 Previous 20 | Showing 81-88 of 88 fieldnotes. Most recent first
We visited this site a year or two ago just as the sun was going down. It's in the middle of a grassy field and we did trot down to the nearest farmhouse to ask permission - but it turned out to be converted into holiday cottages. So well we hopped over the gate and ran over.
Just a couple of stones propped up against each other, quite small - but a beautifully pinky colour that just glowed in the sunset, a lovely calm friendly spot.
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An extremely draughty place to be (we were reduced, old person stylee, to eating our sandwiches in the car). If you can tear your hair away from your eyes you'll find the top of the down (?) is riddled with all manner of bumps and ditches. The far (east) end of White Sheet Hill is a pretty small Iron Age site - but with triple? banks and some fairly steep ditches (as we discovered, all angled either to funnel the wind straight at you or, if sheltered to be disgustingly soggy so you can't sit down - excellent defence or what). There are Bronze age barrows half way along the down (mind the reckless model plane fliers here).
But! at the western end - a Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure, no less. It has a single causewayed ditch and it sits out on the spur of the hills. It could be 5000 years old.
Now for my speculative bit. It's not overly convincing from the map, but when you're up there it seems that the Neolithic earthworks directly address the hill 'Long Knoll' across the valley. And it's my opinion that Long Knoll looks like a recumbent figure. I have to buy a digital camera to take with me everywhere.. Anyway, this would fit in so well with similar ideas about recumbent images of the earth god/dess being sighted on by Neolithic sites, that you can read about in TMA and in here. The nearby village is called 'Maiden Bradley' (Maiden + Bride-lea?) which seemed highly significant in my enthusiasm to prove my new discovery.
Please visit and tell me your opinion! Turn up the lane at the pub on the B3092 between Maiden Bradley and Stourhead. There's a car park half way up the hill, but if you want to skid in the gravel you can drive up to the top where there are a range of enormous potholes to park in. Don't bother following the track down the other side - it just gets ridiculous unless you're in a landrover, and if you're in anything remotely lowslung you simply have to turn round.
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I believe that Jack's Castle barrow is very close to Alfred's Tower (shown in the above photographs). Would it have been visible without the trees? And did Colt Hoare deliberately put his tower next to it?
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I can't believe this is the first fieldnote for Golden Cap - this place is terrific.
Contrary to TMA, there's no signposting off the main road (this can only be a good thing if you ask me) but you'll be fine with your OS map. Julian describes the first wooded hill where you park (at SY 412 930) as the body of the sacred landscape, with Golden Cap as the head. You follow the gentle path round the body, but it's quite some exertion up to the top of Golden Cap (but all nicely stepped as it's on the coastal path). It's the highest point on the south coast, and if you walk out to the end you'll totally believe it, the drop is pretty monumental.
I took three other people up there - they were kicking a bit to begin with but once we were up there noone wanted to leave, it was so warm and we were sat on the closely nibbled grass chatting. You should be able to see a very long way but last thursday it was beautifully hazy and you couldn't tell where the sea met the sky. You could hear the waves far below, there were bees everywhere, and the generally car-bound cynics were at peace. The oranges I'd brought were hailed as delicious.
As my better half said: 'This is definitely somewhere we'll come back to.'
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This Iron Age hill fort fills perches on the Greensand ridge that crosses the county here. Most of the hillside is wooded, but you can see some ditches. There is a monumental vista (for this part of the world - it's all relative) and you can sit on the sandy rabbit-nibbled turf, mull things over and watch the intercities thunder by on the main line north. Best on a sunny day maybe.
With regard to the name - obviously it's traditionally associated with the Romans, which in a way is unsurprising because several Roman villas have been found fairly locally.
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The barrows at Therfield Heath are rather unexpected in this part of the country. They are beautifully positioned overlooking the ancient Icknield Way and you can see for miles across the flat Cambridgeshire countryside. There are five Bronze Age barrows in a group right on the 'turn' of the slope, and some way further back a Neolithic longbarrow, which was apparently reused in anglo saxon times. There are other round barrows on the heath too (even one with a bench perched on the top...). Part of the heath is a golf course so you do have to watch yourself crossing the greens, but the site is supposed to be a Site of Special Scientific Interest. It's chalk and there are lots of interesting flowers, including (i haven't seen it but if you get up there at Easter you might) the rare Pasqueflower.
