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Met up with friend MM today (something an expert on the Cotswolds) pointed car towards Stroud and the village of Whiteshill; parked up at Shortwood car park just off the Harefield Road. Having read a bit about the Randwick long barrow hidden in Randwick/Standish Wood we abandoned our planned circular walk and set off to see if we could find the barrow. Not an easy task as, having once been quarried, Randwick Wood is the full of small mounds and dips. We had climbed over a few wooded bumps before we came across a metal National Trust information plaque which was actually headed “More Than Just Lumps and Bumps” (I have posted a photograph of this beautifully made plaque as it is one of the best I have encountered).

It helped us to identify the Iron Age Cross-Dyke, a 2000 year old earthen mound and ditch, the purpose of which can only be guessed at as either defensive or a boundary marker.

And finally with the help of OS Explorer map 179 we found the long barrow – only really identifiable by its alignment of east to west. A Neolithic long barrow dated 4500 – 5400 years old; it was partly excavated in 1883 when human skeletons were found in stone lined chambers.

The Cotswold Way runs through Randwick Wood and I have to say it is one of the most atmospheric and unusual woods I have yet to walk through – apparently full of bluebells in the spring.

I visit Barbury Castle whenever the opportunity presents itself; not that easy to get to without a car so I am always on the lookout for local walks/events that take place or start from there.
Apart from being a scheduled ancient monument it is also a designated local nature reserve. A couple of Sundays ago fellow member of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust gave me a lift up there to participate in a field talk on butterflies. I’ve never attended anything like this before so had some inital reservations – it was however, very enjoyable. I learnt that Barbury is ‘managed’ in order to encourage blue butterflies – the Common Blue and Blue Adonis in particular, although we saw many other varieties.
The views are spectacular, especially on the far side of the ramparts which overlook rolling Wiltshire downland. It is also the starting point for a ten mile walk along the Ridgeway into Avebury. Haven’t yet done it, but soon ...

swindon.gov.uk/barbury

My Cotswold Summer … culminated today in a visit to Belas Knap long barrow. I caught an early bus to Cricklade where I met my good friend MM with their sturdy steed, a little red Honda. We started our five mile walk at the small picturesque village of Brockhampton; walking to an ancient site seems to make the arriving so much more satisfying and today was no exception. We passed a field of sunflowers nodding in the breeze and noticed the house martins were gathering – no doubt preparing to depart as our summer starts to take on an autumnal tinge.

Our walk was a gradual uphill one with a steep climb up to Humblebee Cottages – here we turned left and walked about 200 metres to the road where we turned right and walked downhill until we came to the sign pointing to Belas Knap. Next, quite a steep climb uphill through woodland emerging into a field; no crop in the field so we walked diagonally uphill and across to a kissing gate where the barrow is well signposted. Another short walk through woodland emerging with Belas Knapp immediately in front of us on the other side of a low stone wall.

What a wonderful position for a long barrow – at 300 metres the hill (escarpment) upon which it stands is nearly 1000 feet. It was a surprise to learn from the information board that upper and most impressive ‘entrance’ is in fact a false one. There is a NE chamber, a NW chamber and an uncovered chamber at the lower end of the barrow. The information board told us that 38 skeletons had been found in the chambers along with animal bones, flint implements and pottery.

The sun came out while we were there and a breeze picked up – it was about as good as it gets. The walk back to Brockhampton from the west side of the long barrow was a gentle one, a gradual downhill decline and a bit of random blackberry picking.

Edit: I omitted to mention the small hobbit-like SE Chamber – four in all not counting the false entrance.

I think we must have visited Gatcombe Lodge too yesterday; all down to friend with map – I can take no credit apart from tagging along gamely. Just across the road from the Minchinhampton Long Stone there is a tree covered long barrow, and yes we were passed by a couple of landrovers which we, perhaps naively, ignored. From here we continued into the estate, no-one challenged us; we walked up (and down) some steep slopes to eventually reach Hazel Wood in search of another long barrow. According to the map this barrow is in a field at the top of the wood – which had restricted access. Couldn’t make out more than just a raised curve to the land so must be mostly ploughed out.

The route we took was marked on OS Explorer 168 as a footpath (apart from the Gatcombe Park bit) so I guess it was ok to walk there.

