
I had been visiting an old friend, Dr Jaime Kaminski, a mad ex-archaeologist turned IT person, who finds gunshot from the Battle of Newbury (1643) each time he digs his garden. Jaime got 8 firsts out of nine exams for his Archaeology degree. Bugger. He was some sort of mad genius; just about the last person you’d expect to be a brain box. We had gone up Beacon Hill, a hill fort just outside Newbury, and then I continued on to Figsbury Ring.
When I visited Figsbury Ring it was easy to find, well signposted from the main road, but like other people have said on this website it is a VERY rough track up to the site, and you do get the feeling that something is wrong. Stick with it; after quite an uphill drive/walk you will come to a very large car park. I found Figsbury Ring to be one of the most amazing and intriguing places I have visited. Like others have said, there is something rum going on here. It’s not much of a ‘defensive stronghold’ is it?! Especially after having just seen Beacon Hill and Ladle Hill, and going on to see the huge defences at Old Sarum. And why on earth would any community spend their precious time digging an extra ditch inside their own settlement? I smell a fish here. I am not an archaeologist or a researcher at English Heritage but I have been to a lot of hill forts and henge’s and Figsbury Ring does not strike me to be obviously a hill fort.
Mayburgh (21.8.2002)
400m walk from King Arthur’s Round Table. Or if you prefer you can park very close, below where the main road (the A6) goes over the motorway. The A6 now has a big Millennium Stone (you know, a big stone plonked somewhere to celebrate the Millennium) between the main road and the slip road down to Mayburgh, so it’s probably even easier now to spot how to get to Mayburgh.
Very serious looking dowsers and dog walkers were all around when I visited, and I found it a bit weird because of that. But it was still a physically impressive site even if I couldn’t get much sense of calm or history.
King Arthur’s Round Table (21.8.2002)
Well signposted, but no organised place to park a car. I found it best to park in side road virtually opposite the main entrance to the site. This is on the B5320, barely 50 metres from the junction with the A6. You can also then walk to Mayburgh if you wish. It is hard to really get a feel for the place because of it destruction and location, but it did remind my in a small way of the henge at Arbor Low, and the banks and ditches of numerous hill forts, especially Figsbury Ring.
Balquain Stone circle (23.8.2002)
I found this hard to find without an OS map or decent instructions. And also frustrating because I could see it in the field but wasn’t quite sure how to get to it and where the farm was to ask for permission. Personally I would say either get an OS map, or follow these instructions. If travelling North on the A96 look for the first junction after Inverurie. Take the road west from the junction (signposted from the A96 as Chapel of Garioch) and after exacty 1 kilometre go right at the first road junction / crossroad (it is a crossroads but in reality it doesn’t seem like one and is very small). You MAY just spot a farm sign saying ‘Balquain Main’ at this crossroads. On this track there is a farm about only about 70 metres on your left. The farmer said I could drive up the track for another 70 metres or so and park at the two holiday cottages that he lets out to holidaymakers. He may say something else to you; who knows. Then I walked a bit further up the track and across the edge of two fields to my right (East). It was about a 10 minute walk from the farm to the circle.
The circle was heavily overgrown when I visited, and the rest of the field was ploughed, making it really stand out whilst driving along the road towards the crossroads. The height and ferocity of the grass made it hard to get around (it was far higher than the photo in TMA), but it is in a great setting, and it’s interesting to wonder what it could have looked like many years ago.
The other stone circle that people have referred to below, is the Hampton circle. Its referred to on this website as Hampton Down.
No one seems to be able to agree on its name. TMA refers to it as Hampton Hill Stone Circle on page 213, and Hampton Down on page 128. Aubrey Burl, in his 1995 book, A Guide to Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany refers to it as Hampton Down Stone Circle (pages 67 and 68). The OS map (Explorer OL15. 596865) refers to it as simply Hampton Stone Circle.
PS – Burl also doesn’t include Kingston Russell in his book and his book is supposed to have all but the fake or badly ruined. Very strange.
Winterbourne Nine Stones (4.9.2002)
Lovely once you get there, but a very uncomfortable journey before you get to the safety of the wooded glade.
I would strongly suggest ignoring most other instructions and to actually park at the makeshift lay-by by the entrance to what is listed on the OS Explorer Map OL15 as Grange Farm Dairy (OL15: 621905). It’s a much shorter and safer walk to the Stones. The OL15 OS map alone does not make it clear EXACTLY where the Nine Stones are (I didn’t have the OS grid reference with me at the time – doh!), and we were not happy at walking up the road / racetrack from the Little Chef not even knowing if we were definitely going in the right direction! So we went and found a better place in the lay-by.
