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Yesterday went back to the Apostles for the first time in about 15 years. The surrounding weather is almost always miraculous up on the moors and, as usual, the stones are sited in the best place to capture the surrounding view. Although the cloud was thick overhead the sun flickered over the buildings in the valleys so that they looked like the cooling embers of a vast fire.
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I was staying in Bamff House (paying guest) for a week and came up here twice. The four poster has been put into a little pen - presumably to stop them wandering off - the picture in TMA. I found the best way to approach the site was from the cup marked boulder behind the gate almost opposite the deserted croft (on your left if you go from Bamff to Bridge of Cally). Go up the hill towards the glade of oaks which covers the ruined larger circle. To your right is a rather thick thighed sleeping beauty. When you get to the top of the hill the view explodes around you - it is breathtaking on a clear morning. The top of the hill looks as though it has been levelled to form a flat area about the size and shape of a small ship. The four poster is in the prow. There are a lot of ancient fields and terraces in the area so the builders clearly knew how to shift earth. The area is liberally covered with stones - probably because the area was a hunting forest in medeaval times and was spared the predations of intensive agriculture.
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I only noticed the trick whilst I was driving away, but I reckon that if you approach the hill from the right angle the horse/bull/dragon beast appears to spring out of Dragon Hill. As the animal is not fully visible from any other land point this is the best explanation for its siting and the carving of the minor hill away from the escarpment. Has anyone else noticed this effect?
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I was here on Sunday the first of September. Whilst I stood on the mound with my wife a man who had obviously been mixing his drinks, or worse, reeled up to us and explained the amazing trick of perspective the barrow forms. Seen from the thin end the sides appear to be parallel. I have not seen this phenomenon noted anywhere else.
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