Jane

We met the young and lovely Spaceship Mark in bright sunshine at the main car park by the Kermario alignments. His pockets were bulging with detailed maps and a much-loved copy of Burl’s ‘Megalithic Brittany’. Mark was living and working in a campsite literally just opposite the alignments. Now that would be a great place to have your hols!

The alignments are particularly complete here and consist of some really big, tall stones. We stopped to admire them and to see the Lann Mané dolmen which lies just next to them close to the road.

The alignments are not open for visitors to walk amongst during the summer months so we couldn’t actually get in. This didn’t spoil my enjoyment at all; a clear view unsullied by visitors was good enough for me.

It is IMPOSSIBLE not to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale and obsession of menhir erection here. It’s truly astonishing!

We thought we’d have a go and look for some monuments we’d spotted on the map at Belz, a seaside village a few kilometers away. We had only a not very detailed map and my megalithic radar to guide us. We subsequently discovered these don’t even feature in Burl’s ‘Megalithic Brittany’, so we were pleased to have found two of the three marked on the map.

Urban dolmens! I love ‘em. Forgotten but not gone, these dolmen at Belz (east) were actually two burial chambers.

Only one still has capstones up, the other, directly next to it, just has a few uprights left marking the line of the chamber. It is situated on high ground overlooking the sea on a village greeny area.

Survivors!!

We thought we’d have a go and look for some monuments we’d spotted on the map at Belz, a seaside village a few kilometres away. We had only a not-very-detailed map and my megalithic radar to guide us. We subsequently discovered these don’t even feature in Burl’s ‘Megalithic Brittany’, so we were pleased to have found two of the three marked on the map.

Driving around a bit around the village a bit, we located this Belz dolmen (west) up to its knees in soaking wet buttercups on a patch of land occupying an entire building plot among the houses.

Around the village of Erdeven are tons of goodies. Call me undedicated if you like, but the combination of the weather being so horrible, the lack of time for painting opportunities and the prospect of a very wet 2km walk to see more stuff, didn’t appeal. Moth, being a completist wasn’t going to miss a thing, so he set off from the car park at Erdeven and began his walk to take in the Kerjean alignments, Kerherzo alignments, Mane Braz dolmens, Coet er bein and La Chaisse de Cesar. I stayed in car, driving it up to a place to get a good view of the Kerherzo alignments.

I lit a fag, got out a flask of tea and my sketchbook and while munching on a pain au chocolat, made a little study.

Just about 500ms away from Crucuno quadrilateral up among some trees is Mane Groh dolmen – a lovely allee couverte with four transepted chambers and lots of capstones still up. A little stone cist, not unlike a water trough for horses, stands very close by.

The rectangle is a mystery to me. Like the rectangle at Manio, which we saw the day before, this is something that I couldn’t get my head around. Stone CIRCLES make more sense to me, partly cos I’ve seen tons of ‘em, so to see an alternative shape is very peculiar. The stones are large here (average of five or six feet high, I’d say) and the corners very precise. Recently cleared of its gorsey undergrowth I paced round it, trying to make sense of the lines and the corners and failing.

If you have copy of The Megalithic European and turn to pages 320 and 321, you’ll see a double page spread on a site called Torre Llisa Vell. Don’t be misled! What Julian is actually describing in this spread is the nearby So Na Caçana. So get yourself a pen, and retitle the page now!

In fact, the ‘real’ Torre Llisa Vell isn’t included in TME. Which is a shame, as it’s an all-singing, all-dancing taula sanctuary with talaiot. It is just a couple of fields away from So Na Caçana.

To find it, continue up the road from So Na Caçana towards Alaoir for about 1km at the most, until you reach a minor crossroads. Turn left here and drive 300ms until you see a gate on the left to a farm called Torre Llisa Vell. Walk down this lane for 100ms and ask the friendly old man at the farmhouse on the right for permission and directions. He doesn’t speak English, but Moth got the gist.

By now you will have already sussed that the great tree-covered lump on your left is an overgrown talaoit and if you look carefully, you’ll see the crest of what looks like a naveta beneath it on the northern side. Walk about 10 ms past the farmhouse and then turn left. After only a few metres the track enters an open field, but to the left is another short track only a few metres long. At the end and you’ll see a gate and a break in the on the right. Go up towards the gate and through the break in the wall. Can’t you already smell it? Walk 25 metres through long grass and a few trees until to th left, you see a huge wall with an archway. You’ll find the taula through that archway.

