Rhiannon

I stopped by here just as the sun was setting. I wasn’t expecting to see much, but actually it was a pretty top spot. The sun-lit ridge of Lansdown and the barrow-shaped Kelston Round Hill made up the horizon on one side. Near the barrow on this side is a stream. This leads into the River Avon, which flows close by (unseen). An overall feeling for the landscape is a bit obscured by the old railway – though it’s now a path and you’d probably get a good view from up here of the overall scene.

What made me really mad at the time was how the field containing the barrow had been divided up by horse owners, who’ve stuck their usual ‘private property keep out’ signs all over the place. I felt rather intimidated, and was sure they’d blocked off the very footpath that goes right past the barrow. However, I wasn’t feeling brave enough to get shirty with them. So I didn’t approach the barrow as I would have liked (and as would seem perfectly reasonable from the map). My 1:50,000 map seems to have the paths in a different place to the larger scale one, and I would probably go back armed with the latter next time, and before I start whinging to the council about public footpaths*.

I was annoyed at the time, but looking back I think this would be an interesting spot to return to. The barrow was quite big, unlike the usual vague bumps you get used to seeing, and its position in the landscape seems interesting.

*you can now cross the fields quite easily – so long as you don’t mind horses nibbling at you. You just have to unhook bits of fence and rehook them behind you. I’m sure it’s better than it was.

Swanborough Tump lies at the t-junction of two long straight roads, in the edge of a wood. To be quite honest it didn’t look like much, and I couldn’t make out what was supposed to be the ‘Tump’ itself. I think you’re on it as soon as you climb up from the road. This could be significant, if you look at the ‘miscellaneous’ entry.

An inscribed stone marks the site:

“Swanborough Tump – Swinbeorg c850
Here in the year 871 the future King Alfred the Great met his elder brother King Aethelred I on their way to fight the invading Danes and each one swore if the other died in battle the dead man’s children would inherit the lands of their father King Aethelwulf.”

Hardly recommended by the Plain English Campaign, I think.

(also – on my way here I was entranced by the nearby ‘Picked Hill’ (also given as ‘Pecked Hill’ on the OS maps) – if this (like its neighbour Woodborough Hill) aren’t natural inspiration for round barrows – or for Silbury hill, for that matter – then I’m surely a monkey’s uncle.)

I like approaching sites on foot, so I parked in the village and walked. Marden is special amongst its similarly monumental friends (Avebury, Durrington..) because it uses a stream as part of its boundary; its banks and ditches only surround it on three sides. Crossing the stream and entering the henge I was fairly disgusted to see the meadow by the stream had been sold and houses are to be built on it. Surely a nationally important place should deserve more protection?

It’s a further walk than you think to the banks on the far side of the monument. I felt pretty confused about their layout to start with. But when you get there look for the stile hidden up in the hedge (almost opposite the big trees, where there is a tiny spot on the road you could park in) – that’s where you’ll find the plan on the EH board that’s in Earthstepper’s photo. I then realised what a tiny proportion of the place is under the EHs guardianship.

Now I could see where the Silburyesque Hatfield Barrow had been. It was too cold to keep still, so I jumped back down onto the road and started to walk back towards the spot. A car heading for the village slowed next to me. “Can you tell me how far Marden is?” a coiffeured woman enquired. I restrained any sarcastic remarks. As she drove on I reflected on how the huge henge could go unnoticed in the modern world. I thought on: the Hatfield Barrow itself would have been a locally famous enigma, something in local people’s consciousness for literally thousands of years. I felt really outraged. How could somebody just come along and ruin it?

I stood there mentally grasping for clues, trying desperately to understand what the mound would have been like. I probably looked bizarre: a shivering figure staring at an empty field. As the wind dropped and the sun finally appeared I got something of it in my mind. It loomed up in front of me. So ok, to some Marden isn’t more than a few low banks and an empty meadow. But to me, just to visit the place and exercise my imagination, it was well worth it. I felt really pleased to have been in the same place where this huge mound once stood.

I liked Knap Hill. It’s not quite as exposed as its neighbour, Adam’s Grave, which is an advantage when you’re trying to eat your sandwiches without consuming mouthfuls of hair. Also, its vista is quite different. At Adam’s Grave you are compelled to look outwards – outwards, upwards, downwards, east and west. You don’t think to look backwards with such a view on offer. But Knap Hill’s different.

At least half the time I was looking at the Downs around where I was sat – Adam’s Grave and the ridge on which it lies take up a good proportion of your field of view. I was watching for people approaching, watching people climb up towards Adam’s Grave, seeing them sillouetted on its back, and following with my eye the curves of the hills and those distinctive undulating chalkland valleys. So I felt that Knaps Hill’s not all about Onward and Outward and Far Away (though it certainly has that) but it has the comfort of the land close at hand too.

Wherever I looked there were weird and wonderful chalkland flowers and fluttering butterflies. Wherever I sat was a spiky plant, but hey, it’s a small price to pay for this view. As I walked down to the road again a flock of goldfinches flew off the thistles where they’d been feeding and flashed red and gold in the sun.

Visiting on a Bank Holiday Monday I half expected the Avenue to be swarming with people. But of course it wasn’t! I think part of the reason is because only a couple of stones are immediately visible from the henge end, so people don’t think to walk down it. This is definitely their loss.

I had driven from the direction of West Kennett, and parked in the little layby just where the stones start, so I had a lovely walk into the circle and back – not to deprive the NT of their new ticket-machine monies, but personally this is the route I’d recommend if you fancy a bit of peace. I don’t know for sure which direction the avenue was ‘supposed to be used’, but I do know that the way you experience reaching the main henge with the banks rising up in front of you is much more enlightening than the sudden way you enter it from the NT carpark.

