What a strange place! In a wonderful position on common land near Pontypridd hospital are some natural rocky outcrops, one of which is known as the Pontypridd rocking stone. It is very large – about 5 and half feet tall and round, roughly in two pieces like a cottage loaf. I gave it a push. It doesn’t rock. In recent times a very nice small stone circle has been built round it. The whole place seems rather peculiar though.
Jane
Just 200ms away from Parc le Breos hidden in the wooded cliffs on the right as you approach is this lovely cave which is certainly worth a shufti. It has two entrances, one closed up with railings. The larger entrance, of a tall triangular shape, leads to a huge interior. It goes back a long way into the rock and has a number of chambers within it. I was thrilled and delighted at how cosy and warm it was at the back of the cave away from the frosty winter morning. When it was excavated in the 1960s very ancient human remains were found.
This is a well tended and large restored Severn-Cotswold type cairn. We got there early and the light was streaming through the frosty trees. The cairn has a central passage with two pairs of transepted chambers. The cairn is now roofless so the internal structures are all exposed. It was fabulous just lying there surrounded by woodland in a bright yellow crisp winter valley. We loved it.
You can park very close by and the approach to it is flat so it’d be great for those using wheelchairs or buggies to visit.
Lurking in the dunes on a promontory close to Penmaen village is a small burial chamber.
We parked at SS527885 by the bus stop and post box and walk down the path marked ‘Tor Bay 0.8kms’.
Once on the promontory be prepared for a stomp about! We scoured the hillside on the left of the path where the dunes dip down sharply to the dramatic beach below. It wasn’t there. We searched the tip of the promontory, but no cigar. Finally as we were about to give up, I spotted it 20 metres from the end of main path as it breaks up into many tracks through the dunes, on the right of the ‘mainest’ path.
It has a good sized solid capstone, now fallen on one side, and a few stones making up a short passageway. Surrounded by dead bracken, half buried in a dune, it’s not a burial chamber to write home about, but I loved it anyway. The views down to Threecliff Bay are breathtaking!
Up here on top of the dunes reminded me of Porth Hellick Downs on Scilly’s St Mary’s.
The site is found up on high open moorland with amazing views back over to Llanelli to the north. The moor was crawling with shaggy frozen ponies. As you approach it you can see it’s big but then – woooo!!! This is so much bigger and more impressive than I had ever imagined up close. The capstone is less of a cap and more of a mighty concrete helmet – perhaps weighing 40 or 50 tons (I kid you not!) – supported by really small uprights which look as if they have been driven into the earth under the vast weight of the elephantine lump above. The whole construction sits in a concave rubble cairn, so it’s easy to imagine the original size of this place.
As we drove around, we kept getting sights of the monument perched up there on that chilly heath from miles away.
Sampson’s Jack is a pointy menhir of white stone which soars out of its hedgerow setting! It is the texture and colour of rice pudding. What a shame you can’t see the whole stone – it must be 12 feet tall, but the bottom six feet are hidden in the hawthorn. Without modern buildings it is only maybe 300 metres away from the standing stone at Ty’r Coed farm and certainly on a sight line.
Note for pedants: On the map, the spelling of Sampson has a ‘p’ in it.
Park at the top of the lane by the farm entrance and ask at the farm to see it, because this is on private land.
The farm building is only inches away from this menhir which is made of the same rice pudding stone of Sampson’s Jack. Because it stands in a rise of land its size is deceptive. It must be at least seven feet tall. From here you get a very clear view of Maen Cetty on the ridge to the south about a mile and half away.
The stone is kept in a small enclosure with three dogs so mind where you tread – it’s very shitty!
Two menhirs stand guarding each side of the path up to the tiny old church.
The stones are curious. The ‘lower’ one is undoubtedly ancient. The size, weathering patterns and position all felt genuine. The ‘upper’ one was highly suspicious. It looked as if it were a more recent stone – which for sure had once been used as a gatepost – which had been plonked on top of a larger stone. The larger stone now lies down on the slope, but the size, type and weathering all matched the standing stone still up.
