pure joy

East Aquhorties Stone circle (23.8.2002)

This site is now very well signposted from the main A96.
There is a car park at the bottom of the track that leads to the circle. The car park even now has a litterbin and info board. It’s about 200m from the car park to the circle.

What still never fails to (happily) surprise me is the amount of people who visit ancient sites. At 9.30 am there was already a couple just returning from the circle – a slightly unlikely couple, dressed very smartly and driving a huge new 4x4. And then a horse rider was passing next to the circle, breaking in a young horse.

East Aquhorties is yet another fantastic place set in a marvellous surrounding. The ‘modernisation’ of the circle (the stone wall) isn’t that bad and I really felt at home here.

Stoney Littleton (circa summer of 1993)

I know what the other field notes mean about getting lost! Despite living in and around Bath for much of my life, all three times I tried to go I seemed to struggle to find Stoney Littleton, and once even gave up when approaching from the south. Don’t get me wrong – with a map and a better sense of direction than me, it shouldn’t be that hard to find; it’s just that it’s not quite as easy as the normal Road Atlases suggest. When I was last there (circa 1993) it still had a locked grill across the barrow entrance (see photo above) but I believe the barrow is currently open. I can’t wait to go again!

Stanton Drew (circa summer of 1993)

I have racked my brain and cannot remember exactly when I visited Stanton Drew. I would guess it was the summer of 1993. The main circles were often considered ‘closed’ and I took a lovely photo of the ‘Druid Stones Closed’ sign, with the telephone wires seemingly radiating out of it. I asked at the farm next door, and a man told me that the guy who owned the land was a ‘miserable sod’ and a bit of an absent landlord. He suggested that I wander down on his (the farmers’) land and get as close to the stones as I could, or even duck under the fence and take my chance – it was unlikely that the owner would be around. My natural aversion to shotguns meant that I wimped out of going closer, so I just looked at them from the fence. Also I was a relatively local lad so I knew I could visit again sometime.

Anyway, that’s all in the past. This website has encouraged me to go back soon and see them properly.

Figsbury Ring (Summer 2000)

I visited this as a ‘detour’ on my way back from my friend’s house in Newbury. You know, one of those diversions you take to fix it to make sure you can go past an ancient site on your way somewhere – i.e. a big detour.

I had been visiting an old friend, Dr Jaime Kaminski, a mad ex-archaeologist turned IT person, who finds gunshot from the Battle of Newbury (1643) each time he digs his garden. Jaime got 8 firsts out of nine exams for his Archaeology degree. Bugger. He was some sort of mad genius; just about the last person you’d expect to be a brain box. We had gone up Beacon Hill, a hill fort just outside Newbury, and then I continued on to Figsbury Ring.

When I visited Figsbury Ring it was easy to find, well signposted from the main road, but like other people have said on this website it is a VERY rough track up to the site, and you do get the feeling that something is wrong. Stick with it; after quite an uphill drive/walk you will come to a very large car park. I found Figsbury Ring to be one of the most amazing and intriguing places I have visited. Like others have said, there is something rum going on here. It’s not much of a ‘defensive stronghold’ is it?! Especially after having just seen Beacon Hill and Ladle Hill, and going on to see the huge defences at Old Sarum. And why on earth would any community spend their precious time digging an extra ditch inside their own settlement? I smell a fish here. I am not an archaeologist or a researcher at English Heritage but I have been to a lot of hill forts and henge’s and Figsbury Ring does not strike me to be obviously a hill fort.

Mayburgh (21.8.2002)

400m walk from King Arthur’s Round Table. Or if you prefer you can park very close, below where the main road (the A6) goes over the motorway. The A6 now has a big Millennium Stone (you know, a big stone plonked somewhere to celebrate the Millennium) between the main road and the slip road down to Mayburgh, so it’s probably even easier now to spot how to get to Mayburgh.

Very serious looking dowsers and dog walkers were all around when I visited, and I found it a bit weird because of that. But it was still a physically impressive site even if I couldn’t get much sense of calm or history.

King Arthur’s Round Table (21.8.2002)

Well signposted, but no organised place to park a car. I found it best to park in side road virtually opposite the main entrance to the site. This is on the B5320, barely 50 metres from the junction with the A6. You can also then walk to Mayburgh if you wish. It is hard to really get a feel for the place because of it destruction and location, but it did remind my in a small way of the henge at Arbor Low, and the banks and ditches of numerous hill forts, especially Figsbury Ring.