Another advantage of this direction is that from lots of directions Windmill Hill doesn’t look like much, which has always surprised me considering it’s the Original site, older than Avebury. But walking towards it down the Avenue the Hill looks big and important: it clearly overarches the henge. Surely this must have been a consideration when this Avenue was put up?

Another thing that struck me was the way the Avenue is bordered by Avebury Down on one side, and Waden Hill on the other. You get the impression it is nestling between them, but take away the stones – yes, it would be a natural route, but somehow the stones highlight it. I really felt that the stones weren’t Competing with the landscape, they weren’t imposing on it. Some of them are pretty massive, but they’re nothing compared to the surrounding landscape, nor I felt were they trying to be. You know how at some sites the stones feel the centre of attention (Long Meg feels like this to me) but here I didn’t think they were. Neither were they echoing their surroundings like I felt at Castlerigg. They just ‘show you the way’. Probably a bit obvious as it’s an avenue? But it’s not an enclosing, single minded ‘This Way’ sort of avenue. If you see what I mean.

I’d never walked down here before and so was pleasantly taken by its curving lines – it certainly feels profoundly un roman or christian! I thought it was quite funny that some of the stones are or should be on the opposite side of the road as the S swings round – typical that the road should develop straight from A to B through them. The S-shape reinforced to me how it’s not a ‘This Way, People, Hurry Up’ kind of device. The journey is important – it’s not just about funnelling people from one place to another.

Driving back past the Avenue and out towards the Beckington roundabout, Silbury Hill quickly appeared. I admit I’d kind of forgotten about it being so close, so it was quite surprising. I remembered that Waden Hill is the hill that plays the ‘Silbury Game’. Everything is so linked here; the landscape is so full of ‘monuments’ and each one was added (one imagines in a meaningful way) onto a layout already in existence. There’s so much we don’t know and can probably never know, and wandering about in this landscape is so tantalising; it’s like having a phrase on the tip of your tongue but just not being able to remember it.

Sand Point is rather like Brean Down, and sticks out into the Severn Estuary just north of Weston super Mare. If you are equipped with a decent map you will easily be able to avoid paying 70p on the toll road, not to mention avoid going through the seething heart of Weston. But anyway, by the time you’ve driven out along Sand Bay all this will be long behind you and you can park in the surprisingly free NT carpark right at the end.

We walked out along the salt marsh and finally had to make a perilous scramble up the cliff to the top of the point, which was bedecked in various limestone grassland plants like the weird carline thistle. It was as peaceful as could be with the distant sound of the lapping waves, and the sun beating down on our heads. It really was very quiet and I felt remote from things (especially the throngs in Weston – it is incredible that two such dissimilar places could be so near to each other). The rocks are all jagged, though there are easily negotiated paths (assuming the sun hasn’t got to you too much) and plenty of grassy places to sit. The end of the point is about a kilometre out, but as usual most people don’t get quite this far away from their cars (or the icecream van, and who can blame them).

Returning along the top we saw some strange bumps in the ground – there turns out to be a bowl barrow here (this is where the os trig point is) and slightly to the east, the remains of a disc barrow. Disc barrows are pretty unusual; there are only a couple of hundred in the country, most in Wessex, so perhaps this would have been one of the most westerly examples? It’s been suggested that they’re usually burials of important women (though it’s not proven).

Whatever, don’t get too excited because there’s not exactly a lot to see of the barrows. In fact if anything you may get confused by the nearby earthworks of a more recent motte and bailey castle. But it’s a lovely place on a sunny day. And if you’re into birdwatching apparently unusual migrants are often spotted from here.

I didn’t know what to expect here – I was just chasing ‘tumuli’ on the map. There are three in a row in the Wylye valley bottom – admittedly it’s a very wide valley, but still a little unusual to find them so low down when there are so many convenient hills?
I tried to keep my mind on the landscape but had to walk through a field of curious bullocks who looked like they were going to march over en masse so I was slightly distracted. Running the gauntlet seemed worth it though when I got to the last field containing ‘The Knoll’. The barrow was surrounded by fantastic greeny golden barley, rippling in waves like something in a Van Gogh painting.

Walking across the field to the longbarrow I realised it was much bigger than I remembered. The bump of the mound stretches out a hugely long way. Was the barrow really that long and wide, or is it
just the result of being ploughed so much? And if it is due to ploughing, well that still hints that the barrow was pretty high to begin with.
I wandered right round the end of the mound – although most of it has been left with tufty vegetation, the edges of it have still been mown at some point, which distorts your idea of how extensive the mound is. According to the information at magic.gov there are flanking ditches, from which the material for the mound was quarried, which run parallel to the long sides of the mound. These were about 3 metres wide but have been infilled gradually.

The stones are pretty enormous, and beautifully patterned with lichens and mosses against the warm colour of the stone. The capstone is quite something – about 3 by 2 metres, leaning firmly against the two uprights. I saw what I took to be claw marks on its face – maybe a fox or a badger?

It would be a perfect spot to linger (no cows when I visited though), and I would heartily recommend a visit. As you will appreciate if you read my weblog, I felt thoroughly relaxed and peaceful after being here. I realise I’m not familiar with the large stones at barrows in Cornwall or Wales (not to mention further afield) but I think in terms of actual remains in this region (ok, bar Stanton Drew and Stoney Littleton) Lugbury deserves more recognition than it appears to receive. Ok I am biased.

