Andy Burnham's Blog, page 40

Penallt Churchyard Cross

A four-step base carrying a socket-stone in which is mounted a 1.2m high fragment of octagonal cross-shaft.
The churchyard has fine views over the Wye Valley and inside the 14th century Church is a 'dug out' wooden chest of Medieval date and a carved altar stone, see the photos on our page.

Auchensoul Hill

One for the trig point fans. A possible cairn on the summit of Auchensoul Hill, c. 0.75 miles WNW of Barr, a small village in South Ayrshire. The grassy mound on the summit of Auchensoul Hill is surmounted by an OS Trig Point. There are several embedded stones on the north and western arcs which may be kerb stones. There is also an obvious medium-sized stone located approximately 10m (30 feet) south-east of the cairn.

Dorchester Big Rings

A henge monument at Dorchester on Thames, part of the complex of Neolithic and later monuments clustered around a cursus. See our Nearby Sites list on this page for more. Most of the area has been destroyed by quarrying.

Siss Cross Hill - RBA and Cemetery

There are or were at least eight bronze age round barrows as well as a bronze age urnfield flanked by two of the barrows which comprise the barrow cemetery on the northern part of Siss Cross Hill. There are anomalies between official records as well as present day mapping as to what is still extant and to what is now just a ‘site of’. My sketch map on this page is how I see it

Whitcombe 1

Summer solstice sunrise 2024 from the Long Barrow, now largely denuded of trees which added so much ambience. This long barrow lurks at the edge of Came Wood, just north of the Culliford Tree Bronze Age barrow cemetery and the far more impressive Broadmayne bank barrow, Dorset. It is around 50m long and 17m wide, and unusually has a later bowl barrow standing on its taller northeastern end.

Dolmengöttin Langeneichstädt

Chambered Tomb in Saxony-Anhalt, discovered 1987, length 5.3 m, width 1.9 m, height 1.7 m. During the excavations sandstone and limestone slabs were removed. Below a unique 1.76 m menhir came to light which had been used as one of the capstones of the tomb. At the upper end of this stele numerous scratches are visible. They are thought to represent in a very simplified manner a female deity (the dolmen goddess). In addition, an axe motif can be recognised as a male status symbol.

Bryn Seward Stone Row

The Bryn Seward site is incorporates standing stones, a number of cairns and an associated field system. The standing stones / row are likely to be of Bronze Age date, and have been built into a probable Post-Medieval field wall. They are situated alongside the ancient trackway known as the Ffordd Ddu.

Blacknoll Hill

Six bowl barrows atop Blacknoll Hill which were previously hard to spot courtesy of gorse, erosion, and infilling of the circular ditches. However extensive vegetation clearance (during 2024 I assume) now makes the barrows far more visible and can be appreciated better. They vary in diameter from 9 to 18m (30 to 60 feet), the highest no more than 1.2n (4 ft). Part of a larger group of barrows on Winfrith Heath.

Ash House

Two standing stones in Cumbria - just 2.3km ESE of the much better known Swinside - that are possibly the remains of a circle. The two stones remaining have incised marks or grooves.

Bach menhirs

A pair of pillar-stones, which I would interpret as male and female, spaced 2.5 metres apart. The female stone has a large (and largely-natural) cup-mark with groove (artificially enlarged ?). M+F paired stones are rare in France if they exist at all (in Brittany ?) though there are several in Ireland.