A portrait of the Archdruid, Hwfa Môn, in 1896, by Hubert von Herkomer. I found mention in the Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald of the 8th January 1897, that he’s depicted in front of Capel Garmon. See what you think. Von Herkomer also designed the Gorsedd’s Grand Sword and outfits.
Rhiannon
Searchable map for Northern Ireland prehistoric (and other) sites.
Curiously, although it’s “up to 5 metres high” this mound doesn’t get a mention on the current OS map. But an archaeologist visited it in 2022 and their photos show it to be quite visible and large. It was called ‘Grass Law’ on the 1855 map.
Chris Maguire’s site has a description of what was found inside the cairn – in the 1930s workmen were dismantling it to make roads from the stones! You’ll be pleased to hear it’s a protected monument now.
In 2005 Caroline Wilkinson recreated the face of one of the men interred here. The article says few complete skulls from the Neolithic have been found in Wales.
I see the cairn might not be the easiest spot to find – but maybe that helped preserve it, as archaeologists didn’t seem to be aware of it until the 1970s.
Description of the monument.
You can see a picture of the Porosphaera beads (mentioned above by Gladman) in this article by Christopher Duffin: ‘Herbert Toms (1874–1940), Witch Stones, and Porosphaera Beads’. Herbert Toms collected lots of folklore about naturally perforated stones. It’s in Folklore v.122, April 2011.
David Lyons’ photo of the very fancily-decorated Bronze Age pot found inside the Glebe Cairn.
Includes a photo of the round from 2008. I suppose the fact the road goes through it suggests it’s the original route to the round?!
As you can read, the people at Canmore didn’t seem very convinced by the authenticity of this site back in 2011, but I sensed a more sympathetic view from their site visit of 2016. There is one quite large stone, 1.4m long by 0.8m broad and 0.6m thick. The stones were moved to the north bank of the river in the 1930s.
Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s account of the barrow, with super cross-section illustrations and one of the entrance, published in Archaeologia volume 19 (1821).
A photo of the stone, rather weirdly sitting in its concrete plinth in the grounds of Cwrt Sart comprehensive school.
Photos of the weird and lovely ‘grape cups’ (aka incense cups) found in the region.
Historical Ordnance Survey NI maps with stones and so on marked, courtesy of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.
This image by Niamh Ronane has sheep for scale.
The Rollright Stones and their Folklore, by Arthur J Evans. From Folklore v6, 1895.
More folklore and etymological speculation about the stones than anyone can handle.
A little pottery vessel found at the east end of the barrow. It’s only about 10cm across. Check out the variety of impressions made to decorate it.
The lovely flat shale bead found in the long barrow at Eyford. I love a nice shale bead. Imagine how nice it would feel in your hand.
Photos of the Devil’s footprints (and a description of how to find them).
A photo of the lovely carved stone ball found on Tomnahurich in the early 19th century. This one is made from hornblende, and is about 3 inches across. It’s been dated between 3200 and 2500 BC.
The perfect condition Late Bronze Age shield found in a bog near Moel Hebog in 1784. So many circles.
Details of the cup-marked rocks lurking in these woods.
Marvellously, you can read online or download for free, two brand new books about the site that analyse Chantel Conneller, Nicky Milner and Barry Taylor’s excavations between 2003-15.
Volume one is called ‘A persistent place in a changing world’ and the second is ‘Studies in technology, subsistence and environment’.
The site was occupied / used for about 800 years. The first people there deposited worked wood, articulated animal bone and flint tools into the lake. The next period was the main phase of occupation, in which large timber platforms were made at the lake’s edge, and items were still being deposited into it. And in the last phase both the dry land and the wetland margins were still being used, “often for craft activities,” and making axes and tools – and the oldest known British Mesolithic art – a shale bead – was found there. I love a shale bead, me. They’re in chapter 33 of the second volume. The famous antler frontlets are in chapter 26.
Notes Archaeological, Geological, etc. on Beanley Moor and the vicinity of Kemmer Lough. From the MSS of George Tate. In the History of the Berwickshire Naturalists Club, volume 23, 1890.
