Gamelands

Date Added: 12th May 2024
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: England (Cumbria)
Visited: Yes on 22nd Apr 2023. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: Deceptively large circle of medium-sized boulders, mostly undisturbed, and larger stones, mostly prone. On the day I visited a small mob of very young lambs were having great fun leaping about on the smaller/lower stones.

Little Meg

Date Added: 12th May 2024
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: England (Cumbria)
Visited: Yes on 23rd Apr 2023. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: A logical next visit after a tour of the magnificent Long Meg, which I had been dying to visit for so many years. This is a bit of a jumble, occupying a narrow unploughed strip at the edge of a large field at the time I was there. There are circular rings carved into a double spiral on one of the stones and you simply have to see this if you're anywhere close by.

Maes Howe

Date Added: 12th May 2024
Site Type: Chambered Cairn Country: Scotland (Orkney)
Visited: Yes on 16th Jul 2015. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: Make sure to book early as the limited numbers allowed in the Howe at one time might mean it's several days before you can find a slot. Our guide was blind, but clearly knew every inch of the site and it was only when she told us this that it became apparent she was using muscle memory and perhaps a very hazy tunnel vision to navigate. The twenty-ish minutes passed in an instant.

The craftsmanship of Maes Howe is breathtaking.

Ring of Brodgar

Date Added: 12th May 2024
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: Scotland (Orkney)
Visited: Yes on 13th Jul 2015. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: As I was staying nearby I took the opportunity to visit this magnificent monument several times, at different times of day. The first visit was the best: the sun was beginning to set (but it stays low on the horizon a long time at this time of year on Orkney) and the stones cast the most almighty shadows. How the henge ditch was dug in this very solid rocky landscape I can only imagine. The people who built the monuments at Stenness definitely made no half measures.

Skara Brae

Date Added: 12th May 2024
Site Type: Ancient Village or Settlement Country: Scotland (Orkney)
Visited: Yes on 15th Jul 2015. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: Absolutely stunningly preserved settlement, down to the stone dressers, hearths, sleeping quarters . . . a shame one of the houses is sealed off but there's enough to keep you occupied for an hour. It can get very busy though.

Old Sarum

Date Added: 11th May 2024
Site Type: Hillfort Country: England (Wiltshire)
Visited: Yes on 1st Aug 2001. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: Lots to see on the outer edges of the site where there are well-preserved (or restored) foundations of structures that surrounded the original cathedral. Cross the footbridge and climb the bank (an impressive gradient) for more ruins and spectacular views. Unless my memory is playing tricks on me there is a small airfield/gliding club very nearby and on a fine day the take-offs and landings can be very frequent and unsettling.

Figsbury Rings

Date Added: 11th May 2024
Site Type: Hillfort Country: England (Wiltshire)
Visited: Yes on 1st Jul 1999. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: You can drive, slowly, up to a car park very near the rings. It's a popular dog-walker site so if you meet someone on the way to or from the site it can get a bit fraught. The outer ring has henge-like banks though quite some distance from the ditches if I recall correctly. There's a wide flat causeway and then another ring roughly concentric with the outer one. A double causeway leads to a central platform. Almost like an amphitheatre in some ways. There are great views of the Salisbury district.

Cross Well (Faversham)

Date Added: 11th May 2024
Site Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring Country: England (Kent)
Visited: Yes on 1st Apr 2024. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 2 Access 5

Log Text: A 'part of the furniture' in Faversham market place, rarely give it a second glance if I'm honest. Often invaded by a fruit and veg stall on the Tuesday and Saturday markets. The Guildhall is quite picturesque and the nearby building that is partly occupied by a Chinese restaurant has an ancient-looking wooden door and the plaque commemorating Ss Crispan and Crispianus. There's a large house near the zebra crossing further down the Market Place that has a well in its kitchen, tapping the same spring. Most of the water is slurped up free of charge by the local mafia, er, I mean Shepherd Neame brewery,

Cherhill White Horse

Date Added: 11th May 2024
Site Type: Hill Figure or Geoglyph Country: England (Wiltshire)
Visited: Yes on 1st Jun 1997. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 2

Log Text: Mainly glimpsed as driving by towards Avebury but I did make the climb up the hill for a closer look the one time. It's a bit smaller than Westbury WH and doesn't seem quite so well rendered but an impressive gee gee nonetheless.

Oldbury Castle

Date Added: 11th May 2024
Site Type: Hillfort Country: England (Wiltshire)
Visited: Yes on 1st Jun 1997. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 2

Log Text: Stumbled across the ramparts while making the trudge up to the Cherhill white horse. You feel a real sense of achievement when you make it to the top and look back over the route you came. One thing is for sure: you would not have much energy left for acts of aggression against the occupiers.

Westbury White Horse

Date Added: 11th May 2024
Site Type: Hill Figure or Geoglyph Country: England (Wiltshire)
Visited: Yes on 1st Nov 1986. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 4 Access 3

Log Text: I grew up in Warminster so the horse was a fairly easy walk away, but rather a more challenging one if you wanted to take a closer look. I remember sitting in the turf eyeball one time. Sitting at the summit of the hill and looking down gives you a real sense of what an immense hill figure this is.