I wondered if they had once been part of an alignment as they followed the dip in the road which looked as if it had once been an old trackway down to the marsh just half a mile or so to the north
Cefn Bryn Great Cairn is just 25ms away from Maen Cetty and is little more than a huge mound of large stones. But it all adds to the atmosphere up there on that amazing ridge of moorland with those staggering views.
Near the great white scar formed by the china clay works at Trowlesworthy is a complex of stone rows and cairn circles not unlike those at Ringmoor. From where you park the car, you can see the rows sloping down the hill. Having sight of them makes the incredibly dull hike over to them slightly more palettable. Be careful how you go – you can access the site from either side of the canal, but there is no path so tread very carefully. The ground underfoot almost got me a couple of times! The are a couple of rows here the main one perhaps just less than 100ms long – hard to say as an artificially cut channel now bisects it.
The cairn circle is charming though and despite the fact you’re overlooking an industrial landscape, I quite liked it.
Just up the hill from Brisworthy are the monuments at Ringmoor which unlike pure joy, we found easily. A corkingly long stone row with a rather nice cairn circle at one end. As I strode down the row it seemed to never end! We also spotted some other stuff up there, including another small cairn circle.
The rows here seem to meander forever taking the traveller past the almighty great nearby tor and point you towards the stone circle 1km at Scorhill. The longest stone row idles its way across the moor with two lines of small stones, some hidden under grassy hummocks. Walking the length is not an option. You have no choice but to do it. The most complete section is actually not part of the main row, but deviates off pointing back down to Batworthy.
Yum! Yum! Yum!
Simply perfect.
I was looking forward to the madness of Yellowmead. It’s not the easiest to get to though – don’t expect a path and do expect to get your feet wet as you go bog-wading. And you need your megalith-antenna on maximum setting to find it- oh and an OS map, of course. It wasn’t immediately clear where the hell it was, although we knew we were going in the right direction.
Suddenly it dawned on Moth that the large herd of ponies we could see had chosen it as a cool place to hang out. We approached cautiously. Though they looked cute and cuddly we were aware they are wild animals and had some very young foals with them to protect. It became clear that they weren’t going to move for us and we’d just have to work round them. It meant we couldn’t walk among the small stones at all but had to walk round and round to try and get a sense of what was going on between the hoofs, sleeping foals, squabbling stallions and grazing mares. Were there four rings? Was it a cairn? The ponies weren’t saying.
Brisworthy stone circle reminded me a lot of Fernworthy in size of stones, diameter and ‘feel’. But whereas Fernworthy is held suffocated by trees, Brisworthy is free to breathe and today was bathed in warm sunshine. It seems to have a close relationship with a nearby tor. It’s on private land and we had to climb over a fence to get to it. Liked it here!
As the road passes Sharpitor there is a tiny tarn and parking place and, if you didn’t know to look, there’s also an incredibly long stone row! Two lines run parallel about 1m apart for more than 100ms, but the stones are so small you’d hardly know. I wish they’d put information boards up about things like this, then people would notice and take an interest. I loved it up here. Right on the top. Felt like I could reach up and touch the sky!
A few years ago, someone sent me a postcard of Scorhill stone circle. I liked the look of its pointy stones and always wanted to see it. Thankfully, the walk is mercifully short and the impact of this monument is mighty!
Corrrrrrrrr! As you crest the hill you down onto it and it compels you completely. Severe, pointy, dramatic, free of trees, bracken and other distractions, this sky temple seems to be indelibly stamped into the landscape and has a more powerful relationship with the moor and the heavens than anything I’ve seen except Brodgar.
From here we could just make out the Shoveldown stone rows, which we would see close up two days later. And Moth looked wistfully moorwards in the direction of White moor stone circle, knowing that I would never be able to walk to it and he’d have to go alone.
When I was 10, I remember seeing a film called ‘The Belstone Fox’ starring Eric Porter and Bill Travers and crying all the way through it. Now here I was in Belstone village. No tears this time.
