ocifant

5th October 2003

I took the approach from the telephone box opposite Sancreed Church, which had a sign advising that an alternative path was available 300yds up the road. The approach was long and narrow – no room for a wheelchair here. The path is quite clearly delineated, except for one point where stiles appear both in front, and to the right. I chose right, which was right! A short incline, and the well appeared in front of me. The first thing I saw was the ugly modern cross that’s been erected here. Climbing down into the well, I spotted the phosphorescence straight away, but it proved difficult to photograph. Sitting in the cracks on the far walls, it gave the impression of minute fairy grottoes, complete with lighting!

After 10 minutes or so, I began to feel uneasy, and had the start of a headache, so decided to leave. But before finally leaving I took a quick look at the remains of the small chapel just above the well. Only part of the walls remain, similar to, but in a worse condition than the chapel at Madron Well.

Leaving via the continuation of the footpath, after a short climb a stile led to the road, just around the corner from my starting point.

5th October 2003

After a false start, confused a little by the directions here, I found the stile easily enough. Park by the Alsia Farm entrance drive, and walk down (West) past the Mill. The stile is on the left, opposite what would be a parking place if not blocked off by stones. Climb up the stile steps and a totally unexpected view awaits. A pleasant meadow with a large informational sign leads to the far field boundary, where another small sign points to the (private) footpath leading to the well. Down the hill, the bracken and brambles open up on the right, and turning right into the brambles again reveals the rusty gate by the well.

Access: The initial stile is quite high, but the walk is reasonable across grassland. The return trip is uphill, and the stile can be tricky to return down to the road.

5th October 2003

From opposite Sennen Church (with its couple of fine old crosses), a private road runs back toward the farm buildings. The footpath is shown as going up to the shed, but I’m not sure where it goes from there. I ventured over the locked gate, and around the back of the shed, startling a large fox in the process.

The stone, visible from the road when the foliage is low, is built into the field boundary wall, is covered in lichen, and I’d guess stands approx 3-4 metres tall. Being on private land, permission should really be sought, but there was no-one around during my brief visit, other than a herd of cows in the neighbouring field.

5th October 2003

Having read the Cornwall Archaeological report from 1993 last night, I’m more convinced that this was a circle at some point in the past. On previous visits, I’d not noticed the buried stones, and the approach path from the track has what could possibly be a fallen (and now semi-buried) outlier across it. To me, this only adds weight to the theories.

4th October 2003

This place is seriously out of the way! Thanks are due to Goffik for his directions which led me straight there. This is not somewhere that someone who has a problem with heights (like me!) should go. Goffik’s directions state ‘take the left fork’. As the path clings limpet like to the side of a very high cliff, the only way I could see a left fork taking me was straight down. Luckily, the main path forked right and up, and the left fork consisted of just a few steps down to the well itself. There’s not much more than a thin covering of foliage stopping anyone falling off the cliff though, so I wouldn’t suggest visiting here in wet or windy weather.

Access: Not for the faint-hearted!

3rd October 2003

Last time I was here, it was typically Dartmoor damp. This morning, it was typical Dartmoor sunshine, a glorious day!

I took my time walking the rows, circumnavigating the circle and outlier and I actually found the cracked cist this time – I’d totally missed it last time round.

An excellent place to stop on the moor whatever the weather.

4th October 2003

I adore this place – I want to have its babies. The bracken was chest high, and I wasn’t sure how much I’d see of the circle today, but I needn’t have worried as the centre stone was easily viewed from the approach. When I was last here at this time last year, the stones were almost completely covered by the bracken, but some care has been taken this year to keep them clear. The sun shone, and the stones were all quite warm, apart from the large quartz stone, which was icy cold to the touch. Its magic worked on me once again, and I found it very difficult to leave. I daren’t look back as I finally left, in case I felt impelled to return.

Access: Difficult even in good conditions -it’s a tricky (though not long) walk from the road whichever direction you approach from. I’d suggest able bodied access only.

3rd October 2003

The northern row gave me slightly less difficulty that the southern row, but many of the stones are extremely low indeed. The blocking stone stands a foot or so high and was the most recognisable to me, the grass being fairly rough and high during my visit.

3rd October 2003

Lying to one side, in a cleared area parallel with the forest track, the cairn sadly had a significant fire pit on top of the mound. Despite the low number of stones, the circle can clearly be seen.

