The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Oddendale

Stone Circle

Fieldnotes

Sunday 29 June 2003
We parked atthe bottom of the hill where the road turns left into a tree-surrounded farm.

Following the path south up onto the moor, there’s a nice bit of particularly ‘old-looking’ (if you see it you’ll know what I mean) limestone pavement off to the right.

Walk past this and still looking right, you’ll very quickly see various lumps of rock, including 2 ‘erratics’ that are noticeably bigger than anything else. Wait until these 2 biggest stones line up with each other and strike off the path towards them.

Walk straight past the erratics, perhaps a couple of hundred yards keeping in as straight a line as you can. This should lead you to a point where you can’t miss the Oddendale circle, if not to the circle itself!

And we’re back in Gunnerkeld territory – a double circle, but this time under a really, really HUGE sky!!!! On such a sunny clear breezy day it really was like standing on the roof of England!!!

Burl’s description of Oddendale calls it (and by implication, Gunnerkeld) a ‘composite ring’ and likens it to some on Dartmoor that I don’t think I’m familiar with. His description makes it sound almost like it was originally like a ‘mini-Clava Cairn or something….

The actual stones here are generally fairly small – smaller than Gunnerkeld, anyway I think. Otherwise, again Fitzcoraldo’s said it all! A beautiful place, though pretty inhospitable in bad weather and boggy a lot of the time, I suspect. Liked it a lot.
Moth Posted by Moth
2nd July 2003ce
Edited 15th July 2003ce

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