Latest Miscellany

A small tribute to the 49 bus between Swindon- Avebury-Devizes.

The 49 bus route from Swindon to Devizes via Avebury is my favourite bus journey. For quite a few years I only really went as far as Avebury, having joined the now defunct internet forum set up to discuss all aspects of Avebury. A disparate collection of people though we were, we often arranged ‘meets’ at Avebury, immersing ourselves in the WHS landscape. All good things come to an end and the Avebury Forum eventually folded but even now there is nothing better on a breezy day than a walk along the Avenue to Waden Hill – climbing up to see Silbury against the cloudscape of the day.
These days life has moved on and I now have a regular commitment in Devizes so make the return journey at least once a week, always sitting upstairs. When the bus climbs the hill out of Wroughton just south of Swindon, the landscape opens out into downland; on we go past the Hackpen White Horse at Broad Hinton. Sheep grazing, a buzzard or two sitting motionless in a ploughed field, very occasionally lapwings or fieldfares. Sometimes the downs are covered in layers of mist which is always beautiful to see. Then through Avebury, always people wandering about regardless of the weather – always a different view, depending on which side of the bus I sit. On past Silbury sitting enigmatic as always in the landscape, past the Adam and Eve stones and the Beckhampton long barrow. Then a long stretch of straight road between Beckhampton and Bishop Cannings. Bronze Age round barrows strung out at various points on either side of the road (a couple in the garden of a farmhouse). I believe there is also a long barrow out there somewhere though I’ve never been able to identify it. Travelling upstairs on the 49 bus is a great way to see a truly unique archaeological landscape and to see the way modern day farming practices intersect with it.

swindonbus.info/tts/049.htm

This passage taken from Amy Liptrot’s book The Outrun – is an account of her trip to the Holm of Papay with the farmer who is delivering a ram over to his sheep on the Holm. Amy herself was spending winter on Papay.

“There are no signs that the Holm has ever been inhabited yet it is where the ancient people brought their dead. There are three chambered tombs, the biggest of which, the South Cairn, well excavated and maintained, is now looked after by Historic Scotland. Due to its inaccessibility, it is Historic Scotland’s least visited site.
I see the cairn every day from Rose cottage and it is strange now to be standing on top of it, the low sun casting my shadow over the island. I lift a metal hatch and descend a ladder into the mound. I use the torch left for visitors to crawl through the long passageway and look into the ten small cells or enclosures leading off. There are carvings of what look like eyebrows on the stone similar to the ‘eyes’ of the Westray Wife.
A friend tells me that the cairn is – like the tomb of Maeshowe on the Orkney Mainland – aligned with the midwinter sun. At Maeshowe, on the solstice and a few days on either side, on the rare cloudless days at that time of year, the setting sun will shine directly down the entrance corridor. Webcams are set up there and one midwinter afternoon I watch over the internet as the golden light hits the end wall.
I had a reckless idea to get farmer Neil or fisherman Douglas to take me out to the Holm one day around midwinter and leave me overnight – for both sunset and sunrise – so I could investigate and find out if there is any sun alignment. I thought I was brave and had no superstitions to stop me spending a night in the tomb but now, after just a few minutes down there, I want to get out: it is cold, damp, dark and scary. There is no way I’m going to spend a night there.”

The Longhouse Cromlech, Pembrokeshire.

Mr. E. Owen Phillips, of the Cathedral Close, St. David’s, writes thus to the Times:- I have just returned from visiting the celebrated Longhouse cromlech, which, I am glad to say, remains in its integrity, untouched by the rude had of the destroyer, and I am thankful to believe likely to remain so.

Mr. Griffiths, the owner of the farm on which the Cromlech stands, accompanied me to the spot, and I have his authority for stating that he takes the greatest interet in this magnificent monument of prehistoric archaeology and in its preservation. His father-in-law, a former tenant of the farm, spent much time and labour, in clearing away obstructing rubbish, in order to bring the cromlech into bolder relief and afford a better view of it all round – a great improvement, as it certainly presents a more grand and striking appeance at present than it did when I saw it some years since.

On my asking Mr. Griffiths for an explanation of the statement which appeared in a letter to The Times of September 6, that a labourer who was engaged in grubbing up stones near the monument to fill in a gap in a fence, said that he, the owner, “threatened to overthrow and demolish the monument altogether in order to construct a new bank across an adjacent field!” Mr Griffiths replied that “there was not a word of truth in it, nor any foundation for the statement, and that very probably the man was hoaxing the stranger.”