The wall enclosing the taula sanctuary is very complete indeed – I have no idea if it has been restored or not, it certainly didn’t look like it to me. It conforms to the standard ground plan of a horseshoe-shaped area with a slightly concave front entrance wall. In the case of Torre Llisa Vell the entrance is a beautiful corbelled arch through the wall which is an amazing 4ms thick. True!

Given that the entire sanctuary measures only – what? – 12ms in total, these walls seem totally out of proportion. They are also maybe 3ms high, so whatever went on within the sanctuary was not for general viewing. I also noted that the entrance passageway through the wall wouldn’t have allowed the entry of a fully grown bull.

At least not a modern bull. P’raps they were smaller then, or they only sacrificed calves?

The T itself is a chunky beast and completely dominates the internal space. The stone forming the top of the T being thicker, heavier and wider in proportion with the vertical stone than at any other taula we saw.

From the top of the wall, you could see the poblat of So Na Caçana lying directly south, just about 400-500ms away.

This is a truly resplendent monument! We were both completely blown away and so sorry that Julian missed it.

Very close to our villa in Calan Porter was the poblat of So Na Caçana. Julian incorrectly calls it Torre Llisa Vell, which, to be fair is nearby. So go to pages 320 and 321 in your copy of TME, cross out the title and replace with So Na Caçana. Here, beneath the gargantuan talaiot lie not one but two taula sanctuaries.

Sadly both Ts are wrecked but there is still plenty to admire: the tall pillars surrounding the sacred spaces and the niches in the walls. I wondered what magical objects were once placed in these – skulls or horns, jars of oil or bull’s blood, perhaps?

Torre Blanca, also known as Sa Torreta de Tramuntana, is an unusual monument as it lies in the northern half of the island, above Mahon towards Es Grau. It lies on an outcrop of limestone at the point where the geology seems to change to something more slate-like.

We’d see it on a couple of basic maps and thought we’d have a crack at finding it, despite having absurdly inadequate directions, having the kids with us, it being midday and very hot, and haing to go a long way from our favourite beach….

Our initial attempt took us up to the Favortx lighthouse in the national park, too far north. Our second attempt was more successful. Follow the main road north for about 5.3 kms after the roundabout leaving the Mahon ringroad. Then turn right by a small white building with orange painted detail and then immediately fork right. This leads us down a long narrow lane which eventually turns sharp right. Here a gate finally barred us from going any further. Privado. We parked, knowing we were close. Moth went stomping off for a look around.

A car pulled up. A man opened the gate and drove through. As he closed it I asked ‘Torre Blanca?’ He replied in Spanish which I didn’t understand. He pointed and twiddled his fingers implying that we walk in the direction he was pointing. ‘Gracias.’ Not having a clue how far, we set off into the midday heat. Moth caught up having also asked the man for directions. After a pleasantly warm walk perhaps 1-1.5kms uphill we reached the farm, vaulted over the gate and asked a farm labourer who pointed behind the barn. Suddenly it was there. What a result!!!

From the top of the talaiot the views stretch over the tiny fields towards a bay and down the coast as far as Mahon, rocky land tumbling into the sea. Magic.

And the taula! Wooo! Great taula! Dinky and entirely self supporting, thanks to the vertical ridge at the back as at Torralba, it has that cheese-like colouring on the front I so admired at Trepuco. We liked it here muchos.

El Toro is Menorca’s sacred mountain and can be seen lurking or dominating the horizon from almost every point on the island of Menorca. It is the highest mountain on the island, measuring 358ms above sea level. Certainly we could see it from just about every talaiot tower we visited. It had to be visited. Everyone traveller to Menorca should see it, and probably does.

Bristling with ugly communications towers, it is now inhabited by nuns who run a convent up there with café and tat-shop because somebody once had a vision of the Holy Virgin up there. Frankly, I’m not surprised. Imagine climbing that after no breakfast and little water in the midday heat. Reckon I’d start seeing things, too! Thankfully visitors can now drive to the summit in air conditioned vehicles to enjoy the astonishing views of a beautiful and largely sparsely populated island.

