I spotted this cairn from the road last time I was up this way a month or two ago, it wasn't on the map so I wasn't too sure if it was what it looked like or if it was wishful thinking seeing cairns where there are none. But upon returning home I found it on the 1,25000 map and it was on the Portal, so it was added to the list, top priority.
Handily there is a small parking place for one just right where you'll jump the fence, if your that way inclined. I very much am so it took no more than ten minutes from car to cairn.
Upon reaching the top of the hill I came across a weird stone construction before I got to the star of the day. It was a dimple in the ground with low stone walling on one edge, I took it to be some old mine working place wotsit. Cows were conducting a standing sit in upon the cairn so I give it a wide birth to begin with, checking out what can be seen from the cairn, I was not much surprised to find good views of the three principal hills in the valley, High Wheeldon, Parkhouse and Chrome hills.
I wondered why the cairn was not on the top of the hill, so I walked up to it, just to see if there was anything there already, like another cairn, but there was only a low tumbled wall. But from up the top of the hill I could see that the view, the hills seen from the cairn could be seen from the hill top as well. I think they put the cairn at the bottom of the ridge, but at the top of the steep part just to bring the position of the cairn closer to the hills and the valley running through below them, as if they just wanted to be together, to be part of the collective, "were with them".
The cairn itself is possibly the biggest cairn in the area. It is wide, about six feet high, and has a low linear spread of loose stone right across it, north to south crossing the center.
peppered around the cairn are half a dozen badger holes, I say badger only because of the size of the holes, I could have crawled into one or two of them. A big tree has grown up on its eastern edge, aiding in pinpointing the cairn from anywhere and giving shelter from rain or a hot sun.
This cairn, Hatch-a-way cairn and the peak of Parkhouse hill are in quite a good alignment.
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Posted by postman
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