We’d come to see Belstone Nine Stones, a cairn circle of now only 12 stones up on the moor to the south of the chocolate-boxey village and thankfully not a long walk away. Moth had been here before and had taken a while to locate it thinking it was up near the tor. It isn’t! Stay close to the field wall and when that runs out, keep walking straight and you’ll eventually see it. It’s very pretty and has lovely views down towards a waterfall and up towards a tor, but the drizzle was persistent so there was no chance of painting it.
It’s size reminded me of a Scillonian cairn or Yockenthwaithe and it felt like it was in the ‘wrong’ place to be an independent stone circle. I’d guess it was a cairn.
The short walk uphill on the forestry road from the car park by the reservoir took me 10 minutes (but then I don’t walk fast uphill). The weather was still pretty nasty though the plantation gave us some protection. The circle and rows now lie in a clearing in the trees. This means there are no sight lines or views, but the circle captivated me, nevertheless. It is lovely here – the circle is small but not tiny and the stones are small, too, but in proportion to the diameter. They seemed to spin above the boggy ground and were watched by me and Moth and a battalion of purple foxgloves.
Another 50 minutes walking would take us to the Greywethers, but given the climate today I had no intention of attempting it. It would have to wait.
Just a short five minute walk uphill from the road brings you to this ancient village settlement. Filthy weather prevented us from exploring this site thoroughly as the fine drizzle was blowing at an angle of 45 degrees quite unpleasantly.
The huge low wall which surrounds the long-abandoned settlement maps out the extent of the compound. Despite the looming sense of abandonment it was easy for me to imagine the place in its hayday. As I walked through the ruined ground plans of many houses I imagined the bustle of women working, children playing, goats and sheep corralled, men talking – ordinary things. The layout and size reminded me very strongly of the maasai villages of East Africa today.
Sadly, no African sun here today. Indeed, so bleak did it become that we declared ‘rain stopped play’ and headed back to the car.
I knew I’d hate the walk which even Burl calls ‘tedious’. But I did it in 50 minutes, mostly by thinking about Sir Ernest Shackleton and the fact this was surely better than being at work... wasn’t it?! The weather was shite – very windy and it even hailed once we’d reached the huge circles. Damnit! They’d be no sketching here.
My notebook says: ‘absolutely appalling walk which I’m not sure is entirely worth it, even though this perfect pair of large, complete circles are ‘A’-list Hollywood sites.’ Nevertheless, to see this pair of circles so close together, so even and so big was a real privilege. But the hike and the weather left me feeling so shitty that I couldn’t even be arsed to climb the nearby rise to get some height. Moth did though and got some lovely pics.
I staggered around them like a drunkard wondering: ‘why here?’, ‘why two?’, ‘why so close?’ and ‘how the hell am I going to get back to the car?‘
Easy to find, clearly signposted and just a short walk from the nearest place to park Mitchell’s Fold is a cracking stone circle up on some heathland with glorious views all round.
Overlooked by the very close Corndon Hill, itself the site of a whole bunch of bronze age burial sites, most of the stones are just small stumps now, but one of two larger, taller stones remain. Here it definitely is a case of the sum being greater than the parts. We spent two hours here without even trying, just looking, enjoying the sunshine, lying in the grass, drinking in the tranquility.
Under the crackle of a very nearby pylon, this tiny, fragile circle has somehow survived in this sacred Tal-Y-Fantastic landscape. The fourteen small stones are all very loose and wobbly, and close investigation revealed that many of them were not set into the earth at all, but placed into rubble sockets. One of the taller stones had fallen over. So treaclechops and I carefully stood it upright again into its rubble socket. No doubt the next time a sheep farts within five metres of it, it’ll be over again.
Not as picturesque as it’s neighbour Maen-y-Bardd Rhiw Burial Chamber, also known as the Greyhounds’ Kennel, is dug into the hillside rather than standing above it. With big flat capstone and large flanking uprights lining the chamber, this has plenty of remnants of its larger shape lying about the place, some kerbstones and a distinct mound of barrow. Lots to unravel and think about. I loved it!
