Andy Burnham's Blog, page 45

La Table des Marchands

Stonetracker has posted a couple of video tours of this site, view them via the links further down the page. He has posted lots more tours for other sites, go to his page and then more comments for the full list - thanks very much Stonetracker for sharing these - really worth a browse. This lovely burial chamber is part of a complex of sites at Locmariaquer, which also includes the Er-Grah tumulus and the Grand Menhir Brise. It has been excavated and substantially rebuilt within a cairn during 1993, which not only shows how it was though to have been originally, but gives protection to the wonders within. The large chamber has several stones with some wonderful carvings and decorations on them, including the main capstone of the chamber, which has on its underside an axe, and part of an engraving of a plough being drawn by some oxen.

Store-Standal

This 3.5m tall standing stone is definitely the most beautiful menhir I visited in 2024 and one of the prettiest standing stones I have seen, with a beautiful view over Hjørundfjord. The stone is locally called "St Olavs Arrow" after a local legend. It was previously fallen over but was restored in 1890 by a youth organization.

Leskernick cist

A nice cist found near the stone circles and settlement at Leskernick. Browse these nearby sites from this page, or via our interactive map and you can see part of the settlement in the background to this photo.

Auskerry 4

Secrets of prehistoric life on a remote island in Orkney - a video from Hamish Auskerry documenting Orkney’s new county archaeologist Paul Sharman on a visit to the island of Auskerry, view lower down this page. On a north-east facing hillside on Auskerry, a small island south of Stronsay, Orkney, this slab stands to an average height of 2.5m. There is an irregular depression in which its stone-packed base is set. On the same east-west alignment and 2.4m east of it, is a pair of parallel erect slabs, 0.8m apart, and protruding about 0.3m high. These appear to have been the packing of a second standing stone.

The Monks Well

Ingress Abbey grounds include several follies, quarries and a holy well. The current Abbey house (1833) is wonderfully Gothic and is now used by the Lithuanian government. The well house is rather overdone, with castellations. Around the abbey is a rare example of a tasteful modern housing development. There are supposedly tunnels leading from Ingress Abbey. One certainly exists, situated between the Coach House and Abbey.

Boden Fogou

Excavation of the recently discovered fogou is ongoing. Radiocarbon dates from deposits sampled from postholes in the Boden roundhouse suggest a date of circa 1300BC (the Middle Bronze Age) for the roundhouse. Also a Romano-British site.

Swanscombe Heritage Park

Just by the park entrance, don’t miss this small but informative display in the lobby of the leisure centre- follow link for pics.. Swanscombe is world famous for Palaeolithic tools, animal kills and skull pieces found in the 1930d, which date back 400,000 years.

An accessible trail winds through the Barnfield Pit site, with information boards etched into giant granite blocks explaining the sequence of deposits and stone pillars showing where the skull fragments were found

Northern Earth 178, December 2024 is Out Now

In this issue: • Mike Haigh’s Archaeology Review:
• A significant and unusual ritual landscape in Ireland and the curious history of Crowland
• The Alt-Antiquarian: Farings and Findings - More on the symbiosis between the map and the
dérive, chance and invention
• Porthole Stones in Britain: Dr Karen Pierce discusses further UK examples of this megalithic typology
• Shadows and Stones: Olwyn Pritchard on how she stumbled upon an important inter-relationship between ancient megaliths

Metheral circle

Two ancient stone circles and a collapsed dolmen have been discovered by Alan Endacott and team in the Taw Marsh area of northern Dartmoor, adding credibility to Endacott's theory that a “sacred arc” of monuments was built in the heart of the wild Devon uplands. He has named one of the monuments the Metheral circle after the hill it stands beneath. It consists of 20 stones, mainly fallen, and the circle measures about 40 metres by 33 metres.

Slyngplanteviga

At a rocky forest covered hill with a beautiful view over the ocean to the south is a huge and beautiful round cairn believed to be from the Bronze Age. A footpath leads from a local road to the north and leads south to the cairn. The cairn seems to be almost undamaged except from a small depression in the top where a small tree is growing.