Castlerigg

Date Added: 11th May 2024
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: England (Cumbria)
Visited: Yes on 22nd Apr 2023. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 5 Access 5

Log Text: I visited for the first time on my way back south from the Orkney Islands in 2015. The clouds were gathering and followed me home as far as Cambridge, more or less. If it weren't for the weather warning I would have risked a longer stay but having driven from Stromness was beginning to flag.

My second visit in 2023 gave me more time to really savour this utterly beautiful circle and to see it in the context of the surrounding hills (which were shrouded in mist the first time). So so wonderful.

Long Meg And Her Daughters

Date Added: 11th May 2024
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: England (Cumbria)
Visited: Yes on 23rd Apr 2023. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 5 Access 5

Log Text: There's a generous-sized gravelled car park not far away and then it's a reasonably easy short walk to the Druid's Circle as I think the local sign puts it. I might have misremembered.

It's a spectacular site and several minutes walk to circumambulate, glancing over to the outlier, Long Meg, every so often. Most of the stones are fairly low, rounded boulders, but generally quite large. Some are not much more than stumps. About a quarter of the stones are on the other side of a narrow track, and these are the first you'll see as you approach the site.

Long Meg is majestic, red, covered in carvings, boss of all she surveys.

Brimham Rocks

Date Added: 11th May 2024
Site Type: Rock Outcrop Country: England (Yorkshire (North))
Visited: Yes on 22nd Apr 2023. My rating: Condition 5 Ambience 5 Access 3

Log Text: Rather a grey damp day, hence the site was a bit slippy. Genuinely fun though, and I enjoyed the coy sign near the top of the site which points out all the landmarks you can see on the horizon BUT NOT the bloody awful RAF Menwith Hill NSA complex which we must all apparently pretend does not exist.

I enjoyed the local crows too, very accustomed to begging scraps from tourists but in a gentlemanly sort of a way.They park theyselves nearby, sneak a look at you every now and then, then politely look away in a "I'm just chillin' mate" kinda way. The second you chcuk them a bit of sausage roll though all decorum is abandoned and the victor speeds off to the nearest outcrop to munch smugly. Will definitely go back.

Ness of Brodgar

Date Added: 10th May 2024
Site Type: Ancient Village or Settlement Country: Scotland (Orkney)
Visited: Yes on 15th Jul 2015. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: I visited while the annual dig season was in full swing. Difficult to interpret what you're seeing (and much more excavation has been made in the years since, 2024 being the final year of excavation). This isthmus of land is packed with so much history but don't overlook the Ness if you are nearby.

Flag Fen Visitors Centre

Date Added: 10th May 2024
Site Type: Museum Country: England (Cambridgeshire)
Visited: Yes on 21st Apr 2023. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: It's a little bit disappointing to be honest, though I liked the replica huts and the actual causeway remains, constantly kept wet to try and slow down the rot. Although the painted walls are a bit crudely rendered they do a good job of showing how the preserved wooden stakes would have intersected with the remainder of the site. So sad that there's so little to show for it, but I'm glad I visited and picked up quite a nice quartz geode in the shop (and a signed Franny Prior book).

Silbury Hill

Date Added: 10th May 2024
Site Type: Artificial Mound Country: England (Wiltshire)
Visited: Yes on 4th Jun 2014. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: Passed by many times, stopped for a while quite a few, dating back to the 1960s. Silbury is timeless, commanding the landscape. I like that it is so enigmatic, I love how at certain points within the southern circle at Avebury the very top of Silbury is just visible above the henge bank. At moments like those it is easier to imagine yourself back in the distant past when some sudden flash of a mirror in the sun, or a fire on the twilight horizon, alerts you to a world beyond the ceremonial complex, yet a part of it.

Arbor Low 1

Date Added: 10th May 2024
Site Type: Stone Circle Country: England (Derbyshire)
Visited: Yes on 18th Oct 2011. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 5 Access 3

Log Text: Oh this is a magnificent place, for scenery it is second only to Castlerigg I would say. The day I visited was blowing an absolute gale but just as I was deciding to abandon ship, completely chilled to the bone, a gap appeared in the clouds and a rainbow on the horizon. I absolutely have to go back, in better weather, and explore properly.

Housesteads Roman Fort

Date Added: 9th May 2024
Site Type: Stone Fort or Dun Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 12th Jul 2015. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 2

Log Text: Last stop in England on my way up to Orkney, and well worth it. It's not a long walk from the car park but it's pretty steep. Terribly scenic, and quite well preserved, and I enjoyed the "beware of the ferrets" sign. Apparently they are quite rife and apt to bite. Didn't see any though.

If I had known at the time about the Sycamore Gap, not far away, I'd've made the trek for sure... but too late now.

Kit's Coty.

Date Added: 9th May 2024
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: England (Kent)
Visited: Would like to visit