Jane

Outside the village of St Alban Auriolles, if you climb up the hill at the back of the village towards an old chapel is the dolmen du Calvaire. A walk over the limestone outcrops towards it – the same limestone which the dolmen is built from – gives the impression that the dolmen spontaneously, and quite naturally, appears from the ground.

Inside the lovely chamber was a visitors book and I was quite surprised to see how many people had visited it quite recently. But then it is signposted from the village. The dolmen itself is a classic stone box: two stones each side, one at the back and one on top. Simple and perfect.

It’s a short but very steep climb up a path (follow the brown painted marks on the rocks) through grassy, low scrubby bushes to the hilltop. Even though the dolmen isn’t in perfect condition, and the climb is steep, it’s well worth the hike simply to see this monument in its commanding position. It once had two capstones, but one has fallen inwards and the other fallen back. Its sides and back are still in position. It’s been a bit carelessly restored with some ugly cement here and there, and in one side is a curious hole, probably a result of breakages over time than an original feature.

This one’s tucked away in the car park of a ‘dinosaur zoo’. The sweet little dolmen sits behind a little wooden fence, presumably to prevent kids climbing on it, as it seems quite dinkily precarious. It was great to have an ‘easy win’ and park right next to it. A charming monument, if a little bizarre to hear the roars of tyrannosaurus rex from the nearby attraction!

Next we went to find the dolmen de Pradinas, a very small, rather haphazardly restored dolmen standing near a dusty crossroads behind some trees. It’s good that someone took the trouble to cement it back together again, but it lacks any atmosphere…

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Dolmen 6 is weird thing!

Originally it was a pretty ordinary dolmen for round here, but it’s drystone lined and slightly corbelled and curved at one end, and has two capstones – or was it one at one time?

But curiously somebody has built a tower practically on top if it, of drystone rubble in a square section, perhaps 12 feet tall with a staircase running up the middle of it to a lookout at the top. I scrambled up to get a view. We reckoned it was probably quite modern and perhaps a shepherd’s lookout.

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Continuing up the track, which began to get steeper, we eventually found dolmen 5.

It has a very good chamber still embedded deeply into the rubble cairn and a superb really flat capstone sloping hard at 20 degrees towards the back. Very nice!

In Bruno Marc’s book ‘Dolmens and menhirs of the Ardeche’ we spotted a number of interesting monuments listed in the Bois des Geants along a single track which didn’t look to arduous for a non-walker like me!

Not recommended, but I drove up a gravel and bedrock limestone track for as far as I could before the really big rocks threatened to damage our ordinary large family saloon (a Mazda 626). We eventually had to park up and walk through the woodland and scrub which smelled of herbs and hot pine resin.

On the map we saw six monuments marked, though we only found three.

Please be aware that due to difficulties in spotting stuff on google maps, the PRECISE location of each monument maybe out by a few metres – the track that they are on is the right one, however. Please note that the track you need to go up is to the west of the bridge that crosses the combe.

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The first dolmen you come to is not far after you pass under crackling powerlines.

This is a small dolmen, following the usual pattern from dolmens round these parts. It has lost its capstone, but the shape of the little box which remains is still worth a view and it has plenty of original rubble. A nice even pair of portal stones still stand to mark the entrance. It’s right by the side of the track so you won’t miss it.

Near Bidon, to the north of the Ardèche gorge, is the dolmen de Champ Vermeil, a vast and beautiful dolmen of just five huge slabs lurking in the woods, the capstone gently sloping at an angle of 15 degrees towards the back entrance. The capstone is massive and quite flat and a single slab makes up one side. Very impressive!

About 300ms away from Le grand dolmen de Ferrusac, again just off the D130 road, is the Petit dolmen de Ferrusac. As the name suggests it’s much smaller and not a double decker like its large sibling, but it still has a detectable passageway in front and plenty of rubble- and tell-tale black lying around.

This one is very sweet and so tiny!

Around Ferrusac there are other monuments including four good menhirs, made of white limestone.

Le grand dolmen de Ferrusac is a whopper, built with two levels of capstones, leading into one tall chamber beneath the top deck capstone. One side has been restored with an ugly concrete slab which takes a bit of the ‘wow’ away, but the original capstone and side slab are vast. Each perhaps weighing 20 tones a piece of more. A mighty place!

Driving north and east of Lodeve up a very twisty-turny mountain lane we reached the Priory St Michel de Grandmont – our main attraction here is this fabulous dolmen in its private grounds.

The entrance fee of E4.50 entitles you to look round the abbey (which has got a nice cloister and worth a peep) but you also get a guided tour to the dolmen. They don’t let you go on your own we think because of the resident herd of fallow deer roaming free and they don’t want hunters taking potshots and poaching. Despite having to drive such a long way to get here from our gite in Arles, having to pay an entrance fee and having to be escorted to the dolmen, it’s all worth it because its FAB.

A true Beauty. A capstone with exquisite flatness on its underside, such lovely stones leaning jauntily inwards are all surpassed by the charming catflap door in the portal stone. We had little time here (an elderly Belgian couple were escorted there at the same time as us) and so I immediately got to work drawing. It made me think about its picturesque loveliness of places like Poulabroune, combined with the startling wondrousness of the dolmens we’d seen on that hot Jordanian hillside two years before. This dolmen has been christianised – the monks at the abbey carved as small cross into one of the side stones.

