Jane

Deceptively small as you approach, you catch a glimpse of it through the trees at the top of the hill. As you scamble down the slope into the intimacy of the tiny valley below you become aware of the sound of the babbling of a brook just behind it, and the dolmen seems to enlarge in front of your very eyes!

And suddenly it becomes massive, significant and overwhelming. The capstone is vast and completely flat on its underside and front aspect. Some of the support stones have been stepped in order for the angle of the capstone to be just-so. And its deep too. the chamber at least two feet below the level of the ground surrounding. We sat, and looked and looked. I drew, and despite the cold and I couldn’t resist painting the beast directly. It took ages for the paint to dry, but the result was worth it.

Feelings? You know that little tingle of excitement...

Ah! This really is the dolmen of my dreams – and HUGE thanks to the delightful Four Winds for taking me there.

For the two weeks I have had off work, I waited for a decent day’s weather to visit this place. At last it came. Treaclechops and myself had this extensive place to ourselves, the weak winter sunshine low on the horizon creating sculptural shadows on the barrows and revealing the final traces of other ploughed-over barrows in nearby fields. It was too cold to paint, so I fired off a couple of pencil sketches (difficult in thermal gloves). This was one helluva necropolis at one time, and I guess it still is. After all the shite and dutiful detritus of the ‘festive season’, what I needed was peace. I found it here.

A glorious late afternoon in August – golden light bathing all it touches forming long shadows and a quick trip with my kids (before we go home and light the BBQ) to the tiny but perfectly formed hamlet of Taston on the edge of the Oxfordshire Cotwolds. Perfect! except that this afternoon the nation learned that two missing Cambridgeshire girls, Holly and Jessica, had been murdered and were never coming home. It felt all the more important to be with my children and go to someplace old.

The 7 foot tall Thorstone stands idly against a garden wall in the middle of Taston, leaning nonchalently as if waiting for a rural bus service that was discontinued years before. Of the same limestone as the Hawk Stone and the Rollrights, this is yet more evidence of the scale and importance of the north Oxfordshire landscape as a megalithic centre. But why here in Taston?

The water source maybe? An enchanting spring at the other end of the village bubbles up and out via a Victorian gothic memorial fountain, hidden away under a canopy of yews and beech trees, creating a delightful shady pond before it tumbles away to form a stream. My son was thrilled to be able to paddle and catch tiny shrimps. We admired the liverworts growing in the water as is tumbles over the lip of the fountain, and put our heads down to taste the cold, cold, pure water flowing straight up from the earth.

The Thorstone stands opposite an old cross on the tiny village green. If you can find Taston (between Charlbury, Enstone and Chipping Norton), you’ll find the stone. See ‘folklore’ for more about the cross and the name.

This place feels like the beginning and the end and the middle all at once.

Me and the little millstones stood atop the highest barrow and tried to count all the sacred sites we could see. I reckoned maybe 9, but Rupie said deifinitely12. And Cleo said 11.

From here it’s easy to see the line of East Kennett Longbarrow with its camoflage clothing of trees.

On Midsummer’s Day, whilst Avebury heaved, Treaclechops and I walked up here to Fyfield Down and had this landscape to ourselves. (Apart from hares, weasels, buzzards, kestrels, a small deer, a stonechat, some wagtails and countless other feathered friends.)

Stones litter the landscape. Sit a while and take it in. There’s so much to enjoy.

Welcome to the highest point in Oxfordshire at 801 feet above sea level – what an image to have carved on the roof of the county!

Being a local site for me, I have visited here often. But I visited here in early June with a bunch of friends who had NOT seen it before, (two of whom I was trying to ‘introduce’ to each other :-) By some simple twist of fate, although we had come up to see the King’s Men, there was a private handfasting going on in the circle, so we drifted down to the Whispering knights to check it out. The corn was high and rain threatened but to see the wedding going on in the distance made the Whispering Knights seem like an acceptable distance to stand without intruding.

This must have been a mighty, mighty place at one time – if this ever had a capstone, I can hardly begin to imagine how big it must have been.

By the way, the two who were ‘introduced’ are now seeing each other.... a magic place indeed.

