Visited 15/06/2016
I am posting these field notes more as a warning to stay away rather than to encourage others to visit. The site is easy to find off the A960 and left onto Churchyard Road and park just outside the cemetery. The site has been closed for some time and the field it sits in is fenced off and the field gate double secured with rope and chain.
A quick look in all directions, over the fence, past the rotting visitors reception and discovered I could still gain access to the pit. The burial pit has deteriorated rapidly in the time it has been closed. The steps down into it are steep, wet, slime covered and slippery. The old handrail, you must go down backwards, is only secure for the first few feet, thereafter it has broken away from its mountings and dangles loosely and a fall from here to the bottom will result in certain injury. In my humble opinion the only safe way down is with a rope and someone anchoring it from the top of the pit, and not just because of the unsafe nature of the descent but because pure evil resides in this pit and as you go further into it you can feel yourself being engulfed by it, my torch was struggling to penetrate the blackness and the air thickened to the point I thought gravity had doubled in strength. I touched the bottom and could take no more and headed as quickly to the surface as safety would allow, all the while with a feeling that something was clawing at me trying to pull me back in
I stumbled into the daylight, almost jumped the fence and just drove until I recovered my composure. In my opinion something evil is down their and the cairn is closed for a good reason, I thought it was for safety, however, it is clearly for what resides down there.
The authorities should close this pit off, remove it from maps and records and agree that it is never re opened.
This was beyond doubt the most uncomfortable feeling I have experienced in my life and I never wish to again. I bitterly regret going down by myself and urge others to keep away..
Wow it sounds like you had a ghastly experience. Sounds like a proper entrance to the underworld. I see other TMA visitors found it unsettling too.
It seems a shame no-one's keeping track of the broken handrail (but I suppose if it's "shut" they don't feel they need to...).
It is a shame to hear the site is shut. It should be re-opened and made safe for people to visit. I am not a person who believes in the supernatural but I agree there is a 'something' which you feel when down the lower half of the 'pit'. I don't know if this is due to the shape, size, accoustics or whatever but you certainly do get an uneasy feeling inside - something I have never experienced at any other site I have visited - certainly not tp that degree anyway.
Hi Carl. Looked like it had been closed for quite a few years which I guess is unfortunate as it is certainly unique, however, guess it is too far off the tourist trail to afford to keep it safe. Like yourself, I do not believe in the supernatural nor would consider myself a spiritual or religious person, all I know is that in the few years I have been visiting sites I have had the strangest of experiences at Din Dryfol Anglesey and now at Minehowe. Anglesey I rationalised as freak weather conditions and Minehowe I am slowly putting together a rational explanation for my own benefit although it is difficult as I am used to wet dark confined spaces and exploring alone and therefore trying to work out how I might have 'spooked' myself when I have never done so before. All I know is that until I have worked it out for myself I wont be going back down there and regardless of anything supernatural I still urge no one to go down there solo purely on a safety basis.
What was different I wonder, CE, about the space that's different to the spaces you're used to? Acoustics? Disorientation by the spirally passage? Steepness? Temperature? Mindset when you went in? (Trows not obligatory).
Congratulations, urging me not to go, makes me want to go more, and the promise of actual evil , well that's just the icing on the cake, I'm going there right now.
I'm not, but god I wish I was.
Interesting notes, and it certainly sounds as if you had an unsettling experience. The site has been closed for at least a couple of years, and during that time I've been into Minehowe several times.
Like Costaexpress the first time I went in I did feel extremely unsettled, and the place felt most unwelcoming. But it's this sort of thing which makes me determined to investigate further, and on each subsequent visit I felt more accepted by the place, and certainly wouldn't characterise it as containing anything 'evil'. To me it seemed as if the place had an 'initiatory' type of function, and the psychological layout of the site was designed to prompt the feeling of a descent into the underworld, and deliberately be unsettling.
The handrail was coming away from the wall last time I went in (last November) and the steps can be quite slippy and are very steep, so its always required a bit of caution.
I've just come back south from Orkney this week, but am intrigued to check this place out again when I'm back in September, and will post some fieldnotes!
It's the local UKIP office .
It could be the wet stones and dripping water (when I visited). Mine Howe reminded me more of entering a cave or (no pun intended) a mine. Most burial chambers you enter (if that's what it was) are dry.
When I went into the Time Team reconstruction in the next field I didn't get the same bad 'vibes'. An interesting mystery to be sure.
Of course now that I have been back home for a week or so my field notes seem more over the top as each day passes and realise I should have allowed a little more time before writing to convince myself it was otherwise, so I am pleased it may spur postman on to visit rather than deter and looking forward to Ravenfeathers view on his next trip. Old age coming on, its a terrible curse and probably would have made me laugh out loud in the past so I have decided to revisit as soon as is practical, probably next year now, and put it to bed once and for all unless of course it turns out that it really is the UKIP central office.