Mr. Griffiths complains and feels aggrieved that, assuming the statement to have been made, Mr. Greville Chester did not call on him to ascertain the truth or otherwise of it; the more so as Mr. Chester must have passed within a few yards of his house on returning from the cromlech. The disturbance caused by the stones, which are now to be seen filling up a gap in a fence, does not in the slightest degree interfere with the stability of the cromlech, which the public will be interested to know the present landlord is as anxious to preserve as carefully as it has been in the past.

At the same time, I agree with Mr. Greville Chester that it was an oversight, at least, on the part of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners “not to insert a proviso in the deed of sale for the preservation of so important a monument of prehistoric archaeology;” since the farm might have found a purchaser in one whose conservative interest in this grand old monument was less than that of the present owner.

In The Cambrian newspaper, 19th September 1890.

CPAT description of the stone:

Standing stone, comprising a sandstone slab 0.8m high x 0.5m x 0.15m, aligned NNE-SSW, leaning slightly to the ENE,and with an area of sheep scour around its base on that side. On its WNW side is a recumbent slab of limestone which does not appear to have ever been erect, and may well be natural. The standing stone is sited on a west-facing slope, with views to west and north-west.

In 1844 a souterrain was discovered, known to the islanders as the House Of Fairies. It consists of a lintelled passage, some 9m long with at least one known lateral branch. The stones used in its construction are large, with massive walls converging towards to the top to accommodate the lintels. The structure which has been excavated numerous times since 1844 with finds giving a suggested date back to the first or early second millennium AD. A few decorated potsherds are similar to standard Iron Age finds uncovered elsewhere in the Western Isles.

Lewis and Harris by Francis Thompson.

Herity lists (the remains of ) 4 passage tombs in this area/townland, Me 67, Me 68 (the primary site here), Me 69 & Me 70 in his national numbering system. Me 67 is Gormanstown TD 1 and is supposedly the tomb on the clifftop above the beach, the site called Gormanston Beach here in the County Meath section. To further complicate and confuse things, he also uses 2 alternative names: Knockingen or Knocknagen for Me 67/Gormanstown TD 1. The use of TD 1, TD 2 etc. is a device he uses where there are groups of passage tombs in a given county, so-called passage grave cemeteries. Gormanstown is called Gormanston here and in the Archaeological Inventory of County Meath.

His entries in the Inventory section of the book are worth reproducing in full.

Me 67
GORMANSTOWN TD 1
Knockingen or Knocknagen
Sheet 28

A memorandum from G.A. Hamilton giving details of this tomb was read at the Royal Irish Academy in 1846. The mound was on the edge of the sea-cliff near Knockingen or Knocknagen on the north side of the mouth of the Delvin river. Part of the mound had already been washed away by the sea and on the beach below were several immense stones apparently fallen from above. Hamilton noted ‘a considerable number of similar stones’, on the beach 100m to seaward.

Excavations were carried out with the consent of Lord Gormanston, the landlord. The mound was made up of small round stones or shingle from the shore. A circle of large stones similar to those lying on the shore were found buried in the sand and shingle at some distance from the centre of the mound. ‘Within this outer circle of stones we found, on what appeared to have been a floor of beaten clay, a large quantity of burnt human bones, apparently of persons of different ages: we found amongst them the bones of very young children. In the centre of the circle was a chamber constructed of immense flags, some of them more than 1.8m in height; and within this a rude stone basin, or rather a large stone of sandstone grit, with a cavity or hollow formed in it.’ This basin bore ‘evident marks of fire’, and had a quantity of charcoal and burnt bones surrounding it. ‘Amongst these bones we found some beads, made of polished stone, in shape conical, with a hole through each, near the apex of the cone.‘

The mound described here appears to be the one of which the last remnants are now falling over the cliff. Its stones were used in the construction of the railway. It is marked as a complete tumulus in the 1837 edition of the OS Six-Inch map. The ‘outer circle of stones’ surrounding a floor of beaten clay at Knockingen may be an inner kerb like those noted at Carrowkeel and Carrowmore. The cremated remains found inside this circle but outside the chamber are in an unusual position, though the burials outside the chamber walls at Tara may be a parallel. The ‘beads’ described appear to be passage grave pendants. D’Alton mentions that many of the stones of the tomb were used in the building of the railway nearby.

Hamilton 1846, 251; D’Alton 1884, vol. I, cxxvii.

Me 68
Gormanstown Td. 2
Sheet 28
A much larger mound, 25m in diameter, the centre of which has been dug away revealing what appear to be a number of chamber-stones, stands 150m west of Tomb I on a rise in the ground near the main road.

