I had read about the Rollrights in a book about prehistoric Britain and they interested me a lot. I didnt know exactly where they were and so i got pretty excited when i was visiting England last year and the friend i was staying with said they were real near his house.
I was not disappointed, the stones are fascinating and life-like. There was such strong energy around the Whispering Knights and the king stone too. I was inspired by my visit there.
Stonehenge is totally cool except for the traffic noise from the big road. Dont be put off by all the touristy stuff, it’s so famous eveyone wants to go there so of course it has lots of tourist facilities, its just a pity theyre so ugly. But i did like the pink frisbies and bought three.
i was surprised by the colours in the stones, they arent just grey like in photos and also by the tongues on the stones for joining them all together. it spun me out that it was so architectural, not like Avebury where the stones are all rough and unworked.
actually i also really liked woodhenge even though its just concrete posts because it is so quiet after stonehenge. its really complex. you can walk all through it and use your imagination
We used to play here as kids, ultimate abandonment to imagination. The rocks were transformed into the red rocks we saw in cowboy films, and as the Apache I would rain imagined arrows down onto my six-gun toting pals...
...now I know, and see through different eyes, that the rocks have an attraction, a history and a fantasy all of their own – which far outshines anything that my wild imagings projected on them.
Come by night in Winter, if you can.
sometime last week:
Sitting among the prone stones, gaze drifting away to the distant hills... Cows wandering about on idly on the mounds, laying extremely healthy-looking patts on the daisies.
Time stands still. I’ve just driven through 90 minutes of Hell’s traffic to get here, and I’ve got about another 3 hours of B-roads to go before I arrive at my final destination (Ingleton)... But the stones are warm, lichen-smooth, and welcoming. And for now, right here, I am happy.
And Natasha is riding one of the angled ancient slabs like its a magic carpet. What a buzz.
One of a now-rare number of pairs of stones in Britain. There were formerly loads of pairs in Penwith alone, but nowadays few remain – farmers are minded to pull one down and leave the other as a cattle rubbing post, thus destroying 4000 years of history for a short-term gain. The usual consequence of this is the cattle rub round the stone, and eventually erode the base, it falls, and gets dragged away. No such problems for the Drift Stones, so named as they are near the hamlet of Higher Drift. They stand at 2.5 and 3 metres in a field often in crop under polythene just to the south of the main A30 to Land’s End. They have been excavated in the past, and I think a burial was found between them. Not much of a head’s place really, as the noisy road is just over the hedge, but a rewarding site just the same.
Scorhill.. and a little nearby Magik.
Acclaimed since antiquity as a fine site some guide books will tell you its been much diminished by the removal of stones and much of its mystery has been dissipated by the addition of a cart track through one edge of the ring. So much for guide books. I think its a stunner and whatever prompted the oldies to build it here still lingers.
My first visit was last summer. The week before the total solar eclipse and the local press was full of horror stories about bands of crusties turning up at stone circles to worship the magikal properties of Special Brew.
The trip to Scorhill through Chagford and Gidleigh is hard in a big car. Some of Devon’s narrowest lanes and overgrowing hedge rows impede progress. There is also the smallest bridge on the planet, wing mirror scrapping stuff.
On this fine August evening access on the lane leading to the site was further restricted by some self important retired major type who had erected posts to stop vehicles of a certain size. A row ensued and I got through, its narrow but its still a public right of way. I suppose the old boy thought his little corner of England was about to become Woodstock. Whatever. I was not in the right frame of mind as I walked up and across the moor to the site. But Scorhill was worth the hassle.
On high moor free from human intervention it .... well.... it broods. Built in a dip in the land you are physically drawn into the circle as you approach. That’s gravity for you, and something else besides. Inside the circle at the centre , a definite sensation... pressure drop. The birds, I swear, stopped singing, the insects stopped insecting. Very nice. Return trips yielded similar results.
On one trip in the company of a very wise woman I saw the most impressive sun set/star fall I have ever seen in years of tramping the moors.
She also revealed a close by natural magik site. If you got to the circle by driving up to Gidleigh and walking up onto the moor then after the circle keep walking but veering very slightly left (ie in the direction of Shovel Down ) for about 300 yards. You will find a large stream and standing in the water is a huge bolder with a hole eroded through it. A big hag stone. A natural Men An Tol. Climbing up onto the stone and dropping through the hole is said to cure arthritis and aid fertility.
