Andy Burnham's Blog, page 228

Knettishall bowl barrow

Hut Hill Barrow at Knettishall Heath, Norfolk. A late Bronze Age bowl barrow, a lot of the surrounding ditch has partially back filled and the vegetation is obscuring the outline. The heath is well worth a visit.

La Cotte de St Brelade

28th July - walk - exploring the Neanderthal landscapes of the English Channel, with Dr Matt Pope, from University College London. La Cotte de St Brelade is a Paleolithic site of early habitation in St Brelade, Jersey. Cotte means "cave" in Jèrriais. Neanderthal man once lived here around 250,000 years ago - the earliest record of the occupation of the Channel Islands by a human ancestor. The deposits found here contain hundreds and thousands of Neanderthal stone tools, together with their animal prey which included herd animals like horse, mammoth, and reindeer.

Fargo Disk Barrow

Beyond Stonehenge Walk: What Makes A World Heritage Site Landscape, 27th July. Note, I don't know where they are visiting on the walk, but I chose an interesting and little known barrow near the visitor centre that they might well visit. A disk barrow inside Fargo Plantation, just north of the A344. Recently-cleared, not far from the large 'Monarch of the Plain' barrow.

Beacon Ring

Beacon Ring Open Days 27 / 28th July. Guided tours of the site and activities to celebrate 50 years of the Offa's Dyke Association. Free minibuses to the site over the weekend from Welshpool old train station as no parking on site. Hillfort in Powys right by the path of Offa's Dyke. Currently being excavated by Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust.

Brownrigg (Rochester)

Lost Redesdale Community Excavation, 22 July - 2nd August - an investigation of an Iron Age/Romano-British enclosed settlement at Rattenraw Farm. Meeting close to this location. This cross base in Northumberland is situated next to the track which goes from the layby on the A68 (just before it joins up with the A696) towards Blakehope Fell and Dargues Hope. The line of Dere Street crosses the field in which this cross base sits, and the line can be clearly seen as a mound traversing the field from the footpath in a north westerly direction towards Rattenraw Farm. The cross base sits just to the north of the farm track and just to the east of some old mine workings.

Altburg Weiersbach

Probably a late Iron Age hillfort in Rhineland-Palatinate. There is an information board on site (see photo on our page)

Crow Stone (Wigtown)

This Standing Stone in Dumfries and Galloway is approximately 1.5 metres tall with a hole in it a third of a metre from the top. A second stone stood near it until the late 19th century. In the adjacent field a few metres away is White Cairn.

Beeston Castle

A Bronze Age round-house is currently under construction at Beeston Castle, Cheshire, as it was an important defended settlement and metalworking centre even in the late BA. It should be completed by October. Details and photos in the comments on our page.. Castle and hillfort in Cheshire. Today the 13th century ruins of Beeston Castle, under the care of English Heritage, stand on a rocky summit close to the mid-Cheshire Ridge, 500ft above the Cheshire plain. Offering stunning views from the Pennines in the east to the mountains of Wales in the west, the hilltop was occupied as early as 800BC in the Late Bronze Age and was later crowned by an Iron Age hillfort.

Some of the Best Megalithic sites to visit in Germany

Here's a look at a few of the very best megalithic sites to visit in Germany. To select these sites I used the same basic technique in selecting the sites for our Old Stones book, that is to start with the voting and photo stats from the Megalithic Portal itself. First up is Sophienhof Dolmen in Schleswig-Holstein. This is one of the few very well preserved German dolmens in its original location. All of the other sites in my top 15 are either in Schleswig-Holstein or Lower Saxony, making these the best areas of Germany for a megalithic site tour.

Musée communal de Nivelles

The second floor of this museum is dedicated to archaeological collections from this region of Belgium, stretcing right from the Paleolithic to Gallo-Roman eras. The display and information are quite academic, which I found made this small museum particularly interesting. Photo: An Iron Age pot from the museum.