Notes from a visit Sept 2014
It has been a long while since I visited this circle, probably before any restoration work, so I wanted to visit it again, and thought it would be a good place to be with the sun dropping down. We walked along the lane to the remains of the DingDong mine, before trying to figure out how to get to the circle. This is a mistake. Should continue along on the main trackway as it bears round to the right before the mine. From the mine buildings, the map has a path marked on it to the circle, but its all very unclear, and also very rough and overgrown ground with all the mine waste, and also several old shafts to be avoided.
We eventually got across the wasteland / open moor to the ridgetop pathway, but again this was not the wide open trackway that I remember, and was still a bit of a difficult route through all the overgrowth and hollows, and it seemed to be much further along than it should have been.
Now clearly the remains of a stone circle, there must be several more stones stood up than when I saw before, so I took plenty of pictures. Unfortunately, the sun was now obscured by a misty haze which was enveloping everything, so the spectacular golden light and views I was hoping for did not materialise.
As time was getting on, I then rushed along the path towards Men-an-Tol, to look for the cairn circles, and satisfied myself at the first one, again taking several pictures. From what I had seen on the portal, the large stone here was referred to as the menhir, but it doesn't really seem to be much more than part of the cairn circle. From my dim memories, I thought that the menhir was somewhere between the circle and these cairns, but there was nothing obvious to be seen. Maybe that stone has fallen, or was used as part of the restoration of the circle. Whatever, I am still very unsure of what is what up here, so leaving room for another visit sometime when not in a hurry.
With darkness approaching, I ran much of the way back along the track, and went back to the car following the main (but not direct) trackways, munching on the plentiful blackberries.
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road