moss

St.Nons – LLandruidion, has an enormously prehistoric and historic background. Its timelessness sinks into the soul, never mind that it is a Catholic retreat now, it wears its past well. The little St. Non’s chapel (which I can’t put on this site because it happened in the wrong time) sits in a field with the odd stone or two jutting through. It is said that there is a neolithic stone circle that surrounds the ruined church – not so sure about that. It is recorded in the landscape archaeological record that apart from the possible stone circle, there is one scheduled standing stone and a possible 5 more, plus 4 barrows within the area.
The old stone, with the added boulder, sits in an adjacent field. The farmer has obviously been removing boulders from this field, for there is a pile in the corner. Have visited this site before so always knew it as a singular stone. Won’t say anything, but if in years to come the boulder stone loses it red colouring, it still won’t be a prehistoric stone....

Note; taken from “Celtic Saints in their Landscape” Elizabeth Rees.

“There is a giant boulder, part of a Bronze Age stone circle within which Non’s chapel was built” The story goes that Non gave birth to David within the stone circle, and that whilst a great storm raged outside, within the circle it was calm and sunny.. Be that as it may, she shows a photo of the stone that is in the foreground of the chapel, the stone facing out to sea.

Children/Nash’s book mention this burial chamber in their appendix as a “Damaged or doubtful monument”.
A little historic pamphlet in Llanhowell Church (itself of early celtic settlement).by R.M.Jenkins
called a “A Pembrokeshire Pilgrimage” he describes it thus
“On Lecha Farm, to the west of the church are the remains of a cromlech which would appear to have sunk into the soft soil from the weight of the capstone, though it is possible that it may have been damaged by wanton or careless marauders. The capstone measures some 15 feet by 11 feet and is about 4 feet thick.”
Will try and find it next spring, it should’nt be too difficult to locate as it is near to a moat....
The striking and exuberant rocky outcrop (Carn Treglemaes) which must have been very visible from this cromlech, is included in the photos. Interdivisibility is difficult today as the high hedge banked fields obscure quite a lot but it is just a question of building up an internal landscape in the mind to visualise what it might have been like..
Note; Cromlechs sinking into mud brings to mind Figgis’s (Prehistoric Preselli) The Grave of the Watery Monster at Bedd yr Afanc, apparently a gallery grave with only the uprights showing through the bog – not to be visited in gale ridden sodden November – should I not make it there will someone please put a photo on TMA..

Difficult to find amongst the many small lanes, but if on arriving at the farm take the footpath not the bridlepath.
It sits in a large field and is fairly inaccessible, but I’m sure there must have been a gate somewhere.
Reading Nash/Children once more, he says the site has never been excavated, but is subject to a lot of field clearance., and plough damage.
Field clearance is a subject HA could go on for a long time about, I even took a photo of large boulders that had been cleared in an adjacent field.
The one thing that is to me at least fascinating about this site, is the presence about half mile away of a large tor like rock called Carn Treglemaes, this sits equidistant between the White House cromlech and the Llecha tomb, which is posted as a doubtful site by Nash but will be given a separate site name on TMA, as it definitely appears in the historic record in the booklet at Llanhowell church..

On checking the name on CARN it is called White House, not White Horse – obviously the authors of Neolithic Pembrokeshire, got their counties mixed.

This double chambered cromlech speaks for itself, “wrecked” but still holding on. To quote,

Both chambers at St. Elvis farm are aligned n/w – s/e with capstones dipping towards an inlet of the River Solva.
Geo.Nash/ G.Children, Pembrokshire Monuments

The weather looks good, but gales and horizontal rain happened before the photos. Muddy lanes indistinguishable from muddy farm tracks, and great tankers bearing down high banked lanes are quite scary.
Daniels says of this monument that the southerly chamber may be ‘earth fast’, with the western end of the capstone resting on the ground and eastern supported by uprights, similar to the double chambered Carn Llidi tombs on St.David.
This may well be so, given the fat ‘diamond’ shape of the capstone resting on the ground by the fence.
This type of capstone is found at Carn Llidi, Coetan Arthur and the White House tomb further inland, and may point to a particular type of capstone confined to this area.

A mile or so further north near the coastline there are another two lost cromlechs, Llanuwas and Llandruidon. They lie either side of another small inlet valley down to the sea at Nine Wells. One must lie buried in the gorse somewhere in the remnants of the second world war airfield. The walk down to the cove is very atmospheric and captures for a brief moment how the landscape would have been in neolithic times. Again there is an old quarry with stone similar to that of St. Elvis.

The wrecked appearance of St. Elvis is blamed on a farmer, who tried to blow it up in 1798, but was fortunately told to stop.

Probable barrow.. This photo was taken 4 years back, it shows large stones caught underneath a root plate of tree brought down in a storm. The trees on Kelston Hill are probably an 18th century planting, the barrow must have been flattened and the tree grew into the remains. There is evidence of stones round the hill, which only appear during the summer when the soil dries out. A mystery and not certain but perhaps it should be recorded for posterity.. Checking today 1/10/05, there is a definite bowl (the stones have since gone for walling) of about 15 foot diameter. The barrow would have sat atop of a small bank/ridge on top of the hill, which rises to the south west. Its focus or alignment is Stantonbury hill fort...

Not one for writing fieldnotes, but this longbarrow is one of the largest around and is truly magnificent if you allow your imagination to roam. It sits on the slope facing the small East Kennet church at the bottom, there can be no doubt which religion was more powerful in its day. The thing that struck me was how like Stoney Littleton it was, with the larger end at the top, so that the approach would have been downwards into the barrow, that of entering into the earth, or womb if you believe that was the intention.
Moss and I walked from Silbury Hill, thro the water meadows, past Silbaby, following the White Horse trail.
The landscape around East kennet longbarrow is both vast and open, earth meeting sky, but you need a horse to get around it!
The photo of Silbury Hill from the barrow is included because as the clouds chased over in a cold north wind, the sun suddenly illuminated a patch of chalk on its flanks, sparkling white, thought at first it was someone in a white dress on the hill, but when I got closer it was chalk. The chalk capping the hill when it was first built would have indeed made a spectacular sight.

This large rectangular enclosure is said to be a defensive 17th Civil War enclosure, The Lansdown Battle was fought on two battlefields about a mile from here. Its interesting because it stands in a bronze age burial ground, with three barrows still remaining, and the rest ploughed away, the large stones being stacked against its side. At the edge of the field is Littledown hillfort on the escarpment, obviously a prime area for defence!
The photo shows the reason why; the commanding view to the Welsh mountains over the Bristol Plain and Severn estuary.

Not much to add to Rhiannon’s post, except that the stream is the small River Boyd, the barrow sits on an elevated rise above the river; note the presence of the church further to the east, and there is of course the old roman road (via Julia probably) that goes through Bitton. Could also be pre-existing prehistoric trackway which I am sure it was. Lynchets on the Golden valley side and of course the odd stone marked on 19th c maps following the line of the Boyd, not to forget that the occupant of the barrow must have decreed in his last will and testament, bury me down by the river with that hill (Kelston) in sight.

Pair of barrows as specified by Purejoy. There are another two pairs, one on the racecourse and the other on Littledown. These 6 barrows are the only intact barrows left on Greatdown and Littledown, except for a singleton further down the road. But there are also many destroyed barrows in this area.