Me 69
Gormanstown Td. 3
Sheet 28
About 100m due east of Tomb I, a jumble of boulders about 15m across can be seen on the beach at low water. There are no other such concentrations of large stones on the beach except at No. 4, described below. It can be suggested, as Hamilton does, that these are the remains of a passage grave, the kerb and other large stones of which have tumbled on to the beach in the course of erosion. The lack of any recognisable plan suggests they rolled down at intervals from a significant height.

Me 70
Gormanstown Td. 4
Sheet 28
Due north of Tomb 3, also on the beach, a circle of boulders 15m across and a number of others inside which can be seen at low water give a rough impression of the kerb and chamber of a passage grave. Their position suggets that they did not fall from a great height.

Irish Passage Graves – Neolithic tomb-builders in Ireland and Britain 2500 B.C.
Irish University Press, Dublin, Ireland, 1974 Michael Herity

From the Archaeological Inventory of County Meath:

Only a small segment survives of the mound at edge of sea cliff. The nineteenth-century excavation produced a typical assemblage of passage-tomb artifacts. (Herity 1974, 252)

From the Archaeological Inventory of County Meath:

Some 150m from monument on the coast (ME028-021----) are remains of a much denuded kerbed cairn, 37m in diam. and averaging c. 1m high. Listed as passage tomb. (Herity 1974, 252)

The broch or galleried dun is on a small islet in Loch Bharabhat. The approach is a 600m walk from the road (B8059) into Bernera, crossing over the bridge into the island from the Lewis mainland. Accessibility but worthwhile. The dun was robbed early last century to build a sheep dipping tank, but sufficient remains to the site one of great interest. Dun Bhatabhat is an ‘island dun’, a defensive structure built on a small island with a 33m long causeway approach; it is one of a number of such structures to be found in the Western Isles.

Recent excavations have produced some surprises. Far from being the simple (i.e. solid walled) dun as recorded much earlier this century, it has features akin to a broch. One radio carbon date suggests 650BC for a primary structure and another, around 100BC, indicates a secondary occupation before abandonment. What is interesting about these dates is that they are earlier than the dating plan suggested for duns on the Scottish Atlantic coast.

The dun once had a double set of walls, like a broch, with a stair case in one intra mural gallery. At some time in the dun’s history there w2as a second structure outside its walls which now lies in the waters of Loch Bharabhat. This has proved to be an excellent time capsule from which various objects have been recovered, pieces of heather rope, animal bones and straw, all of which have to be correctly assessed and placed in an appropriate time context.

The whole site is of interest because the underwater excavation complements the work being carried out on the land based dun and is the first time the two techniques have been used hand in hand.

About one quarter of the dun wall still survives to a height of 3m and is about 2.4m thick. A lower gallery is visible with a chamber at intermediate height.

Lewis and Harris by Francis Thompson.

There are three sets of earthworks on Huish Hill, all of which have been tentatively dated as prehistoric. Pastscape descriptions, west to east:

Western earthworks (centred SU144645)

Iron Age ‘A’ and ‘C’ sherds were found by Meyrick in the area of the earthworks SU 144644, and Bronze Age sherds by him at SU
14356441. Now in his private collection.

SU 14336436 to SU 14386482: A linear work comprising a bank up to 2.7m high above a 0.8m deep ditch to the W. The ditch has a counterscarp bank up to 0.5m high except in the S where the dyke turns sharply down the steep hillside. The southern portion of the main bank is over-laid by a modern bank. In the N the earth-work can only be traced by a faint undulation in arable ground. Two trackways cut the work, but it is not possible to
ascertain if either obscures an original gap. An angled bank abutting the E side at SU 14416453 is the remains of the rectangular enclosure shown by Colt Hoare of which no evidence of a N side now survives.

Central enclosure (SU 14966420)

Possibly the oblong earthwork north of Huish Church noted by Colt Hoare in which Iron Age and Romano-British pottery had been dug up.

The sub-rectangular enclosure 65m NS by 50m, comprises a bank 0.4m high with an outer ditch 0.2m deep. It is situated near the edge of an escarpment, the E and W sides extending to the steep slope.

The enclosure has no obvious entrance but was evidently used for pastoral purposes, probably of IA/RB origin; though a Md or later date cannot be discounted.

