ritual sites

The Spinsters’ Rock, Drewsteignton, Devon

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Dolmen: OS Grid Reference – SX 70092 90783

Also Known as:

Drewsteignton (1)

Archaeology & History

Highlighted on Benjamin Donn’s map of Devon in 1765, this impressive neolithic dolmen consists of three large granite support stones between 5 ft 7 in and 7 ft 7 in tall, surmounted by a large capstone measuring 15 feet by 10 feet. It collapsed in 1862 but was restored later the same year.

Folklore

In Murray’s (1851) Handbook for Travellers he told the following tale of the site:

This interesting old monument derives its name from a whimsical tradition that three spinsters (who were spinners) erected it one morning before breakfast; but “may we not,”* says Mr. Rowe (Peramb. of Dartmoor), “detect in this legend of the three fabulous spinners the terrible Valkyriur of the dark mythology of our Northern ancesters – the Fatal Sisters, the choosers of the slain, whose dread office was to ‘weave the warp and weave the woof of destiny.'”

Polwhele informs us that the legend varies, in that for the three spinsters some have substituted three young men and their father, who brought the stones from the highest part of Dartmoor; and in this phase of the legend has been traced an obscured tradition of Noah and his three sons.

.. The hill on which it stands commands an excellent view of Cawsand Beacon. About 100 yds. beyond the cromlech on the other (N.) side of the lane, is a pond of water, of about 3 acres, called Bradmere Pool, prettily situated in a wood. It is said to be unfathomable, and to remain full to the brim during the driest seasons, and some regard it as artificially formed and of high antiquity – in short a Druidical pool of lustration connected with the adjacent cromlech..

.. The country-people have a legend of a passage formed of large stones leading underground from Bradmere to the Teign, near the logan stone..

References:

Baring-Gould, Sabine, A Book of Dartmoor, London 1900.
Crossing, William, Gems in a Granite Setting, Western Morning News: Plymouth 1905.
Falcon, T.A., Dartmoor Illustrated, James G. Comin: Exeter 1900.
Murray, John, A Hand-book for Travellers in Devon & Cornwall, John Murray: London 1851.
Ormerod, G. Waring, Notes on Rude Stone Remains Situate on the Easterly Side of Dartmoor, privately printed 1873.
Page, John Lloyd Warden, An Exploration of Dartmoor and its Antiquities, Seeley: London 1892.
Worth, R. Hansford, Worth’s Dartmoor, David & Charles: Newton Abbot 1967.

Acknowledgements: Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.

Woman’s Stone, Kirkmichael, Banffshire

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Legendary Rock (lost): OS Grid Reference –NJ 010 030

Also Known as:

Cairn Gorm
Canmore ID 15670

Archaeology & History

The exact location of this site seems privy to a select few and has remained that way since its existence appeared in print in the 19th century. It was first mentioned by Arthur Mitchell (1874) following a holiday that he’d had in the area in the early 1870s. He’d visited a petroglyph at Laggan with a Mr David Ross and when he returned home received a letter from him that told how,

“he had heard from Mr M’Bain of Auchterblair of two huge granite boulders, situated on a shelving rock over an abyss on the Loch Avon side of Cairngorm, with hand-made cups on them about a foot wide and correspondingly deep.”

They were subsequently visited by Thomas Wise (1884) a few years later, who told how these huge granite boulders were,

“20 feet in height,” upon which “there are four basins, 1 foot, or 1 foot and a-half long, and 6 inches wide at the top, rounding off to 1 inch in the bottom.”

Initially Mr Mitchell (1874) was cautious in associating these carved basins with cup-marked stones—and indeed, we concur with this—but seemed to have changed his opinion when he wrote about them a few years later (Mitchell 1881). But it’s the folklore attached to this site that intrigued him – and myself…

Folklore

The traditions attached to this site will be recognised by all students of animism and folklore. Arthur Mitchell (1874) was informed how the carved bowls in the stone helped infertile women and how “sitting on (them) is said to be efficacious in cases of barrenness.” Their importance was highlighted in the fact that there had been “pilgrimages to them undertaken within the memory of people still living.”

This was affirmed by Thomas Wise (1884) who told that,

“They are supposed to be efficacious in barrenness, and people still living remember pilgrims coming to sit upon them for some time, that they might obtain what they wished. A visit to them was by no means an easy task, as the ascent was difficult, and to sit on them required a steady head, as they are on the brink of a rock overhanging a precipice. These basins are the “woman’s stone” mentioned by Tennant. They are supposed to be the resting place or throne of a certain fairy queen; but however efficacious they may have been, they have lost much of their celebrity; and as the shepherd, who acted as guide to the pilgrims, is dead, and has left no successor, they are now rarely visited.”

