Standing stones at Penros Fielw, Anglesey. Holyhead Mountain in the background.  

Stone circles in East Cumbria. You really need Copey's 'The Modern Antiquarian' and a decent OS map to find most of the stuff around Shap - the bottom circle is at Oddendale. There are so many sites it's tempting to think of some extensive local civilisation centred around the area, which would have been wooded and fertile.

Today, it must rank as one of the least appealing landscapes in Cumbria, or even the World, due to the unrelentingly dull grassed slopes and moorland. And Shap, well what a dump. Seldom does one come across a settlement that makes Accrington seem like Seville set in a landscape that makes The Falklands seem like Mallorca.

The top circle, Gamelands, is in more attractive limestone farmland near Orton. It's quite big, must be the 4th biggest in Cumbria after Long Meg, Castlerigg and Sunkenkirk. It's in a field of its own, only 200 yards from a road but you could drive past every day and never know it's there. It has great views despite being in the valley, and seems to be aligned directly between a distant High Street in the west, and that peak on the Coast to Coast with all the old cairns on top in the east. Whether this is significant or not is, of course, unknown.

 

 

 

Desecrated stone circle at Shap, Cumbria. A couple of months after the pic was taken, I happened to be on a train from Edinburgh to Lanaster (a mere 2 hour journey), and, I suppose, momentarily accessed the centre of the circle without having to trespass on Railtrack property. Result, even if I was asleep at the time.

Uhhh, that winter light...sure is getting in my eyes...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The attentive reader may have noticed a blog silence of several months

This has been due to technical difficulties that are not yet fully resolved....stay tuned in the New Year...

Dropped in at Stonehenge (about which I'll say nothing on this occasion) on the way to Dorset, on week-long trip seeing out the month of June. It rained quite a bit, as it seems to have done everywhere for weeks, but the South was the place to be (and probably sill is).

First and last stop on the Dorset sea-cliffs was the geologically interesting Lulworth Cove, and Stair Hole.

There was quite a big swell running, which meant that the rock in the caves was greasy-wet. I peeled into the sea twice, off the same set of soaking wet holds on the Maypole (6a)...once attempting the route clockwise and once going anticlockwise. Bracing.

More Deep water soloing at Swanage

Seacombe, Aquanaut Buttress. One of a bunch from London on Lost in Time (4+)

Brave person moving out of the corner of Codfish (5a) towards the roofs of The Howling (7b).


Freeborn Man (6c), Connor Cove. One of the London team waltzed it, one sketched it, one fell off, the others watched (as did I....the thought of trying it was just too much for me on the day...maybe next time!). The sea was much noisier and choppier than the photo would suggest...it was pretty windy too.

Troubled Waters (5+), Connor. Juggy, steep and fun.

Followed this up with some bouldering and stone-circling on Dartmoor...

The rather spooky Plague Market at Merrivale, Dartmoor. In the plague years of the 1700's, victims were quarantined on the Moor, and used to leave money in exchange for food at the site. Farmers would take the dough and leave some vittals. Even if you didn't know this, you could be forgiven for feeling slightly unsettled by the barren setting.

A big site, with two almost-parallel stone rows, 3 stone circles, burial chambers, and lots of hut circles. There's nothing like this in the north of England.

It contrasts somewhat with the woodland setting of the Nine Stones of Winterbourne Abbass, Dorset, which provided a useful stop-off on the way...

Spot the weasel


Clue...he's at 7 o'clock. One of three larking about in the trees on the approach to the upper tier, Horseshoe Quarry