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This was a cinch after the mystery tour over at Tawnydorragh 3 kms to the west – you can drive right up to it. The tarmac runs out after about 700 metres from the main road but the track is relatively well maintained and we’re in a 4-by-4 anyway. East of here is the large expanse of Lough Bradan forest, about 20 square kilometres of relatively high ground. The track becomes undriveable at the tomb and continues up into the forest. Judging from the map you could continue along this way and bend around to the south and find Ally court tomb, about 4 kilometres to the south-east as the crow flies.

Scraghy is badly ruined. The collapse of the huge capstone, 2.4 metres by 3.5 metres, has caused most of the chamber stones to shatter and I didn’t even attempt to try and work out which is what, but judging from some of the remains I estimate that the tomb once stood over 2 metres tall. So a serious piece of neolithic construction.

Then there’s the over two metre tall standing stone 7 metres to the ‘rear’ of the chamber. What with there being little evidence of a cairn footprint, this is a peculiarity. It is, on its own, a fairly serious megalith, something that you would go out of your way to visit. Plonked here where it is, it’s quite possible to imagine that it was part of a singular monument, possibly a revetting stone at the back of the cairn.

Thirty metres south-west of the large standing stone is another small megalith, this time a small cist with just two small sidestones still extant. It’s in a very boggy, clumpy area and I did a fairly serious tumble back there. Even with there being very little growth at this time of the year, conditions were not ideal but it was good to find the little guy, huddled away back there almost lost to the world.

Scraghy was well worth a visit. I’m guessing that, in its ruinous condition, it’s not high on many peoples’ priority list. But the area, though very accessible, retains a wild and inhospitable atmosphere, a barely tamed corner of West Tyrone with plenty to keep the megalithic explorer interested.

Its been a really long time since I was last here, so long that I have no digital photos of Elva Plain, it must be near twenty years. As I remember I parked right near the farm and asked permission to park there while seeing the stones.
This time I parked on the road just outside of the little Rake Wood, walked up the road, turned left and up to the farm, at 6.15am there was nothing doing so I walked on through to the field with the stone circle, and applied myself to the seeing of stones.

The weather had been very favourable for the last few days, so standing at a stone circle on the spring equinox with a clear blue sky, I was cock of the rock, twirling in absolute splendor. On the western horizon the near full moon sank into a pink haze, it reminded me of a spring equinox at Ystumcegid in north wales many years ago, funny the effect a sky has on ones mind.
While I was zooming at the full moon the sun broke into song behind me, I twirled once more and hurriedly crossed the circle, photo photo photo. At last, a successful equinox sunrise, you, me and the stones, it’s not as good when one of us is missing.

During the sunrise there was much birdsong, except for a skylark and blackbird I’m pretty ignorant of most of natures calls, but one stuck out in particular, it wasn’t a bird, it was a Gibbon, it was doing it’s morning territorial whooooooing and wowwwwwwing, a welcome addition to whats shaping up to be one of the good stony days out.

The sun burst out of a notch on the horizon, made from a shoulder of Skiddaw and another hillside further away. The hills frame the whole western view, it made me wonder whether the sun used any other notches at either end, for solstices.
But then looking behind me to the west it looked more of a sunset oriented site, a clear sight line to the sea, not ten miles away.

The stones are low, possibly all knocked over, a couple of stones are mostly underground just breaking the surface like a small stone whale. By the biggest stone, half a dozen smaller stones huddle together for security, as if the bad man might come back again and another stone would go astray. If they could all be spread out once more the aesthetic of the circle would be much improved, but it is what it is.

Bewildering sunrise dealt with I set about adequately photographing the circle, it’s about now I should mention the rocky protuberance on the top of Elva plain hill, like Fitzcoraldo before me I saw it and thought “oooh proto temple”. Should such things exist, that could be one.
With camera on tripod and extended to it’s fullest I wander round hoiking it up in the air for an elevated picture of the stones. It works well.

On my way back to the car I surprised a small child in the farm, he wasn’t expecting to see me that was for sure, his two dogs didn’t seem to mind me and I tipped him my disarming smile, perfected over several decades of trespassing, I do it for a living you know.