Does anyone know the whereabouts of this heathen magickal site? If you happen to find it, see if you can get a good photo or two and let us know on our Facebook group.

References:

Mitchell, Arthur, “Vacation Notes in Cromar, Burghead and Strathspey,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries Scotland, volume 10, 1874.
Mitchell, Arthur, The Past in the Present, Harper: New York 1881.
Wise, Thomas, A., History of Paganism in Caledonia, Trubner: London 1884.

Pen Twyn, Bargoed, Glamorgan

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Cup-Marked Stone (lost): OS Grid Reference – SO 1491 0045

Archaeology & History

Sometime in the 1940s, a certain Lady A. Fox recorded a cup-marked stone “in the vicinity of Pen-twyn” near Bargoed. Its position in the landscape is a good one: on a geological promontory and overlooking the valley below. The find was indexed by the Ordnance Survey, but apart from it’s grid-reference, all attempts to locate the design have so far proved unsuccessful.

It was mentioned briefly in the Royal Commission (1976) survey of Glamorgan, then subsequently listed in the surveys of Sharkey (2004) and Nash (2007), but none of them were able to locate it. And hence, I post it here, in the hope that some local hunter will be able to recover it from its hiding place!

References:

Mazel, A., Nash, G. & Waddington, C. (eds.), Art as Metaphor: The Prehistoric Rock Art of Britain, ArchaeoPress: Oxford 2007.
Nash, George, “A Scattering of Images: the Rock Art of Southern Britain,” in Art as Metaphor, ArchaeoPress: Oxford 2007.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Wales, An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan – Volume 1: Pre-Norman, Part 1: The Stone and Bronze Ages, HMSO: Cardiff 1976.
Sharkey, John, The Meeting of the Tracks: Rock Art in Ancient Wales, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch: Llanrwst 2004.

Mixing Stone, Low Snowden, Askwith, North Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Bowl Stone: OS Grid Reference – SE 18074 51241

Getting Here

Follow the directions to reach the Ancestors’ Stone and the Sunrise Stone; and there, roughly halfway between them, right by the edge of the old collapsed walling, you’ll see this rise of a stone with a large ‘bowl’ on top. That’s it!

Archaeology & History

Laid upon the same geological ridge as our Ancestors’ and Sunrise carvings, there are one, possibly two faint cup-marks visible on the low flat surface near the edge of this rock, barely visible unless the light’s right. But the important element here, perhaps regardless of the cup-marks, is the ‘bowl’ or rock basin on top of the stone. Internally, it’s smoothed equally on all sides and, due to being in-between the two impressive petroglyphs, may well have had a practical function to it. Bear with me on this one…

Stone ‘bowls’ or cavities—natural and otherwise—have been made use of in many cultures for simple functional purposes, such as grinding flour, herbal mixes, etc. We find such traditions in some of the bullauns of Ireland and Scotland; whereas in similar stone bowls known as cat troughs in nearby Haworth, milk was poured to appease the spirits of the land (this tradition was still being maintained in 2001!). Folklore and traditions of such rock basins spread far and wide beyond the UK: one of the German terms for rock basins is Opferkessel, meaning ‘sacrificial basin’ and suggests ritualistic usage by early societies. Elsewhere on Earth there are numerous accounts of the ritual use of petroglyphs in which indigenous peoples tell of their use of plant- or rock-based paints (in many cases red ochre) to decorate the carvings. And it’s this element that I’m interested in here.

The Sunrise and Ancestors’ Stones 10-15 yards either side of this Mixing Stone are ideal candidates for such petroglyphic paintings using early ochre and other stone or plant-based agents. Such activities would always have been ritualised, either in honour of ancestors, genius loci, calendrical rites, or whatever the pertinent ingredient was at that place and time. I’m suggesting simply that the rock basin on the Mixing Stone was used for just such purposes. This is no spurious suggestion, but at the same time it’s important to recognise that my thoughts here represent merely an idea, nothing more—not a fact. Whilst we know full well that these carvings were imbued fundamentally with animistic properties—a simple ‘fact’—this functional idea is just that—an idea. Students and petroglyph-nuts need to understand this. And the faded cup-marks at its edge are perhaps merely incidental…. though I don’t buy that misself!

Achadh Thaibstil, Bettyhill, Farr, Sutherland

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Chambered Cairn: OS Grid Reference – NC 7398 5899

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 6228
Clachan Burn

Getting Here

Achadh Thaibstil cairn, looking W

Along the A836 road a mile east of Bettyhill, a track goes south onto the moors just before Loch Salachaidh. Walk along here for several miles, past the windmills, past a small quarry on your left, and a hundred yards or so along, to the right of the track, you’ll notice a rounded hillock covered in stones and rock on the top (aswell as bracken in the summer and autumn). That’s the spot!