Ok so perhaps it’s gratuitous to write yet another fieldnote for this place, but I LOVE IT SO MUCH. We were up here several hours but the time just raced by. You can spread yourself out in the sun and feel supported by the weight of the huge cliff beneath you, drink in the sunshine, be lulled by the sound of the waves on the distant shore below. The ground is carpeted with gorgeous seaside plants like thrift and sea campion, but also heathy things like heather – it’s a lovely mix. For such a sunny sunday the place should have been heaving with people but there was hardly a soul up here, it was gloriously calm.

This visit perhaps I was more aware of the surrounding landscape – there are so many strangely shaped hills topped with earthworks and I spotted a hill with a perfectly placed barrow. You’re on top of the world – not lording over it, just excellently placed to appreciate it spreading out around you. (By the way, I was less convinced by Julian’s theory about the landscape figure* – the head would be at a rather cricked angle. But maybe..)

Visit – you will not be disappointed. And if you want to freak yourself out a bit afterwards, head for (the imaginatively titled) Seatown, where you can see from the beach just how monstrous the cliff you’ve just been peering over really is. Also you’ll deserve the beer/icecream you can buy there after your exertions.

*he is talking about the long Langdon Hill. To add to the area’s hidden landscape, J. Harte in the Third Stone 29 article ‘Hidden Laughter’ talks of a fairy sighting on the Langdon Hill – Chideock footpath in the 1940s...

Windmill Hill. There isn’t a windmill. And to the majority of us that hurriedly guess a glance in its direction when accelerating out of Avebury, there doesn’t seem to be much of a hill either. But this weekend (on my way to Jane’s inspiring exhibition of paintings) I decided I’d finally pay it a visit.

Taking Julian Cope’s book’s advice I thought I’d walk up from Avebury. Just to save you the unnecessarily tiring confusion I suffered trying to find the footpath, let me guide you to it. I parked in the NT carpark. Just as you walk through the gate, turn sharp left and leave the rest of the tourists behind – cut down this shady footpath and at the end of it turn left onto the road. The road soon bends right, then left. By now you will have been overcome by an urge to remark on the cuteness of the village. The road turns into a path, and then into a little bridge/causeway. When it splits in two, take the right hand side, and climb over the stile to your right. Cross the field and the stiled footbridge – then you just follow the path across the fields. I’d met three people so far who cheerily answered my ‘good morning’s – but from this point on I didn’t see a soul until I was back in Avebury.

When you finally get to it, the climb is kind of slow and shallow, but it turns into a slog – the type where you start off chatty but end up silently wondering ‘aren’t we there yet?’ It made the walk more of a Journey really, as I had time to ponder. Arriving was quite gradual – not like the short concerted effort of getting to Adam’s Grave or WK longbarrow, and there was no shock value of a sudden view. When I arrived I was alone – well, as alone as you can be amidst 100+ sheep, but they largely ignored me. It was immensely windy and cold, but sunny and clear. It should have been totally silent, but the wind was howling in my ears and I could hear a lot of noise, even though there wasn’t any. If you see what I mean.

I stood on the biggest barrow and did feel at the centre of all I surveyed. Behind me the steep slopes up to the Ridgeway were enclosing, in front the Pewsey Downs pointed out to the flat landscape. I guess the hill must slope away equally on all sides, but it didn’t feel like this. Maybe it was partly to do with the colours of the fields and only an illusion of this time or season.

I couldn’t see Avebury for trees, but Silbury Hill stood out . Its top seemed about the same level as I was standing – again this could have been an illusion, but it was quite an interesting one.

I thought it was a strange place really – it was so empty but it must once have been a busy focus of activity. It was quite lonely really. From the top it is very much a Hill, but that’s certainly not how it looked to me before I ventured up here. I suppose I’ll be better equipped to pick the site out from other vantage points now? Even when I came down it didn’t look like it felt, or how it was. It’s quite Disguised.

Anyway, well worth it. I felt quite smug and comfy as I walked back that I’d been up there. Come back to Avebury, you should go up there too.

I decided to walk out here from Bath, and since it was raining (I couldn’t stand to stay indoors any more) I had all the footpaths to myself. It was quite a trek, so I expect most visitors would rather park their car in Stanton Prior, the hamlet south-east of the hill, and walk up from there.

It’s an imposing hill really, dominating the local landscape. Next to it is a smaller rounder hill, Winsbury Hill. I tried without much success to see some ‘sleeping figure’ significance to the two hills. Looking back, a ridge forms the skyline on the opposite side of the valley, and I could just imagine a lookout visually scouring it for sneaky attackers (just a flight of fancy). Speaking of defence, I was amazed on the way here by the extreme steepness and depth of the combe? containing the little stream between Stanton Prior and Newton St Loe. Wansdyke doesn’t seem to be fazed by it, but frankly for quite a while I wondered how I was going to cross the gap and felt like I was being funnelled further along than I wanted to be – I could see the hillfort but was basically walking parallel to it.

As I climbed the stile into the wood I was struck by the swathes of bluebells – their vivid blue a shock to the eye after the miles of green I’d walked through. Also there was lovely yellow-flowered archangel – both plants are indicators of ancient woodland. The wood is mostly oak trees. I hastened up to the flat top hoping to get a view of the surrounding countryside – maybe up to Kelston Round Hill and the fort near there. But with it raining, and the not particularly treeless hilltop, I can’t really say what is/was visible and what wasn’t.

I haven’t yet been able to find out much about the prehistory of the site. 7Spring appears to know a lot about the Wansdyke aspect of course. The other side of the hill seems to be a recent spot for crop circle art – ooh and this faces a main road, what a surprise. If you were just passing through this part of the world you’d doubtless want to spend your valuable time at the nearby Stanton Drew or Stoney Littleton: but this place had a special ‘vegetationy’ calm, as I found as I strolled/slipped down the path between the bluebells on the far side.

