It was a typical Orkney day in-so-much as the weather changed constantly and the wind was howling. Living where I do, I am used to REALLY windy weather but still found it exhilarating and was just amazed by how big the sky was. The flatness of the landscape and the ferocity of the wind was just fabulous. When we got to the stones, we were giddy with the sheer beauty of it all and ran round like a group of school children at playtime! Again, these are stones I have seen many times on TV and read about, so finally seeing them up close and personal was just amazing. I knew all about how slender some of the stones are; we have all seen pictures where they look like they are made out of balsa wood and are about to break in two, but was I was not aware of was how beautifully patterned the actual stone was. What must this have looked like when it was a complete circle, with 12 stones standing proud, instead of just the four that remain?
Vicster
I was surprised that we had to book in advance as it was hardly tourist season, but we dutifully turned up at 2.45pm and all got slightly hysterical! This was our first real site and there were 9 rather excitable amateur archaeologists just itching to get inside! The first disappointment was the “no photography” warning. Why do they do this? Is it so you will buy the guidebook at the end, so you can have pictures of the place? Grrr. It always really annoys me (having said that, the Historic Scotland “Maes Howe and the heart of Neolithic Orkney” guide book is rather good!)
Anyhoo, the 9 of us and 3 other visitors dutifully filed in and the first thing that struck me was how small it was! I have seen Maes Howe on TV many times and it always seemed so much bigger. When you see in on The Modern Antiquarian, it looks positively roomy – and Julian Cope isn’t exactly small, is he? – but once in there with 12 other people, the place seemed really compact. The guide spent a lot of time talking about the inscriptions and less time about how and why it was built but it was generally an interesting visit. There was some discussion as to whether the internal stones had been part of a stone circle- or possible 4 Poster – and the burial mound built around it at some later date, which was thought-provoking and set us amateur archaeos off on one of our rambling debates (more of which to come later!).
Maes Howe is spectacular and interesting and worthy of more than a 20 minute tour – I just really wish they would let you have some time in these places to really get a feel for them. Lord only knows what it is like in high season when the tourist coaches are pulling in, one after the other but at least we had a fairly small group and no one else queuing to get in behind us.
Bedtime at Skara Brae! They have built a pretty good reconstruction of the one of the houses (complete with roof and walls) which gives visitors the chance to get inside and see things close up. Not quite the real thing but as close as you can get, these days.
Sept 2009
The circle as seen from the Comet Stone – it’s a bugger to photogragh this mind-blowing site!
Unique Bronze Age cist burial uncovered in Perthshire
My friend Vicky was one of the lucky b*ggers who was there on the day this was uncovered. If you are in the area on 16th August, there is an open day – go and have a look and make me feel even more envious! It sounds absolutely magnificent.
Evidence of Bronze Age field systems can still be seen on this moor, although it took the trained eye of an archaeologist to point them out to me! Together with the cairns, circle and various tumuli this whole place makes for an interesting visit.
Visited yesterday with archaeolgoy tutor who confirmed that this is indeed a later addition and not prehistoric. A nice touch though!
On the other side of the wall, the centre of the cairn is obvious but the stones have gone. Very odd.
The last remaining stone on “this” side is built into the wall which dissects the carin
Any ideas?
In the field adjacent to the Copt Howe rock art
June 2009
Whether these are natural or man-made is up for debate but they seem so symmetrical and are in such close proximity to the rock art on the large boulder in the adjacent field, that I would like to think there is more to them......
It’s been about 18 months since we last visited and rather stupidly, we went up last week, during the Easter holidays. I am not sure but I think this is the only stone circle I can think of that has an ice-cream van parked by it! It was heaving, as usual, which I was prepared for and once again I was infuriated by the folk who were climbing all over the stones.
Mark asked a group to show a bit of respect, as 2 teenagers kept climbing on the stones, shouting at their parents to take pictures of them (“this one will look great on Facebook” said mum!!)
I do appreciate that not everyone feels the same way about these places but it does bother me that they will climb all over the stones, with no regard to the damage they may be doing. Ah well, best just stick to the more remote places, then I won’t get wound up!
Visited in June 2006 and the weather was fantastically hot. We parked up and spent a good 30 minutes at the site before spotting a pair of eagles circling overhead! I think I may have been suffering from a combination of Hebridean heat stroke and prehistoric over-load because I really couldn’t take this site in....it was just too confusing at the time. Absolutely spectacular though.
The museum has a display about Portfield Camp, including some info about it’s pre Iron-Age occupation. Artefacts are on display.