Archaeology & History

Achadh Thaibstil cairn

This little-known cairn, close to the prehistoric hut circles on the other side of the track, is a medium-sized Neolithic or Bronze Age monument. Not included in Audrey Henshall’s (1995) survey of the region, the tomb was built upon a small natural rise with the usual thousands of small and medium-sized stones rising up 4-5 feet high. Near its crown we find an exposed chamber, typical of chambered tombs, measuring more than a yard across and two yards long, with flat slabs defining its sides. It appears that the inner ‘chamber’ may have been split into two sections, as an oblong slab of stone runs parallel down the central ‘chamber’ a third of the way across. The Canmore account simply tells how the cairn is on low knoll and

“measures about 10.5m in diameter and 1.0m high. It has been opened and a centrally placed slab lined cist revealed, the southern side of which is missing. The cist measures 1.4m east-west, with the east and west slabs 1.2m long and 0.6m high.”

Looking down into the chamber

From the chamber, looking N

On the horizon to the far north, the peak of the giant tomb known as Fiscary 2 rises up, indicating the cardinal direction. This may have had geomantic significance, as ‘north’ signifies Death and darkness: the symbolic point where light never emerges; the point linked to the North Star, Alpha Draconis in the neolithic era, or Polaris in our present Age: the point to and from which shamans travel into the Land of the Gods. These elements may or may not have been relevant here.

References:

Henshall, Audrey S. & Ritchie, J.N.G., The Chambered Cairns of Sutherland, Edinburgh University Press 2005.

Water End Maypole, North Mymms, Hatfield, Hertfordshire

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Maypole (removed): OS Grid Reference – TL 2296 0410

Getting Here

On the east side of Warrengate Road, approached from Welham Green via Dixons Hill Road, or from Brookmans Park via Bradmore Lane.

Archaeology & History

A 1920 photograph of the Public House. The Maypole was believed to have been in the garden grounds to the rear.

The exact position of the pole is not marked on the 1896 25″ OS map, as it is probable that it had been removed by the middle of the nineteenth century (like the majority of the permanent Hertfordshire maypoles), but local belief in the 1950s and 60s was that it had been in the garden of the Old Maypole (originally known as ‘The Maypole’) public house, which adjoined the smithy in Warrengate Road, Water End. The public house is stated to have been built around 1520, with later additions, but is now a private house.

The population of Water End and nearby Welham Green was predominantly employed in agriculture, domestic service and straw plaiting, but the area’s proximity to London probably speeded the demise of the ancient traditions like maypole dancing .

The 1896 OS 25″ map, showing the garden ground to the rear of the public house

Doris Jones-Baker writes: “The old Hertfordshire maypoles, on May Day decorated with ribbons and a bunch of spring flowers at the top, were described as being ‘as high as the mast of a vessel of a hundred tons, painted often in a diagonal or spiral pattern from bottom to top in yellow and black, or often in vertical stripes of red, white and blue’”

Interestingly, the rear of the public house garden adjoins the Swallow Holes, a geological feature where the intermittent flowing waters of the Mimmshall Brook disappear into the chalk in as many as 15 sink holes. Hertfordshire has an ancient tradition of ‘woe-waters’ related to the local geology, where the flowing or not of a stream or spring was seen to herald ‘sorrow to come’. From personal memory the Mimmshall Brook is normally a dry stream bed which can in winter suddenly turn into a raging torrent, flooding the land behind The Old Maypole. Any tradition of it having been a woe-water has though been lost. But it is just possible that long ago the coming of May Day was also seen to herald the end of flooding of the Mimmshall Brook and may explain the siting of the pole.

The last year that people danced is not recorded, but the local maypole tradition continued; this writer remembers ribbon dancing as a very small child to a fiddle accompaniment around a maypole erected at the nearby, but long demolished Waterend C.E. Primary School, which closed in 1960.

Folklore

As well as Maypole dancing, Hertfordshire had a rich tradition of May day ritual and song, which despite the county’s proximity to London, survived long enough for some of it to be recorded for posterity. While there does not seem to be any ritual recorded for North Mymms, the following was recorded at nearby Hatfield. “On may morning, dressed in white and holding bunches of Hawthorn or, in late seasons, blackthorn blossoms the children sang door to door a local version of the May song, which began:

‘A bunch of May I bring unto you
And at your door I stand,
Come pull out your purse,
You’ll be none the worse
And give the poor Mayers some money….’”