He mentions the carved stones, and also the ‘detached blocks of stones which are usually covered over with lichens, and hoary with age, are here called “Grey Mares”.‘
You won’t see much of a henge here now. But this comprehensive article will help you imagine the early henge here (and some of the surrounding prehistoricness) if you visit.
G B Witts’ article about the excavation of the barrow. In ‘The Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists’ Field Club’ 1881-82.
Geophysical survey of the area of the well, by Jan Dando (2012?). There seems to have been late Bronze Age or early Iron Age settlement nearby.
Online mapping for Guernsey monuments. It’s not brilliant – you don’t seem to be able to filter by the age of the monument, which is a shame. And it won’t give the grid reference. But it might help you a bit.
Time Team episode from the year 2000 on “The Mystery of Mine Howe”, which includes an interesting little fly-through of a 3D model of the site (c24minutes in).
Whilst the trench this report was written for didn’t turn up anything, Ronan McHugh gives a summary of the archaeological background of this Iron Age site on page 6.
I’ve always loved the idea of the fossil sea urchins at this site.
Here’s an article about the subject in general, in a whole book about Myth and Geology.
It’s by Kenneth McNamara, and called ‘Shepherds’ Crowns, Fairy Loaves and Thunderstones: the mythology of fossil echinoids in England.‘
Excavation by A.D. Passmore in 1922 of a stone by the main road, east of West Kennett village. In the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine.
A striking comic strip of the legend.
An article by Mike Pitts on ‘Excavating the Sanctuary’, from WANHM 94 (2001).
Nearby West Hill (between Uley Bury and Hetty Peglar’s Tump) was the site of an Iron Age shrine, and after it, a Roman temple. It’s even possible that there was a Neolithic monument beneath these. You can download EH’s Archaeological Monograph about the excavations of “The Uley Shrines” by Woodward and Leach (1993) from the ADS website.
You can download the EH Archaeological Monograph ‘Stonehenge in its Landscape’ by Montague, Cleal and Walker (1999) from the ADS website.
The EH Archaeological Monograph ‘Hazleton North: the excavation of a Neolithic long cairn of the Cotswold-Severn group’ by Alan Saville (1990) can now be downloaded from the ADS site.
You can download Barrett,Freeman and Woodward’s (2000) EH monograph about the hillfort from the ADS website, which goes into great detail about the excavations. I particularly like the finds of beads and ammonites, and armlets of Kimmeridge Shale.
You can download the EH monograph ‘Brean Down: Excavations 1983-1987’ by Martin Bell from the ADS website. He calls the site “the best preserved Bronze Age settlement sequence in Southern Britain”, with five prehistoric occupation phases amidst 5m of blown sand and eroded soil.
From the Proceedings of the Antiquaries Society of Scotland v39 – John Abercromby reports how he ‘attacked the cairn’ on the 2nd of June 1904, which was honest and enthusiastic at least. I hoped there might be a bit of a story about the ‘Trowie’ (or troll) but there isn’t.
You might like this link, Stubob – it’s an article by John Barnatt and Garth Thomas about the evidence pointing to copper mining at Ecton Hill in prehistoric times. It’s from ‘Mining History’ – there are lots of other editions on the website
pdmhs.com/
It must have been a significant place.
This page has photos of Wharncliffe Crags, a recent sculpture of the dragon, and the dark gap in the looming crags that was the dragon’s den.
A page from the RCAHMS’s Inventory of Ancient Monuments in Brecknock, showing a diagram of the various incised marks on one of the stones.
‘Claish, Stirling: an early Neolithic structure in its context’, in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. v132 (2002).
Page 114 of the article has a section by S M Foster and J B Stevenson on the “extraordinary monument” of the cairn.
‘Records by Spade and Terrier’ by the Rev. J.D.C. Whickham. You can read about the excavations of the Giant’s Ground in 1909.
The bronze cauldron in colour.
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