Latest Fieldnotes

Nestled at Dunadd’s foot are a couple of houses that look like they’re among the best places to live in the land. The hill itself is so striking, slap-bang in the lowlands of the valley floor, it was surely part of prehistoric mythology before Scottish royalty became associated with it. Perhaps the large basin on top is ancient, and was appropriated into dynastic mythologies by the Dalriada. Curiously, the famous footprint alignes NNE, like so many of the not-quite-north alignments here. A splendid place to see the sun down, though I bailed quickly due to hordes of flying ants and American tourists.

A striking, provocative group of monuments (cairn, standing stones and henge) – grouped together by a modern field of course, but also by obvious proximity. In terms of the postulated S-N procession along the glen, this place, like Dunchragaig and Baluachraig, would seem to introduce the procession to the swing round into the NNE-SSW glen.

The rams here seemed to fall into brief, half-hearted horn-locking scraps as they moved out of my way – maybe the males venting their indignation at always having to move for bloody tourists.

A suggestion on the info board described the henge as maybe being a dancefloor – I’m surprised the full sense and obviousness in this idea hasn’t struck me before.

These two sites seem to mark the eastern slopes bordering the ‘processional lowlands’ going up the glen. My general feeling from the area is the any ritual procession would come from the south, between Cairnbaan and Achnabreck, then be guided by monuments along the way to ‘swing round’ in the NNE-SSW aligned glen containing the linear cemetry.

Two circles here, one older and destroyed, the other built upon with burials. The cist in the centre of the newer, larger circle seems to line up NE to the older one. As I’ve mentioned in my entry on Nether Largie Cemetry, I reckon there’s a strong North-Death association informing the monuments here – but so often the alignment is NE or NNE. Reasons why? The NNE-SSW alignment of the glen itself?

South Cairn: The earliest of all the cairns in this linear cemetry, with a northern entrance to the burial chamber. Is this unusual in cairns, to have a northern entrance? At Callanish, when sat on the Cnoc an Tursa, you look down the N-S aligned southern avenue of stones, and this lines up with the burial cairn in the circke, a standing stone, and the recently discovered burial cairn near Margaret & Ron’s house. Margaret speculated about funeral procession going from the circle to the cairn in this north-south line.

I’ve been fascinated with the mythology of the north ever since becoming interested in myths about the Pole Star. Well, there was no Pole Star in the Bronze Age, but there was obviously still a concept of north – and the direction where the sun never shines from is an obvious place to locate the land of the dead, methinks. As is attested in numerous mythological and magickal systems, where the is a strong correlation between North and Death. Kilmartin Glen seems to be a grand testimony to this belief structure.

If there were ritual processions north up this glen – which seems almost certain – this seems to be the place where eveything starts to get ‘focused down’ a bit, as the valley floor starts to narrow approaching the linear cemetery of cairns. However, the ‘X’ is aligned roughly NE-SW, and doesn’t line up with the cairns as you might expect.

Ungraspably large, the first carved outcrop you come across here is one to boggle at. Yes, there’s fences, but see my entry on Cairnbaan for why I think they’ve done things quite well here. There’s no steps to go over the fence as there are at Cairnbaan, but I think the general idea is that you can hop over to be close – just take the fence as a reminder to be careful.

Walking back down to the car park, the present path gave the distinct impression of heading towards the hill at Cairnbaan (which can be seen from the upper groupings of carvings at Achnabreck). I got a strong sense that these two sites relate to each other, possibly as part of a system of tracks, and possibly as kind of ‘gateway points’ into the ritual landscape proper in the Kilmartin Glen to the north.

You can park up in the passing place if you turn right just before the Cairnbaan Hotel – the stones are well signposted.

Cairnbaan was the first of many places that impressed upon me how well the various authorities have done in preserving and presenting the numerous monuments here in the Kilmartin Glen. The first group of rock carvings you come to here are, like most major groups, fenced off. But the fencing is pretty inoffensive – no spikes, and subtle dark green in colour. On top of that, it’s not there to keep you out. There are small metal steps there for you to get inside and see the carvings up-close. The thing is, once you’re inside, the fence – and the fact that the ground in the enclosure is well tended and not covered in sheep shit – creates a palpable sense of this being a ‘special place’. So, hopefully, people are gently dissuaded from stupid shit like leaving litter or damaging the rocks.

If people really want to vandalise, there’s not a lot you can do. This idea, of the enclosing fence that doesn’t exclude, is the best compromise between preservation and access I’ve seen – and almost made me think that a concept of ‘sacred space’ was being inadvertently rediscovered...

A beast of a stone, mysterious to me for its lack of horizonal or land-based monuments. What purpose does such a massive block serve? Covered in utterly amazing sheets of moss and lichen, which were lushly dripping with rainwater when I visited.

