Tullybrick Wedge Tomb View all content for Tullybrick

You could almost get bogged down in Beaghmore, 8 kilometres south-west of here – but you couldn’t really because it’s been reclaimed from the bog. I metaphorically did, in the swamp of the mind that stopped me in my tracks as I toured backwards, writing forwards four months ago. From the circles we crossed the Tyrone/Derry border heading east and north-east through Davagh forest, emerging into heathland and then down into the Moyola River valley. A road leads south-east up out of The Six Towns, wooded for a while then opening out into more patchy, reclaimed terrain. After a kilometre and a half there’s an east-leading concreted track, halfway along which is our target. We could see the tomb from this track and, after parking in a lay-by, headed north across two empty pasturage fields before reaching the unreclaimed bog. A short hop, skip and jump or so and there it is. Set within quite an amount of cairn is a small, classic, south-west/north-east aligned wedge tomb. We approached from the east where a large, broken roofstone covers the rear of the tomb – the backstone on which it probably once also rested is now missing. This roofstone is the most prominent feature of the remains, with some southern kerbing and some of the facade at the south-west also fairly visible. The ante-chamber and chamber combined are about 5 metres long and pretty much filled in except under the roofstone. Again there is much reclamation work in the area. Blanket bog seems to just get stripped away and, unlike in the vast midlands peat-works, doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other than to get down to the old ground which is then used for grazing. So far Tullybrick has survived these depredations, unlike some of the archaeological remains one-and-a-half kilometres south-west in Ballybriest.

Posted by ryaner 19th December 2021ce

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