Megalithic and Prehistoric Sites

[Voley]

I’m so ashamed. You have historical facts. My post was just a joke about Scilly billies.

Don't let the locals hear you joking about the name. Just saying "the Scilly Isles" not "Isles of Scilly" is fighting talk round these parts!

 

[danny la rouge]

Don't let the locals hear you joking about the name. Just saying "the Scilly Isles" not "Isles of Scilly" is fighting talk round these parts!

I sincerely apologise for any offence I’ve given to Islanders of Scilly.

 

[Elpenor]

You always seem to get the weather Voley

 

[Artaxerxes]

I've just been listening to an anthropological/historical thing about human sacrifice, cannibalism etc.... broadly speaking it's been very common across humanity

Was thinking about that famous site up near/on Orkney.... A tomb with Eagles in the name? Doesn't really matter which one precisely. In the documentary I watched on it it said many of the skulls had holes in them suggesting getting some kind of sharp attack to the head for... unknown reasons. Absolutely possible that some of the British sites involved human sacrifices...

There’s a quarry or mine somewhere in the midlands iirc where they found a substantial number of butchered human bones buried in the strata

 

[Voley]

Today's pile of rocks in a field.



Works Carn, an entrance grave on the island of Bryher, Isles of Scilly.

Our ancestors certainly knew how to pick a dramatic burial spot. Bryher has oodles of them, all set in scenery like this:

 

[Elpenor]

Looking to visit Avebury next week, also West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill.

Looks like I can park for free at a lay-by off the A4 by WKLB (as opposed to £7! at Avebury) and then walk to both

Any flaws in this plan?

 

[belboid]

Looking to visit Avebury next week, also West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill.

Looks like I can park for free at a lay-by off the A4 by WKLB (as opposed to £7! at Avebury) and then walk to both

Any flaws in this plan?

Only that you'd miss out the Sanctuary. I think there's parking there too. It's a lovely walk.

 

[ska invita]

Looking to visit Avebury next week, also West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill.

Looks like I can park for free at a lay-by off the A4 by WKLB (as opposed to £7! at Avebury) and then walk to both

Any flaws in this plan?

was a free car park really near Silbury Hill

Silbury Hill Car Park · Avebury, Marlborough SN8 1QJ

★★★★☆ · Car Park

maps.app.goo.gl

better than the layby

and then walked everywhere

 

[Storm Fox]

Looking to visit Avebury next week, also West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill.

Looks like I can park for free at a lay-by off the A4 by WKLB (as opposed to £7! at Avebury) and then walk to both

Any flaws in this plan?

The trouble with that layby is that it doesn't take many cars, and a lot of people have the same idea. If you are getting there early, you might be OK.

 

[Elpenor]

Thanks, good to have a few options, I will see how I do, hoping to be there by 10am

 

[Voley]

Only that you'd miss out the Sanctuary. I think there's parking there too. It's a lovely walk.

Yeah you can park by the Sanctuary in that bit that's that's the beginning/ end of the Ridgeway. Campervans etc there when we were there last.

 

[Voley]

Also if you don't want to walk that far, you can park parallel to The Avenue - don’t know if that's the layby you mean - and walk in from there. See the car in this photo?

 

[Elpenor]

Oh and added the sanctuary to my list - cheers.

I’ve only got a few hours as need to be on the road by 2pm, hoping the weather is kind

Edit - Avenue car park may save me a bit of time - cheers Voley

 

[Voley]

Jealous, Elpenor, it's a cracking place.

 

[tep]

if you get stuck then the car park at Beckhampton is free and allows you to walk past the Adam and Eve stones that then lead into Avebury avenue

 

[Elpenor]

A few sites mentioned here in this article in todays guardian

‘An awe-inspiring journey back in time’: readers’ favourite ancient sites in Europe

From the cave art of the Dordogne to Yorkshire’s mighty barrows, our tipsters recall visits to unsung sites in the UK, Ireland and elsewhere in Europe

www.theguardian.com

 

[Voley]

There's another good Guardian article today, this time written by Weird Walk and introduced by Stewart Lee.

The description of Fernworthy / Grey Wethers / Warren House Inn on Dartmoor is spot on. A fabulous place.

In search of strange and sacred sites – the UK’s weirdest walks

Created by three friends fascinated with ancient places, the Weird Walk zine has a cult following. Comic Stewart Lee introduces three magical routes from their new book

www.theguardian.com

 

[A380]

Looking to visit Avebury next week, also West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill.

Looks like I can park for free at a lay-by off the A4 by WKLB (as opposed to £7! at Avebury) and then walk to both

Any flaws in this plan?

That lay-by can fill up quickly

 

[Elpenor]

There's another good Guardian article today, this time written by Weird Walk and introduced by Stewart Lee.