Maen-y-Bardd is also known as the Poet’s stone but should be called The Dinkiest Dolmen in the World Ever. I have not superlatives enough for this place.
Like a rat up a drainpipe, I crawled in and sat down, lit a Camel and grinned like a mad woman for 20 minutes as Moth and treaclechops tore round and photographed it from every angle.
Trust me, if this doesn’t make you smile, nothing will. It is perfection!
The Druid’s circle is gorgeous and perfectly proportioned – not too big to overwhelm, not to small to underwhelm – and the stones are the ‘right’ height for its diameter. Many big tall ones still stand, including an anthropomorph of a be-robed monk. Nearby are a stone ‘something’ (perhaps a trashed stone circle, who can tell?) and a collapsed cairn ring of tiny stones. This is the remaining ‘A-list’ monument forming part of a vast sacred landscape behind Penmanmawr of which there is much to see round the back of the mountains at Tal-Y-Fan.
The ghastly hike would have been worthwhile if we’d had more time to spend up there. I didn’t even a chance to paint. If you can walk and look at the same time I’m sure the hike might be quiet enjoyable.
Not easy to find this. Drive up to the car park/picnic area just before the cemetary and park. Walk along the track that heads north west for about 350ms. There’s an information sign. Walk about 50ms beyond this then change direction by 90 degrees and head off north west for about 250ms. Now you need to activate your megalithic radars! We hunted round for quite some time before we located it. There are tons of erratics up here and in the summer with the vegetation high it might be ever harder to find. The OS map really helped, but once you find it. it’s unmistakable. This was treaclechops’ first stone row and as the weather was so gentle and clement we decided to have our picnic here.
A pair of rows, 2ms apart, run down an incline towards the sea for 30 ms or so. Most of the white stones are reasonably small, but one or two of them are perhaps 3 feet tall. Stylistically it reminded us of Dartmoor stone rows. The view into the Irish sea is stunning from up here, perhaps 150 feet above sea-level with more a less a sheer drop below.
Just 50ms from the great open gash of Great Orme copper mines, down at the end of Cromlech Road is what is left of Llety’r Filiast burial chamber, standing in a field by some houses one of which is clearly inhabited by a dog-lover.
The chamber is exposed and quite trashed with half its capstone broken off, pieces of rock strewn about. But it still stands, supported by great flat slabs upon which grows great white blotches of lichen. Stretching out behind it rises a massive tump of cairn material. No doubt the people who were laid to rest here were those from the mining community who worked the awesome*(!) copper mines just beyond.
Moth and treaclechops didn’t like it as much as I did. I loved it. I felt a real sense of connection with the people who build the monument because the fruits of their day-to-day labours were still visible at the mine. These were people who founded the first great British industrial revolution.
Hendre Waelod, also known as Allor Morloch, is in a lovely position overlooking the river Conwy on the edge of the valley on a gentle slope 300ms from the river. But it has suffered from neglect and screams to be cared for or it will be lost.
But you don’t have to look too closely to see the power and the glory of this monument. It mostly consists of a giant capstone, perhaps two and half metres in diametre and certainly three feet thick. I’ll repeat that in case you missed it, because it forced me to do a double take. A giant capstone... three feet THICK! WOW! The supporting stones are small and appear to have buckled or melted under the weight. But they are still there, in pretty poor condition, granted, but they still hold the capstone up.
Festooned around with rusty barbed wire, it now forms part of an evil fence on which I almost tore off some highly sensitive parts of my anatomy. (Warning, don’t try to ‘scissor’ over the fence, use the kissing gate further up the hill). It is largely this sense of it being rudely used as part of a fence and a sheep shelter that contributes to its forgetten, abused unkemptness.
Crikey! Didn’t expect to come face-to-face with a typical Cotswold-Severn tomb in North Wales.
The lovely horned forecourt and shape of the entire structure is marked out with little kerbstones placed there following an excavation in 1925. The main passageways are open to the elements now, save for one large capstone flaking like tasty French patisserie.
