|
county list
|
| Court-tombs = Portal-tombs = Wedge-tombs = Passage-tombs = Stone Circles | France | |
|
|
|
GAZETTEER of
SELECTED MONUMENTS IN
Place-names in italics refer to listed entries.
Ballynahatty: Passage tomb and henge
click on the thumbnail for a larger picture
Only 6.5 km S of the centre of Belfast via the Malone Road and Minnowburn Beeches,
The Giant's Ring
is an impressive and atmospheric monument, consisting of a circular bank some 3.5 metres high enclosing a large space some 180 metres in diameter and 2.8 hectares in area. At least three of the 5 irregularly-spaced gaps in the henge are intentional, and possibly original. The henge seems to be one of those monuments erected by the late-Neolithic "Beaker People" of N Britain who were responsible also for the large free-standing stone circles at
Ballynoe
and
Newgrange
, as well as the stone circle backed by a henge at
Lough Gur
.
~ 13 kms ENE (via the Outer Ring road) is Greengraves portal-tomb (below).
Ballynoe: Stone circle
4 km S of Downpatrick, a very large circle of over 50 stones up to 1.8 metres high (though many smaller) encloses a space about 35 metres across. It was modelled on the circle at Swinside in Cumbria. In the E half of the circle is a long low mound which contained large kists at the E and W ends. This mound obliterated two shortlived cairns built after the circle was constructed, in what Aubrey Burl describes as "prehistoric bigotry and vandalism [which] ruined this magnificent monument. " Three pairs of stones stand outside the circle at varying distances, the nearest pair at the W side forming a kind of entrance 2.1 metres wide. Many of the stones in this circle were originally shoulder to shoulder, as at Lough Gur, at Swinside in Cumbria and La Menec in Brittany. A portalled entrance is aligned on the setting sun half-way between midwinter and midsummer (around March 21st), and the setting sun at winter solstice seems to slide down between the Mountains of Mourne which form a fine backdrop to the circle.
~ 7 km NNE is the unexposed megalithic tomb at Slievenagriddle .
Barnmeen: Standing-stone
Behind a hedge to the S of a by-road, this massive stone is 3.6 metres high and has a distinctive concavity, presumed artificial, on the N side.
~ 5.2 km WSW in
Saval More
, in a private (disused) burial-ground to the E of a by-road are a pair of standing-stones 2 metres apart and 1.9 metres high. Both are of granite, and the larger is pointed while the smaller is flat-topped: male and female ?
Drumena: Stone Fort or Cashel, Souterrain and Kist
Overlooking Lough Island Reavy, this stone fort with a wall averaging 2.75 metres high and 3.3 thick, has been somewhat restored. The present entrance may not be original, nor the present main entrance to the souterrain or stone hiding-place which leads from ruins of buildings which seem to be of recent date - though perhaps built over earlier flimsier ones. The souterrain is 15 metres long, 2.1 metres high, and has a rectangular chamber facing the original narrow entrance which is at the opposite end to the modern widened one. ~ 400 metres SW on a ridge at a height of 200 metres is a small round cairn (bounded by modern field-walls on 2 sides) with a kist 60 cms deep whose capstone has been slid to one side allowing a view inside.
Goward: Portal-tomb
Cloughmore,
or
Pat Kearney's Big Stone
, is beside a lane running SE from the Hilltown-Castlewellan road. An enormous 50-tonne granite capstone has slipped, exposing a chamber closed by a slender door-slab over 1.5 metres high. As at
Tirnony
(Derry) and
Ticloy
(Antrim) a flanking, free-standing orthostat suggests a derivation from the court-type of tomb.
Greengraves: Portal-tomb
Across a field to the N of a by-road leading S from the dual-carriageway from Belfast to Newtownards, this small dolmen is quite impressive with its oversailing roofstone at a significant angle common to many portal-tombs, supported on two orthostats and another smaller roofstone. It has a fine half-doorslab. The name "Greengraves" is particularly interesting, since the "Green" part of it comes from the Irish for "sun". The name of the tomb,
The Kempe Stone[s],
derives from Norse "Kampesten": big stone or prehistoric tomb.
Kilfeaghan: Portal-tomb
Off a lane leading N from the Newry-Kilkeel road, this granite dolmen looks like a giant tortoise, with a big capstone 2 metres long and 1 metre thick, and orthostats half buried in field stones and cairn material. An early account states that the cairn (now mostly disappeared) extended for over 7 metres in front of the N-facing chamber, so that there might once have been a façade similar to that of the court-tombs.