The description of Fernworthy / Grey Wethers / Warren House Inn on Dartmoor is spot on. A fabulous place.

In search of strange and sacred sites – the UK’s weirdest walks

Created by three friends fascinated with ancient places, the Weird Walk zine has a cult following. Comic Stewart Lee introduces three magical routes from their new book

www.theguardian.com

I keep meaning to go up there!

 

[Elpenor]

Ah I see storm Ciaran is scheduled for my planned trip… hmm

 

[nogojones]

One of the round barrows up Garth mountain a couple of days ago

 

[Serge Forward]

Ooh this looks interesting...
‘Very much like us’: festival reveals secrets of building Stonehenge

 

[ska invita]

this looks wortht a visit - bury ditches in shropshire - just stumbled on it on googlemaps

Bury Ditches · Lydbury North SY7 8BD

âââââ · Tourist attraction

www.google.com

I've never been to Shropshire

 

[PTK]

this looks wortht a visit - bury ditches in shropshire - just stumbled on it on googlemaps

Bury Ditches · Lydbury North SY7 8BD

âââââ · Tourist attraction

www.google.com

View attachment 403510


I've never been to Shropshire

Wow!

 

[ska invita]

Wow!

Isnt it!
Im curious about Shropshire and Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury was near enough the site of a major Roman town, Viroconium ...makes me wonder if there was much there before the Romans.
definitely looks like a nice part of the country to go and walk about in

 

[belboid]

Isnt it!
Im curious about Shropshire and Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury was near enough the site of a major Roman town, Viroconium ...makes me wonder if there was much there before the Romans.
definitely looks like a nice part of the country to go and walk about in

Shrewsbury was supposedly founded by refugees from Viroconium. It's also the location of the oldest continuously used sacred site - Ancient Shrewsbury sacred site 'oldest of its kind'

 

[ska invita]

Shrewsbury was supposedly founded by refugees from Viroconium.

that sounds like a good story....will save it for when i visit!
Very close to Offas dyke also

 

[two sheds]

C&P: ​

​

The Stonehenge Altar Stone was probably not sourced from the Old Red Sandstone of the Anglo-Welsh Basin: Time to broaden our geographic and stratigraphic horizons?​

Abstract​

Stone 80, the recumbent Altar Stone, is the largest of the Stonehenge foreign “bluestones”, mainly igneous rocks forming the inner Stonehenge circle. The Altar Stone’s anomalous lithology, a sandstone of continental origin, led to the previous suggestion of a provenance from the Old Red Sandstone (ORS) of west Wales, close to where the majority of the bluestones have been sourced (viz. the Mynydd Preseli area in west Wales) some 225 km west of Stonehenge. Building upon earlier investigations we have examined new samples from the Old Red Sandstone (ORS) within the Anglo-Welsh Basin (covering south Wales, the Welsh Borderland, the West Midlands and Somerset) using traditional optical petrography but additionally portable XRF, automated SEM-EDS and Raman Spectroscopic techniques. One of the key characteristics of the Altar Stone is its unusually high Ba content (all except one of 106 analyses have Ba > 1025 ppm), reflecting high modal baryte. Of the 58 ORS samples analysed to date from the Anglo-Welsh Basin, only four show analyses where Ba exceeds 1000 ppm, similar to the lower range of the Altar Stone composition. However, because of their contrasting mineralogies, combined with data collected from new automated SEM-EDS and Raman Spectroscopic analyses these four samples must be discounted as being from the source of the Altar Stone. It now seems ever more likely that the Altar Stone was not derived from the ORS of the Anglo-Welsh Basin, and therefore it is time to broaden our horizons, both geographically and stratigraphically into northern Britain and also to consider continental sandstones of a younger age. There is no doubt that considering the Altar Stone as a ‘bluestone’ has influenced thinking regarding the long-held view to a source in Wales. We therefore propose that the Altar Stone should be ‘de-classified’ as a bluestone, breaking a link to the essentially Mynydd Preseli-derived bluestones.

The Stonehenge Altar Stone was probably not sourced from the Old Red Sandstone of the Anglo-Welsh Basin: Time to broaden our geographic and stratigraphic horizons?

Stone 80, the recumbent Altar Stone, is the largest of the Stonehenge foreign “bluestones”, mainly igneous rocks forming the inner Stonehenge circle. …

www.sciencedirect.com

Interesting, wonder how it got there I thought I'd read that the other ones were brought southwards by glaciers,

 

[ska invita]

look at this!! pretty special

Shaft of Anglo-Saxon cross possilbly taken from the Forum or Basilica of the Baths; constructed c. 100-150 AD

Viroconium Cornoviorum - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ska invita]

Watling Street ended at Virconium/Shrewsbury and if you go on the A5 from London you basically can follow that original route all the way, it seems