Herefordshire in November - Part Two : Arthur's Stone

 

Thursday was dry and mild with sunshine at times so leaving B to garden D and I journeyed to Arthur's Stone.  It took about 50 minutes and in actual fact is only about 5 minutes further than Brobury House Gardens and Bredwardine.  D has wanted to visit the chambered tomb for ages.

Arthur's Stone, looked after by English Heritage, is an atmospheric 5000 year old burial chamber made of stone slabs set on Merbach Hill 280 metres above sea level.   It overlooks Herefordshire's Golden Valley.  It dates from around 3500BC and is 1 of the most northerly chambered tombs of the Severn Cotswold Group which is a series of 200 Middle and Late Neolithic monuments scattered all over the SW Midlands and Central Wales.

It is one of a possible five tombs that are found in the Neolithic landscape of the Northern Marches of the Golden Valley.  This area is rich in long barrows and standing stones. Flint scatters and stone axes have been found which illustrate use of the Upper Golden Valley throughout the Neolithic.  Originally Arthur's Stone was covered by an oval mound 26 metres by 17 metres and the tomb has nine upright stones which form a polygonal chamber.  An unusual right angled passage at the entrance can be seen in one of the photos below.  The huge capstone is believed to weigh about 25 tonnes.

The size and weight of the uprights and capstone suggest it took a long time to build and many people would have been involved in its construction.  Bill Startin (1981) suggests a tomb like this might have taken between 7000 and 15000 hours labour to construct.

Folklore

One legend suggests it gets its name because King Arthur fought a batttle here.  Arthur was killed and buried inside the chamber. Another story suggest that there was a battle between Arthur and a giant. The latter was killed and fell on the stones with his elbows creating hollows on one of the stones.

The stones marking what is probably a false entrance contain cupmarks.  Little is known about these but they date from the Bronze Age.  They may have been due to defacement or re-use of the tomb for social and political rather than ritual purposes. The one upright has 12 cupmarks. I did look for them but failed to find any! However later research suggests they are only a few cms in diameter and I was looking for something much bigger.

The capstone split into pieces is orientated NE to SW with the latter end pointing towards the southern section of the Golden Valley and towards the Black Mountains.

It is unlikely it was was just used as a tomb.  Rituals of the ancestors when claims to a particular area of land could be made, may have taken place here.  The tomb is in an area of summer pasture and Neolithic people may have met here on a seasonal basis.

It is possible the stone provided inspiration for CS Lewis as in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe the stone table on which Aslan was sacrificed may have been based on the monument. I believe Tolkien and C S Lewis used to walk in the area.

Some people who have visited the stone have heard a strange low frequency buzzing sound that gets louder and louder before suddenly ceasing.  No normal source for this noise has been found.

 

 Last summer archaelogists were granted permisssion to excavate part of the site.  

Features unearthed include what could be stone steps leading up to the tomb and Neolithic tools.  Drones were used to look for possible signs of other ancient burial sites nearby which could mean that Arthur's Stone was an important meeting place like Avebury or Stone Henge.

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After leaving Arthur's Stone we drove to the village of Dorstone to look round and visit the church but I will write about that in a separate post.

I hope everyone is staying safe and well.

Photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera and those marked *D by my son with the Canon SX50HS bridge camera. (I don't particularly rate most of my photos but if anyone wishes to use one of mine or my son's I would be grateful for an email first - thanks)

Reference - English Heritage Website pages on Arthur's Stone

"Prehistoric Site of Herefordshire" by George Nash Logaston Press

"Haunted Herefordshire" by Rupert Matthews Logaston Press

Herefordshire in November - Part One

 

We managed to escape to Herefordshire for 3 nights last week. I really wanted to stay 4 but B is never happy at leaving E alone for too long let alone what might be going on next door :(  I do hope next year we can start stopping for a week - when its just 3 nights its hard to wind down and relax. But regardless it was so good to get away from the noise, dust and disruption and be in a totally rural area. I do realise how fortunate we are to have somewhere like this to visit.