Parking is easy - there's a small 'nature reserve' car park at the west end, or drive through the golf club car park at the eastern end, and then make your way up the slope.
Go into Royston to see the 'Roy Stone' a 2 tonne glacial erratic placed at time immemorial? at the crossroads of the Icknield Way and the Roman Ermine Street. Also there's Royston Cave, a v mysterious underground chamber with strange pagan/christian carvings of uncertain date but for some reason associated with the Knights Templar. That's at the crossroads too - popular with ley line fans also.
The barrows at Therfield Heath are somewhere to clear your mind and think about the passing of time; I think they're cool and pretty unmissable if you're about in this relatively barrowless land.
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Having parked the car on the verge (my rookie boyfriend: 'Isn't there a car park or something' hoho but he is keen and in training) and negotiated the mud in my unhelpfully flared trousers, turned the corner at the barn to spy the dolmen perching in a lively manner in its field. Seems strange to be in the valley - but what a top spot. Just as we approached the farmer drove between us and it with his tractor spraying christknows what over the wheat(?). I didn't feel that paranoid about the prospect of skipping over his crops in full view, but what I didn't fancy was the thought of the vile stuff he'd just sprayed wafting all over me in the process. As boyfriend remarked between coughs, it smelt like scampi fries. Could have been merely fertiliser I suppose but whether liquid fish or organophosphate it certainly set us to thinking about the state of our food and how although an organic loaf doesn't look so different it probably contains quite different chemicals. But anyway. The devil's den was fantastically quiet (a world away from Avebury) and I am determined to come back to experience it properly very soon. The setting is perfect; it must have looked fantastic surrounded by flax.
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The stone rows run E-W according to my compass; could it be something to do with the passage of the sun at the equinoxes? Walking between the stones I felt like I was following a path countless others must have taken. I felt puzzled about the blocking stones. I wondered if the path represented the path of your life (E- sunrise to W-sunset)? so the blocking stones gave a symbolic beginning and end? There is only one at the east end of the main row, but two at the west. You can squeeze through the western pair - like a celtic boundary to pass through? to the underworld? Who knows.
Stupidly forgot my camera but drew a picture instead. Check out some of the stones - they're stripey with quartz that glints in the sunshine, and dripping with lichens (grey, purple, gold) - bloody fantastic.
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The day started beautifully, and we climbed up to the nearby waterfalls behind the pub. How picturesque (but rather clinical with all the beautifully laid steps). Then it started raining. To begin with quite half-heartedly, so we thought 'We WILL see the axe factory' as it was something I'd really looked forward to. It's a beautiful closed valley, you just keep walking and walking and soon you've left the road behind, and it's just you and these towering peaks. You can keep going over the top, out across the lake district. We did not. I have never seen so much rain in my life. We were so inadequately dressed, with a couple of light anoraks and two woefully battered umbrellas. People in scuba equipment would have stared at us as though we were mad. We battled on. The rain ran down our faces. I felt like a prune. We were determined to see it. Was this it? Was that it? Would we ever know? But when you get there, you know. The stones just look Right. We picked one up, it looked like a blank for an axe*. We practically swam back to the pub. But it was worth it. Later at the bizarre and unmissable Keswick museum we saw a finished axe - same stone. Fantastic. These axes were traded for hundreds of miles. Go on a nice day.
*It probably wasn't. We weren't high enough up the slope. And I know you're not allowed to go nicking such things. But it was nice to have a bit of the same stone.
Regarding the rain, I've since read the following in a book of Lake District folklore: "How can you stand all this rain?" - "No sa weel. but we're thinking on getting a lid for t'dale."
Hence the phrase "We'll have to borrow Langden lid." Apparently.
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Previous 20 | Showing 81-88 of 88 fieldnotes. Most recent first |
This hill, it has a meaning that is very important for me, but it's not rational. It's beautiful, but when you look, there's nothing there. But I'd be a fool if I didn't listen to it.
-- Alan Garner.
...I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn...
-- William Wordsworth.
Some interesting websites with landscape and fairy folklore:
http://earthworks-m.blogspot.co.uk
http://faeryfolklorist.blogspot.co.uk
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