The interior of the open passageway has large pointy uprights used as walling materials with drystone walling in between. The construction reminded me of Orcadian stalled cairns.
Though much of the cairn material is gone, there is enough left to indicate the vast height and bulk of this place. The rolling irregular contours of the grass on the monument undulate and flow in the same way as they do on Hetty Peglar’s Tump. Gorgeous.
This is an ‘A-list’ site in the most beautiful valley overlooked by a corking gorsedd stone. What a shame the wretched information boards are sited too high and the large metal kissing gate is just a bit too close to the monument.
What a fantastic site! There’s so much to enjoy here: still plenty of barrow mound left and the huge capstone of the once-covered chamber, fractured now, juts out from the earth, looking rather like a breaching whale. The side stones of what once was a curious curved entranceway snakes off to the north.
I can’t comment on how the monument fits into the landscape as we couldn’t see it. It was p*ssing with rain and the cloud hung very low indeed. There may have been mountains, dales, volcanoes and glaciers all round us, but we missed them all, the weather was so gloomy. However, I liked the site massively so I sat down on my handy bin liner, put up my umbrella and made a quick sketch.
Go here! Even in the rain!
I’ve been struggling for ages now to know how to convey what I felt about Brodgar.
I have deep emotional attachments to two sites which have built up over years of repeated visits: Uffington White Horse and the Rollright stones. I am moved everytime I see them.
And though I am frequently ‘wowed’ by new places, rarely do I feel ‘love at first sight’ for a place. But Brodgar... whatever I say will not be enough. It is wild, carefree, astonishingly beautiful, rugged and -in the truest sense of the word- awesome.
The effort to get here is immediately rewarded and the length of the journey 100% worth it. It’s situation on a ribbon of land between two lochs is a master stroke of dramatic genius from whoever decided to build it here. Each stone is gnarled, weather beaten and beautiful like the face of a beloved grandfather. And the angle of tilt of the henge reminded me of the angle of the tilt of the Earth itself.
In a matter of a few minutes we saw Brodgar in all weather conditions, the most stunning good fortune, however, was the appearance of rainbow, which turned this most magical of places into The Sublime.
We returned to Brodgar every day of our week on Orkney.
Surprisingly, it’s quite a long drive down to the southern end of South Ronaldsay island, which you can reach from Mainland thanks to the Churchill barriers. But the Tomb of the Eagles is SO well worth it.
The tomb was discovered, excavated and is now run as a family business by Ron Simison, now well into his 70s, who had the vision to understand and realise the potential of the tomb and it’s contents as a major tourist attraction. But don’t be put off by that. This ain’t Disneyland.
Part of the Simison family farm has been converted into a visitor centre with car park, shop and ticket booth (where Ron’s daughter-in-law took our entrance fees of 3 quid) and a splendid exhibition area. Ron’s granddaughter gave us a lecture on the artifacts found in the tomb and allowed us to handle some of them. She showed us the skulls of people buried there and put the whole of the place into the context of neolithic Orkney. We hadn’t even seen the tomb yet and were already having a great time.
Next, donning foul weather gear to face the best of Orcadian summer days, we made our way down the path towards the Bronze Age house and Liddell burnt mound which Ron had also discovered and excavated. To my delight, Ron was there and would be our guide. Softly spoken, witty, knowledgeable and, refreshingly, without a care for diplomacy, he launched into his fascinating spiel. He showed us quern stones and tools he’d found and described everyday Bronze Age practices based on what he’d dug up here. All six of us thought Ron was a wonderful, admirable man. I felt quite starstruck to have met him, actually.
And then on to the main event: a short walk towards the cliffs and the tomb itself!
The tomb, built into the cliff edge like an eyrie, is certainly no more dramatic or unusual in it’s construction than other Orcadian tombs, like Wideford or Unstan. What makes this special is the fact that it’s so much part of the landscape; no wonder it wasn’t identified until Ron stumbled across it.