I should imagine the stone was probably there before the circle and may have helped in the selection of the site. I didn’t go through the hole, wet weather made it tricky. Besides which I don’t have arthritis, or the desire to reproduce.
On a trail of superb sites (Sunhoney etc), this was a real mind-blower of a visit. Parking by the small church, I noticed a small stone in the field opposite, probably a rubbing post as it was small and pretty central, but this is Aberdeenshire... stones everywhere ! Anyway, on into the churchyard, and at first I wasn’t sure if it was the right place. Then, I was literally knocked over by these beauties. They stand proud around a manicured lawn, looking like they have been rearranged by the Christians, which is a double edged sword – it’s good that they didn’t just remove them as most short-sighted christians would have, but it’s a pity they couldn’t get someone like Aubrey Burl to help them lay them out RIGHT ... i’m sure some were even upside-down. The recumbent and flankers are amazing, the recumbent enormous and dead flat, the flankers curve inwards like a huge pair of canine teeth from a long-dead animal. I was here for ages, just staring at them – they are just totally mesmerising. Even good little christians visiting the church seem to like them, which is a good sign for their future. And if this wasn’t enough, there is a large thin stone in the wood next to the church, which anywhere else would be headline news but in Aberdeenshire just gets a passing mention.
Slug City! The Ridgeway up here was absolutely *dripping* with them last week ... Mrs Gibbon was most perturbed, having trodden on one barefoot the night before ...
Cracking place for a wander if you need to stretch your legs for 10 minutes ... Silbury nestles quitely behind Waden Hill, just like the book says it does. Go towards it and it disappears, before returning with a huge “blam” in your face.
Careful though ... we had our car broken into here once. For some Penguin biscuits. And the turn out towards Silbury/Avebury is terrifying ... the top of a blind hill either side ...
Summer 1996 midsummers eve. I was staying in a campsite just below Moor Divock when I decided to drag my long suffering daughter “up the hill to see the stones”, she usually dreads “dad and his stone expeditions”, “aw dad not more stones, they’re sooo boring”. Anyway on the promise that I’d take her to the camp disco that night we yomped up the hill.
It was a beautiful evening when we arrived at the stones and in the far of distance we could see a procession of folk winding their way up the hillside from Pooley Bridge.
We were witnessing something special, a procession to the stones.
It was no formal affair just a rag taggle group of about thirty heads, kids in tow, party packs in hands, making their way up the winding paths to the stones.I couldn’t help feeling I was witnessing a scene that was timeless. No amount of pleading with my daughter could persuade her to stay for the arrival of the party- goers, a deal’s a deal and we had a disco to attend so we split. It was enough for me though just to witness the procession and for 1 hour be transported back to my neolithic ancestry.
woah! Me and one of the Gibbonettes headed up here in our Camper on Saturday night (1/7/00) on the spur of the moment.
When we got there, it was full of a wedding party ... apparently you can hire the place out for weddings, rituals and so on .... twenty quid deposit and a pound a head, and you get the place to yourself for a while and carparking
AND
a fire brazier thing. As it got dark, all but one of the wedding party shot off, and so the 3 of us created our own little “Fire Temple” (as The Boy put) with those little nightlight candles (3 quid for 100 from Ikea :-)
We had the big fire in the middle, an inner circle of lights, lights around the stones (no candles on the stones though ... damages the lichens and all that), and a path of lights from the centre out to the exit.
We fell asleep around the fire, and woke up in the middle of the night – pitch black, all the stars out, and all the candles still burning ... cor, did my head totally .. the stones were just *glowing*
fantastic. The warden turned up in the morning after we had tidied up, and he was totally sound
they have quite a few events there as well ... next one is Halloween.
A couple of weeks before heading to Avebury my house, in Madrid, & 15 others burnt down. The stone at 9 0’clock, just south of the road is a pretty good copy of the house shape. A strange way to find it, I was driving from Glastonbury with a very poor map, not knowing where Avebury was exactly. After meandering a random across Salisbury plan past military roads M, P, R, A etc. I found the sign post, maybe luck, maybe. Anyway, I’d just been suffering from stress & needed a key to unlock the cycle, maybe the stone was a key, maybe.