Definite autumn tints now on the Herefordshire Oak.

This hollyhock which B grew from seed has been flowering now for weeks.

The herb pot is still growing well.  We've frozen some parsley and brought some home to dry too.  I am hoping it will survive the winter and next year I will do another herb pot with thyme, rosemary, chives and marjoram perhaps. The good thing about herbs, as well as being good to flavour food, when they flower they attract lots of pollinators so its a win win situation.

After the click and collect at Morrisons Leominster on the first day we stopped off at B and Q as B wanted to buy a garden rake. I waited in the car and took some photos of a beech hedge and conifer cones to keep me amused!!!

Fungi on the lawn at the front of the caravan.

The hawthorn berries have been eaten and as I noticed that a huge flock of Redwings flew over.  In fact they were around the site the whole time we were there as well as a few Fieldfares.

B wanted to concentrate on clearing more of the small garden in the corner so D and I had a day out on our own to new places on the Thursday which I will write a few posts on next. On Friday we went back into Leominster as B thought the rakes in B and Q were dear so he wanted to look in some hardware shops. As it happened he failed to find one so we ended up buying the B and Q one anyway!!I am always happy to walk round Leominster and I did make a couple of purchases :)

I hope everyone is staying safe and well.

All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera.  (I don't particularly rate my photos but if anyone wishes to use one or more or any of my son's I would be grateful for an email first - thanks).

Recent Reading and Hallowe'en Ghost Walk Lichfield

 

Recent Reading

I always enjoy the Mitchell and Markby books.

The next in the Wesley Peterson series.  Hopefully there are still a few more left to read.

I discovered there was a new Vera Stanhope book to read. Its ages since I read one and I had forgotten what a good writer Ann Cleeves is.  Strangely much as I love the books I couldn't get on with the tv series at all!

Garden Produce

D grew some chilli peppers for the first time this year and did very well with them. The last few he used to make this sauce.

The pumpkins we bought from Stoneleigh - the large one was carved and with the others I made Turk's Turban soup and Wizard Hat Pasties and D made a Pumpkin Stir Fry and there is enough left combined with a butternut squash I have to make a pumpkin pie.

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Hallowe'en Evening we were all booked to go on a Ghost Walk in Lichfield. The weather forecast was dire and in the end only D and I went.  It was dry when we arrived but for most of the walk it just teemed down with very heavy rain.  Luckily we had a golf umbrella so apart from wet feet and lower trousers we managed to keep fairly dry.

Due to the weather I didn't take my camera so all these were taken by D.  The Ghost Walk was very good and full of ghostly tales with some history thrown in. Unfortunately I couldn't hear the most interesting parts by the Cathedral as it was Bell Ringing Practice night! Even D struggled to hear and the poor guide almost lost her voice from trying to talk so loud.  There were tales though of Lichfield being a site visited by pilgrims and about lots of bodies near the cathedral being unearthed from shallow graves. Lichfield was besieged during the Civil War.  I really must try and buy a book on the history of Lichfield as it is such an interesting place.

The walk started at St Mary's in the city centre with ghostly tales of how bodies from a local family were put silently in a crypt late at night.

We were told about the possibility that the name Lichfield means "field of the dead" as it is told that a thousand Christians were martyred here in AD300.

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After tales of haunted pubs and other buildings in the centre and tales of the ghost of a prior we  walked up to Erasmus Darwin's house and the Cathedral.

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Lichfield is a very lovely city as the tour reminded me.  D and I have been a few times as there is a lot to see there and I certainly need to revisit the Cathedral as I've never had a good look around.

I hope everyone is staying safe and well.

Photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera and by D with the Canon SX50HS bridge camera (I don't particularly rate my photos but if anyone ever wishes to use one or more I would be grateful please for an email first - thanks).