The entrance is low and long and you get in by lying on an oversized skateboard and hauling yourself along with a conveniently placed rope. Inside the tomb there are stalls and side chambers, a bit like a cross between Blackhammer and Fairy knowe. For striking dramatic effect, one of the side chambers is lit from within and houses a collection of skulls.
All six of us were all very excited about this place. The whole ‘Tomb of the Eagles Experience’ was thorough, in good taste, personal, meaningful, informative and thought-provoking. Even Cloudhigh and Jamesie, who are not tomb-chasers like the rest of us, thought so. Certainly one of the highlights of Orkney.
We took the cliff top path back to the farm and below us watched fulmars and kittiwakes soaring, gullimots and razorbills diving and seals bobbing around in the sea below us.
Rennibister souterrain was ‘discovered’ in the 20th century when it collapsed under the weight of a tractor passing over it!
It has since been reconstructed and is really impressive. The Historic Scotland information board describes how it was a underground food store, it’s entrance within the floor of a round house.
Not much to see here at all, except a very large grassy mound, and no trace of any entrance.
The very friendly farmer whose land it lies on, told us it was excavated in 1974.
Despite the fact that this ‘stone circle’ is within the village of Aviemore, I quite liked its semi-urban location, nestling like a village green ground suicide-grey bungalows at the back of the fire station.
Moth had spotted this one in TMA but I had completely overlooked it. But we were so close we had to swing by. I had no expectations whatsoever. I thought maybe they were just another couple of unassuming cairns. But noooooo! These are Mighty Rock Monsters! And there are two of them.
The main one is a long – really long!- cairn made of piles of stones and with rather neat edges that stretches on for about 50 metres I guessed, possibly even more. At the ‘top’ end it even has a horned forecourt effect. As I approached on the polite wooden walkways that take you over the boggy ground, I saw that the passage entrances to the long cairn (there are two entrances) had nasty iron gates on them. It didn’t look promising. However, they were only shut rather than locked (presumably to keep animals out), so I bent over and shuffled in towards the huge interior chamber, built in the style typical of round these parts and on parts of Orkney, with neat flat stones, delicate corbelling and vertical stalls.
A round cairn, build in the same way, of piles of grey stones stands about 500ms away and is equally as nice, but much smaller.
Why isn’t this fantastic place better-known?!
I wanted to get off the paths and look for some standing stones marked on the map just to the south, but I had noticed that on virtually every tussock or bush was a large, fuzzy, brown caterpillar. Caterpillars freak me out, so I was unable to. In fact the more I looked, the more caterpillars I saw. I trod carefully back to the car.
Strange place and we couldn’t get close up to have a poke about to investigate properly. Looks like a cairn or mound with a coupla standing stones sticking out of it. Very odd. Fantastic views of the Brough of Birsay from here!
This didn’t immediately ‘wow’ me like I thought it would. It wasn’t that I was disappointed exactly but I didn’t get that ‘buzz’. It was only when I got up very close to the individual stones, particularly the really wafer thin one, that this place excited me. The angle of the top of each stone was thrilling and had a really angry graphic quality.
I was surprised by the little henge it was in, which seemed too small for the height and sharpness of the stones. My God! When all the stones were up it must’ve been quite an intimidating sight!
Unstan is a great example of a stalled tomb and is particularly easy to access. No expensive ferry fares to Rousay, no long drive over the Churchill barriers to Isbister, no entry fees or booking required, easy parking, easy to find. But just because it’s easy, don’t think it’ll let you down. It’s great.
From the outside, the knowe is tall – about 2.5ms, I guess, and unlike many Orcadian tombs which are built on slopes, stands proud from it’s flat base like an upturned pudding basin. It doesn’t have a henge like Maeshowe.
A mercifully short stoop through a short passageway takes you into the chamber, which has been re-roofed with a concrete bowl with skylight. I like the way Historic Scotland have done this to many tombs on the islands as you still get a sense of the interior space and those wonderful stalls.
Drive up almost to the top of the hill, park and walk down to the tomb. It’s a horrible walk on a rough, well marked track for about 3/4 of a mile, but by christ, it’s worth it. What a fabulous tomb!