My children tittered with glee as I read out the inscription beneath an 18th century statue of a local monk who was ‘interred beneath the altar in the church’. “In holy shit, perhaps?” Cleo mused. (Interred/in turd… geddit?)

The lane between Alaoir and Cala’n Porter where we were staying was a tortuous one we had to travel many, many times... There’re some great sites down here though. Torralba d’en Salort (see pages 316 to 318 of TME) lay at the top of this lane and having seen the top of the taula sticking up already I was itching to see the place.

All the regular poblat features here: caves, talaiot, cisterns, houses and also a wonderful quarry area.

The place was crawling with caterpillars though so I had to move with extreme caution. Cleo and Rupes liked this one as there were tons to explore and had informative signs to help them understand what they were seeing. As ever, the main attraction for me was the taula itself.

To aid stability, this taula has a ridge carved up the back and is thicker than Trepuco’s wafer thin cheese slice. I chose a caterpillar-free area to sit in and made a sketch.

Torrellonet (see page 322 of TME) is one of many talaiot towers on Menorca. They occupy positions of height or view and almost everywhere you look on Menorca, you can see one of these on the horizon.

Torrellonet is a really nice example of a talaiot as it is still tall with intact walls, is uncovered by vegetation, is easy to climb and has great views of the runway, so you can watch the aircraft coming and going. Fab. Ancient and modern engineering simultaneously.

From here we could see Talati de Dalt talaiot and others rising through the trees as well as the remains of a prehistoric house two field away.

There are two navetas at Rafal Rubi.

Both are in magnificent condition and have huge cool chambers with whopping great slabs in the ceiling.

Time to tackle some navetas. Structures less like boats, after which they are named, I cannot imagine. ‘Pyramids’ is what Rupert called them. I like that, because they are burial chambers, stand above ground level, slope inwards like pyramids and are made of large dressed blocks.

There are four close together just off the main road, all signposted and dead easy to find. (see page 307, 308 and 309 of TME).

Naveta de Biniac Argentina Occidental is a bit trashed, the roof has gone and its chamber is open. Still well worth a look.

Time to tackle some navetas. Structures less like boats, after which they are named, I cannot imagine. ‘Pyramids’ is what Rupert called them. I like that, because they are burial chambers, stand above ground level, slope inwards like pyramids and are made of large dressed blocks.

There are four close together just off the main road, all signposted and dead easy to find. (see page 307, 308 and 309 of TME).

Naveta de Biniac Argentina Oriental is reather trashed but has some really lovely steps built into the side of it which are well worth checking out.

Naveta d’es Tudons (see pages 304 and 305 of TME) is just off the main road at the western end of the island and judging by the huge car park with spaces for buses, frequently visited by coach parties.

Fortunately, we had it pretty much to ourselves. ‘Naveta’ means ‘boat’ and some archaeologist has interpreted the large burial chambers on the island as boat-shaped and given them this name. I can’t see it myself. They are more burial chamber-shaped to my mind. Anyway, Es Tudons has been restored according to this boat theory so you have to visit this one with a pinch of salt.

It is an impressive pyramidal type structure and beautifully cool inside its double-decker chamber. We liked it a lot, despite it being a bit overly restored.

Talati de Dalt is a gorgeous poblat quite close to the airport with loads of stuff to see – all the usual poblat features: caves, talaiot, cisterns, houses, etc. The houses here were really excellent with lots of rock cut details. This time, VERY Skara Brae. We climbed the talaiot and watched the planes come and go.

It was alive with birds here too; tons of finches, swifts, swallows and hoopoes. I found this site very, very peaceful, and sat and made a study of the taula which has its very own flying buttress.

After a busy day snorkelling at Binidali beach we took an early evening excursion out to see Trepuco (see pages 326 and 327 of TME) poblat on the southern outskirts of Mahón, Menorca’s capital where mayonnaise may have been invented in 1756 to commemorate a victory over the English who were holding a castle in Mahón – hence ‘mahonnaise’.... I digress.