References:

North Mymms Local History Society, North Mymms Pictures From The Past, Welham Green, 2002
Jones-Baker, Doris, The Folklore of Hertfordshire, B.T.Batsford, London, 1977
Kingsford, Peter, North Mymms People in Victorian Times, Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire, Privately Published, 1986

Boxted Cross Henge, Colchester, Essex

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Henge Monument: OS Grid Reference – TM 0093 3277

Archaeology & History

Boxted Henge plan (Colchester Archaeology Group)

As with many sites in Southern England, intensive agriculture has taken its toll on the archaic monuments. The Boxted Cross henge is no exception and hardly any elements of it remains today. But it seems that it was an impressive fella in our more ancient heathen past.

The site was only rediscovered in the 1970s and was first described in Mrs Ida McMaster’s (1975) survey of crop-marks that had been revealed by aerial surveying in Essex and Suffolk counties. Her brief account of the monument told it to be,

“A Class II henge with a wide somewhat ploughed out ditch. Various linear ditches are near, together with prolific variegated ‘field outlines’ of glacial subsoil cracking which extends into the next field southwards. The ditch terminals of the southwest entrance to the henge appear to be wider than the general run of the ditch, say 4-5 metres.”

When Harding & Lee (1987) examined the site, they were a little more cautious in their interpretation of it being a definite henge, citing that there was “insufficient information, but cannot be ruled out as henge-related,” adding that it “could also be a mill.” This latter element seems unlikely, though a windmill may have been built onto the site at a later date.

More recently however the site has been categorized by Historic England as “a Late Neolithic henge.” The monument itself was defined by a broad circular ditch with two large opposing entrances to the north and south. The total diameter of the enclosure is 44 yards (40m) across; but with the surrounding ditch measuring 5½ yards (5m) across all around, the inner level of the henge was about 33 yards (30m) in diameter. Plenty of room for partying old-style!

References:

Harding, A.F. & Lee, G.E., Henge Monuments and Related Sites of Great Britain, BAR 175: Oxford 1987.
McMaster, Ida, “Crop Marks Selected and Plotted,” in Colchester Archaeological Group Bulletin, volume 18, 1975.

Shaman’s Lodge, Glen Cochill, Perthshire

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Hut Circles: OS Grid Reference – NN 90591 41247 — NEW FIND

Getting Here

The large double hut circle, surrounded by tombs

Take the same directions to reach the giant Carn Ban prehistoric tomb. Follow the track past the tomb further onto the moorland until you reach a small wooden bridge over the small burn. From here, walk straight north off-path onto the moor for 100 yards and a small rise in the land, with several cairns just below it, is the site in question.

Archaeology & History

Hut circle are hut circles – right? Well, usually that’s the case. We find them attached to, or within, or outlying prehistoric enclosures and can date from anywhere between the neolithic and Iron Age periods. With the site we’re looking at here, on the outer western side of Glen Cochill’s southernmost giant enclosure, there’s something amiss….or maybe that should be, “something rather peculiar.”

Paul Hornby found it a few weeks ago during an exploration of the region’s prehistory. We went in search of, and found, the giant Carn Ban close by, but noticed curious archaeological undulations ebbing in and out of the heathlands: cairns, walls, hut circles, settlements, more cairns—and then this!

Consisting of two slightly larger-than-average ovals of walled stone, probably Bronze Age in date, the first impression was of a remarkably well-preserved site (and that it is!), seemingly of an elongated stretch of walling, with a central wall that split it into two halves. Each ‘hut circle’ was found to be between six and seven yards across, with the two conjoined architectural features giving an overall NW-SE length of 14 yards. But the more we looked at this, the more obvious it became that this was originally one single hut circle—the lower southeastern one—with an additional one that was added and attached onto the northwestern side at a later date, probably several centuries later.

Lower earlier hut circle, with upper later hut circle attached

Walking around the structure we found that the very well-preserved walls—about 2 feet wide in places and rising a foot or so above the compacted peat—had been built onto a raised platform of earth. This was no ordinary hut circle! The ground beneath it seems to have been raised and supported and on the southern side in particular it is notable that other building stones are compacted into the peat. There may even be the remains of a secondary outer wall on this southern edge, where it seems that the entrance was made.

Here’s the curious bit: immediately outside the northwestern and southern walls are small prehistoric tombs, or cairns. Not just one or two, but more than a dozen of them, all constructed within 20 yards of this curiously raised double hut circle. Literally, a small prehistoric house of some form was raised in the centre of a prehistoric graveyard—and it doesn’t end here.