Visited 5/08/10

This beautiful lichen covered standing stone is similar to the Rollright stones and I imagine it is the same oolite limestone. Positioned in a gated field near the road between Gatcombe Park and Nailsworth it is full of holes and crevices so to be enjoyed while it remains. Also noticed the nearby Cotswold stone wall had been built around second stone which seemed to be a different type of stone – no holey permeations.

Visited 5/08/10

Continuing this summer’s exploration of barrows and megaliths in the Cotswolds, friend (with a car) had plotted out a walk using OS Explorer 168. We set off this morning from the pretty village of Avening heading towards Norn’s Tump on Minchinhampton Golf Course. Norn’s Tump was overgrown with summer vegetation and hawthorns so as not too much to see we continued across the golf course towards Gatcombe Park.

Very much out of my comfort zone here but Friend seemed confident about plan to walk down an access road into Gatcombe Park to locate the Tingle Stone and barrow. What we didn’t know was that the British Eventing Festival was being set up in the same field as the Tingle Stone; there were marquees, landrovers and contractors in profusion. Feeling illicit, we slipped round the back of the marquees hoping not to be noticed; no one challenged us and we spent 15 minutes or so looking at this unusual limestone on the top of a tree covered long barrow. When we spotted a convoy of black rangerovers drive down the access road and not wishing to be introduced to royalty we beat a hasty retreat back up to the road trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

This was such a surprise; a friend in my walking group mentioned they had seen it from the road on the way Scotts Poor this morning where our walk started. The walk didn’t take in the longbarrow so the friend who had spotted it offered to stop later at the byway a mile along from Scotts Poor (SU285562 Exp 131). An astonishingly large longbarrow on the brow of a hill overlooking some stunning views. A very odd shape, sunken in the centre it gave the appearance of two banks; reading the previous fieldnote it appears to have been plundered in the past – a couple of sarsen stones are still visible at what must have been the entrance.

It had the lot, the views, the hawthorns and the sheep. A great end to a totally enjoyable walk.

Today I decided to celebrate Lammas weekend by participating in a ten mile walk to Knolls Down, Tidcombe Down and Hippenscombe Bottom. Today’s walking group were a lively mixture with a few of them in training for more strenuous hill walking at more exotic locations.
Harvest time in Wiltshire and the crops are being gathered in; some of the fields already cut but most still golden with barley, wheat and oats.
My favourite Wiltshire walks are the ones take in an Iron Age hill fort and this one took in one of the highest (at 950ft) and largest hill forts in the county. Fosbury overlooks Hippenscombe Valley on one side and the North Downs of Hampshire on the other.
We stopped for lunch on the bank overlooking Hippenscombe before walking along to the wooded section with its massive much initialled beech tree and down into the valley

Visited 28/7/2010
I first visited the Rollrights at midsummer about five years ago; there had been a low-key Druid summer solstice ceremony taking place and anyone who wished to was invited to participate. It was a memorable occasion indeed so when offered the opportunity to revisit today, needless to say I did not hesitate. The friend I went with wanted to visit Wychwood, a remnant of an ancient forest in West Oxfordshire and was willing to make a detour (yes please, I said).
My summer sabbatical around the woody byways of the Cotswolds was about to reach its climax.

The Rollrights are on the Oxforshire/Warwickshire border and are true holey stones; nodular, oolitic, limestone they are quite unlike the sarsen, granite, and sandstone stone circles of my previous experience. There is a information notice by the entrance which states admission £1.00 but as nowhere to leave this money, we didn’t; the hut that was by the entrance when I visited five years ago no longer exists – I believe burnt down.

Before wandering down to the Whispering Knights dolmen we spent some time walking around the Kings Men circle, marvelling at the shapes and erosions in the stones. What a impressive setting for both circle and dolmen looking out over the Oxfordshire countryside. Back across the road to visit the solitary King Stone, we noticed there is a small cluster of half buried stones a couple of metres uphill from the King Stone – there had been a recent campfire lit inside the cluster with the usual associated rubbish which we collected up (a Homebase catalogue included would you believe).