The site at Trepuco is dominated by two gargantuan monuments – the mammoth talaiot tower and most sublime taula sanctuary. The talaiot was probably the biggest I saw on the island, about 8 metres tall and at least 12 metres in diameter, possibly more. I was a bit spooked when Moth started climbing it, but he took it slowly and was rewarded with great views. But the taula captivated me completely.

Glowing yellow in the evening sunlight and thin like rice paper, the great stone is carved on the front as if Canadian cheddar cut with a serrated knife. On top of this impossibly thin slab of something you’d put in yer butty, a bloody great grey horned block is somehow held aloft. I was in awe.

I should also mention the setting of this ancient cheesy wonder as it follows an approximate pattern of most taula sanctuaries.

The T stone usually stands roughly centrally in a horseshoe-shaped enclosed wall, built using giant stones. Many of these are tall pillars which appear to mark out chambers or spaces. The front, or approach end, always the only way in, is usually a very shallow concave forecourt with a clear entry point. Whatever happened in these ritual places, they were not public affairs. The space is intimate and the walls originally too tall to see over. These taula sanctuaries usually stand within just a few metres of a talaiot. And from the top of most talaiots you can see El Toro, Menorca’s centrally-placed sacred hill (now hijacked by Jesus, his mum and some nuns.)

All this is the case at Trepuco. We stayed here for some time so I could make some studies. It was sublime.

Not far from Naveta d’es Tudons is the poblat of Torre Trencada (see pages 323, 324 and 325 of TME) which was the first Menorcan prehistoric talaiotic settlement I had seen and my first taula. (We were to see many more!)

At Torre Trencada, as at most other bronze age poblats, you get your usual shopping list of:
- a talaiot (tower) or two which dominates the site, rather like a watchtower or uninhabitable broch
- some wrecked houses
- a wall surrounding the settlement
- a cave, usually enhanced megalithically in some way
- some kind of water storage feature, well or cistern
- a taula sanctuary, the ritual heart of the site
Torre Trencada is delightfully unrestored with shady olive trees growing up through the stones.

It was rough, unkempt and a haven for birds and butterflies. Rupert also saw a snake. We wished we’d had some food as someone had built a rather lovely megalithic picnic table in the shade of some olives.

As this was my first taula monument I was deeply impressed, although I would later discover the sanctuary it once stood in was pretty much gone entirely, leaving only the great T behind.

Torre Llafuda (see page 319 of TME) is a delightful poblat with all the usual features (talaiot, taula, caves, etc, but it’s in a helluva state. Badly wrecked with rubble all around the place, the taula sanctuary is hidden in a dip beneath some trees. It has two small but complete taulas still up, though one of them was supported by an ugly pillar of rubble.

You could get right close up to the neatest taula and admire the fantastic stone mortice and tenon joint used to keep the top of the T up.

As we stood on top of the wrecked talaiot we saw an Egyptian vulture, which was nice.

We could see Torre d’en Gaumes from the front porch of our villa, its three talaiot towers rising up on the horizon just about 2kms away. However, such is the state of Menorcan roads we had to drive miles to get to it. This is government operated site and has had money put in to it – areas roped off, nice concrete paths, wooden walkways, even toilets. This is a rare one for which you pay an entry fee. However, the young woman working in the ticket collection booth was very helpful and gave me a poster (featuring taulas, of course) which I admired on the wall for free. This woman, who had an unpronounceable name, would later help us find two amazing monuments within 500ms of Gaumes.

Gaumes is a very complex poblat monument which we didn’t have time enough to unravel. It comprises all the usual features and them some more. Although it didn’t have an intact taula to thrill me, it did have one or two other features which blew me away.

The first was to do with the taula. The capstone has at some point in antiquity been removed and inverted. The carved socket which the upright once slotted into now lies skywards like a watertrough or font.

The second was a fabulous system of water storage cisterns, great holes cut into the rock.

On such a dry island, fresh water must have been a premium commodity and the inhabitants at Gaumes collected and stored their water with particular flair. There were six or more tanks.

Thirdly, in one of the houses the roof structure was up. A roughly round space had a pillar in the middle from which long flat stones balanced and radiated out to the pillars in the walls like the spokes of a wheel.

Fourthly, a few intact ‘doorframes’. Moth said that for him, it somehow made the houses much more real.