23.08.06
It’s been raining all afternoon, the sun was really low in the sky and everything was as full of colour as a Jane Tomlinson original, and all contrasty – it looked almost surreal. I’ve discovered the best way to arrive at Stantonbury – from the Keynsham road. It heads straight for the hill and you see it broadside – much better than sneaking up on it from one end because you appreciate its true size. Er, just a recommendation. None of the photos so far do it justice; it’s just smothered with trees and looks rounded and fat.

Thank you IronMan and hamish – this place could not disappoint. The wood anemones and violets were out in force. We walked through the gorge, climbed up the foot-shined rocks through the gap, and ended up sitting on the naturally stepped grassy area at the top. The peace was fantastic in the gorge, birdsong and the sound of the breeze in the trees and plants. It could almost have been any era, there was nothing to give it away. It was so removed from modern noise and nonsense. The view from the top was fantastic. Some other people were sat there too, but there was space enough for everybody and I didn’t wish to have the place to ourselves.

One thing that struck me on the way here was the difference between the bleak Mendips landscape (open, flattish, exposed – still winter really) and the enclosed protected feel of the gorge and its woodland. Fair enough, the climate on the mendips may have been different in prehistoric times, but perhaps the difference in enclosedness (tree cover permitting) would have been the same. It’s a truly ‘liminal’ spot, opposing the enclosed gorge and subterranean caves with the extraordinary open views across the flat (and once shimmery with water) Somerset levels. Perhaps that’s of some significance (I’m sure it underlies part of the site’s appeal for me).

Out for a walk on Mother’s Day we were a potentially short dash across a seedlinged field away from this round barrow. The footpath we were on isn’t marked as a public one, but the plantation it skirts is the Longleat Estate, and people seem to walk about pretty freely there. The barrow is crowned by a selection of well-grown trees and shrubs: it looked a shady haven in the bright sunshine, a kind of island in the middle of the flat field. Curiously next to the footpath was a sofa and two armchairs pointing in the barrow’s direction. I wondered if there would be a fitted kitchen or a bathroom suite round the next corner. Mr Rh (a local lad) said he had heard ‘from several people’ that it was called Hangman’s Copse but only had a very vague story about it being haunted by a swinging corpse. Maybe the name’s even ‘Hanged Man’s Copse’. I’d be interested if anyone knows any more.
The site probably doesn’t look like much but I liked it; it looked like a friendly oasis, not a spooky place. If you could cut down the plantation you could probably see Cley Hill easily, and the hillforts of Battlesbury and Scratchbury are probably in view in any case.

(The next week we passed it in the car, and Mr Rh’s brother said, quite unprompted, that he wanted to live “on that island”. For a round barrow in a field with trees sprouting out its top it’s really quite nice).

Fair enough, this isn’t exactly megalithic. But especially for those of a romantic turn of mind this is an important site for those interested in prehistoric Dartmoor.

Dartmoor – like the rest of the country – used to be covered in forest, apart from the topmost tors which were moor as they are today. At the end of the Mesolithic and during the Neolithic, people opened up these forests: first for hunting, then for farming. A combination of the climate and grazing kept the area open and like the Dartmoor we know today.

But in some places, very very few places, there is still oak woodland on Dartmoor. Wistman’s Wood is one of these. It clings on to the bottom of the valley side and looks most peculiar as you approach it (it’s a walk of a few miles, there’s no road). When you arrive you see the wood is made up of tiny twisted oak trees, literally dripping in lichens and mosses. In between the trees is a muddle of boulders, also covered in mosses. You can go in if you like, but we didn’t – it’s a very important nature reserve and there are some lichens in here that are found in maybe one or two other places in Dartmoor and literally nowhere else. The place is weird and fantastic and like nothing else. I’m not promising it’s actually a remnant from the primal forest, but if it isn’t it certainly does a good impression. It’s been saved from exploitation and grazing by the boulders (originally from the tor above), but such a place is so easily damaged that it’s frightening. It makes you feel a bit guilty to be there breathing on it at all but to know such a place exists does your head the world of good.

Back at Merrivale, and in glorious sunshine. It’s funny how when you revisit sites something totally different can catch your eye. This time I was just so taken by the outlines of the roundhouses (there are some as you climb up from the car park). There’s quite a cluster of them, a little settlement. It felt very human. It suddenly struck me that the amount of space inside the roundhouse I was stood in seemed about the same as our little flat at home. Instead of the familiar feeling of disenchantment about our compact living arrangements I suddenly felt cheered up. If it was enough space for a Bronze Age family it was good enough for me.

Wandering further up to the stone rows it felt like they were almost in the back garden. They’re certainly very close by. I wonder if this sheds any light on their use or the way they were perceived by their constructors. In my mind, perhaps it tells us how integral to their lives whatever the rows represent was. Perhaps you don’t put something you only use and think about occasionally out the back of your house where you have to step over it all the time!

I still thought the stone rows were fantastic, and had a power in their landscape – they’re very sculptural. But arriving at the stone circle and standing stone – they left me a bit flat. The stones in the circle are tiny, the menhir tall but somehow too man-made looking.

When the Bronze Age village was here, the climate on Dartmoor was much warmer, and the people would have grown crops and farmed livestock. It was only when it became wetter and more miserable that the villages were probably abandoned. As you can sympathise with if you’ve ever been out on Dartmoor in the rain.

