#menhir
ferdinand du puigaudeau, menhir&sailing ship on the marsh of la grande brière (britanny, france)
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Lochbuie stone circle, Isle of Mull, Scotland 2017
This small stone circle is the only one on Mull and stands in a breathtakingly beautiful setting, under the watchful gaze of Ben Buie.
You have to cross an extremely boggy field to reach it, so wear your tallest wellies and be very careful if you don’t want to be found as a bog body in thousands of years. Peat bogs are a type of wetland where the water on the ground surface is acidic and low in nutrients. They are filled with decaying organic matter, usually feature rich biodiversity and from a distance, they look rather homogeneous. However closer up, you discover that peat bogs are actually not that uniform in surface, depth or texture. In fact, they’re quite treacherous as you can never tell how deep (sometimes VERY deep) or spongy your next step is going to be. Hiking through them can be hell, as you can sink in bogs quite quickly.
The circle probably dates to the late Neolithic (3000 BC) or early Bronze Age. There were originally 9 stones, all of local granite. One of the stones has been replaced by a low boulder. The circle is about 12.3 metres in diameter, with the tallest stone about 2 metres high and the smallest about 1.2 metre high. Interestingly, the standing stones have been placed so that their flattest side faces the interior of the circle. There are three outlying stones, one about 5 metres from the circle to the south east. This is a fairly unobtrusive boulder about 1 metre high, and its azimuth of 123° with a very high horizon gives a declination of -12°, of no known significance. The second outlier is a very striking monolith about 3 metres high, standing at least 40 metres to the south west. The azimuth of 223.6° with a horizon height of 0.4° gives a declination of -23.7°, and so indicates the position of the setting sun at the winter solstice. The horizon is now partially blocked by nearby trees. Much further away (about 110 metres) is the third outlier, which is roughly 2 metres high. This stone looks like it has suffered a break near the top and was probably much taller when it was first erected. The bearing of 237° and an altitude of just over 2° gives a declination of -16.0°. This is the declination of the sun at the winter Quarter days in early November and early February.
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Glengorm standing stones, Isle of Mull, Scotland 2017
Three standing stones (around 2 metres high) occupy a commanding position on the end of a ridge in the broken ground to the west of Glengorm Castle. In the early 1880s only one of the stones was upright, but the other two had been re-erected by 1942. The stones are surrounded by a modern enclosure-bank and the packing-stones visible around the two re-erected stones are also of a recent date. The site was excavated as part of a four week survey of the stone alignments of northern Mull. The northernmost of the three stones appears to have been re-erected near its original position, while the southernmost stone has been dragged NE, to be wedged upright in a cleft in the bedrock. The original alignment did not repeat the trend of other sites in the area. Further conclusions await processing of the survey data.
The existence of a large mound of stones nearby was recorded in 1883, but it is no longer visible, and it is not clear from the description whether it was a prehistoric burial cairn or not.
Glengorm was originally known as Sorne. In 1850, the new landlord, one James Forsyth, began to ‘improve’ his estate in the usual fashion in the Highlands - by clearance. The main house was replaced by a large and imposing baronial 'castle’. Forsyth sought advice on a new name for the estate from one of the few remaining tenants of the land, an old lady, and she suggested Glengorm, meaning Blue Glen. Little did he suspect that the name would commemorate, for all time, the days when the glen was indeed blue with smoke from the burning homesteads.
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The megalithic portal of Cashtal-yn-Ard, Maughold parish, Isle of Man. The ancient burial chamber known as ‘Cashtal-yn-Ard’ stands on the edge of a hill to the northeast of Glen Mona, just to the south of Cornaa in the parish of Maughold, and close to the eastern coastline of the Isle of Man. It is quite a large megalithic structure at 130 feet in length. The name “Cashtal-yn-Ard” is thought to mean “The Castle of the Heights”. Situated on raised land near the coast, the site provides impressive views overlooking most of the parish of Maughold and across the sea to the Lake District. Cashtal-yn-Ard is a large, oblong shaped chambered cairn, of ‘Clyde-Carlingford’ type, dating from the late Neolithic Age – roughly between 1,800-2,000 BC. It covers a large area of 40m (131 ft) long and 14m (46 ft) wide, and it still has its outer kerb stones, horned forecourt, entrance and 5 burial chambers. It is roughly aligned west to east. A semi-circular forecourt of six stones at the western end gives access, through a portal of two large standing stones, to a burial chamber of five compartments, originally slab-roofed. The slabs of these burial chambers are angled inwards and some have jagged edges, but sadly all but one of the roof-slabs have been lost, although this long flat-slab might not be the original one. Here unburnt bones, pottery and flints were found. With its five chambers it’s quite similar in structure to the largely intact Brlas Knap long barrow in Gloucestershire. East of the the burial chambers is a mound of earth and stones reddened and fused by heat, which archaeologists can’t explain. The whole monument, apart from the forecourt, was originally covered by a massive oblong cairn 130 feet long. Some of the large standing stones at the entrance have been re-erected or replaced. However, its large earth or stone mound, has gone – the stones now lost to local walls and farm buildings. The monument is very well-preserved and is said to be one of the largest of its kind in the British Isles. (presso Maughold)
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