Finally, the views, the views! Cor! From up here you can see perhaps half of the southern part of the island.

We wanted to try a beach over to the south west of the island, and see Son Catlar poblat (see pages 310 and 311 of TME) which was on the way.

Extensive and impressive though this complex is, it failed to light my fire in any way whatsoever. It was just too big and too ruined for me to make sense of.

Rupert summed it up in his diary. He wrote: ‘… a huge prehistoric village but it looked like a big pile of rocks, the only good thing was the wall, and even that was boring...’ Gah! Eleven-year-olds are notorious hard to please.

As the evening cooled off, we took the car down the long dusty track down to Calascoves, (see page 306 of TME) a bucolic rocky inlet of turquoise waters not far from where we were staying.

Carved into the rock faces in the cliffs, overlooking the crystal sea, are dozens and dozens of caves, probably hewn initially from existing fissures and naturally occurring caves and enhanced for tomb purposes. Some are up at quite a dizzying height. Made me wonder how the hell the masons got up there to do their work. The sea was alive with fish and crabs and things, boding well for future snorkelling.

At north west end of the island lies the wonderful Cala Morell caves complex (see pages 302 and 303 of TME).

Dozens of spacious rock cut chambers line a limestone ravine apparently used originally as tombs and maybe later as dwellings.

The craftsmanship involved in cutting the rock was extraordinary. Internal pillars, decorated doorways (similar to those I saw in Turkey and Cyprus) and raised platforms vied for our attention with drainage systems, water storage features and sockets for carpentry.

Brilliant!

Biniparraxtet (see page 301 of TME) is actually at the airport. It was moved from its original site to make way for a runway extension and has been lovingly restored.

Its cupboards, chambers, kennels and water storage features reminded Moth and me of Skara Brae. Although my son Rupert claims to find big old rocks ‘boring’, so many has he now seen that he was able to read this monument’s features without even having to look at the information board.

This is a really good site and well worth stopping off to see.

Ses Roques Lisses, which means ‘the smooth flat rocks’, is an open chamber formed by huge flat slabs of limestone, making roughly a double square 2ms x4ms. In common with the navetas and other Mediterranean sites, the entry stone has a doorway hole cut into it, just big enough for someone to squeeze through.

The slabs sit on their own platform of rubble kept in by a wall. It was once covered entirely with stones, like a cairn, I suppose.

We would NEVER have found this without expert help from the archaeology student/ticket collector at Torre d’en Gaumes who took us straight to it, clambering over stone walls and across a least two paddocks. She was thrilled to have met people like her with so much enthusiasm for the really old stuff – for Ses Roques Lisses predates the taulas and poblats by many, many centuries.

Lying almost lost and crumbling badly just 50ms away from Ses Roques Lisses is the remarkable Na Comerma taula sanctuary. It should NOT be confused with what Julian calls Sa Comerma de sa Garita on page 315 of TME. What Julian is referring to seems to us be part of the complex at Gaumes, whereas Na Comerma (or Sa Comerma) is a site away from Gaumes, independent in its own right.

It felt as if I’d been let in on local secret. I guess it is hardly ever visited. It would have been impossible to find without local knowledge and/or an extraordinarily detailed map. Though sizeable, so hidden by trees is it, that we didn’t see it until we were virtually upon it.

From a terrible higgledy-piggledy mess of masonry rises a tiny taula which by some miracle still has its topstone.

Its upstone is half buried in rubble. You could make out part of a wall which once enclosed the sanctuary, perhaps once as thick as the one at Torre Llisa Vell (see previous weblog.)

In addition, there were beautiful ruins of what I read to be houses, with flat dressed cross-beams still mounted on top of their supports.

Absolute magic.

And the day was made complete when we spotted a tortoise. We’d seen a few small ones playing ‘chicken’ on the roads, but this one was safe from becoming roadkill. They are a protected species now, their numbers having been cruelly depleted for the pet trade up until the late 20th century. Like this monument, they feel like ancient survivors.