3rd October 2003

From the access track, several very low stones, barely poking above the earth were evident. Also apparent were several moss covered tree stumps, which confused the picture somewhat, as it was necessary to determine which were stones and which were stumps. It was quite tricky to make out the stone row, which didn’t seem that straight to me.

Visited 3rd October 2003

Like Martin, we drove as far as possible along the approach road, past the official car park. The forest track heads off to the left from this point (don’t follow the footpath immediately ahead). The track rises steadily for a way (took me what felt like about 5-10 minutes, but with no watch it’s hard to say). Suddenly the clearing appeared to the right. Two large stones proclaimed the entrance, but I think they’re there to stop possible vehicles (which obviously use the track) from progressing further. The site opened up from this point on, everything being nicely laid out before me.

There was no fire damage evident within the circle, although there was a fire pit just outside of it. What was obvious to me, was the slant of the circle, with taller stones on the south progressing down to smaller ones on the northern side. I’d seen this effect before, during our trip to Ireland earlier this year. I don’t recall seeing this in other circles in this country, but then I don’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning!

Later: I saw this Frith photo which shows the site in 1907 – quite a difference!

Access: A fair uphill trek to get to the area of the sites. I wouldn’t want to push a wheelchair up here – it’s quite a bumpy path.

Visited 3rd October 2003

Even at 7:30 in the morning, the A35 is a damn dangerous place! Parking on the wrong side of the road in the ‘makeshift layby’, I precariously made my way the 50 yards along the road to the small concrete bridge across the ditch to the oasis of calm that is the stones. Despite laying only feet from the roar of the traffic, I was surprised at how little it intruded upon the stones.

A ritual had obviously been performed here the previous evening, as a clear swept circle of leaves remained in the middle of the stones. Unfortunately, the light was all wrong for photographs, and I encountered the same difficulties in taking pictures that I had when trying to photograph the Hoar Stone at Enstone. All were out of focus, with a strong colour cast, despite using a monpod.

Access: Dodgy, even for the fully fit, due to the traffic hazard.

About 25 yards south of the Countless Stones is a turn off. I precariously parked here and crossed the road to an entrance to a bridleway to see if I could see the Coffin Stone in it’s field. Luckily, the crop had been harvested, and the stone(s) stood proud of the field, in full sight. I didn’t approach the stones on this ocassion, being contented enough just to see them, and not wanting to encroach on what is obviously a cropping field. A couple of hundred yards further south is an entrance to Great Tottington Farm. I may ask here next time for permission to actually visit the stones.

There is also supposedly a circle, or ruined circle of stones (The Tottington Sarsens) at the head of the stream on the farm. It would be interesting to see if anything remains of this site/monument.

We popped in to have a look at this today, on our way back home from Birmingham, as it’s only a 5 minute drive from J11 on the M40.

Approaching Cropredy from the A361, just before the Cropredy Bridge is a large stone on the left hand side of the road. An information plaque proclaims it to be a boundary stone from the 15thC, but it looks and feels much older than that.

Anyway, continuing on, we came to a ‘T’ junction. We turned Right for no particular reason, and shortly spotted a road on the left marked ‘Cup and Saucer’. I swung in and the stone was there in front of us.

I’m not certain what to make of it, to be honest. It looks as if it should have an inscription carved on the ‘plinth’, for plinth it is. The base and ‘cup’ appears to be a single stone, but at the same time has obviously been extensively worked into its current font-like form. It’s hard to tell if the ‘spoon’ was ever actually a separate stone, or if the whole was carved from a single piece of stone.

Cup & Saucer? Mug & Spoon? Pestle & Mortar? I think the jury’s still out on this one...

I failed to find this at the weekend.

The EH Monuments record describes the site thus:
“The site lies on a gentle south east facing slope at the north east corner of a small wood.
The portal dolmen has one large upright and one adjacent inclined stone, together with a number of smaller stones on the northern side of a roughly square depression which measures 3m across and 0.2m deep. The upright limestone block measures 1.54m long, 0.72m thick and stands 0.94m high above the present ground level. The inclined stone immediately to the east measures 1m long, c.1m wide and 0.5m thick. Surrounding the central depression is a circular bank of small stones which measures c.10m in overall diameter. The bank is 2m wide and stands 0.4m high to the south.”

I could see two possible candidates for the ‘small wood’, but couldn’t find a way through the hedge from the road (which is a bit of a racetrack!) I’ll have to leave this for someone more local to investigate further.