Visisted May 2008.
White Cairn lies close to the A826, south of Aberfeldy. The whole of this landscape is littered with archaeology from across the ages, including hut circles, field sysytems and Pitcarmick type houses.
The cairn was excavated in the 1950s and was once surrounded by “a circle of free standing boulders set at irregualr intervals”. Fragments of Beaker pottery were found in the cist.
Today it is a jumble of stones, the cist fallen in on itself but still cleary defined. Some beautiful pieces of quartz stone lie scattered around the site. It is believed the cairn originally measured approx 60 in diameter. The landscape is bleak and unforgicving and all the more intriguing, considering this place had been inhabited and farmed for thousands of years.
Known locally as the Scurriestone, it is believed to be the site which formerly marked the point where the road diverges to the ford of the Dee and the ford of the Muick – scairth a ford.
Came across this beaut as we were leaving Ballater on the long journey back home. We had tried to walk here the day before but had been deterred by the boy racers who were speeding around the country lanes (and the thought of a pint of cider!) so made sure we drove this way.
As we pulled up on the side of the road, another car arrived and 2 rather gleeful people leapt out and started taking pictures too. We had to head off so didn’t have time to talk to them but I think they were possibly Dutch, so if you are reading this, sorry for being rude but we had a long drive ahead of us!!!
Anyway, this was just lovely, even though we didn’t have the time to get up close and personal with the stone, it was such a lush and verdant setting and made for a perfect last site before heading back south.
This place blew me away (how many time have I said that in the past? This time I really mean it!). I had wanted to visit for years but everytime we planned a Welsh trip, we ended up changing our minds and heading to Scotland instead. So, I finally found myself here, almost by accident, having cut short a weekend/Hallowe’en trip to Chester. We arrived on the last day it was open for the season – it was quiet and almost deserted but the staff were more than happy to talk to us at length about the excavations and history of the site.
We had a nosey round the finds in the little “interactive” room before getting our hard-hats on and setting off into the mines. I was completely gob-smacked by the enormity of it all – each “corrider” we walked down had been mined out by hand (and bone) thousands of years ago, it is just mind-boggling. I am so used to seeing ancient monuments which have been built, mainly for reasons we can not begin to explain but here was real industry; a glimpse into the daily lives of our ancestors. Bloody incredible.
We had ended up at the Great Orme unprepared; having spent the previous day in Chester and being horrified by its “Boozed Up Britain” feel on a Friday evening, headed off to N Wales to escape the drunken hordes. We didn’t have our usual array of OS maps, walking boots and waterproofs and only had a couple of hours to spend, so couldn’t do any real stoning, so this was an unexpected delight!
Having been blown away by the copper mines, we were then let through a gate and pointed in the right direction of this broken but beautiful site; all glimmering white stones under blue skies(and 2 donkeys for company!) it was just lovely.
You get to rummage in the “finds” room before heading out – hurrah!
What an absolute beaut! After a lovely, cool walk through the woods, we came across this cracking little circle and were more than pleased we decided to come – the heat of the day was starting to get to us and all we had really wanted to do was head back to Ballater and have a pint of cider!
We had struggled to see how we could get here at first, missing the turning twice – we hadn’t realised that we needed to park by the cemetary and then walk. We obviously need to go on a map-reading course!
We sat in the dappled sunlight and just drank it all in. This tiny circle is made of up of improbably large stones and we spent a good hour just pottering around, enjoying the peace and solitude of this site. This is the most perfect spot and is the most perfect, small circle.
I am 5ft nowt and Vicky wanted to use me “for scale” – these RSCs are just HUGE!!
Our first site of the trip and we were not disappointed.
Vicky used for scale – just before the herd of attack cattle chased us out of the field!!
We were staying in Insch for the night, so after a long drive up from Lancashire, stopping en-route to pick Vicky up in Glasgow, we finally saw Dunnideer around 7pm.
As we drove by this most beautiful of sites, a herd of red deer came running down the hill, following a huge stag. We pulled the car over and just watched, amazed by it all. There was just the railway track between us and them. The stag looked across at us, sniffed majestically into the wind and set off again, followed by the hinds. The most Scottish of moments I have ever witnessed!!
The B&B was pretty ropey but the setting was amazing – our room had a wee bench and table outside and we sat and watched the sunset and dusk fall over the hill. It was still light enough to read our maps at 11pm, with a bottle of wine and some bread and cheese to finish it off – just perfect.....