Do you know the way to Barnenez?
I’ve never been so
I may go wrong and lose my way
Do you know the way to Barnenez?
I’m going there to find a great big cairn in Barnenez
Allee couverts and some dolmens
See a whole bunch if you’ve got a car
In an hour, maybe two, you’ll get quite far
Don’t go too fast or they’ll quickly pass
And all the stones are lying there amid the gorse for you to find
I’ve got lots of photos from Barnenez
Wo oh oh-oh, oh-oh oh-oh
Can’t wait to get back to Barnenez
Wo oh oh-oh, oh-oh oh-oh
Do you know the way to Barnenez?

Côtes du Nord on a wild, wet Wednesday. Sane people do not go out in weather such as we experienced that day: grey skies and steady rain coming in at a slant with the occasional hailstorm. Sane people especially do not take expensive digital SLR cameras outside in these conditions. Welcome to the madhouse. Welcome to Barnenez, just 40 miles west from our cottage up on the north coast of Brittany.

Barnenez will make you gasp in wonder.

It’s so big and grand, this one has a visitor centre and mighty glad of it we were, too, as a shelter from the storm. 75metres long and with twelve burial chambers within its stony step-pyramid mound this is a beast and reminded me strongly of an out-size Camster grey cairn combined with Egypt’s Saqqara pyramid.

During its excavation and reconstruction, a huge chunk was left missing deliberately to expose the manner of construction.

Four of the burial chambers are open to visitors the others are walled up. Each chamber has a different manner of construction – corbelled vaulting, dolmen-type chamber, side slabs only, etc. Inside the visitor centre are some of the carved, decorated stones found within the cairn which are very intriguing – one looks like a sheaf of corn. There are also some cracking photographs of the cairn before, during and after its excavation and examples of the finds – beads, pottery, axes – discovered there.

We drove back east from Barnenez towards Lannion – there are lots of sites to see round here including many alleé couverts and menhirs.

It’s 32 feet tall, damnit!

The little seaside town of St Pierre Quiberon is home to two fabulous monuments: the St Pierre alignments, which nestle comfortably like a park in the urban setting and within a couple of hundred metres of these alignments is the WONDERFUL Kerbourgnec cromlech.

St Pierre Quiberon town felt very like my home town of Stratford on Avon, satisfied with itself, charming and much-loved by visitors Indeed, if you transported all the stones from West Kennet Avenue to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre gardens, this gives you an idea of the feeling emanating from this monument. The three or four rows of stones (23 in total) were very Avebury-like in size and shape.

Like this one a lot.

A few hundred metres west of Le Tribunal, up a bit on a rise lies the charming but a bit crumbly allee couverte of La Four Sarrazin

It had one or two underwhelming cup marks on it, but no intriguing carvings of swirls or zigzags, ‘breasts’ or chevrons. From up here there are some magical views back over the heath, with the tallest stones of Chateau Bû poking up from above the gorse.

Within shouting distance from La Croix de St Pierre cairn (Le Dolmen West) rather than spitting distance, is Le Tribunal cromlech. This wide horseshoe of zebra-stripey stones swings around from the south of the path. Each stone is so carefully chosen and positioned they each invite special consideration.

Having recently seen all the crazy carved stones at Gavrinis a couple of days before, it occurred to me that the builders of this site, instead of laboriously carving all those motifs into the rock, instead went out and sought stones which already had a natural decoration.

The position of this arc of stones, within metres of the graves of revered ancestors and with a name hinting at tribal law, it felt like a very important meeting place within the Saint-Just complex. But this isn’t the end of the affair. keep going west and there are still more monuments to discover!

There are three rows here, separated only by metres, but all have a distinct ambiance, north, south and west.

Some 50 metres away from the south row are the third, western alignments which consist of the same white, quartzy, sugar lumps as the northern alignments.

The second row which runs parallel just metres away from the North row, are an elegant series of blade-shaped menhirs of various different sizes, colours and types of stone.

Fifteen miles or so to the south east of the city of Rennes, near Essé is one of France’s most famous prehistoric monuments: the super-sized La Roche-aux-Fées.

Well-signposted from the main roads and now with its own small village close by, this colossal construction is more megalithic hall than over-sized allée couverte. Indeed, the size of its groundplan is pretty much the same size as the ground plan of our house.