Very beautiful, even if the light was a white out with bugger all contrast and the circle was full of picknickers. Fortunately the bracken was high enough to pee in, so I could wait until they’d moved on to have the place to ourselves.

What a view! Whichever wise person decided to erect the stones here also understood the beauty in front of her eyes. Bet they didn’t have to put up with a bunch of squawking peacocks though....

My advice? Strangled the peacocks, lie back in the grass, let the vibe of stones speak to your soul and watch the everchanging Morecambe Bay entertain you.

Well, well, how this place haunts the soul.

A trip down to the Marlborough Downs in May with the sprogs was specifically to visit some of the stuff outlying Avebury. After a significant detour (which had my 8 year old son whinging for England) my 12 year daughter spotted it way off in the distance in the hidden valley below the ridge which we were straining to climb. Retracing our steps, we finally reached it and were surprised at how big it was. WE stayed for some time, the little lad enjoying making ‘mini-Devil’s Dens’ from rocks lying around.

Less than 5 weeks later, on 21 June, me and the very talented Treaclechops bowl up at the place and chill out there for a while. After the hurly burly of a midsummer day’s Avebury, we had the place COMPLETELY to ourselves. Which was nice.

She is badly broken, like a once much loved lost doll, but no less charming for that.

Un-bloody-believeable! I had already jumped out of the car before it stopped moving I was so excited! (Ummm, someone else was driving...) The stones, the scale, the vibe, the strange angle on the hillside, the feeling of somehow ‘coming home’. But I felt a great rush of disloyalty to my favourite ‘local’ sites of the Rollrights and Wayland Smithy as Long Meg, and more to the point, her daughters instantly captured my heart. It looked liked someone else’s heart had been recently captured there too, as we found a pair of knickers at the base of one of the stones...

We felt a very strong sense of enclosure at this site, as if instead of looking inwards, as many stone circles appear to, this site looked outwards, safeguarding the interior sacred space, and as if Long Meg herself was supervising the circle’s activities like a sentinel, protecting the spirit within.

Because of it’s vastness, I found it incredibly difficult to paint, however, I did manage one sketch.

Cracking! I first visited way back in 1982, when I hitch-hiked ‘oop naarth’ with a friend and a tent and no money, and spent a whole day getting off on the place. (People don’t hitch hike anymore do they? Weird.) I remembered it as a solitary place, bleak and empty and yet charming. But last Saturday it was one bloody visitor after another, which pissed off my friend, Treaclechops, who is a photographer and was desperately trying to get a shot without people in, just as the light lifted.. She’d taken one in 1995 which I think is the finest photograph of the place I have ever seen, even better than all the wonderful shots already posted on this page. Upload your photo, Treaclechops!! I was trying to compare it in size to the Rollrights, but was entire unable to get a handle on the scale of it because of the sense of the amphitheatre in which she sits. The many people, including a bunch of overly-loud Spaniards, didn’t bother me as I sat on the damp grass sketching out my painting; I simply didn’t paint them in. Great groves of foxgloves added a touch of purple and the rolling green of Castlerigg’s stage completed the picture. Then it was off to Long Meg....

A quite splendid, undulating site, showing off her graceful curvaceousness in the warm spring sunshine. What a joy to sit on top and feel the breeze in your hair and hear the skylarks sing! We crawled in on hands and knees over a carpet of dry beech leaves and after allowing our eyes to accommodate to the low light were delighted to find chambers in which one could almost stand. Thankfully no slugs (as mentioned in a previous post on this page!) This is an absolute beauty and I made a number of watercolour sketches of her.

I guess Nympsfield long barrow, just one mile to the north, would have been like this at one time, though now it is rudely torn open and crawling with picnickers. Shame.

I lived in Stanton Harcourt between 1993 and 1997 and now live in the next village (Eynsham) and although I knew the Quoits were there, I never saw them until October 2002 where I was treated to acarefully re-constructed building site.

It’ll be great when they are re-erected and reopened for public scrutiny, however, one Stanton Harcourt resident reported to me that there may be some opposition from certain (small minded!) villagers as they fear that displaying them again might attract ‘undesirable-types’ to the village.