Balquain Stone circle (23.8.2002)

I found this hard to find without an OS map or decent instructions. And also frustrating because I could see it in the field but wasn’t quite sure how to get to it and where the farm was to ask for permission. Personally I would say either get an OS map, or follow these instructions. If travelling North on the A96 look for the first junction after Inverurie. Take the road west from the junction (signposted from the A96 as Chapel of Garioch) and after exacty 1 kilometre go right at the first road junction / crossroad (it is a crossroads but in reality it doesn’t seem like one and is very small). You MAY just spot a farm sign saying ‘Balquain Main’ at this crossroads. On this track there is a farm about only about 70 metres on your left. The farmer said I could drive up the track for another 70 metres or so and park at the two holiday cottages that he lets out to holidaymakers. He may say something else to you; who knows. Then I walked a bit further up the track and across the edge of two fields to my right (East). It was about a 10 minute walk from the farm to the circle.

The circle was heavily overgrown when I visited, and the rest of the field was ploughed, making it really stand out whilst driving along the road towards the crossroads. The height and ferocity of the grass made it hard to get around (it was far higher than the photo in TMA), but it is in a great setting, and it’s interesting to wonder what it could have looked like many years ago.

The other stone circle that people have referred to below, is the Hampton circle. Its referred to on this website as Hampton Down.

No one seems to be able to agree on its name. TMA refers to it as Hampton Hill Stone Circle on page 213, and Hampton Down on page 128. Aubrey Burl, in his 1995 book, A Guide to Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany refers to it as Hampton Down Stone Circle (pages 67 and 68). The OS map (Explorer OL15. 596865) refers to it as simply Hampton Stone Circle.

PS – Burl also doesn’t include Kingston Russell in his book and his book is supposed to have all but the fake or badly ruined. Very strange.

Winterbourne Nine Stones (4.9.2002)

Lovely once you get there, but a very uncomfortable journey before you get to the safety of the wooded glade.

I would strongly suggest ignoring most other instructions and to actually park at the makeshift lay-by by the entrance to what is listed on the OS Explorer Map OL15 as Grange Farm Dairy (OL15: 621905). It’s a much shorter and safer walk to the Stones. The OL15 OS map alone does not make it clear EXACTLY where the Nine Stones are (I didn’t have the OS grid reference with me at the time – doh!), and we were not happy at walking up the road / racetrack from the Little Chef not even knowing if we were definitely going in the right direction! So we went and found a better place in the lay-by.

If you really want to park at the Little Chef, rest assured that if you turn left as you walk out of the car park and walk along the road for 400m, you will find the Nine Stones, which are on your left as the woods start.

Ps. The English Heritage website gives these instructions: The parking is located in a small lay-by opposite, next to the barn. Cross the road with care.

By barn I guess they mean the dairy / farm buildings?

Winterbourne Poor Lot Barrows (4.9.2002)

I would love to know more about these. Of all the ancient sites we visited in Dorset these were voted ˜most surprising and enigmatic”. We knew nothing more than what we saw on the OS map, which shows the English Heritage symbol with the title “Poor Lot Barrows” and a landscape seemingly littered with barrows / tumuli. I still don’t know much more!

We couldn’t find any sort of entrance or obvious place to park, so we ended up parking on the grass verge of the side road (towards Compton Valence, see below), walking back across the main road (A35) and hopping over the fence. We were pretty amazed that an English Heritage site seemed to have nothing there and made us feel like trespassers! Later I saw the English Heritage website which said there was access via Wellbottom Lodge. We couldn’t see any, but at that time we weren’t quite sure where we were looking and what we were looking for! I presume the Lodge is the house just off to the south of the A35, a short distance before the junction to Compton Valence (if coming from Winterbourne Abbas).

Anyway, remnants of all sort of weird and wonderfully shaped barrows do litter the area, including in the field to the South West, the field to the South East (including quite a large tumulus – see photo), and the field opposite the road (to the North East). Judging by the strange shapes in the maize field to the North there may also be ‘things’ hiding there, but the OS map doesn’t show anything.

And as we were there two jet planes (they looked like American Air Force jets, not RAF?) flew very low over us and then peeled away from each other, like a personal flypast! Amazing.

The English heritage website gives the following information:

Opening Times: Any reasonable time
Admission: Free
Directions: 2 miles W of Winterbourne Abbas, S of junction of A35 with a minor road to Compton Valence. Access via Wellbottom Lodge – 180 metres (200 yards) along A35 from junction (OS Map 194; ref SY 590906)

Penrhos Feilw (circa August 1993)

I loved these two enigmatic stones standing in a field just off of the country lane. It was also another site with a steady stream of visitors. It still surprises me to see just how many people are interested in stopping at ancient sites. I particularly remember a couple of bikers having a wander around.

Kingston Russell Stone Circle (5.9.2002)

Strangely this is marked on several Road Atlases despite it being over a kilometre from any road (and a very minor road at that), and no obvious way to get there without an OS map or good instructions.

18 recumbent stones in a very circular circle (if you get what I mean). Looks like an info board was there, but now just a short metal pole. Mix of medium and small stones, all from same type of stone (not that I’m a geologist). In a cow field which makes the pic from Joolio Geordio interesting coz in that one it’s been prepared for crops. Very chilled out. Excellent views. I guess Julian had a reason not to put this in TMA?