Didn’t make it to the cist itself, but I did visit the slab in its new home at the museum. IronMan’s photo really captures the lighting where it’s displayed, which highlights the surface texture of the slab and its carvings rather well. I couldn’t help surreptitiously dabbing at the stone with my hand (I felt quite guilty but if it was in a field rather than a museum you’d feel quite differently – must be years of museums instilling Do Not Touch).

The accompanying label states that the slab formed the south side of the cist, and that the cremated bones of an adult and a child were found by the large and small foot carvings near its base. There is something quite affecting about the strange long-toed/fingered carvings.

It also mentioned that parallels are known mainly from Scandinavia, although The Calderstones and a roundbarrow near Alwinton in Northumberland apparently have similar carvings.

It was utterly freezing this weekend but at this lovely circle you feel enclosed and sheltered by the wall and gorse bushes around it. I was really pleased that it’s not advertised on the road. It’s so close to the tourist Mecca of Land’s End, but so unspoilt. I was truly amazed and pleased by the fact that I saw not one little bit of litter at the whole site, from the layby with the triangular stone, right down the green lane to the circle. Ah. It does restore some of your faith in people.

I really enjoyed the anticipation of walking along the overgrown path, not knowing what to expect from the site. My other half is getting so sympathetic to the cause and even seems to enjoy these muddy expeditions now. Once we’d sat down on a prone stone at the edge of the circle we were able to enjoy the peace despite the cold. Although it’s nice to just drink in the atmosphere sometimes it’s quite nice to visit sites with people full of questions because it really makes you think twice about your motivation for visiting, and your ideas about what really happened here. The stones are twinkly with quartz, and covered with all colours and forms of lichen – amazing. I thought it was excellent.

Don’t dismiss this as a purely Roman experience (though that’s fascinating in itself – heretic) – it really gets your imagination fired up and you can conjure up something of the place before the Romans arrived.

The ‘Sacred Spring’ bubbles away in its blue-green pool, and mist floats eerily over the surface. How amazing this place would have been without the stone round it, probably surrounded by dark alder trees, the odd willow the wisp? The Romans knew it was already revered, and although they built a huge temple and bath complex around it, they at least took on board the beliefs of the native peoples by calling it Sulis Minerva – combining the resident goddess’s name with a similar deity of their own.

So many tourists come through here, but the place is remarkably quiet – everyone has a hand-held guide and they’re listening to that, so if you just sit by the main baths it’s really very peaceful and relaxing. You’re not supposed to touch the water but you really must to appreciate how hot it is. When you lean over the drain (in one of the photos above) it’s quite a sauna! and the bright orange of the iron is dazzling.

I’ve been waiting so long to get out here. I felt desperate to get a huge dose of air and view and space (you must surely know what I mean especially in these horrible dark wet days) and we were going whether it poured with rain or not. Which in the event it did, of course. As we were driving along the bottom of the Pewsey Downs there was a fantastic bright rainbow reaching down to it, and then we rounded the corner and saw the white horse. It’s quite new (1930s), a replacement for an older one that was close by. It’s a funny looking animal, could be anything with four legs really – maybe the maker wanted to be a bit ambiguous?

We drove onto the downs and I was horrified to see that the little car park was full of cars – what could all these people be doing out on such a dingy afternoon? and I really didn’t want to share the place with them. But when we started walking we didn’t see anyone. I guess there’s room for a lot of people up here.

Climbing up towards Adam’s Grave you are suddenly surprised by the view stretching out in front of you, it suddenly appears all at once. It was quite misty but we could see for miles. You seem to be on the edge of a huge shallow basin – the lip seems to go all around the horizon. I could pick out where the Westbury white horse is (by the thoughtfully positioned cement works chimney plume) and realised that I’d glimpsed the Pewsey horse from the hill fort there. It starts you realising how the landscape fits together, and how different groups of people lived in proximity to one another. We climbed up onto the longbarrow and stared out at the dark clouds relentlessly coming towards us. Then it started pouring with rain. You feel on top of everything – I would have felt very exposed in a thunderstorm. We stood there in the rain a little while but even with umbrellas it was very cold so we reluctantly trudged through the mud back to the car.

The other half had been in a terrible mood with nicotine withdrawal, but admitted he felt a bit better. Anyone would feel relaxed visiting this fantastic place. I felt a weight off my shoulders. I just have to have peace and quiet sometimes – this place is peaceful. I would love to come back in the sun and stay a long while but will it be full of children and picnics?

It should be even more fantastic in the summer because the Pewsey Downs are a nationally important nature reserve – the rare chalk grassland has been grazed for countless generations and is full of rare plant species, and the butterflies they attract.

Stumped for somewhere to go at the weekend, someone suggested Hengistbury Head. Should have known it was going to be swarming with people considering it’s surrounded by Christchurch and Bournemouth (and the sea). But go on a cold day and I expect you could have most of the paths to yourself, and the beach. It’s a sandy promontory, falling into the sea. The site’s been occupied for 12,500 years! and some important mesolithic evidence has been found there. Neolithic tools have been found, though they don’t think there was a settlement. Also there are Bronze Age barrows, and some pretty enormous Iron Age double dykes cutting the point off from the mainland.
All the people almost spoiled it, but I should have expected them and it was a lovely day anyway. There are some massive concrete paths for the masses, but if you wanted to stray down the smaller tracks I think you’d get some peace. Most people were as usual 100m or less from the car park and the caff.