Nestling into the hillside, the crouching, squashy pancake layers of the mound don’t come into view until you’re quite close. It has a little passage entrance at the front – too low to get through – but on the top of the mound, which you just can’t resist climbing on, is a large horizontal metal sliding door. I pulled it back to reveal a dark gaping space with a metal ladder, inviting me to get in! I’d already grabbed the torch which Historic Scotland had politely left in a weatherproof box next to the information board, so down I went.
What magnificent construction! Corbelling just like at Maeshowe and Fairy Knowe – tight, precision engineering and a tall, tall chamber, boxy and with three side chambers and the front passageway going off it.
This was probably my favourite tomb of all on Orkney. Tons of character, fantastic views, beautiful construction, lots to discover and poke about with. It wasn’t long before Moth and Hob were inside, too, crawling into side chambers, squealing with delight, taking photos and generally having the sort of great time that only modern antiquarians do. Jacqui descended into the tomb and even Cloudhigh and claustrophobic Jamesie got in. It was quite a party.
Hob and Jacqui hadn’t been here and were going home next day. They didn’t have a car with them. We did. It was past 6.30 and it would probably be closed. But we went just on the off-chance. We got lucky AGAIN.
Avoid the commercialism. If you’re not bothered about buying postcards and want to have the place to yourself, do as we did and go after the visitor centre is closed at 6.30. Park in the empty car park. Walk round the side of the visitor centre towards the beach on the deserted grassy path. Follow the ‘time line’. Pay no fee. The four of us had the place to wander through, consider and be amazed at without coach parties or tour guides; the time to stare and wonder and think and imagine. Moth and I returned next day at the same time and with guide book in hand made our own tour.
Skara Brae was first place on Orkney where I got a real sense of the LIFE (rather than the death) of neolithic Orcadians. It was easy to imagine people living here: hear the low rumble of their voices, smell their dinner cooking, bump your head on the fish drying on racks over the fire, feel the smoke stinging your eyes, smell the damp sheepskins, hear a child crying for her mum from the warmth of her little stone slatted bedstead...
The people who lived here were no different from us. Their dreams and aspirations were precisely the same as ours: to feed, raise and love our families as comfortably as possible. You can be very close to them here.
Absolutely enchanting and unmissable.
I didn’t expect mighty megaliths or a Caithnessian Carnac, but I was mildly disappointed at first view that each stone was so very teeny.
But what they lack in size, they make up for in numbers. Mighty numbers! Rows and rows poke up through the heather, some a bit wiggly and knocked off course now, but many still running in straight lines down the hillside pointing in the direction of the coast.
It took me a while to like it here, but in the same way as one mackeral isn’t very impressive but a great shoal of fish all dancing together become beautiful, so did this place.
I had high hopes I’d be able to ‘do a Dorian’ (see page 424 of the big papery TMA) among the little stones here, but I was disappointed. The weather was too cold even to take ones gloves off, let alone reveal one’s cherry muffins.
Amid the modern paraphenalia of a bustling light industrial and trading estate on the edge of Kirkwall harbour hides this underground chamber. Vans and trucks rush past delivering crates of fish only metres from its weird surface mound, which is fenced off and locked.
Going down into it is really quite steep, though not as steep as Mine Howe. You descend about 3 metres into the ground. To the right is a small storage chamber area, about 1 metre cubed and the passageway leads off to the left, curving round slightly and running for about 4 ms. You have to stoop. It then opens up into a large chamber with four really extraordinarily beautiful pillars, with supporting capitals tied into the walls of the chamber. And lovely corbelling. Another masterpiece of construction. Take note ye architects of ugly industrial buildings! A functional building can be beautiful and long lasting!
Like many of the tombs and souterrains hereabouts, a powerful torch is provided for the visitor, this time by the keeper of keys in the jewellery shop round the corner.
We asked at the farm if we could have a look at the long cairn. Slightly bewildered as to why two apparently ordinary people would want to view an old cairn in THIS weather, the farmer indicated how close we could drive to it. This cheered me. However, it was a fair old walk over uneven ground (no path) in FOUL weather to the very edge of a promentary.