Amazed that this is the first review up here – but then, it’s a trek and a half to Callanish! When I arrived it was pissing down. The journey, especially the ferry across, was very exciting, but this didn’t rise to a peak as I approached the site, as I thought it may. I edge round the stones in the rain, then decided to go find Margaret and Ron Curtis.

Instantly had a ball in their exhibition shed: Margaret got me contstructing mini stone circles in circular sand pits, and I learnt more about stone circles in 15 minutes than I done reading many books. Margaret’s such an enthusiastic and clear communicator. Then we helped Ron outside – he was experimenting with ways of erecting stones using wooden tripods and twisting rope – great fun!

The next day I was treated to great weather – sunny and windy (no midges!) – and to a comprehensive tour of the area by Margaret. She charges £20 an hour for tours, and believe me it’s worth it. I had naively assumed the idiosyncratic ‘skew-whiff’ plan of Callanish was at least partly due to innaccurate construction. Pah! After half an hour, Margaret had me gobsmacked at the pinpoint precision underlying the apparent chaos of angles and lines.

There’s a path around the circle that you’re advised to keep to, but of course no one does. The first time I entered the circle itself was with Margaret – I didn’t feel like doing so when I first arrived – and for a good 5 minutes or so, it was an effort to concentrate on the information she was giving me. The sheer overwhelming buzz of being up-close to those magnificent gneiss columns just made me grin and reel.

One thing worth noting is that there’s one of the best places to camp ever here – just past the visitors centre on the little peninsula sticking out between Loch Roag and Loch Hullavig. Not an official camp site, but no one minds you there if you take care of the place, and the visitors centre leave the toilets open all night. Nice one.

Learnt a lesson not to follow directions from TMA that refer to smell i.e. we missed the big smelly farm because it wasn’t smelly on the day we went. We’ll rely on more visible landmarks in future . Any way only took one wrong turn. Also saw no sign of angry canine, still best to be prepared.

Nice site, sort of small and compact. Left quickly as locals appeared to be meeting for large group picnic, not sure of country code or etiquette so left them to it. They had a kid that stared at us in a funny way.

Mindful of Merrick’s experience with the police due to the GM test site here, I was sure to wait until the farmer was around to ask permission. The fields around here now have painted ‘DANGER: Lady Farmer’ signs and official ‘Protected by Rural Crime Prevention’ signs. The farmer seemed very friendly and gave me directions – but when I got back to my car, she had called the cops anyway, and I was given a quick grilling. Be warned!

The site itself is *fine* place. The small wood is great: like Loanhead of Daviot, very seductive to those with tents; like Loanhead of Daviot, almost no chance of succeeding in camping out there. As with many other circles here, only the recumbent, flankers and the stone opposing the recumbent remain. Indeed, I found myself wondering if the other stone weren’t really just decoration anyway, if they were all ever there.

A grand view from here over to the Bennachie hills and Mither Tap, Dunnideer, and of course Tap O’Noth.

Parking was a pain but verges are great. I always feel guilty about ‘quick stopping’ these sites but we stopped off on the way back from Avebury. The walk was muddy even in July (I’m catching up on my reviews). So much so that my mum and daughter dropped out to go and sit in the car. Wifey, Son and I carried on (3 generation family stone outing) , it kind of added to the pilgrimage feel. By the time we got to the stones, Deb and Tommy were content to view from the gate. I carried on and got some great pics. I’ll scan them in one day and post them. The flax was out and the field looked like a lake. Dead cool.

There was no one home at Stonehead stables (opposite) or Glendale (next to), so I hopped over the collapsed fence into the field where Stonehead stands. I moved slowly because the ponies seems nervous (only afterwards did I read Merrick’s account which described how the ponies were vicious and attacked him and Annwen – were they different beasts then or was I naive & lucky?).

The remaining recumbent and flankers are magnificent. Recumbent aligns with Hill Flinder. Dunnideer very close to the east, and Tap O’Noth feels close in the west too. In this landscape, Dunnideer feels like the warm, friendly centre, and Tap O’Noth is the looming master/mistress glowering on the periphery.

A sad, fallen place. Anticipated a great view from here, a site situated on the crest of a hill. The summit is overgrown with trees and bushes, surrounded by a 4ft wall. Trying to mount it from the west, I was confronted by some rotting animal knuckles covered in flies. After finding my way through the dense gorse, I was confronted with a truly ugly site – dumped in a large gash in the summit was a huge pile of garbage and – wait for it – rusting car wrecks! At least three remains of cars, with washing machines and other trash. How did they get it up here? Very strange.

Anyway, the circle itself is severely degraded, unsurprisingly. There’s a rounded, fallen recumbent with fallen flankers. The stone opposing the recumbent is the only one left standing, a fine chest-height wedge. Two other fallen stones.