In the middle ages the dolmen was used in a bizarre way to cure leprosy. The monks would burn the clothes of the afflicted person, who would then climb up on the dolmen and twice roll around and rub their skin on the capstone. Such hocus pocus! Is it any wonder that I put my faith in science and not witchcraft?

On our way up to Lodeve from Montpellier we stopped at the Dolmen de Pouget (also known as Gallerdet). It’s about a mile up a dirt road out of the village and is well signposted. We drove our large family saloon (4x4s not required) up a dirt road to the end of the track until our way was barred by a gate, so we parked up and got out and walked.

It was only 25 metres away around to the right if you follow the path past a couple of menhirs. The monument is built on a raised natural platform and still has lots of its own mound material too.

This dolmen is BIG and the first thing you notice apart from it’s size and commanding position is the arched porthole cut in the portal stone. This is well within the mound and reached by way of a sunken passage. The internal chamber is whopping, perhaps 6ms by 4ms, and covered by three lumpy pieces of limestone capstone. The arched portal stone has split, but been reconstructed, assisted by metal rods which you hardly even notice. The ‘n’ arch is great.

I sat on the ground and made a little sketch of the entrance.

Just down the road from the priory and Dolmen de Coste-Rouge is another lovely monument – the dolmen de la Bruyere d’Usclas. Tucked away in thick mixed woodland with lovely views of the surrounding limestone hills there’s no entrance fee here! We sat has the place to ourselves and I sketched. We liked it here – plenty of surrounding rubble material too.

It’s signposted from the road. Near to it is a stupid statue that looks like a menhir that’s meant to look like prehistoric man, just next to where you park but don’t bother with it. It’s shit. Instead walk past to the dolmen – it’s not far and it’s another double decker dolmen, but with no concrete slabs, just really nicely proportioned well cut blocks making a really pleasing monument. It has a nice little passage and plenty of mound.

We didn’t actually make it to this, the very finest of the Arles-Fontvieille group of monuments.

It is somewhere on the northern side of the Mont de Cordes, a fascinating limestone peak rising alone 65ms from the plain of La Crau with dizzying silver cliffs of stone poking out of dense woodland clinging to its precipitous slopes.

The hypogee is vast and uniquely designed – and I was desperate to reach it, quite willing to trespass and scramble up steep pathless cliffs, and search through the woodland. We searched for a path to it – a couple were marked on the map – but every way we looked, every farm track we took was barred with enough barbed wire to satisfy a small army. It was impossible and we admitted defeat.

So instead I’ll have to describe it to you.

It was first described by Anibert in 1789 in his dissertation topographique sur la montagne de Cordes et ses monuments who published a plan of it, and according to Glyn Daniel who saw it in the late 1950s ‘remains much as it is today’. Anibert described the tomb being shaped like a sword, hence the folk name L’epee do Roland.

Daniel describes it as a ‘gallery grave set in a low pointed mound 230 feet long by 165 feet wide, orientated east to west [as are all the monuments in this group] with steps cut into the rock at the western end leading down into the monument which has a total [internal] length of 120 feet.

‘It is divided into two sections, the first or western section is 40 feet long, is roofed in part and has two side chambers, while the main eastern section is 80 feet long, 11 feet high and 9 feet wide. The sides slope inwards; immediately west of the two side chambers and again at the division between the eastern narrow end of the chamber and the main western chamber are two ‘kennel-holes’. These are cut into the rock, as for that matter is the whole monument.‘

Early archaeos thought it was rock cut, but roofed with capstones, but this isn’t so. The first stratum of rock covering the hill has been left in situ and the great gallery cut underneath – the effect is very much of capstones.

The tomb has carvings, variously described as the human figure, but I can find no images of these.

At the eastern end of the cairn covering the grotte is a large menhir 22 feet long by 9 feet wide. Daniel says that in 1960 it was broken and lying on the ground.

Apparently it has never been excavated. Daniel says: ‘it has been open to the public for centuries, and is not a monument where one would expect to make any discoveries’. How ironic! Open for centuries, eh? Well, not now, unfortunately.

Anyone planning to visit this monument should write to the landowner well in advance – whoever he or she is... perhaps one of the local farms?

The hypogee is a chamber cut directly into the bedrock – 8 feet deep – and topped with some huge capstones. Stairs are rock cut into the descent but are worn smooth with the many feet that have walked in and out of here over the past 5,500 years. The sides of the hypogee are unfeasibly flatly cut and slope inwards at an angle. The portal stone is a beautiful even U shape. The whole chamber is about 7 metres long and we absolutely loved it.

We found it easily, quite close to the road (D17) near the Restaurant de la Mont de Cordes and it is quite lovely.

It is very similar in design and construction to Arnaud-Castellets and Bounias, with rock-cut steps into the large chamber – but larger. Outside, a section of a rock cut ditch to the north west of grotte, which once surrounded the whole tump can still be seen.