The cairn was long indeed, and tall, too, with some of the rubble poking through. But hellish neglected and in this weather, nothing to write home about. I couldn’t see an entrance to it at all, and the day was too HIDEOUS I lost interest in looking for it and began the long march over the bog back to the car.
It’s location IS splendid though, windswept, remote, overlooking other islands with the waves crashing up onto the beach just metres away.
We turned up at Maeshowe visitor centre at Tormiston Mill at 5.10pm hoping to book a time to visit with as few other people as possible. How lucky we got! The last tour was due to go five minutes later and only had two other – rather disinterested – Chermans on it. We paid our £3 each fee and toddled off down the path towards the mound.
The henge was the first thing that surprised me, being so crisp and well defined. As Julian says in the big papery TMA the whole construction really is like a great grassy sombrero! Our guide, a young archaelogy student, met us at the door and showed us down the long passageway, beautifully square, made of single long slabs of sandstone. It felt very like crawling into an Egyptian tomb but without the multicoloured wall paintings. And then the chamber opens up in front of you! Wow-wheeee!
It was wonderful not to have to share the interior space with too many people. You really wouldn’t want to be in there with a coach party of 20 garlic-breathed Americans.
Apart from the painstakingly neat, tight corbelling, the sheer height of the pyramid roof and interior proportions of the chamber the thing I found most notable was that the tall corner stones seemed to be the same shape, size and have the same ‘angle of slice’ on the top as the stones at Brodgar.
The guide gave a very thorough talk, only snippets of which I caught as immediately I sat down on the dry gravel floor and got out my sketchbook. Photography in the chamber is not allowed, but they couldn’t stop me drawing. From the bits I heard she seemed to dwell at length about the Vikings (’bloody Vikings’) and not enough about construction techniques for my liking. Rather than whinge I just kept scribbling.
Once the Cherman visitors had seen enough to be able to ‘tick it off’ their list, they departed leaving just the three of us. Suddenly it felt very big in there! And very, VERY tall, as I was still sitting cross legged on the floor. The guide seemed happy to have someone to talk about it to that took her away from her usual spiel. Moth discussed the chronology of the tomb with the guide who didn’t know enough about other British sites to be able to accurately place it against West Kennett, for example.
It may cost £3 and you may have to share it, but it IS worth it.
This stone is unmistakeable and incredibly significant as it is in perfect alignment with the entrance passageway to Maeshowe.
Typically Orcadian, being tall and flat, Barnstoneworth United, as I took to calling it, was always topped with a perching curlew or oystercatcher.
As you travel around the Stenness landscape, this stone always seems to be visible.
Sadly, not much to see here, except a bit of a rise in the ground. We attempted an approach, but a herd of very excited cows, with calves and the most enormous bull prevented us even entering the field. This herd meant serious business.
Just off the main Stromness to Kirkwall road offering stunning views across the Loch of Stenness is Deepdale standing stone.
It’s a large single menhir typically Orcadian, being flat and like a playing card about 6 feet tall on a little rise. From up there you can see the entire landscape of the Great Sacred Monuments of Stenness including:
-Brodgar
-Bookan
-Stenness
-Tomb of Unstan
-Maeshowe
-Watchstone
-Barnhouse stone
- many, many tumuli and cairns and even the summit of Wideford Hill could be seen peeping up over the nearby hills.
We sat for ages up here by the stone, gobsmacked at the richness of the neolithic landscape and staggered we could see just about all the ‘Hollywood’ sites. I couldn’t resist painting it all. Unbelieveable position for a stone. Don’t miss it.
This one was my first real l-o-n-g stalled cairn. I had already seen Unstan and Taversoe Tuick which are both essentially round cairns with stalls, but Blackhammer was different. Like the others, it has been topped with concrete to protect it but the construction and its length is what wowed me. (I hadn’t yet seen Midhowe.) I paced it out at 12 1/2 ms!