Kammer

Visited 24th July 2002: We went to Flag Fen without realising that the Sea Henge timbers were in storage there. I’m certain that the experience was nowhere near as magical as visiting the site in it’s original location, but I still got over excited by the experience.

Of course, the battery ran out on the digital camera, so I had a go with the SLR. The results aren’t fantastic, but I thought I’d post them up anyway. It was good to see the timbers (I missed out on seeing them in situ) but sad to see them in the wrong place.

Visited November 1998: We went to see the giant on our honeymoon. At the time Lou was already pregnant (no, it’s wasn’t a shotgun wedding) so we decided fertility rites needn’t be pursued.

When my Dad drove past this site with his prudish mother and father my Grandma allegedly commented on the size of the giant’s club. This wasn’t intended as an innuendo (if you’d ever met her you’d know she was no Kenneth Williams), but as a pathetic distraction technique, intended to draw her son’s attention away from the enormous penis on the hillside. Needless to say this didn’t stop Dad from spotting the giant’s most distinctive attribute.

Visited 9th November 2002: We went to the wrong place first of all, which was a bit embarrassing (my fault). On our second attempt we made it to the right valley, and found the circle without too much trouble (I’ll spare you the details).

Eglwys Gwyddelod is a cairn circle, or so the experts seem to think. There’s no remaining in-fill that can be positively identified, so I’m not sure how it was decided that the site isn’t just a stone circle. It’s much bigger than the cairn circles I’m familiar with (e.g. Dolgamfa or Hirnant) which are kerb cairns. At Eglwys Gwyddelod the stones are approximately one cubic meter in size, which I grant you isn’t big on stone circle standards, but on local standards it’s quite large.

The circle sits on a natural shelf overlooking a small valley with beautiful views, particularly to the east. Through the valley runs the old mountain road (and I use the term loosely) between Pennal and Bryn Crug. This is the best way to get to the site on foot, but look out for the enormous water filled trenches caused by off-roaders. Also beware slippery rock on this track, as it’s had hundreds of years of polishing from a variety of feet & vehicles. Wellies aren’t a bad idea if it’s been raining.

Well worth a visit, but it’s a bit of a way from the road.

Visited 9th November 2002: Croes Faen is very easy to find, and you can get good views of it from the road. The stone is exceptionally tall and slender, with two vertical edges on the south east side of it.

Croes Faen is almost certainly not prehistoric. It’s thought to be the remains of a Medieval cross, the head having been removed or knocked off at some point. Croes Faen means stone cross.

Visited 9th November 2002: There’s no public access to this stone, but you can get a reasonable view of it by parking a 4x4 or van in the lane next to it and standing on the roof.

This is the point I got to before I resigned myself to trespass. A genteel sprint to the stone was much more productive, and I enjoyed tranquil seconds at the site before it was time to sprint back to the car. Is this normal?

Visited 26th July 2002: I’m repeating myself a bit here (see Countless Stones) but parking for Kit’s Coty and Countless Stones is extremely poor.

The safest parking space we found was at the end of the weird dual carriageway (TQ74456055). Here it is on Multimap:

uk.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?grid=TQ74456055&scale=25,000

This might be the same place that ‘juamei’ is describing below. Take a flourecent vest with you, especailly if you go on to visit Countless Stones!

Visited 26th July 2002: Parking and access to Countless Stones and Kit’s Coty is appalling because the traffic on the small roads between them is fast and there’s no footpath. The safest parking space we found was at the end of the weird dual carriageway (TQ74456055). Here it is on Multimap:

uk.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?grid=TQ74456055&scale=25,000

Getting to Kit’s Coty on foot from here was relatively easy, but walking to Countless Stones from the same spot was a bit more hair raising. We had our three year old son William with us, which made it more scary.

There’s a ‘demi-lay-by’ right next to the entrance to Countless Stones, but you can’t really park there for long without feeling like you’re about to get shunted by a passing lorry. On the way back I went and got the car and collected Lou and Will from here (like some sort of SAS hostage extraction).

The stones themselves are well worth a visit, despite the nearby pillons and the dodgy road. They aren’t in a cage or covered in chalk graffiti like Kit’s Coty, so I got the impression that they have fewer visitors. Perhaps the road is actually protecting them!

Visited 5th October 2002: After Carreg Coetan Arthur the setting for Llech-y-Tripped was a refreshing change. The cromlech nestles in the corner of a field, high on a ridge overlooking the mountains. The sea is really close, but this site definitely isn’t orientated towards it.

There’s no signage at any point from the road, but the sturdy looking (and unusual) stile into the field where the cromlech sits suggests that public access is allowed. The stones are easy to see from the track. This site is obviously not visited as much as it’s suburban neighbour, but it’s such a big beauty of a cromlech. I’d certainly recommend a visit.

Visited May 1995: Lou and I walked to Swarth Fell back in the good old days when we lived in the Lake District. We were on route from Bowness to Penrith, mostly following the Roman track called High Street. I saw the circle on the OS map, so we decided to deviated from the footpath to find it.

We nearly didn’t find the stones because they are all fallen. We were knackered when we got there, so we downed our (stupidly overloaded) rucksacks and stopped to relax and take in the view. This decision severely inhibited our progress for the rest of the day, but as I recall we didn’t really care. As you can see, in the photo Louise is as recumbent as the stones.

Visited 4th November 2002: I pursuaded Louise that this was a minor detour on our way back home from Edinburgh. In practise the roads were a lot slower than we expected, and we nearly ran out of light before we got there. Fortunately the chamber is aligned (approximately) to the south west, with beautiful views across the Dore Valley and towards the setting sun. The evening light contrasted dramatically between vivid sunshine and deep shadow.

The capstone is enormous (none of the photos here do it justice), and even though it’s now broken into two pieces, I was in awe of it. I tried to find the cup marks that are supposed to be on the outlying stone*, but all I found was a relatively modern carving of a star (see photo).

This was Alfie’s first visit to a prehistoric site, but we got no reaction out of him (other than the usual ‘give me milk mummy!’). William was very pleased with the burial chamber, and decided to pretend it was a shop. Well worth the extra miles!

As an aside, access for wheelchair users and people with pushchairs is unnecessarily hampered by a narrow gateway in the perimetre fence. This is all the more annoying because the site is so close to the road. Visitors with limited mobility on foot will probably have relatively little difficulty getting in through the gap.

* [I figured out later on that the cupmarked stone is not part of this site, but a seperate stone]