We’ve all seen pictures in guidebooks and on the telly of famous iconic buildings throughout the world; the Taj Mahal, the Alhambra Palace, the Giza Pyramids, Angkor Wat, and so on. But just like all those places, the familiarity with them doesn’t lessen the impact when you stand face-to-face with them.

And so it was for me at La Roche-aux-Fées on this miserable chucking-it-down April day. It is jaw-droppingly vast; made up of 40 giant slabs of purple cambrian schist, obtained from at least 5kms away. Its six gigantic capstones weigh between 40 to 50 tonnes each. Surely this wasn’t only ever a tomb? Today it wasn’t.

Today it served as a wonderful and roomy shelter from the pelting rain, a place for me to sit, think quietly and sketch; have a cuppa and feel its stones enclose me and protect from the dreary outside world.

The large car park suggests hundreds of visitors come here in good weather but today it was almost entirely ours. I wasn’t going to be rushed here. Feeling safe and dry inside, I got out my paints and make a little sketch. I loved the way the damp stones glistened in the wet and made the massive slabs hanging above my head seem to loom even larger still.

Kong Humbles Grav is in all the guidebooks as the most fabulous langdysse with exposed chambers in Langeland. So what we couldn’t understand was the place that Julian’s instructions took us to in TME…a most underwhelming, crescent shaped long embankment on top of a huge grassy mound overlooking the town of Humble, opposite the church.

Moth and I couldn’t believe it. We were embarrassed to have taken our friends after the major build-up we’d given it. Something was wrong. We left disappointed and highly suspicious.

As I drove us to our next monument, Moth checked other guidebooks, including the Oldtidsminder På Langeland by Jens Bech of Langelands Museum and Jens Kortermann, a jewel among guidebooks (text all in Danish) but with brilliant maps and drawings.

Oops Julian! If you’re reading this, I’m afraid you screwed up, sweetie. The underwhelming earthwork you call Kong Humbles Grav on page 168 of TME is no such thing.

Don’t be fooled!

We found the *REAL* Kong Humbles Grav with not too much trouble. Here’s how to get there. Drive past the church and turn down the first farm track to the left, towards a beautifully kept pink and blue farm house with a monster yellow barn. Park here, put your money in the honesty box and walk north behind the white barn and follow the track through the field. Here is Kong Humbles Grav – a magnificent long barrow with squared off ends and lots of good kerbstones.

The main chamber in the middle is an exposed dolmen in superb condition.

Straw had been put on the ground in the chamber so I shot in, not only to get out of the bitter wind and the threat of rain but because it really was delightfully hygge in there!

Immediately adjacent to La Croix de St Pierre Tertre Tumulaire is La Croix de St Pierre cairn which Julian calls Le Dolmen West. I loved this. It’s very restored but it has a style and character, clarity and sharpness which I found very appealing.

And next, immediately adjacent to La Croix de St Pierre is the La Croix de St Pierre Tertre Tumulaire, a 20 metre long low mound surrounded by small kerbstones marking out its shape. Not much height left to the mound now.

With the light almost gone, we really needed clear directions to get to Steenbergen before dark. I fouled up on the navigation and we went the wrong way. Then, just as we really needed shit-hot directions from Julian (as they had been most of the two days we’d used his instructions) he let us down. However, we found it. (just turn right when you get to the first T-junction in Steenbergen village and follow the lane round till you see the car park.) Just as we had started the day with a rip-roaring beauty, we ended it on a high. Steenbergen is marvellous. Up on a dune this lovely six-capstoned animal perches in the sand, complete with dinky dolmen-style portal. For some reason it had a single strand of barbed wire fence around it. Protection from what, we wondered? We just climbed under.

29 December 2003
Well-signposted in the village of Noord sleen near Emmen, this hunebed lies complete with kerbstones close to its more trashed neighbour, D51.

Visible from D51, perhaps just 50 metres away, is D50 and this is a cracker. Ten metres long, maybe more, and with 8 of its original 9 capstones still there and all still supported by their uprights, this monument is in really good shape enhanced by its original kerbstones encircling the line of ‘dolmens’. And today, sparkling under yesterday’s snowfall, it was magical, the snowmelt creating beautiful abstract shapes and blueish light against the greeny grey stones. While Moth made photographs, I made a quick sketch.