There is also a possible Long Barrow in the same vicinity, which is close to Chastleton Barrow Fort and the Goose Stones, so lots of evidence for this being an important centre at one time.

Popped in here on Saturday to pay our respects. As Jane says, it’s almost totally hidden and you wouldn’t know it was there unless you were specifically looking for it.

“You didn’t see me, right?”

Visited this at the weekend, but not much to see, to be honest.

Parked at the bottom of the hill, there’s a parking area at the junction with the main road. Pleasant enough walk up the hill (the road is marked as no through route for motor vehicles) – very quiet, even the traffic noise was negligable, so very peaceful.

If you walk up the road and reach the pylons, you passed the barrow. It’s in a field to the left – no obvious way in and it’s in the middle of a cultivated field so I didn’t trespass to get to it at all. All that can be seen is an uncultivated ‘lump’, although there are apparently a couple of possible entrance stones to be seen.

There are good views all around. 2-300 yards difference in the location and it would be a different story though.

I only spotted this on the way home as I took a wrong turning. Parking in a layby I looked across and thought “hello, what’s that?“. Checking the map, the opportunity was too good to miss, and we carefully made our way up the deeply rutted track to the even more deeply rutted car park.

As others have said, the ‘fort’ is impressive. I was totally unprepared for the inner ditch, and knew right away that this was special in some way. It’s a bit too ‘jagged’ for a proper henge ditch, to my mind, and looks a bit rough and ready.

Great views though, and a large and varied butterfly population.

South Baddesley is a small place: a church, a school and a few cottages. We parked in the church car park, a couple of hundred yards North off the Lymington-East End road.

I walked back down the lane to the junction, but could see no sign of a sarsen, even though the GPS said I was on the spot. There’s a small triangle of grass at a junction with a side lane, that would have been an ideal spot if the stone had been moved, but it was bare.

Sadly it looks as if this is no more (or is now recumbent in a ditch, covered by undergrowth)

This is definitely one for the completists. The henge does not appear on the OS map, but is mentioned on the MAGIC web site as a scheduled monument. The henge is about 1m in height, and around 65m in diameter. There are apparently two opposing entrances, identified from crop marks, in the East and West. The Icknield Way passes by and is visible to the NE.

I approached on the path from the NW. The henge site can be seen across a field surrounded by barbed wire, showing signs warning of Rat Poison and other evils. Staying on the path (marked on the OS Map), and skirting around this field leads to the field with the henge in it. Luckily, the crop had recently been harvested and I crossed to the henge site itself, which was heavily overgrown with weeds. Sadly, there’s really not much to see here, unless you enjoy staring at an uncultivated patch of land surrounded by farmland.

I was quite surprised when I found out where these were. A few years ago, before my TMA interests, I’d attended a job interview in the modern office block that overlooks the mounds. I remember assuming at the time that they were just a modern landscaping feature…

Antiquarian descriptions state that the mounds were once all surrounded by ditches and outer banks, but these are no longer visible. What are visible today are the inevitable cycle tracks across the tops of the mounds, which are situated a short walk from the shopping centre. The mounds are fairly evenly spaced, on a N-S line. Only one is undisturbed, three having large depressions indicating where shafts have been sunk, and the two most southerly have been tunnelled from the sides.

All in all, a bit of an anachronism in the modern(!) town, but I’m glad they’ve managed to survive.

This is weird. A church, with a whole bunch of sarsens around it.

The two stones in front of the church are not in their original positions, according to a helpful local lady, who also pointed out the sarsen poking inside the SW wall of the church, under the rear pew. Reports of the number of stones varies. I thought I counted as many as 13 stones or remnants, but figures of 9,10 or 11 are more usually reported.

Was this originally a circle? It’s difficult to determine that from what I saw. Most of the stones are on the Southern edges of the churchyard rather than spread around. R*man fragments of a hypocaust were found in an adjoining field, and a kiln site lies nearby, so the area has been in use since the Iron Age, if not earlier.

I’m no expert on cup marks, but several of the stones had round indentations in them. Could this be weathering? Another had a triangular ‘groove’ cut into it, which intrigued me – see photos for details of these.

Just at the northern limit of the town, on the B1383, is the entrance to Shortgrove House. We parked here, and walked the 100 or so yards further south along the road to where the Leper Stone stands at the side of the road. This is a large stone, reportedly the largest in Essex.

Slightly further south in the town, in Station Road lies a recumbent block of puddingstone outside the village hall.