A curious feature here is the raised cairn-like mound in the centre of the circle – has this been excavated? Another added-on burial, as at Loanhead of Daviot?

No view from here – I was glad to get away from it, a forlorn place of dead trees, trash and lethargic insects.

Got here at the end of a day away from the kids doin’ the village thang. The TMA filled us with trepidation but road-signs were pretty good. The walk up the hill wasn’t too bad either but then it was the middle of August; almost summer. It’s well worth the trip, the views on the way up are cool, but who planted those bloody trees to obscure the eastern view from the barrow ?!

Best views enjoyed again on the way down in the field. Where did all those walkers go ? They weren’t at the site. Do people do things in the country other than explore ancient sites ?

I popped into the Inschfield farm to ask for permission, and found an old guy scrubbing the floor of a barn. He had an accent that went beyond comprehension – more to do with age and rural isolation than Scottishness I believe – and even though I couldn’t understand him, he seemed unfriendly but obliging, so I just went up. As it turns out, the circle looked like it may actually be in a field connected to the next farm, Nether Boddam (!), but it was fallow and no one was around, so hey.

A wonderful view from this place – the smashed and fallen recumbent obviously used to line up with the foot of Dunnideer, and Tap O’Noth clearly looms off to the west.

The semi-surrounding of trees gives this place a Rollrights feel, but the stones are entirely Grampian. And the cairn stones in the middle – especially with the empty, cleared centre – give the site a kind of mandalic focus. I was perplexed by descriptions of “twelve cup-marks” on one of the flankers – I could only find two un-cup-like horizontal grooves. The woods here look so perfect for camping, but very little chance of getting away with it I suppose, unless you’re a local scout or guide...

An isolated patch of grass, nettles & thistles in the middle of a corn field next to the main road out of Inverurie. Only the recumbent, flankers and several other stones remain. Like East Aquhorthies, it’s on a slight slope, but this time towards the recumbent. The line of the top of the recumbent does seem to echo the shape of the horizon before it – does the moon ever ‘roll along’ here? I was so fixated on the horizonal thing, fresh from revelations about circles and the horizon at Castlerigg, I forgot to check the other side of one of the stones for the cup-marks that Julian mentions. Doh!

Finely preserved circle, with, as Merrick suggested, a kind of odd feel in its positioning. Mither Tap looms to the west, but the circle seems to ignore it. Added to this is the cluster of modern trees that obscure the horizon frames by the recumbent and flankers. I loved the stone near the gate that looks like crystallised flesh!

An astounding site. And yes, the setting is all. I went up there on a warm, clear night alone with Eno’s ‘Appollo’ on minidisc to listen to, and had a eeriely wonderful time star-gazing.

The very first impression I got from the site was that it was placed with a genius for psychogeographic accuracy. Photos of the place obviously emphasise the majesty of the surrounding mountains. But what struck me is how humanised and pastoral the area immediately around Keswick is, and how at the circle you feel like you’re on a platform that is part of, but above and beyond this landscape, reaching for the sky. I assume the lowlands round here would have been populated in Neolithic times as well. Castlerigg feels like a bridge-point between the human landscape and the mountains that touch the stars. Sitting there under the moon, I gained for the first time an insight into how hills on the horizon may have inspired the creation of stone rings – so people could “pull the horizon in” and humanise it – circles of stones standing for hilly horizons – presumably as something against which to measure the turning cosmos above.

A great place – go!

Passing this site last week on the train, there is a new by-pass at the foot of the slope, between Trefignath and the aluminium works.
The standing stone Maen Hir is literally within metres of this by-pass. This new road has been built across the whole of Anglesey. Another scar.

When I set off from Llanfairfechan the weather was glorious....... the climb was long and steady and I was in a bit of a sweat by the time I  reached the North Wales Path!
Looking back across the stunning view of the Lavan Sands (Traeth Lavan) to Beaumaris the rain clouds were sweeping in.
It is really wild up here....... and so is the weather! Had to shelter from the rain under the walls. If I hadn’t met this couple returning from the Druid’s Circle who pointed out the direction, I would have missed the circle. It is up and over the brow of a slope. When the low clouds passed, the view was overwhelming. From this vantage point above Penmaenmawr, you look down on the Great Orme. I took loads of photos........hope they all turn out OK!

The access is still fine (21/8/00), but it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. There’s a huge amount of damage, mainly from candles balanced on ledges on the stones, but one bit looks like there’s been a proper fire in one of the side chambers (first on the left).

Seal it up if we can’t look after it. Pains me to say it, and I never thought I would, but I can see why there’s a fence around Stonehenge now. Bloody drives you mad ...

Just got my Krupp book back --- the alignment from the East of the King’s Men to the Whispering Knights is the “Mid-Calender Sunrise”

hope that clears that one up ...