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Isles of Scilly: Latest Posts |
Previous 10 | Showing 11-20 of 436 posts. Most recent first | Next 10 
Great Arthur (Entrance Grave) — Fieldnotes |
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It is quite an adventure to access the passage graves on top of Great Arthur. Firstly get a boat to the uninhabited Little Arthur, before crossing the beach to Middle Arthur and then scrambling across an ankle-breaking boulder-strewn causeway, finally sending up the steep sides of the slope which make up the hill of Great Arthur. It is well worth the effort as once on top the views of the other Eastern Isles and St Martins are outstanding. The ridgeway was an important place for the builders of the tombs. There are the remains of three probable passage graves and two cairns which run along the elevated spine. The passage graves are prominent from the beach below and as you can see they rise up from the ground as modules on the ridgeway. The HER 7222 entry suggests the graves are linked on the summit by a wall of the field system. There is banking and the system has orthostats spaced 1 – 3 meters apart. Central to these is a slab of stone which stands 0.75m in height. This stone can be seen from large distances away and is a prominent hilltop feature. This prehistoric wall forms the edge of a field system which extends down the hill. The HER record suggests that the ‘clearly visible orthostats are due to the lack of superficial lynchetting’. This in turn raises the question could the orthostats have been deliberately left as a prominent feature. and what if this summit row of stones has a dual purpose and acts not only as the highest extent to the field system but is also an interconnecting stone row between the passage graves and cairns? This would be in keeping with the stone rows which run between the passage graves on Kitten Hill, Gugh. If so it would make a fascinating addition to what is already an incredible ritual landscape. Well worth the effort getting there. |
Posted by CarolynK 20th October 2022ce |
Great Arthur (Entrance Grave) — Images (click to view fullsize) |
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Posted by CarolynK 20th October 2022ce |
Halangy Down (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) — Fieldnotes |
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You cant go to Bants Carn without having at least a quick look at the ancient village, with time all run out we had a whirlwind tour, stopping only to photograph the best bits. I can well see how someone could spend all day on this hillside, but we only have two minutes. The stones used in some places are big ones, standing as tall as me, the houses are easily picked out from the many various stones, it mostly reminded of Chysauster. But mostly it was just a very pretty place to be, like most of St Mary's. I've fallen for Scilly a bit, can't tell though can you ? |
Posted by postman4th August 2015ce |
Bant's Carn (Entrance Grave) — Fieldnotes |
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Sadly this is the last of the trio of "show" sites that I've got time for today, and even sadder is that I've got the least time to spend at one of them. But, it was quite easy to tear myself away from this little beauty because a noisy family had set up camp for the day no more than twenty feet from the chamber. Strangely there would be no one at all at the Halangy down settlement down the hill. But my ten minutes with the stones were very productive, that's not the right word, rather, this place is about three hundred miles from my house but I'd prefer to be here for just ten minutes than at home all day watching crap on TV. A very worthwhile ten minutes, I found the place to be very beautiful, the light on the water, the distant beaches, the pinky red heather, the green grass, of course grass is green, but right now, it's, just more. Even the gorse has shed it's new sweary name. The burial chamber is now my new lost love, we had just ten minutes together, a brief encounter to be sure, but not on a stinky railway station but on a pretty sunlit island, a ten minute rendezvous that i'll always remember. She was beautiful, showing more naked stone than the other two sites I fancied, check out those capstones, you can see it all. Inside the tomb was light, airy and a cool place to be. From outside the tomb looked like a spaceship to me, Cylon maybe, or the attack UFO's from Independence day. But is she beautiful? can a burial chamber, which is after all, an arrangement of stones, be beautiful? Naturally speaking, shouldn't only the opposite sex be beautiful, why rainbows, why a tiger, a diamond, a car, are they all linked, why do we find so many things to be lovely ? Answers on a postcard to......... |
Posted by postman 4th August 2015ce Edited 5th August 2015ce |
Halangy Down (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) — Images |
     
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Posted by postman 3rd August 2015ce |
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