Bougon Tumulus A

Trip No.204  Entry No.135  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 A is a large round mound with a single dolmenic chamber within it. It's a massive dolmen, with a capstone estimated to weigh 90 tonnes on top of a 5 metre by 5 metre chamber 2.5 metres high. It is incredible. It is a pity the french graffitti disease has got here and people are carving onto the stones. Apparently Tony Blair was here in 2002, and has carved his name to prove it... Its also a pity, but the flash and exposure on my camera seems to be playing up.

Bougon Tumulus

Trip No.204  Entry No.134  Date Added: 15th Aug 2020
Site Type: Barrow Cemetery Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 19th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 5 Access 5

Log Text: A magnificent site not far from the town of St-Maixent-l'Ecole, and signposted for miles around. It was about €4 to get in (2005), and this includes everything. I spent more than three hours here, and went back the next day for more, as it had shut before I had finished seeing everything I wanted to, so it was good value. The raison d'etre for this site are the six ancient constructions of the necropolis, of which there are basically 5 tumulus mounds, all of different types, and all close together, which can be visited on a meandering walk around the grounds. With lots of parking and disabled access, there is also a museum built within the archaeological remains of an ancient priory, which is a great place to visit. The displays within the museum concentrate on the late stone age, when man settled down from nomadic hunter-gatherer to become builder and farmer, and all the associated crafts. There are the usual maps and collection of tools, but there is also an interesting display of ancient megalithic art, showing some lovely copies of engraved stones, which culminates in a full size reconstruction of the Gavrinis internal chamber. Outside there are displays of dolmen building, a 40 metre long longhouse based on archaeological finds, Souray sheep, ancient plants..... Everything. This is the best museum of ancient stuff I have been to. This is a must visit place.

Musée des Tumulus de Bougon

Trip No.204  Entry No.133  Date Added: 15th Aug 2020
Site Type: Museum Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 19th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 5 Access 5

Log Text: I don't really know where to start except to say that it's not far from the town of St-Maixent-l'Ecole, and signposted for miles around. It was about €4 to get in, and this includes everything. I spent more than three hours here, and went back the next day for more, as it had shut before I had finished seeing everythng I wanted to, so it was good value. With lots of parking and disabled access, the museum is built within the archaeological remains of an ancient priory, itself an interesting place to visit. The displays within the museum show with various visual aids time from the creation of the universe, but concentrate here on the late stone age, when man settled down from nomadic hunter-gatherer to become builder and farmer, and all the associated crafts. There are the usual maps and collection of tools, but there was also an interesting display of ancient megalithic art, showing some lovely copies of engraved stones, including several of which I have now seen for myself earlier on this trip, and some of which I did not know for sure were real megalithic art, for example the crosse at the dolmen where the odd German couple were, and the protruding "legs" at the tomb where I had met the old collector man in his van. This megalithic art display culminates in a full size reconstruction of the Gavrinis internal chamber. I thought I had seen these stones somewhere before ! Upstairs, there is a room for temporary exhibitions, and this had an exhibition of Woman in Art - "Femmes Déesses". There was a wonderful collection of items and photographs of woman, with comparisons of modern art to prehistoric art. I must go back and buy the book if there is one. There were some fantastic items on display, with reproductions of Brassempuy, Willendorf, Lespugue, St Sernin etc, right up to Dali and Picasso. This display was well worth the entry fee on its own. Outside there are displays of dolmen building, a 40 metre long longhouse based on archaeological finds, Souray sheep, ancient plants..... Everything. This is the best museum of ancient stuff I have been to. Then there are the ancient tombs themselves, of which there are basically 5 tumulus mounds, all of different types, and all close together, which can be visited on a meandering walk around the grounds. This is a must visit place.

Dolmen de Fontenille

Trip No.204  Entry No.132  Date Added: 15th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Couldn't find on 19th Jul 2005

Log Text: From the village of Faye-l'Abbesse I tried to find the Fontenille double dolmen, hoping that the village had a map with it marked, but there wasn't. All it has is lots of lorries and a difficult traffic scheme. I found a track to Fontenilles farm, but it was all closed off and gated with no way through, and no signs of any dolmens. This is not the nicest part of France.

Pierre Levée du Grand Gât

Trip No.204  Entry No.131  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 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: A couple of kilometres south of the village of Moutiers-Sous-Argenton, on the little lane to nowhere really, and there is a sign to dolmen, 250m. I walked at least a kilometre along the main track without finding it ! The trick is to not stay on the main track, but to keep straight on always, and yes, the dolmen is there about 250 metres from the road to the left of the track.

This appears to be a dolmen with entrance corridor, but I cannot be certain. The main chamberis about 3m by 2m and has a couple of sidestones and a capstone, though the backstone is missing. At the southeast end is a closing stone and an entrance passage of some sort, though this is mostly fallen, and I cannot be sure of the arrangement. This was a nice little country walk, and I got a very close view of a heron circling around and fishing.

Dolmen dit le Gras du Chien

Trip No.204  Entry No.130  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Just north of the main dolmen are lots more stones, which seem to make one large, and one small chamber adjoining the first cairn. These are probably to the side of what was the entranceway, facing to the east.

Pierre Levée (St Léger-de-Montbrun)

Trip No.204  Entry No.129  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Just to the north of the road from the town of Thouars to Loudon, a couple of kilometres east of Thouars, can be found this complex of stones. Firstly, there is a simple dolmen, 3 metres by 2 metres, within a restored circular cairn about 10 metres in diameter. The single capstone sits on two side supports and an end stone, and it appears to open to the southwest. Just north of this are lots more stones, which would seem to make one large, and one small chamber adjoining the first cairn. The large chamber would be 5 metres by 2.5 metres, while the adjoining smaller chamber is about 2 metres by 1.5 metres. This is probably to the side of what was the entranceway, facing to the east.

