I love going to ancient sites and experiencing what happens when I get there (if I get there). Sometimes as with Castle Rigg, I am left underwhelmed and thinking it probably wasn’t the right time to visit; on the flipside, my visit to Upper Lagmore came exactly at the right and put me in a good mood for 2025. Then there’s a place like Avebury that just gets better on every visit!
Whilst poking around at Lagmore East, I spied Upper Lagmore up the hill and worked out a possible route. I ended up walking back past my car parked in the golf club / distillery car park, up a small track over the burn and then going down the minor road looking for a way over the barbed wire fence. I hopped it down at the field corner by the A road then zigzagged up the hill.
When I got to the site, I felt watched and was quite confused trying to work out what exactly I was looking at, thinking it must have been a place that had been used and re-used. Then the clouds cleared and wow! a rainbow came out. I wandered from stone to stone, appreciating its location in the landscape. The surrounding hills are beautiful and you can’t see the river but you know it’s near. Plus there’s a great view down to East Lagmore – I imagined (without evidence) that there was probably another stone circle somewhere previously, perhaps up the hill where now a derelict farmhouse stands, or perhaps past East Lagmore at the hunting lodge.
An amazing place!