Of at least three giant enclosures in this region, and what looks like a very well-preserved prehistoric tribal hall or meeting place, there are upwards of a hundred tombs scattered nearby. Two cairn circles were also found about 100 yards to the north, one of which was damaged by a military road a few centuries ago.

I give this double-roomed abode the somewhat provocative title of the Shaman’s Lodge because of its setting: surrounded by tombs, the ‘house’ would seem to have been a deliberate setting erected in the Land of the Dead here. I hope you can forgive my imaginative mind seeing this as a structure where, perhaps, a medicine woman would give rites to the dead, either for those being buried in the small graves, or rites relating to the giant White Cairn of the ancestors close by. Shamans of one form or another occur in every culture on Earth and have been traced throughout all early cultures. If no such individuals ever existed within the British Isles, someone needs to paint one helluva good reason as to why they believe such a thing….

When the heather grows back here, the site will disappear again beneath the vegetation. It is unlikely to re-appear for quite sometime, so I recommend that anyone wanting to have a look at this does so pretty quick before our Earth covers it once again….

References:

Stewart, Margaret E.C., “Strath Tay in the Second Millenium BC – A Field Survey”, in Proceedings Society Antiquaries Scotland, volume 92, 1961

Acknowledgements: Huge thanks again to Paul Hornby for his assistance with site inspection, and additional use of his photos.

Clach na h’ Iobairte, Kinloch Rannoch, Perthshire

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Standing Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 61702 58975

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 24576
Chieftain’s Grave
Clach na h-Iobairte
Clach na h-Jobairte
Craiganour Stone
Craig-na-Odhar
Stone of Sacrifice
Stone of the Offering

Getting Here

From the gorgeous village of Kinloch Rannoch, take the road along the north side of Loch Rannoch for about 2½ miles. As you go along the road, for a good mile or so it is wooded. Where the woods stop and the first field appears on your right, stop! You’ll see the standing stone perched erotically at an angle above you.

Archaeology & History

A fascinating site in a quite beautiful setting, typical of the Highlands. This stone of many names is a curiously-shaped monolith: like an erect stone penis at the edge of the field when seen from the roadside, calling out to christians and pagans alike, to be castigated or rubbed—whatever the religious preference of the surveyor! Leaning over at a slight angle, the stone is still nearly six feet tall and lives upon a large and equally prehistoric stone cairn about 30 feet across. This cairn, it is said, has been added to by locals when the field was cleared of stone and piled on top of the old tomb. No excavations have been done here, nor at the large ‘hut circle’ in the same field about 50 yards away.

Folklore

So far I have only found a short narrative of this stone in the pages of T.R. Barnett’s (1944) loving account of the Perthshire hills, where he tells that, close by the stone at Aulich, was once

“a famous smith, said to be in league with the devil, and he made the finest claymores in Rannoch.”

References:

Barnett, T. Ratcliffe, The Road to Rannoch and the Summer Isles, John Grant: Edinburgh 1944.
Cunningham, A.D., A History of Rannoch, privately printed 2004.

Craigmaddie Muir (2), Baldernock, Stirlingshire

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Chambered Cairn (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NS 58 76

Also Known as:

Blochairn 2
Canmore ID 44421
STR 3 (Henshall)

Archaeology & History

Close to the ruined Craigmaddie Muir cairn could once have seen a companion, of roughly the same size and structure and made up of thousands of small stones, covering a long internal chamber. It was described in David Ure’s (1793) early history work on the area which, even then, thanks to “frequent dilapidations, will soon be annihilated.” The cairn was included in A.S. Henshall’s (1972) magnum opus in which she wrote:

“There was a second cairn in the vicinty of Craigmaddie Muir I. It was also ‘of an elliptical shape.’ Writing in 1793, Ure says that it ‘was laid open last year, and, though not so large as the other, was of the same construction, which seems to be Danish. Some of the stones placed in the rows at the bottom are considerably large… Among the contents, upon opening…were urns… One of the fragments of an urn is ornamented, near the mouth, with two shallow grooves. The diameter of the circle of which it is a segment seems to have been at least 20in.”

Fragments of human bones were also found within the site, but the entire cairn was sadly destroyed a long time ago. In the Stirlingshire Royal Commission report (1963:1) it was speculated that the urn found herein,

“must have been either a neolithic vessel or a cinerary urn. In view of the method of construction of the chamber it may be assumed that both cairns were related to the Arran or Clyde-Carlingford types.”

References:

Henshall, Audrey Shore, The Chambered Tombs of Scotland – volume 2, Edinburgh University Press 1972.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Stirlingshire – volume 1, HMSO: Edinburgh 1963.
Ure, David, The History of Rutherglen and East Kilbride, Glasgow 1793.