Bless. My boyfriend chose this spot off the OS map himself as somewhere to take me.
Although you seem to travel for miles down a dead-end road to get to it it’s not exactly one of those isolated sites – in fact it’s part of a country park so it’s got quite a big car park, but you can get away from other visitors nonetheless, and it was really peaceful. It’s so easy to get to and would be ideal for anyone with mobility problems / prams etc – you can drive up onto the ridge (the edge of the Marlborough downs), park your car, and walk along the level Ridgeway to the hillfort.
Barbury Castle is surrounded by two impressive banks and ditches (more in some places) and has 360 degree views. The castle’s iron age, but there are bronze age bowl barrows and even a disc barrow nearby, which maybe I’ll get back to some time. The site is on chalk grassland so there are lots of chalk loving plants and the butterflies they’re associated with. Sarsens were used around the two entrances, and you can see some of them poking through the soil.
A farm near the carpark has a little outdoor cafe selling food and drinks which I was very grateful for at the time – all this is the opposite end of the ridge to the hillfort and it’s fine, don’t be put off by thinking the place has been ‘countryparkified’.

I visited this fantastic site a couple of summers ago – it’s beautiful with all the chalk downland flowers. The views are pretty much 360 degrees. It’s a pretty steep climb to the top and once we were up there we almost thought we’d get blown away by the wind. Hid in one of the flower-lined ditches while it rained, and then sat overlooking a field being rippled in all directions by the wind, very strange to watch.

I walked up here from Bath. It’s further than you’d think and of course I picked the hottest day this year. But if you ask me (where possible) walking is half the point, part of the pilgrimage!

Bath is surrounded by flat-topped hills (one of them being Bathampton Down). You can see the abbey, it’s right in the middle of the valley – and that’s where the unique hot springs are. What a fantastic landscape this must have been in prehistory. Even the sprawl of Bath and the vile bypass can’t ruin it today.

The hillfort is triangular – I walked round the top. The first corner’s a triangulation pillar (lovely) but at the next corner a turf maze (a ‘labyrinth’ if you want to be pedantic as it’s just one long path without branches) has been cut into the step of the hill. The horrid roar of the A46 floats up through the beautiful valleys – but it looks like the maze is here to combat that {found out today that it was cut by road protesters a few years back – perhaps they did site it there just for that reason!}. It’s an ancient design. I traced it inward and outward. It made me think about a journey of introspection you have to take before you can bring that knowledge back out to use in the world (I was in that kind of mood, ahem). The maze twists so you think you aren’t getting there, but suddenly there you are.

At the final corner a small fire was burning. Though it was the hottest day for months I wanted to stay by the fire. I could happily go back there now. In fact I could cheerfully sit up here all day. I had no idea of the time. There must always have been fires up here. Whatever we don’t know about our ancestors, we can be pretty sure they must have sat up here looking at the view with their fire burning. It just seems like a thread of sanity in the world.

Coming to a place like this sorts your mind out; it gives you peace and space to think/not to think.

On a more mundane note, on the way home I completely lost the footpath and ended up avoiding muddy cowpats and nettles. Typical.

This is a reconstruction of a burial chamber, apparently done in 1736. It’s the spot where the historic boundaries of Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire meet – perhaps those boundaries really were centred on whatever these stones used to be: presumably a longbarrow. Now there are 3 blocks of limestone supporting a huge (well, relatively) capstone, but overall the feeling is small and cosy. The monument sits right next to the road – the roman Fosse Way – but it was only on my third drive-by that I actually spotted the thing. It sits nestled back, next to a wall. I sat underneath it for ages, it’s very quiet and protective feeling – perhaps the only original stones are the ones underneath that you can sit on. As usual at such places there was litter everywhere – this despite it being apparently miles out, and not all of it could have blown in from the road. Rather fortunately some of the rubbish was plastic bags, so I collected two whole bagfuls and took them back to the car. People eh. It is bound to be the haunt of pissed teenagers but I wonder what they think they’re sitting under. It’s a strange spot because it doesn’t feel quite authentic and you can’t really tell whether anything is original or not. But it’s different.

You’re quite right Mr I, I’m sure it would be very ill-advised to clamber about on the scree slope – and of course utterly illegal to remove anything archaeological you found there. But it’s very nice to be in such a quiet, spectacular and seemingly remote place and know that people were there so long ago making such important things. Well worth a visit to the valley and a pint in the pub afterwards.

Pottery shows that people were here in Neolithic and Bronze Age times, but the defences are probably Iron Age. Now the site is quite wooded and encloses a country house. In the summer it’s quite busy with be-ice creamed visitors, but it’s really quite nice for a stroll.
Lethbridge was positive he’d found a chalk hill figure of a goddess on the side of the slope here. His explorations are described in: The Wandlebury Giants, in Folklore, Vol. 67, No. 4. (Dec., 1956), pp. 193-203.

Alderley Edge is a truly mystical spot. It’s full of boundaries – dangerous places :) You can walk out to Stormy Point and stand on the pink stone to look out at the valley below. Beneath you is a huge network of Bronze age mines.

There’s a big NT carpark which I discovered more recently, but it’s much nicer to park in the layby where the big sign with the finger points ” TO THE EDGE” and walk from there.

This is also known as Luckington Long Barrow. It’s refreshingly dilapidated and covered in trees, but the stones of the side chambers still poke out of the earth, and around there is a typical cotswold drystone wall of little flat stones. Apparently the ends of the barrow were ripped out for road making stone in victorian times and there used to be an old boy in the village who kept a skull ‘for a momento’ (Exploring Ancient Wiltshire – George Osborn). It was such a calm place when I visited, only the sound of the rain dripping through the leaves. It did have a real atmosphere and you feel like you’re exploring as you climb up onto the mound.

My twenty year old book suggests you ask the farmer at Allengrove Farm to the north before you hop over the gate (but I didn’t know this at the time honest guv).

