Dolmen de la Fontaine au Son 2

Trip No.204  Entry No.110  Date Added: 3rd Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: There are two dolmens here, about 30 metres apart, near to the Fontaines de Son water treatment plant. The western dolmen is slightly bigger, and in a bit better condition. It seems to have a north south oriented chamber, with two capstones surviving, covering the southern part of the 8 metre long chamber. The northern end has collapsed. It is difficult to tell where the entrance would have been. Oddly, this dolmen has a well tended grassy area besides it, but the dolmen itself is right in the corner and quite overgrown. It is also right on the farm track out the back, and dangerously close to getting bashed with each passing tractor.

Vaon Dolmen

Trip No.204  Entry No.108  Date Added: 3rd Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: This nice dolmen can be found about a kilometre southeast of the village of Trois-Moutiers, and is easy to find because it is signposted. It is about a 300 metre walk from where you can park near to a barn. It is a fairly complete Angevin dolmen with a 5m by 2.5m main chamber fronted at the east end by a 2.5 by 1.5 metre entrance porch. The two capstones of the main chamber are still in place, although the roofstone of the entrance has fallen. Nicely shaded by a large tree, there was a wasp nest inside when I was here, which distracted slightly from my visit.

La Petite Pierre Levée (Chantebrault)

Trip No.204  Entry No.120  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 1 Ambience 2 Access 4

Log Text: Just about 80 metres from the first dolmen, in the next field, is a large stone, which look to be the remains of another dolmen.

La Grande Pierre Levée (Chantebrault)

Trip No.204  Entry No.119  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: This dolmen is not far off the side of the road up on a windy ridge a couple of kilometres south of the village of St Laon. I cannot figure out what it is the remains of, it could be an allée couverte with lateral entry, or it could be a double chambered dolmen with the entrance between the two. What is either the main chamber, or two chambers, are about 10 metres from one end stone to the other, and it is about 2 metres in width. The chamber runs approximately east to west. Any entrance is probably in the middle of the south side, where some slabs are set at right angles. A single massive capstone remains sitting on top of the eastern end.

Dolmen d'Epennes

Trip No.204  Entry No.105  Date Added: 3rd Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 17th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 2 Access 4

Log Text: Not marked on any of my maps, but I found this mentioned from the same source that I found out the information about the nearby Pierre Folle. It is just to the east of the hamlet of Epennes, south of Bournand, about 300 metres from the road junction and across a field.

It looks to be a fairly standard 4 x 2.5 metre Angevine dolmen with its entrance to the south east, but it's all a bit of a wreck and overgrown. Unfortunately, the field it is in is cropped very close and damage looks to have been done by farm machinery recently.

La Roche Vernaise

Trip No.204  Entry No.106  Date Added: 3rd Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Couldn't find on 17th May 2005. My rating: Condition 1 Ambience 2 Access 4

Log Text: On top of a hillock near a junction of lanes to the west of La Roche Vernaise is a big jumble of large stones. It is hard to know whether this is the actual dolmen, or just a load of field clearance stones, but it was the only likely candidate I found in this area. Perhaps it has all been fairly recently all moved to the edges of the fields. There is a lot of stone, so perhaps it was a fairly big dolmen, at least 10 metres in length. It is difficult to know. I don't think I actually found the real dolmen, which is perhaps a bit to the north of here.

La Pierre-Levée de Maisonneuve

Trip No.204  Entry No.114  Date Added: 4th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Couldn't find on 18th Jul 2005

Log Text: This is marked on my ign 1:100,000 map, but down a dead end lane into a forest southeast of Loudun. I had a good look round, but there were no signs or anything, and in the thick bushy forest I didn't really stand a chance.

Dolmen de Briande 1

Trip No.204  Entry No.116  Date Added: 4th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 3 Access 3

Log Text: A couple of hundred metres away from the large tumulus, towards the railway line and across a field can be found a nice dolmen 6 metres long, 2 metres wide and 2 metres high. Three capstones sit on three pairs of side stones, but there is no evidence of any entrance or closing slabs.

Dolmen de Briande 2

Trip No.204  Entry No.117  Date Added: 4th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 3

Log Text: A few more hundred metres across another field from the first dolmen, and there are the remains of another fairly large dolmen. This one is clearly of the Angevin type with a 5 m by 3 m main chamber with a single large capstone now fallen into the middle. At the southeast there is the remains of a collapsed porchway entrance.

While visiting this dolmen I ended up in the middle of a grasshopper attack frenzy !

Dolmen de Laverré

Trip No.204  Entry No.156  Date Added: 17th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 21st Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: This dolmen is a kilometre or so to the south of the village of Andillé, and can be found in the round wooded area behind the lone house to the northwest of the road. The wooded area is perhaps the remains of a tumulus surrounding the dolmen, which is a nicely made rectangular dolmen. A single capstone sits on top of a 3.5m by 2.5 m chamber, made with two sidestones each side, two backstones and a single stone at the east end, where the entrance is. This is a nice find, especially after missing it twice yesterday.

Vaintray menhir

Trip No.204  Entry No.157  Date Added: 17th Aug 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 21st Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Just to the east of the hamlet of Vaintray, and about 100 metres south down a little cross track from the road to Aslonnes, can be found this little menhir, stood in a little grassy clearing amongst bushes in a region left clear of the fields. It is a small triangular stone, only about 1.3 metres tall, and 0.8 metres wide at the base. It's got some lovely yellow lichens on it, and is hiding in amongst some strange fruit trees, sort of a tiny little bright red plum, which nothing wants to eat. I have not seen these before.