I don't have very much time to spend here, as it has now gone 8:00pm, so I'll have to do a very quick sketch. After a not very good start to the day, it has turned into an excellent afternoon and evening, and the sun has come out to make it even better.

Monpalais Dolmen 6

Trip No.204  Entry No.128  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: As I was walking back to the campervan, I noticed a tree and some bushes in the middle of the field on the other side of the road. Now, why would they be there ? Yep, it's another dolmen, but not in very good condition. Like the others, it has been tidied up, and now consists of a chamber in a little round mound of stones, about 7 metres in diameter. The chamber is 2 metres long by 1 metre wide, facing to the northeast, but it has no capstone. It has two long side stones and a backstone, though they are fairly broken. lots of large pieces of stone are scattered around, no doubt the broken remains of the rest of this dolmen. It is quite possible that there is also the remains of another dolmen nearby, overgrown in a hedge.

Monpalais Dolmen 5

Trip No.204  Entry No.127  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: Further west from the first four dolmens, towards the new houses, can be found another little dolmen in the middle of a field, which again has been nicely restored. It is a simple thing with a 2 m by 2 m capstone sitting on top of two side slabs and a back stone. It opens up to the east on about 060°, and in fact is looking directly at what I have called dolmens 3 and 4. It has about a 5 metre cairn of little red stones surrounding it, and a few other larger pieces are sort of scattered around.

I would not be at all surprised if there weren't more of these dolmens around here. This was obviously an important place thousands of years ago.

Monpalais Dolmen 4

Trip No.204  Entry No.126  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: A few hundred metres north of the first dolmens can be easily seen and reached this large dolmen, which from the south looks like it is going to be an Angevin dolmen. However, upon reaching it, it is a V shaped dolmen in an oval mound. Another superb bit of restoration, this large dolmen sits in an oval cairn, of dimensions about 15m by 10m, with faced walling around the outside. The chamber is about 8 metres long and opening at the east, where it is about 2 metres wide, increasing in width to 4 metres wide at the western end, and I can easily stand up within it. Two capstones cover the main part of the chamber, while the front entrance part is not covered. Within the chamber is a stone which does not reach the roof, which must have acted as some form of partition, a feature I have seen quite a bit round here. The entrance to the mound is concave, and fits to the edge of the front stone slabs.

Monpalais Dolmen 3

Trip No.204  Entry No.125  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: This is another small simple dolmen, about 150 metres to the west of the large dolmen 4. A 3 m by 2 m capstone sits on what appears to be two side stones and a back stone, with the entrance looking to the north. The stones sit in a little 7 metre diameter mound of stones, and in fact the chamber is full also. It has obviously had a restoration job done on it, but they probably didn't have much to work with, so have just tidied it all up a bit.

Monpalais Dolmen 2

Trip No.204  Entry No.124  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Just 50 metres west of Taizé No 1 is this poor little thing. It also looks to have been recently excavated and restored, but there can't have been much to work on. There is a collapsed capstone and two side stones, and also probably the backstone, but it is now all nearly flat to the ground. For whatever reason, the restorers have left a rectangular patch of stones around this one, about 7 m by 5 m. The chamber would have been about 1.5 m by 1 m in size.

Monpalais Dolmen 1

Trip No.204  Entry No.123  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: This is a beautifully restored dolmen with entry couloir sitting on and in a little stone cairn. The chamber is about 3 metres by 2 metres opening to the east, with a single stone acting to close off half the entry. It has a single capstone covering only the western end. Around it is a double walled cairn, the internal cairn of about 8 metres diameter enclosing the dolmen and its entranceway, while the outer cairn is about 15 metres in diameter, with its wall encircling the whole lot. This is a really nice piece of restoration. I hope it can remain in such good condition. The stones in the cairn are all red coloured stone, although most of the stone round here is a white colour.

Monpalais

Trip No.204  Entry No.122  Date Added: 13th Aug 2020
Site Type: Barrow Cemetery Country: France (Poitou:Deux-Sèvres (79))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: There are a couple of dolmens marked here on my map, but when I get here there is a sign and a parking area, and before I even get out of the van I can see four dolmens ! In all there are remains of about a dozen dolmens here, many of which have been recently restored. It is a pity about the busy road and the open fields, which make for low ambience scores for an otherwise very good place.

Dolmen de Champs Lochet

Trip No.204  Entry No.121  Date Added: 14th Nov 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Poitou:Vienne (86))
Visited: Yes on 18th Jul 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 4 Access 3

Log Text: This dolmen can be found about a kilometre walk along a farm track to the east of the Chantebrault dolmens, and then into a field by a wooded copse. It is fairly ruinous, just a large capstone balanced at a serious angle between the ground and one side support stone. It's about 4 metres square, and up to 2 metres from the ground. There are many more fallen stones here, but I cannot really make anything more out. The plough and crops come mighty close, and I suspect that they have wrecked much of what was here.

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 dit la Pierre-de-Verre

Trip No.204  Entry No.118  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 2 Ambience 2 Access 4

Log Text: In the back garden of a house to the north west of the St Laon village centre, and not far from a busy road, can be found the remains of this. Whatever this dolmen was, it has been altered about with quite a bit, including fairly recently being dug into on the west side to be made into a goat house. What there is looks a bit like an allée couverte 6 metres long by 2 metres wide, but probably was an Angevine dolmen. There is a nice donkey over the road wanting a fuss.

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 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.