Power?, who knows. Something?, I don’t know. Maybe just enjoy what works without developing dogma. Maybe.
Situated near to several other sites, this is a must-see mofo of a circle. Walking up through the tightly-packed conifers, I got the feeling the forest was imposed on this landscape, not invited, and certainly not inviting me to walk through it. The most oppressive forest i’ve experienced in all my wanderings by a long way. Just as I was going to give up, the tall flankers rear between the trees, almost the same colour but smooth and rounded. They are huge – and the recumbent is a massive length. the whole monument just shouts “take notice!“, and that’s what I did. Most of the stones are there, even the central cist, but the views ... no more, thanks to those trees. Even so, the peace in this clearing is palpable, even more so due to the surrounding, brooding forest. A stunner.
I’ve never paid that much heed to “The Henge” before, possible because of a combination of the fence and loads of people with nasty Stonehenge t-shirts. I dunno
Anyway, I’m back with gibbon-tale between legs. I took the gibbonnettes down for the Solstice, and being a responsible Primate, stayed straight all night. We saw in the dawn from the barrow near the Hele Stone, and then started to run back to where the rest of our mob were slumped ...
we were working our way round, when I realised I was on my own ... “little sods”, I thought, “they’ll be around here somewhere”... they weren’t ... I was on entirely on the different side of the circle, and when I finally loped back, I had been gone for *ages*
Not to be underestimated :-)
if you’re up there, you can’t see anything of the horse, but what you can see is what appears to be a massive spaceship landing bay!
In front of the horse, the hill opens up into a rather tasty womb-like half-valley thing. Rather extraordinary :-)
The best thing about Castlerigg is the amazing setting – on a plateau high above Keswick, surrounded by mountains.
Went up at 10pm and was surrounded by dozens of bats as we climbed up the steep road. the serenity was only spoiled by an RAF Hercules flying low level over us, but even that was beautiful in its ancient/modern crossover kinda way...
the Best hillfort in Britain! Absolutely stunning views of many major sites. Forget the King Arthur tosh- he didn’t exist, but the setting is definately fit for a king. Much Archaeological work going on there at present, presenting new finds IA & BA. Watch for a TV progamme on the site presented by Carenza of Time Team fame in OCT/NOV, if only for the stunning shots of the site. Dont forget a fantastic BA shield was recently found there, one used in ritual and the only one found in context.Poignant as F%&*.
The short avenue at the NE end apparently leads to an old dried up watercourse. A water ritual? rebirth? The circles are aligned with Windmill hill and Haut Bois-and a bloody church! Seemed to feel ‘closed in ’ when visiting, certainly hills surround a lot of the site. More dramatic than Avebury? possibly (and possibly bigger-watch this space)
Is it a horse? A cat? A dragon? Man those people could draw! Various visits to the site have proved it to be a very special place, and one I feel strongly connected to. The “horse’ seems to be jumpimg up into the sky, or into the very steep valley adjacent to it- what ritual is this? It was a private one at least; you cant really see the horse until you’re right up on it. The best vantage point being Dragon hill opposite. Dont forget the hillfort on top of the hill!
I think i,ve found an alingment with
a summit burial mound for the circles round Shap and the upper
Eden valley similiar to that in Aberdeenshire.
I was in the circle at Merrivale for the eclipse last year ... cloudy, but still absolutely awesome. It’s amazing at the variety of sites here, from rows to a menhir. I’ve been a few times since, but nothing can beat that eclipse feeling !
A friend and I visited this site on a whim while in the Cardiff area. The only other dolmen I’ve visited is the Devil’s Den near Avebury. St. Lythans struck me by its subtly glorious positioning – atop a gentle rise in a field on a gentle hill – but mostly by the marvellous pockered stones. They’re covered in amazing little dips and rounded, shallow holes, that give the monument a kind of Swiss-cheese-from-Mars feel.
Fyfield Down and Overton Down Wilshire, near Avebury, the Sanctuary and the Ridgeway.