There are detailed plans of the long barrow in Wiltshire Arch Mag v65 (1970).

Cley Hill is frankly like a huge breast on the landscape (complete with barrow nipple plonked right on top – don’t tell me they didn’t think of that at the time). It’s owned by the National Trust and is an important nature reserve because of the early gentian and other rare chalk grassland plants that grow there. You will also find mountaineering cows and should check out the musk thistles bristling with bees. It’s so bloody draughty you’ll wish you were a bee stuck down in the flowers off your face on nectar too. It certainly clears your mind.

In all the books the site is mentioned as an Iron Age Hillfort, but frankly a place as obvious as this would hardly have been ignored by previous people – as proved by the older barrow on the top in any case.

JC mentions the site in passing in tma in a similar vein, commenting that perhaps Neolithic peoples had too much respect for the Mother to go altering sacred landscapes. It’s certainly been altered since though – the side where the car park is has been extensively quarried.

If you’re driving past , the best view is coming along the Frome road. And if you’re stopping, there’s an NT carpark conveniently located at the road, near the bottom of the hill.

This is such a special spot. The polissoir is one of only two in England, and it’s apparently by far the better one*. It’s a sarsen stone worn smooth / into six gashes by people sharpening stone axes and arrows. We sat there for ages. It’s amazing to think you are sitting in exactly the same spot as those people thousands of years ago, and it’s amazing to run your hand over the marks in the stone. It’s not easy to find, for which I’m not sorry. If some people don’t mind daubing paint all over Avebury or Glastonbury tor or breaking the stones at Stoney Littleton (ooh it makes me SO MAD thinking about that even now) well I don’t want them anywhere near this, or I would be forced to practice sharpening their faces on it. Basically you walk along the Ridgeway from the Sanctuary, turn right and hunt for it amongst the ‘Grey Wethers’. Helpful eh. But half the point is to find it yourself.

*sheer hearsay, from George Osborn’s ‘Ancient Wiltshire’ (1982). I have no idea where the ‘other’ he talks of is. And besides, people were polishing their axes somewhere weren’t they. Maybe he means this is only one of two really obvious ‘multi channelled’ polishing stones. Who knows.

Raining as usual when I visited this – and just couldn’t find a satisfactory place to park, ended up perched on the edge of the main road hazards flashing.. The field was FULL of enormous horses, who looked happy enough to see a visitor (until it transpired I had no food at which point they turned their bottoms to me to face out of the rain). But I felt rather small in comparison and didn’t dare go in with them. One was even stood on the barrow.
If you are more prepared than I was and can find a safe place to park, there is a legitimate footpath through the field and you will be able to see the chamber on the far side from the road.

Julian mentions this barrow in passing in TMA as reminding him of the recumbent stones of the north: there are two uprights either side of huge slab; they stand at one end of the mound.

I made a little pilgrimage to this alone and in the rain, parking on the lane which is the Fosse Way and squelching through the field towards the stones. You feel quite remote but humming along in the distance is the wretched M4 – but that doesn’t seem to matter, this place is so old and the motorway is just a transient upstart.
The stones are interestingly patterned and one has a strange bite out of it.
In more clement weather conditions I think you could sit here for even longer.

We visited this site a year or two ago just as the sun was going down. It’s in the middle of a grassy field and we did trot down to the nearest farmhouse to ask permission – but it turned out to be converted into holiday cottages. So well we hopped over the gate and ran over.
Just a couple of stones propped up against each other, quite small – but a beautifully pinky colour that just glowed in the sunset, a lovely calm friendly spot.

An extremely draughty place to be (we were reduced, old person stylee, to eating our sandwiches in the car). If you can tear your hair away from your eyes you’ll find the top of the down (?) is riddled with all manner of bumps and ditches. The far (east) end of White Sheet Hill is a pretty small Iron Age site – but with triple? banks and some fairly steep ditches (as we discovered, all angled either to funnel the wind straight at you or, if sheltered to be disgustingly soggy so you can’t sit down – excellent defence or what). There are Bronze age barrows half way along the down (mind the reckless model plane fliers here).
But! at the western end – a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure, no less. It has a single causewayed ditch and it sits out on the spur of the hills. It could be 5000 years old.

Now for my speculative bit. It’s not overly convincing from the map, but when you’re up there it seems that the Neolithic earthworks directly address the hill ‘Long Knoll’ across the valley. And it’s my opinion that Long Knoll looks like a recumbent figure. I have to buy a digital camera to take with me everywhere.. Anyway, this would fit in so well with similar ideas about recumbent images of the earth god/dess being sighted on by Neolithic sites, that you can read about in TMA and in here. The nearby village is called ‘Maiden Bradley’ (Maiden + Bride-lea?) which seemed highly significant in my enthusiasm to prove my new discovery.

Please visit and tell me your opinion! Turn up the lane at the pub on the B3092 between Maiden Bradley and Stourhead. There’s a car park half way up the hill, but if you want to skid in the gravel you can drive up to the top where there are a range of enormous potholes to park in. Don’t bother following the track down the other side – it just gets ridiculous unless you’re in a landrover, and if you’re in anything remotely lowslung you simply have to turn round.

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I believe that Jack’s Castle barrow is very close to Alfred’s Tower (shown in the above photographs). Would it have been visible without the trees? And did Colt Hoare deliberately put his tower next to it?

