fitzcoraldo
This is a crackin’ site. We approached from Wigton seeing the stone row first.
The setting of the circle is beautiful, we’d been looking at circles in the hills and this made a lovely constrast with it’s setting on it’s own platform in the fertile fields of the Machars.
The circle is in excellent nick and draws you into itself and the landscape.
As we travelled through the landscape we began to realise that a lot of these monuments are orientated NE-SW, this goes for the nearby row and the possible row in the cowfield.
Burl draws comparisons between the centre stone and it’s flankers with the Recumbant circles of NE Scotland.
Stubob spotted these fellas just over the wall from the circle.
They are messy but a couple of the stones look the business and they are roughly on the same orientation as the stone row.
The hole in the stone has been ground-out from both sides leaving a pair of funnels.
I love stones with holes in ‘em.
A good sized fella, worth a look.
This platformed cairn is a good size and worth a look if your passing.
The side that faces the road looks a bit robbed-out but it’s overall shape and condition is good.
It stands beside the B7079 on the outskirts of Newton Stewart.
The odd fellow at the back of the circle is the infamous Matlock Mushroom Man
Two weathered C&Rs and a pecked line running across the rock
Thgis unusual motif shows how the rock has been divided into quadrants by pecked lines. A single cup has been placed into three of the quadrants
The ‘Goalmouth Stone‘
A cup and ring with unusual pecked grooves
These two sites are intervisable with each other. I’m not sure as to the chronology of the tombs but I would guess that the uphill tomb was the first as it commands a better view.
If you try really hard and the light is on your side, you can just make out the large cup and ring carving on the capstone of No.1
The easiest way of getting to these stones is to use the gate opposite the lovely lake and follow the field boundary uphill and turn left halfway up the second field.
As Stu says, not a lot of character to this confused, probable, four poster.
According to Aubrey Burl. This site was originally a simple pair of stones with pits dug to receive the cremated bones. A circular cairn was then heaped over the cemetery and two more stones were added converting the monument into a four poster.
It takes a minute or two to spot the stone coming from Bagbie and the south west but once you move up the road you can look back and see the stone cutting the horizon.
Newton Farm is a wonderful place if your looking for a lovely secluded beach to camp on.
It makes an excellent base for getting around the local sites.
The facilities are pretty none existant but the beach is a trip. Take lots of firewood and enjoy the Burial Chamber, Rock Art and lovely beach.
All that for £2 per tent per night.
I’m not sure if this is a known site. I’ve found no record of it, yet.
We noticed it as we were walking back to the beach from the burial chamber.
The sun was dropping and just caught the rock revealing a group of faint cup and rings on the western edge of an outcrop.
A nice end to our trip.
This lovely little site can be found in a lush meadow on Newton Farm.
It appears to have been a stone-lined rectangular box with a standing stone at each corner. It’s a bit tumbled down but quite recognisable. Nice views over the sea and the broody hills.
A massive blaze has devastated a large area of the North York Moors near Whitby.
An ecological expert fears the moorland at Fylingdales could be a barren wasteland for years.
More than 50 firefighters from across North Yorkshire – a quarter of the county’s force – tackled the blaze, which covered an area of about four square miles.
“I met a man from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
tell that it’s sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
P.B. Shelley
“As I sat on the stela of Adam’s Grave, I was gazing down the heaving slopes of human thought, and nature spoke to me of man’s visions of her, no less than of her own unequivocated loveliness. For one hour I was a droplet left by the tide of humanity that had ebbed from their slopes, and I knew that it was only by treading in the worn steps of the hill-dwellers that I could realize so much as a fragment of the seemingly incomprehensibles of their lives. I do not believe for a single moment that Downland man chose the high places either in search of pasturage for his flocks or because the wooded valleys were the haunts of peril or even demons, or as a refuge for human foes. He went there because he was a man of self-regarding, of devastatingly material and yet of appealing piety. He dug metals not to become rich but immortal; he climbed the hills to come nearer to Godhead, not in terms of the spirit but of the fortunate and desirable life he lived”.
From
Downland Man by H.J. Massingham
Pub 1927 by Butler & Tanner
Pen = A British hill name cognate with Welsh & Cornish; Breton Penn, head, headland hill.
Source – The Mighty Elgee!
“The obelisk shaped stone is reputed to be the origin of the name of the pass because of it’s resemblance in profile to a church roof.”
Lakes and Cumbria Today
Issue 7
The Kirkstone looking south over Brothers Water and Hartsop Dodd.
This is the profile of the stone as seen from the south as you climb the Kirkstone Pass
A shot from more or less the same angle as one of ironmans but with less moss/lichen due to the dry summer.
These could be some of the marks mentioned by Stan Beckensall in his “Prehistoric Rock Art of Cumbria”. I thought the two linear grooves may have been ‘plough scars’ until I noticed the chevron, there is a second chevron at 10 o’clock to the highlighted one unfortunately the photograph has not picked it up.
I’ve previously been up onto Brow Moor but had no sucess at finding any of the rock art that’s been reported here. This time I was armed with a bunch of references from the SMR and a gps so I expected to have some success.
I parked up in the car park close to the radio mast on the coast road.
From this point I could see south along the coast past Scarborough to Flamborough. The radio masts of Seamer Beacon were very visible. It was also possible to pick out Shooting house Rigg – site of the Old Wifes Neck and Standing Stones Rigg, home of the Ramsdale Stones.
Using the references from the SMR I tramped onto the moor. The references took me to a stoney area of the moor just south of the trackway. The heather is quite high and due to the recent hot weather the moss and heather were stuck to the rocks like superglue resulting in a total inability to ‘peel’ back the moss from the rocks. I felt that it would be extremely irresponsible to start digging the stuff off the rocks so I left the area without seeing one piece of rock art.
As I was moving over the moor I noticed two fellas mooching about , cameras in hand and heads down. I wandered over towards them to ask if they were familiar with the moor and had they come across any rock art. I was greeted by a friendly “Howdo, are you looking for cups?”
It turned out that one of the guys was very familiar with the moor and it’s rock art, his mate was just along for the ride and to take a few photos. We soon slipped into a conversation about local sites and other rock art folk. I told him of my lack of success in finding any of the art, he said that they were leaving but he would show me a few of the examples in the immediate vacinity.
He showed me four lovely examples, all of which had been covered over to help prevent erosion. These were fine rocks, he also told me where to find other examples including some of the more complex motifs. He warned me that they were in deep heather and on rocks that were at ground level making them very dificult to spot.
The guys then took off for their pub lunch and I mooched across to the area he had pointed out. I found the landmarks he had described and started systematically moving through the thigh high heather trying to find the rocks. Unfortunately after an hour and a halfs searching I came up with nothing apart from scratched shins and ankles so I decided to call it a day and return in winter when the vegetation was a bit lower.
The Brow and Howdale Moors are a lovely place with some stunning views including some fantastic seascapes. There are also a number of barrows and earthworks scattered across the moors. Even though I only found a few rocks I still had a great time up there and would recommend the place for the views alone.