If you really want to park at the Little Chef, rest assured that if you turn left as you walk out of the car park and walk along the road for 400m, you will find the Nine Stones, which are on your left as the woods start.
Ps. The English Heritage website gives these instructions: The parking is located in a small lay-by opposite, next to the barn. Cross the road with care.
By barn I guess they mean the dairy / farm buildings?
Winterbourne Poor Lot Barrows (4.9.2002)
I would love to know more about these. Of all the ancient sites we visited in Dorset these were voted ˜most surprising and enigmatic”. We knew nothing more than what we saw on the OS map, which shows the English Heritage symbol with the title “Poor Lot Barrows” and a landscape seemingly littered with barrows / tumuli. I still don’t know much more!
We couldn’t find any sort of entrance or obvious place to park, so we ended up parking on the grass verge of the side road (towards Compton Valence, see below), walking back across the main road (A35) and hopping over the fence. We were pretty amazed that an English Heritage site seemed to have nothing there and made us feel like trespassers! Later I saw the English Heritage website which said there was access via Wellbottom Lodge. We couldn’t see any, but at that time we weren’t quite sure where we were looking and what we were looking for! I presume the Lodge is the house just off to the south of the A35, a short distance before the junction to Compton Valence (if coming from Winterbourne Abbas).
Anyway, remnants of all sort of weird and wonderfully shaped barrows do litter the area, including in the field to the South West, the field to the South East (including quite a large tumulus – see photo), and the field opposite the road (to the North East). Judging by the strange shapes in the maize field to the North there may also be ‘things’ hiding there, but the OS map doesn’t show anything.
And as we were there two jet planes (they looked like American Air Force jets, not RAF?) flew very low over us and then peeled away from each other, like a personal flypast! Amazing.
The English heritage website gives the following information:
Opening Times: Any reasonable time
Admission: Free
Directions: 2 miles W of Winterbourne Abbas, S of junction of A35 with a minor road to Compton Valence. Access via Wellbottom Lodge – 180 metres (200 yards) along A35 from junction (OS Map 194; ref SY 590906)
Penrhos Feilw (circa August 1993)
I loved these two enigmatic stones standing in a field just off of the country lane. It was also another site with a steady stream of visitors. It still surprises me to see just how many people are interested in stopping at ancient sites. I particularly remember a couple of bikers having a wander around.
Ivet Low lies near the roadside, near the junction with Manystones Lane.
The barrow is very overgrown, with dumps of rubble close-by.
Kingston Russell Stone Circle (5.9.2002)
Strangely this is marked on several Road Atlases despite it being over a kilometre from any road (and a very minor road at that), and no obvious way to get there without an OS map or good instructions.
18 recumbent stones in a very circular circle (if you get what I mean). Looks like an info board was there, but now just a short metal pole. Mix of medium and small stones, all from same type of stone (not that I’m a geologist). In a cow field which makes the pic from Joolio Geordio interesting coz in that one it’s been prepared for crops. Very chilled out. Excellent views. I guess Julian had a reason not to put this in TMA?
Hampton Stone Circle (5.9.2002)
9 recumbent stones in a circle in a paddock, next to big modern field gate. Very overgrown when we saw it. I’m so glad I’ve now seen the other submitted pics, to show what it looks like when not so overgrown!
Sign on paddock says, “This stone circle is an ancient monument scheduled by the Ministry of Public Building & Works. It was excavated in 1965 and the stones re-installed in their original sockets. The original circle was probably constructed between 1800 and 1200 BC. Structures of this type are considered to have had a ritual significance”.
Rempstone Stone Circle (6.9.2002)
What a cracker. We were actually staying at Burnbake Campsite, barely a kilometre away and I persuaded the non-stone hunters to also have a look. Later they said that they were glad they had come along. On a hot late summers day the shade and tranquillity of the woods was beautiful. And what a jumble of stones, possible stones, mossy outcrops that looked like stones but weren’t, etc. We think we could spot 10 stones that basically made a semi-circle and we guessed at what it would have looked like with the rest of the circle, and with less tress. This was all before I saw Peter Knight’s book, which obviously goes into more detail about it. We may not have been experts on it but we loved it.
Once again I set off in search of Elgee’s discoveries.
This time a stone row and a stone triangle were my goal.
Guess what i found..yep, nowt
There are two excellent stone rows on the moors here but unfortunately they are not prehistoric, they divide lord Snot’s grouse moor from the Earl of Arse’s grouse moor.
Killing daft birds with shotguns, I ask ya?