I can’t believe this is the first fieldnote for Golden Cap – this place is terrific.
Contrary to TMA, there’s no signposting off the main road (this can only be a good thing if you ask me) but you’ll be fine with your OS map. Julian describes the first wooded hill where you park (at SY 412 930) as the body of the sacred landscape, with Golden Cap as the head. You follow the gentle path round the body, but it’s quite some exertion up to the top of Golden Cap (but all nicely stepped as it’s on the coastal path). It’s the highest point on the south coast, and if you walk out to the end you’ll totally believe it, the drop is pretty monumental.
I took three other people up there – they were kicking a bit to begin with but once we were up there noone wanted to leave, it was so warm and we were sat on the closely nibbled grass chatting. You should be able to see a very long way but last thursday it was beautifully hazy and you couldn’t tell where the sea met the sky. You could hear the waves far below, there were bees everywhere, and the generally car-bound cynics were at peace. The oranges I’d brought were hailed as delicious.
As my better half said: ‘This is definitely somewhere we’ll come back to.‘

This Iron Age hill fort fills perches on the Greensand ridge that crosses the county here. Most of the hillside is wooded, but you can see some ditches. There is a monumental vista (for this part of the world – it’s all relative) and you can sit on the sandy rabbit-nibbled turf, mull things over and watch the intercities thunder by on the main line north. Best on a sunny day maybe.

With regard to the name – obviously it’s traditionally associated with the Romans, which in a way is unsurprising because several Roman villas have been found fairly locally.

The barrows at Therfield Heath are rather unexpected in this part of the country. They are beautifully positioned overlooking the ancient Icknield Way and you can see for miles across the flat Cambridgeshire countryside. There are five Bronze Age barrows in a group right on the ‘turn’ of the slope, and some way further back a Neolithic longbarrow, which was apparently reused in anglo saxon times. There are other round barrows on the heath too (even one with a bench perched on the top...). Part of the heath is a golf course so you do have to watch yourself crossing the greens, but the site is supposed to be a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It’s chalk and there are lots of interesting flowers, including (i haven’t seen it but if you get up there at Easter you might) the rare Pasqueflower.
Parking is easy – there’s a small ‘nature reserve’ car park at the west end, or drive through the golf club car park at the eastern end, and then make your way up the slope.
Go into Royston to see the ‘Roy Stone’ a 2 tonne glacial erratic placed at time immemorial? at the crossroads of the Icknield Way and the Roman Ermine Street. Also there’s Royston Cave, a v mysterious underground chamber with strange pagan/christian carvings of uncertain date but for some reason associated with the Knights Templar. That’s at the crossroads too – popular with ley line fans also.
The barrows at Therfield Heath are somewhere to clear your mind and think about the passing of time; I think they’re cool and pretty unmissable if you’re about in this relatively barrowless land.

Having parked the car on the verge (my rookie boyfriend: ‘Isn’t there a car park or something’ hoho but he is keen and in training) and negotiated the mud in my unhelpfully flared trousers, turned the corner at the barn to spy the dolmen perching in a lively manner in its field. Seems strange to be in the valley – but what a top spot. Just as we approached the farmer drove between us and it with his tractor spraying christknows what over the wheat(?). I didn’t feel that paranoid about the prospect of skipping over his crops in full view, but what I didn’t fancy was the thought of the vile stuff he’d just sprayed wafting all over me in the process. As boyfriend remarked between coughs, it smelt like scampi fries. Could have been merely fertiliser I suppose but whether liquid fish or organophosphate it certainly set us to thinking about the state of our food and how although an organic loaf doesn’t look so different it probably contains quite different chemicals. But anyway. The devil’s den was fantastically quiet (a world away from Avebury) and I am determined to come back to experience it properly very soon. The setting is perfect; it must have looked fantastic surrounded by flax.

The stone rows run E-W according to my compass; could it be something to do with the passage of the sun at the equinoxes? Walking between the stones I felt like I was following a path countless others must have taken. I felt puzzled about the blocking stones. I wondered if the path represented the path of your life (E- sunrise to W-sunset)? so the blocking stones gave a symbolic beginning and end? There is only one at the east end of the main row, but two at the west. You can squeeze through the western pair – like a celtic boundary to pass through? to the underworld? Who knows.
Stupidly forgot my camera but drew a picture instead. Check out some of the stones – they’re stripey with quartz that glints in the sunshine, and dripping with lichens (grey, purple, gold) – bloody fantastic.

The day started beautifully, and we climbed up to the nearby waterfalls behind the pub. How picturesque (but rather clinical with all the beautifully laid steps). Then it started raining. To begin with quite half-heartedly, so we thought ‘We WILL see the axe factory’ as it was something I’d really looked forward to. It’s a beautiful closed valley, you just keep walking and walking and soon you’ve left the road behind, and it’s just you and these towering peaks. You can keep going over the top, out across the lake district. We did not. I have never seen so much rain in my life. We were so inadequately dressed, with a couple of light anoraks and two woefully battered umbrellas. People in scuba equipment would have stared at us as though we were mad. We battled on. The rain ran down our faces. I felt like a prune. We were determined to see it. Was this it? Was that it? Would we ever know? But when you get there, you know. The stones just look Right. We picked one up, it looked like a blank for an axe*. We practically swam back to the pub. But it was worth it. Later at the bizarre and unmissable Keswick museum we saw a finished axe – same stone. Fantastic. These axes were traded for hundreds of miles. Go on a nice day.

*It probably wasn’t. We weren’t high enough up the slope. And I know you’re not allowed to go nicking such things. But it was nice to have a bit of the same stone.

Regarding the rain, I’ve since read the following in a book of Lake District folklore: “How can you stand all this rain?” – “No sa weel. but we’re thinking on getting a lid for t’dale.”
Hence the phrase “We’ll have to borrow Langden lid.” Apparently.