The megalithic trail of limestone blocks from which the ancients tooks stones to nearby Avebury leads from a footpath starting of the A4 near Fyfield up a climb to Overton Hill. Instantly you stumble across grey blocks which lie in the field like the sheep after which they are named. Following the river of blocks through a farm yard and on the far side in the overgrown hedge are two standing stones, about two to two and a half metres tall. Backtrack up past the barn and up the hill to Overton to where sarsen stones stand in a raw, wild landscape. This stands up above Avebury, but travel west across the gallops and you stumble upon the most awesome sight of all as hundreds of massive stones lay in a valley. This is a truly amazing place. It just doesn’t seem real. A landscape completely alien to any other I have seen in Wiltshire, perhaps even the UK, and yet to the ancients must have been truly significant beyond merely a source of stone for the nearby rings and avenues. This site was the one I think Julian must have visited, although I didn’t, know it by the name he used. Travel west past the massive rocks, south up over the hill through the lane to drop back onto the main A4 at Fyfield. Best in the rain or winter weather, when a sense of the gathering storm adds even more magic to an already impressive landscape.
Merrivale, Devon by KPH.
I was intrigued by references in books to the Merrivale site because of it’s local name The Plague Market. Two drastically different impressions for the same place . Merry Vale (ahh green and pleasant) Plague Market..(dark and nasty). The Plague Market handle came along with the Great Plague in the mid C17th when it was decided that the old religious site would be a good place to gather the banished victims. Local people would leave food out (hence the “market” image I
suppose) and doubtless the priests would pop along and torment the poor buggers as well.
I accept that the stones would have been a local landmark but it also seems to me that the church may have picked the site in order to keep people away from the stones. Local names for the old sites are often marked by clumsy attempts to demonize them. Hence the Merry Vale became the Plague Market.
I first visited this site on the summer solstice 1999. I chose that day out of curiosity. This is a big site, a lot of work over a lot of centuries, a small stone circle an avenue, a double row, a single row, a cist, outlying single standing stones and hut-circles and other good stuff. The local legend goes that on Midsummers Eve if you stand in the neat little stone circle you can watch the sun set directly into a U shaped gap on a distant Tor off to your right hand side. If you go on Midwinters Eve you can apparently see the same effect on a similar gap on a distant Tor on your left hand side. I was surprised to see about 35 people at the site. Some villagers with video cameras, a couple of stone huggers and a couple of crusties. The moment came, the sun dipped and missed the U shape by a small amount. The villagers with cam corders complained it hadn’t worked, the huggers passed no comment. The crusties at least refrained from playing their didgereedoo. Aubrey Burl refutes any astro-archeological goings on at the site but I find the folk memory of a solar observatory a tempting one. Maybe the people who built it judged their midsummers day to be when the sun set in the U shaped gap. We of course have a fixed point in our filofaxes, we should allow a little lee way. I returned Midwinter but because of dense fog I couldn’t even find the circle, let alone the sunset. Either way I enjoyed the site and the fact that people had come to see magik work. It may have been in slightly the wrong place but it was a fine sunset. I wished at the time that I had someone to share it with. I met my partner a week later, on a blind date. We hit it off over dinner, it turned out we had a shared passion. Visiting Neolithic sites. Be careful what you wish for.
I just want to say – this site has absolutely spellbound me. It’s not just the size, the location, the sheep, the views ... it’s the whole experience. It’s just soooo huge and delicate looking, it took me 10 minutes to dare stand under it! I know it’s been there for thousands of years, but believe me, when you’re there it looks like it may fall at any minute, which would be an absolute tragedy. This is one site everyone MUST see.
The proper use of ribbons or other pieces of cloth goes back to holy wells and the like. The idea is that you make a wish, or prayer or whatever at the site, then tie a ribbon to it. With the decomposing of the ribbon, your wish comes to reality. There may be other reasons, but I’m sure this is one of the main ones. I’ve been to coldrum too – a bugger to find, and it looks like it’s going to slip down that bank at a fair rate of knots and entomb you. Still, I agree with it being very atmospheric, something to do with the encircling trees and if someone is there, they actually WANTED to go there. You don’t just walk along and find Coldrum, you’ve gotta walk.