After my visit I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the Rollrights; usually visiting a stone circle makes me think about ‘permanence’ in an ever changing world. These stones, permeated as they are with small cavities and holes made me think the opposite ... that all things eventually pass away. Including an ancient stone circle if it happens to be built from limestone.

Wonderful stones, wonderful skyscape! More info here
rollrightstones.co.uk/index.php/stones/

Today I visited Epping Forest with a friend who has recently published a book of seasonal photographs taken in the forest. One of the photos featured is Ambresbury Banks – my friend thought it was probably a boundary enclosure where livestock were taken at times when attack or threat might be imminent.

The following notes are taken from the website “Unlocking Essex’s Past”
unlockingessex.essexcc.gov.uk/custom_pages/monument_detail.asp?kids=1&monument_id=301

“Iron age hill fort. Subrectangular enclosure of 11.7 acres. The defences are of single bank of dump construction originally separated from the ditch by a berm. The bank still stands 1.3m-2.2m high. There is also a 0.4-1.0m high intermittent counterscarp bank on the outer lip of the wide, silted ditch. The main bank now has 6 major breaks in its circumference, although only one appears to be original. This is approached from the north west by a trapezoidal-shaped causeway. The ends of the bank at this point were revetted with coursed puddingstone blocks. The width of the passageway so formed was sufficient to suggest double gateds, but no central post holes were found. At the south the head of a small valley is enclosed, from which a stream flows south east through a gap in the bank. Augering across the present stream bed suggested the bank was originally complete at this point, so assuming the stream existed at that time an overflow through the bank would have been necessary. The present stream bed is a breach, not a deliberately left gap. No trace of internal occupation has been found. Pottery from the ditch suggests a construction date of the second half of the 1st millenium BC, and reuse in the Belgic period. In medieval and later times several tracks passed through the earthwork and it was used for quarrying sand and gravel, and possibly as an enclosure for cattle on their way to the London market. Wild Service trees (sorbus torminalis) are to be found in the immediate vicinity of Ambresbury itself. Such trees are taken as an indication of relict woodland. Thus it would seem to indicate Loughton Camp was constructed in a still wooden landscape, whilst the country around Ambresbury was probably cleared.
Dated: 700BC to 42AD”

Note: the name Ambresbury is thought to come from Ambrosius Aurelianus aka King Arthur.

Visited Liddington Castle this afternoon with a group of friends. Although the most visible hillfort in the area (Liddington Hill is a landmark seen from the M4 that lets anyone heading for Wiltshire know they are nearly there) these days it is not the easiest place to get to as the only ‘permissive path’ heads up to the Ridgeway up from Shipley Bottom layby on the B4192. In the days of Richard Jefferies the route by foot was probably uphill from the village of Badbury. Liddington Castle at 909 feet is the highest point in the Borough of Swindon.

A memorial to local writers Richard Jefferies and Alfred Williams set on a large sandstone rock at Liddington Castle, dated 2000 to mark the Millennium it has these words by Richard Jefferies set on a plaque “I felt immortality as I felt the beauty of a summer morning”
A place much loved by both writers particularly Richard Jefferies – Alfred Williams wrote these lines for Richard Jefferies who died in 1887 at the age of 39, ten years after Alfred Williams was born in 1877 (who died 1930). They did not know each as some people believe:

“Of times on Liddington’s bare peak I love to think and lie,
And muse upon the former day and ancient things gone by,
To pace the old castellum walls and peer into the past
To learn the secret of the hills, and know myself at last,
To woo Dick Jefferies from his dreams on sorrow’s pillow tossed
And walk with him upon the ridge, and pacify his ghost.”

(Poem courtesy of Wysefool).

I walked up to Chisbury hillfort this morning from the village of Great Bedwyn; look for Castle Road which will take into into a (now golden) barley field. There is a ‘right of way’ footpath through the centre of the crop.

A very pleasant walk up to the hillfort which is now completely wooded; a lovely place to chill out on a hot day. As previous fieldnotes have mentioned there is an old chapel in the farmyard of Manor Farm unususal in being thatched. Today I was walking with a group of people so didn’t get to mooch around for quite as long as I would wanted. Like Ringsbury hillfort (also wooded) this is one of Wiltshire’s lesser known hillforts though being fairly near to Marlborough it overlooks some stunning rolling downland.