The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Dolmen du Chanet No 1

Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech

Fieldnotes

Location slightly doubtful: Very difficult to find on Googlemaps.

Access: Difficult to find on the ground too, quite strenuous to walk to, and very strenuous to get back from! The dolmen is between the D290 and the Ardeche river, about halfway down the steep spectacular gorge.

We parked at a large layby/viewpoint on a bend of the D290 and then I walked north along the D290. The road curves slightly left and then fairly gently but distinctly right again. I scrambled over the armco crash barrier too early & had to come back up after meeting inpenetrable vegetation - don't make the same mistake!

After a few hundred metres walking - I think it was just as the road stops swinging gently right - there is a gravelly path to the left, angled back the way you've just come. Take it. (There may also be a fairly small layby here which you could park at.)

The path meanders reasonably steeply (and at times quite steeply) down through the woods. There are a few sidepaths, but as I remember, I kept to the main path. Just as I was about to give up, there was a (blessed) noticeboard for the dolmen!!!

Visited Monday 10 September 2007
Wow!! What a place. The dolmen is set at the top of a little gravelly platform overlooking the gorge & river. It's basic, in a nice state of (dis)repair & in itself worth seeing, but the setting is fantastic.

Good job too!!! It was a sweltering day & it had been a hard descent, especially with such a sketchy idea of where I was going & where the monument is! I spent some time photographing & taking the place in, but was very aware that Jane was back at the car and I'd been some time. All too soon I had no choice to take the gruelling climb back up, dripping buckets of sweat back up to the road and back along it.

It was sooooo worth it though!
Moth Posted by Moth
27th November 2009ce
Edited 27th November 2009ce

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