Anyway back to the stones, I followed Elgees we map and stuff but came up empty.
I did have a weird experience beside the Black Howes when the low winter sun went behind the clouds and dusk came two hours early.
A nice accessible group of round barows with one big bugger standing out above the rest. This fella has a number of large stones around the base which could possible be the remains of a Kerb.
Also there are an enormous amounts of many varieties of fungi growing on the large barrow!
Frank Elgee describes a kerb stoned barrow here.
I’m afraid there’s now nothing left of the kerb and the barrows are very low key.
However they do occur on the ancient track known as Robin Hood’s Bay Road which takes in quite a number of ancient sites including the Ramsdale Stones and the Old Wife’s Neck.
Strictly one for the enthusiast!
This really was a brucey bonus for me. I picked up a friend in Plumstead en route to Chislehurst Caves and he mentioned a mound nearby, so off we tootled. What a nice surprise, a genuine intact round barrow, with views to the north and west of the Thames Valley.
An unexpected little treat in surprisingly good condition.
This lovely stone is situated on Stoney Marl Moor.
The easiest way to access it is to park up in the layby on the A171 where you will also find a caravan selling teas and assorted fried meat products.
Use the northerly footpath that runs by Cook House and then follow your nose onto the moor.
There are cup and ring marked rocks recorded on this moor and the search continues.
As the name of the moor implies, there are many rocks on the moor and the local stone contains ferruginous nodules that weather out to produce what I call pseudo cups, so be aware (they’ve caught me out a couple of times).
Further up the path there are some nice round barrows, one of which shows signs of recent disturbance. ( the ghost of Cannon Greenwell perhaps?).
It’s been a long time since I’ve visited this site, but my main memories were that is was a shame that no matter what direction you faced, you could see the modern world – farmhouse in one direction, powerlines in the other.
I do remember going there one night to try to get a photograph of the stones sillouetted against the stars. Sadly, the photo didn’t come out.
This site lies in a field SW of a back road into Arbroath. Travel along the B961 which runs from the NE of Dundee until just before the hamlet of Cononsyth there is a crossroads. Take the road on the right towards Arbroath, and it’s about 2/3 of a mile down here. Parking can be a bit awkward, but you’ll see the site in the field – resembling nothing so much as a pile of overgrown rubble.
According to Canmore, air photography (21 May 2002) has recorded the soilmark of a possible souterrain here. There is certainly a pile of stones, laid up over what may be a large flat capping stone, with a similar smaller pile some thirty feet SW – possibly the other end of it. Certainly not a very exciting site!
Again, according to Canmore, the upper stone of a circular rotary quern, 52.5cm in diameter, was found in the field which lies to the S of that containing the souterrain, and is now in Dundee Museum.
This is a nice well-defined square earthwork, with a good ditch and bank. It has a lovely aspect overlooking Lonsdale.
There are some equally interesting features just a few dozen metres to the north west.
A large ?hut circle. This can be seen as a change in the foliage, there is no bank or ditch but when you see it you’ll have no doubts. It is marked by the grass ring and lack of bracken and is 24m across. Close to this is a hut circle that is well defined on a raised bank, most of the bottom course of stone is intact with a few of the second course in-situ. Diameter 10m
The Neolithic is represented on Ayton Moor by a lovely chambered cairn with two ring cairns next to it.
When paced out the cairn is 50m long and 10m across.
It is shaped a bit like a fat carrot. The chambers can still be seen, albeit somewhat wrecked, at the Northern end of the cairn.
The two ring cairns are fairly well defined and butt-onto each other. The moor itself contains many small. low lying round cairns.
You can reach this site in two ways.
The scenic route is from Great Ayton up past Roseberry Topping and on to the moor via Newton Moor.
The quick route is to park your motor at NZ594111 and take the Cleveland Way for about 600m onto the moor...easy peasy
A particularly irritating mound this one, not least because of my stupidity at searching for it, for at least two hours, whilst it was right next to me.
I can be forgiven somewhat as it is a severely denuded mound, a maximum of a metre in height at its center, and about 30 metres across. On the top of it sits a small war memorial, my assumption that they wouldn’t do that to an ancient monument led me to lots of mud, thorns and a bizarrely shaped flint.
You can find this mound easily because it is at the northern foot of a large manmade mound, road spoil from when they built the A3.
Not much to see here, just a circle in the ground, seemingly fill of mud. It is however still wet on very hot summer days and has only gone dry once(?) in recent history.
I’ve been here a couple of times now, and it is situated in a nice peaceful place and once you’ve tuned out the hum of the A3, its a nice place to spend a couple of hours watching South London walk past.