All previous posts have no positive words on getting there, so I put it off for years and went elsewhere, until today, its the spring equinox today, and after a successful sunrise at Elvaplain stone circle I felt today was the day to go.
I did what the previous posts seemed to suggest and approached from Drybarrows farm. I couldn’t park near the farm because of all the signs written forbidding me from doing so, so I had to squeeze the car in on the little east to west road north of Winder hill. It was precariously parked, but with what looks like a long walk (just over a mile)to the stones I wanted to get as close as I could. Walking through the farm was the worst bit, trying to get by without bumping into angry farmer (they’re all angry, they may not always show it, but they’re all angry on the inside) all those negative signs on the road made me feel unwanted. But got through the farm I did, and out onto the open moor. There are lots of paths going this way and that, trying to stay on the one that would take me to the stones proved impossible. It wasn’t long before I was well off the right path and climbing Little Birkhouse hill, the view over Haweswater was pretty good, and I was sure I hadn’t passed the stones yet so I carried on, up Great Birkhouse hill, from there I skirted round the south side of Fourstones hill, and there they were, to me they were in profile and looked like one stone, so I still wasn’t convinced I was there until I was right upon them.

Standing at the stone pair the view is joyous, on the nice scale it stands somewhere between very nice and I need to sit down. The reservoir is an imposition on the landscape, there would have been a river down there in the past, it’s just a lot bigger now. The way the sunlight speeds across the countryside, lighting up the distant hill sides, I sat down.

So what happened to the other two stones?
Was this a four poster? or a four stone row?
Or were the four stones the remains of a bigger circle?
Answers on a postcard to.......
The stones are quite different, the smaller one sits in it’s eternal pool and is kind of triangular and leans towards it’s partner, the taller one is a long robust pillar. From the stones about 100 meters north east is the cairn, the two are not intervisible.
I get back up and start circling the stones, after many many photos, I go for a little walk about, get some height and perspective change. I drop back down right onto the cairn, it’s quite a good one, large and stony and with a shallow scooped interior. Its time to go, with my car parked where it is I’ve spent too long here.
On the way back I follow the footpath more correctly and miss the farm out altogether passing by to its south and east by several hundred meters, I wish I’d gone this way first.

If you intend to see all of the lake districts ancient remains (A list) the two stones at Fourstones hill are a definite must see, the view will astound and the stones will confound.
But getting there is still a pain in the......

It’s been a long time coming but it’s finally happened, Tow top Kirk and me, together at last.
I’ve been waiting for a considerable while and it’s taken a sunny equinox Sunday to get my act together, but together it is, and here I am.

Parking is easy, the road has a wide flat grassy verge between it and the wall, room for a dozen cars, but today there’s just two, ones mine and the other, well lets just hope they’re not going where I am.

The footpath is on the south side of the road and leads one south west towards Cawdale beck, an interesting big stone cantilevered looking bridge crosses it. Then on the other side it’s up the high steep bank and onto the open moorland, the circle is visible from the top of the river bank, about 50 yards distant.

So, this is another of the lake districts possible henges, I saw another last year on Halloween, Dovedale Henge/settlement, it’s hard not to compare the two and all the other henges I’ve seen. The circular....ish bank isnt high, its only a few inches higher than the surrounding ground, like Dovedale there is an entrance at the west end, I could not see the entrance at the east side as it’s much more worn or the grass was too long. There’s a giants handful of small boulders inside the enclosure in its north west corner?

Apart from the west entrance this site is nothing like Dovedale henge, it’s in an unremarkable position, the bank is very low, and there’s no big stones. But I think this site has more going for it as a henge than the other. Talk of it being an old Christian enclosure I can only echo Wideford and Fitzcoraldo, Whats a christian enclosure, when have churches ever been circular, makes no sense to me.
Because it lacks the interior ditch of a henge, it had the feeling of an unfinished henge, maybe, in short I dont know what it is but because I’m a supporter of prehistory I lean somewhat automatically towards a ritual site, a Henge.

Second time at Drumskinney, slightly less underwhelmed this time. The polar opposite to Montiaghroe stone circle back down the road, its post-excavation restoration leaves you cold – well you can’t have it both ways, so put up or shut up I guess. But you could have a middle way, which seems to be occurring naturally as mother nature begins to weather the enclosure and moss starts to encroach onto the gravel and the stones begin to look less scrubbed.