Eastern linear earthworks (centred SU 15891 63886)

A linear boundary bank and ditch running from Huish Hill SU 1549 6372 to Martinsell Hill Settlement at SU 1745 6417. The western section below Huish Hill has a sharp
profile ditch 1.5m deep cut into the head of the steep scarp, but is mutilated in parts by holloways and paths. A section of the ditch at SU 1563 6376 has an unfinished appearance.

Another bank and ditch, which appears to be of earlier date, branches from the linear at SU 1597 6393. This bank averages 1.4m high with ditch on the western side 1.6m deep. It runs in a gradual curve to the summit on the hill but cannot be traced beyond the track at SU 1594 6408. It is not a cross-ridge dyke.

The linear fades on the lower slopes of Oar Hill, but a similar feature forms at SU 1692 6405 and runs to the NW corner or Martinsell, broken only by modern tracks and quarries. From SU 172 642 the bank fades and the ditch is of weaker profile.

This is a 1.5m high standing stone, but is not entirely alone. A survey of the site carried out in 1914 identified a number of prostrate stones, some lying underneath a covering of peat, giving the impression that they were overthrown standing stones and probably part of an original circle.

‘Lewis & Harris, History and Pre-history’ by Francis Thompson.

Apparently, the Druids Temple stone circle has been “restored” and now has its own facebook page:

facebook.com/yewcroftstonecircle/

From Glenasmole Roads, by Patrick Healy, published by South Dublin Libraries (copyright 2006 Local Studies Section South Dublin Libraries)

The Shed Stone
The Dodder flows along the eastern boundary of the demesne where it is joined by a small stream coming down from the Featherbed Bog. On the northern bank of this stream, at a point 300 yards up from the Dodder, is a large rock raised up on three smaller ones, known locally as the Shed Stone and said to mark the position of buried treasure. (MacNeill and Dix. “Dolmen at Glenasmole”, J.R.S.A.I. 1926, p. 122-123) Although this has the general appearance of a prehistoric dolmen or portal tomb, it is obvious on close examination that the supporting stones are actually three pieces of one stone which must have been split by the weight of the larger one above. These fragments are not placed to form a chamber or enclosure which is one of the chief characteristics of a prehistoric burial place. It would appear therefore that the unusual arrangement of these stones is entirely fortuitous. The height is about 4 feet.

Three fields away to the southeast at SO 28369 82022, on the same side of the river, the Shropshire SMR lists a bowl barrow:

The monument includes a bowl barrow situated on a low rise north of the River Clun. Although much reduced by past ploughing, it survives as a low mound 25m north to south by 20m transversely standing up to 0.3m high. Although no longer visible as a surface feature, a ditch, from which the material was quarried for the construction of the barrow, surrounds the mound and has an estimated width of 2m.

At a distance of somewhat more than a mile from Clun, in a field to the right, near the hamlet of Whitcott Keysett, stands one of those extraordinary stones which are usually classed under the title of Druldical monuments. It is a flat, broad stone, of very irregular shape, placed upright in the ground, in which it is evidently inserted to a considerable depth. Above ground it measures eight feet three inches in height by seven feet broad.

From ‘Wanderings of an Antiquary’ by Thomas Wright, 1854. (It’s curious that I added this site to the database myself, a million years ago – it must have a bit of folklore to go with it?).

With such a prosaic name... it doesn’t take a visionary Citizen Cairn’d (luckily for me) to suss that here, crowning this (relatively) low hill top overlooking the northern aspect of Llyn Tegid (incidentally Wales’ most copious natural lake), we have the remnants of a prehistoric cairn.

Coflein is curiously non-committal... but not so The Ordnance Survey, depicting the monument immediately to the east of their triangulation pillar upon the 1:25K version of their unsurpassed mapping. The Gwynedd Archaeological Trust complicate matters somewhat by additionally citing a monument a little to the north-east at SH89633551:

“(PRN 6239) Low flat-topped cairn... to North East of cairn on summit. Site completely turfed over apart from eroded area around a large boulder on South East. Cairn pock-marked with several holes (now completely grass grown). Erosion on South East side reveals small stones and earth. Stones max. 0.2m (apart from 2m long boulder)... Material excavated from largest hole appears to be very strong (Smith 2001).”

So... perhaps we have more than just the one monument, then? Whatever the truth, for me the 360 degree unrestricted panorama of mountains and hills is instructive – in short, the positioning is classic, nigh on perfect. Yeah, on a clear day the views would be breathtaking, taking in The Arans, Arenigs and associated wonders; my visit, dictated by a lowering cloudbase obscuring the encircling summits, was hostile, to say the least. But nevertheless well worth the effort.