Sitting alone, silently, gracefully, in splendid isolation at the top of a field, its a miracle this one wasn’t pulled down and ploughed up centuries ago. But she wasn’t.

What a grand place this will be to return to in the summer for a picnic with a loved one. Big skies, tall grass, great open sort of vibes off this. Tricky finding it. You need a map. She is marked, just as Julian says, but there’s no signposts and you can’t really see her from the bottom of the field. Have faith and keep walking. This peaceful and stately treasure is just waiting to be discovered.

WOW! What a great place to find, tucked away just off the A44 at Enstone. (Coming up from Oxford, just turn left after the ugly garage as you hit Enstone, towards Spelsbury and it’s on the corner of the next crossroads – about 100 ms off the main A44)

This is a HUGE monumental beastie – quite hard to photograph as it’s tucked away amongst some trees and is very, very big.

A very masculine place but comforting, too, like being swept up into the arms of a strong man. Some real swirls of magic coming off it. Sit on the broken stones nearby and take in that mossy green vibe. It’s dank, it’s dark, it’s brooding and big. You’ll love it.

Avebury, Silbury and West Kennet : AN AERIAL VIEW, 25 Nov 2001:

Am I the luckiest girl alive? A wonderful now-ex-colleague who only recently got his private pilot’s licence asked me if I’d like to go flying with him one afternoon and where would I like to go? Ummm, Avebury, perhaps!?

We took off in a tiny Grummond(?) Tiger from Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire and flew for 20 minutes west. From 2000 feet Jim navigated us towards Marlborough, a splendid town, and I navigated us by eye from hereon, following the road west, pointing out the unmistakable hump of Silbury which utterly dominates the landscape, even from 2000 feet. We flew towards it, then Jim sought permission for us to drop to 1000 feet to circle Avebury, which was granted and we banked sharply round to the right following the line of the avenue. Jim opened the hatch so I could take some photos. And although it was freezing and my hair blew around like a mad woman... What a buzz! My God! I hardly knew where to look – to see the village so familiar to me swirl around below, those gorgeous and huge beech trees, even from 1000 feet looking as impressive as they do on the ground, and the fantastic achievements of the builders of Avebury; the ditches; the banks; the rhythm of the stones; the low winter sunshine filtering over the undulating land..... To have witnessed this most sacred of places from the viewpoint of an soaring eagle is a priviledge I can hardly express. Thank you SO MUCH, Captain Mc, my mind has been blown.

Yes, I am the luckiest girl alive!

Belas Knap, 1 Dec 2001: A deeply impressive site and gratifyingly well signposted on the lane that leads from Charlton Abbots to Winchcombe. You can park by the sign, (don’t forget to briefly admire Sudeley Castle) and walk up the sunken path from there following the Cotswold Way. And what a hike uphill! Just when you think “it’s gotta be there soon!“, it is, looming out of the trees. Oh, and by the way, if you’re going up there in the winter, or in the damp, wear grippy waterproof shoes/boots!

Climbing to the top of the mound the views are impressive – it’s no wonder that the builders of the Knap chose this place. It certainly seems to be the highest, most strategically important point hereabouts. We got there at 3pm, the sun sinking low in the sky, casting deep, sculptural shadows over the smooth, curvacious surface of the longbarrow. The wind was biting on the top, though and so we retreated into the cosiness of North West chamber with a flask of tea. Had it been dry I would have crawled into the low chamber on the other side.

I struggled to find a place from which to photgraph her. I took some shots, (I’ll upload shortly) but she is so big, and the site so small you can’t get back far enough. JC was right to illustrate it with an aerial shot.

I was very happy to see that the site is so well cared for – neat drystonewalling shoring up the edges. But it almost felt too new, too cosmetic in a strange way. There was no sense of discovery, like when one “stumbles” across Wayland’s Smithy for example, so secretly hidden among the trees besides the Ridgeway. Nevertheless, there is such a delicious feminine vibe given off by Belas Knap. You really do feel that those who were buried here were returning to Mother Earth, from where they came. Looking forward to returning when it’s less cold and I can hear the breeze rustle the corn in the neighbouring field.

Anyone know who was Belas?