Pouzac Dolmen

Trip No.204  Entry No.155  Date Added: 17th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 21st Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Even having the detailed map, finding this dolmen was not easy. Go south along the track from the east end of the hamlet of Pouzac, then go right at the crossroads of trackways. Go along here for 100 metres and then the dolmen is to be found in the southern side of the southern hedge, and is getting a bit overgrown. It is a little limestone simple dolmen, with a capstone about 3 m by 2 m sat up off the ground on several broken support stones, with its entrance towards the east.

Château-Larcher Dolmen

Trip No.204  Entry No.154  Date Added: 17th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Saw from a distance on 20th Jul 2005

Log Text: While trying to find a campsite at Chateau Larcher, I saw lots of signposts to Dolmen. I tried to follow them, they pointed out of the town and then I could find no more. So this was another two dolmens not found on this very frustrating day. However, right outside the chateau, there is a big cross mounted on top of a sort of dolmen. I wonder if it is real. By the time I saw it, I had driven past, and there was nowhere to stop. Maybe thats another one I should have had.

Dolmen au Grand-Fâ

Trip No.204  Entry No.161  Date Added: 20th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Couldn't find on 21st Jul 2005

Log Text: I found no sign of any dolmen or other megalithic monument in this village, but there is a place called Pierre Brune on the 1:25000 map to the northwest of the village near the rubbish dump.

Verrières tumulus

Trip No.205  Entry No.14  Date Added: 13th Oct 2020
Site Type: Chambered Cairn Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Saw from a distance on 30th Aug 2005

Log Text: On the village map, about half a kilometre to the southeast of the dolmen, and to the northeast of the road to Lussac-les-Chateaux. I had a walk towards this after getting the van partly sorted, but couldn’t find anything definite. There was however, a mound in a field which has growth on it, which was in the right sort of place. Pity I couldn't get to it and have a proper look, and by now its started to get dark.

Pierre Brune Dolmen

Trip No.205  Entry No.19  Date Added: 14th Oct 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Couldn't find on 31st Aug 2005

Log Text: A bit further to the south of Pierre-Soupèze along the same little farm road is a farm called Pierre Brune. There are no obvious signs of any dolmen, but there are lumps and bumps in the fields, and piles of stones in the fields.

Bougon Tumulus F

Trip No.204  Entry No.140  Date Added: 15th Aug 2020
Site Type: Chambered Tomb Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 19th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: Bougon Tumulus F is a wonderfully reconstructed three stage construction. The earliest part, F1 has a small round dolmen within a cairn made of drystone walling with a corbelled beehive roof. This is said to be the oldest dated man made room in the world. Fantastic. F2 is a long thin construction adjoining F1. F3 is another circular construction at the far end of F2 from the F1 cairn. This contains a large dolmenic chamber under a massive capstone, and includes some engravings on some of the side slabs.

Celles-sur-Belle menhirs

Trip No.203  Entry No.34  Date Added: 2nd Apr 2020
Site Type: Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 15th May 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 3

Log Text: After a fairly long struggle to find these which are marked on my ign map I eventually found a sign pointing through the woods to menhirs 180 metres but not very close to the position on the map. The best I found was two big lumps of rock on a hillside which looked very much like they may be natural rocks to me. Its possible there is a third nearby. I could not get a gps fix in the dense woodland.

Dolmen de la Pierre-Pèze

Trip No.203  Entry No.35  Date Added: 2nd Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 15th May 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: After a long wet day of driving and getting frustrated by a lack of nice things to see and getting lost in a couple of big towns (Niort Fontenay) I needed this. On the D948 road just to the west of the railway station to the east of Limilonges (where there is lots of space to park) is a large sign to the dolmen which can be found a few hundred metres walk along the woodland path.

It consists of a massive vegetation covered triangular shaped capstone 6 metres in length up to 3 metres in width and a metre thick doing an incredible balancing act held up high on only three supports although there are in total about ten side slabs for the original chamber most of which do not reach the capstone. The chamber would have been oval in shape six metres long and probably about 4 metres in width. All of the stones are of a kind of limestone which shows I am moving into a different kind of region.

The dolmen is positioned in a lovely woodland glade and despite the noise of the busy road and the TGV trains rushing (quietly) by the place is full of birdsong and a nice place to spend some time.

Dolmen de la Garenne (La Mothe)

Trip No.204  Entry No.143  Date Added: 15th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 19th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: The Dolmen de la Garenne at Villedieu-de-Comblé is fairly easily found from the southern end of the village by following Allée du Dolmen up to the top of the hill and then walking along the footpath to the left into the woods. This is in all just a few hundred metres walk.

The dolmen is in a clearing in the woods, and still mostly within its mound. I cannot be totally sure what this is the remains of, whether it is one chamber with a long and angled passage, or more likely two chambers with entry passageways. The most obvious remnant is a 4m by 3m capstone still sitting above the ground on top of various crumbling support slabs. To the east of this are a lot more stones, which could be the entrance passageway, or the remains of another chamber. From here there is an entrance passageway going off through the mound to the south. It is possible that there are two chambers which both exit to the south.

However, there is just too much undergrowth here, and it has been too messed about with for me to be sure. There are deer in these woods here with me, which I can see as I sit and write this, watching me carefully.