29 December 2003

Following Julian’s instructions in The Megalithic European we quickly located D50 and D51 at the tiny hamlet of Noordsleen, near Emmen.

Our footsteps crunching the 150ms up the icy farm track towards the copse in which they lie, the first hunebed you reach is D51. With only three capstones remaining, this site feels a bit trashed, but with snow on the stones and the huge flat fields all around glistening it felt exciting and special to be there, as this was both Moth’s and Cleo’s first hunebed.

(Also known as Papeloze Kerk)

Last time I was in Drenthe, I had only a crappy map to work from so completely failed to find this one, which I desperately wanted to see. It turns out I had been only about 200 metres from the monument which lies in an intimate glade in dense woodland. Happily, this time, with Julian’s instructions in TME we found it immediately.

Even the approach is thrilling, down an avenue of trees, like walking into an early van Gogh drawing. And at the end of the avenue lies the prize! Today, covered with snow, it looked like a giant Christmas cake… and equally delicious and fulfilling. This is different from other hunebedden in that part of the mound has been rebuilt, so it gives a really good idea of what they might have once looked like. It reminded me of an over-sized Scillionian cairn.
I sat on the ice, my frozen arse forcing me to make a VERY quick sketch.

The more I looked, the more I loved it. This place is magic. If you come to Drenthe, make sure you see this one.

Emmen Schimeres is the only ‘langgraf’ in the Netherlands. It has a complete kerb of massive stones and its chambers are just beginning to show through what is left of its barrow. A monster and a beauty just on the outskirts of Emmen (off the Odoorn Road). Signposted. Opposite the Mazda garage.

‘It’s just like Wayland’s Smithy!’ exclaimed Cleo. She’s right. I’d been here before, but not in the snow.

The snow provided highlights which emphasized the tremendous length of this langgraf and the closely spaced massive kerbstones seemed to taper off into infinity. The snow also helped to throw out the shapes of the two exposed chambers, rising from the cushion of barrow still within the kerbstones. We all liked this one very much, and like Papeloze Kerk, if you make it to Drenthe, put this one on you list of ‘must-sees’.

A drive of no more than one kilometre north of Schimeres langgraf, Emmermeer (or Emmen Noord as Julian calls it in TME) is a really pretty little hunebed, sweetly sited three metres from the roadside on a piece of undeveloped heathland opposite some 1970s apartments. This one is quite small, but its four dainty flattish stones balanced beautifully on its legs has the appearance of a mini Frank Lloyd Wright prairie style house.

On the western outskirts of Emmen is Valther Forest. There are three hunebedden here, D38, D39 and D40. They’re not in fantastic condition, but they are in the most glorious woodland setting. Go there for complete peace.

D38, D39 and D40 stand in a delightful heathland clearing in the forest near Emmen. They’re all a bit wrecked, but the location is so gorgeous, they’re well worth visiting.

D38, D39 and D40 stand in a delightful heathland clearing in the forest near Emmen. They’re all a bit wrecked, but the location is so gorgeous, they’re well worth visiting.

D40 is the most impressive of this trio of ‘grafheuvels’ in the Valther Forest just north of Emmen. It would be a fairly long walk to them from the road, so risking the wrath of the forest ranger and being completely unable to read the signs, I drove up the sandy forest track until we found them in a bright forest clearing.

You approach D40 first, which is the most complete of the trio. Two great capstones are supported by six sidestones which seemed to us to have more beneath the ground level than above.

Strike off to the west for 20 metres through the low growing heathers and you find D38 and D39.

All three have distinct round raised ringed walls of sand hinting at the size and scale of what once must’ve been quite a necropolis of round barrows.

This wasn’t on our list, but we passed so close by it on our way up to Borger, we couldn’t resist calling in to say ‘hi’. Easy to find, this rather wrecked monument nevertheless has charms. It’s bucolic position in it own little copse in the middle of wide open fields is cosy and inviting. Only one capstone is still supported, the rest are down, giving it the feeling of a wounded animal, not yet quite willing to admit defeat. All but one hunebedden are in state care, with no risk of being ploughed up or dismantled, so Odoorn’s survival in it’s broken condition is assured. By the time we got to Odoorn, most of the snow had melted from the monument in the bright, crisp sunshine.