~ 5.6 miles E by S, in Dunnaman just to the E of a churchyard behind the hamlet of Massfort are the sizeable remains of a court-tomb with a 4-chambered gallery but no surviving forecourt or cairn. ~ 7.6 km E by S, is another granite dolmen at Kilkeel.
Kilkeel: Portal-tomb
In a hidden tarred lane in the fishing-port of Kilkeel, approached through a garage on the N side of the main street, or via Cromlech Park to the E of the road to Hilltown, this little dolmen is quaint and impressive, though incorporated into a hedge and fence. Known as
The Crawtree (Elder-tree) Stone
it is over 2 metres high, with a capstone nearly 2.5 metres long, resembling the shell of a tortoise (like
Kilfeaghan
7.6 kms W by N).
Legananny: Portal-tomb
By the side of a lane leading from a by-road on the flanks of Slieve Croob, this "tripod-dolmen" is one of the most striking in Ireland, commanding superb views of the Mountains of Mourne. The capstone (at the typical angle) is over 3 metres long supported on fine orthostats 1.5metres high, one of which has a distinctive L-shaped bite in it, significant if not artificial.
Portavoe: Standing-stone
Because it is crammed between a juniper tree and a suburban stone-clad wall, on the W side of the Donaghadee-Groomsport road opposite a jetty, this sandstone pillar, though 2.5 metres high, is not really worth a detour.
Slievenagriddle: Megalithic tomb
A rare of example of an intact, unexamined hilltop tomb of which only the large capstone can be seen. It is not a collapsed portal-tomb as suggested by the Archaeological Survey, and its commanding position above a lake, offering vistas across the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man and Cumbria, and westwards towards the Mountains of Mourne suggests that it may be a small passage-tomb - or at least a large megalithic kist.
~ 1.3 km NE in Carrownacaw is "The Long Stone" a tall thin standing-stone of schist, 3.3 metres tall - and the only Irish menhir to be supported by a hawser wrapped around a tree. This is reached by a road which passes picturesque Loughmoney Dolmen: just two sidestones and a roofstone of a vanished court-tomb in a field.
~ 6.3 km NE in Audleystown , close to Strangford Lough, is a well-preserved double-court tomb built of low stones and comprising shallow forecourts, two galleries of four chambers each, a cairn some 27 metres long, and a kerb made not of orthostats, but dry-stone walling.
~ 4.6 km ENE, in the front garden of No. 109 Ballyculter Road in
Churchtown
, 40 metres from the road-junction at Ballyculter, is part of a natural rock-outcrop decorated with two worn sets of concentric circles - best seen when wet. One of the sets has a remarkable 10 rings, while the other has 6. This is an example of the overlap of passage-tomb art with Bronze Age rock-scribings or petroglyphs.
4.7 km W by S, at the NW edge of Downpatrick , approached via the cathedral and Down County Museum, is The Mound of Down , a fine Iron Age defensive earthwork in the middle of which a Norman motte-and-bailey was built. The cathedral stands in the middle of another defensive site or Dún, which gave its name to the citadel before the spurious 'Patrick' was added by a Norman warlord in the 13th century.
Tamnaharry: Standing-stone
Just S of a rocky track leading E off the Burren-Mayobridge road, commanding fine views to the Carlingford Mountains and Slieve Gullion, this Cloghadda is a fine granite standing-stone some 2.8 metres high with a concave and probably artificial 'shoulder' on the N side, to be compared with the stone at Barnmeen (8.5 km NNE). Beside it are traces of a prehistoric enclosure.
~ 1.4 km SW in Burren are the remains of a court-tomb - the only one to form part of a bunglow rockery -comprising a granite roofstone resting on 2 parallel slabs of gritstone. ~ 1.5 km NW of this in Milltown immediately W of a by-road are the remains of a double-court tomb whose cairn survives to a height of 2.5 metres, and one of whose forecourts and possibly 4 chambers of one of the two galleries can be distinguished from the cairn material and dumped field stones.
Wateresk: Portal-tomb
In a field to the W of a by-road running parallel with the new Dundrum-Newcastle road, this sculptural tomb looks very different from different angles. Known also as
The Slidderyford Dolmen
its granite capstone is 3 metres long by 1 thick, resting on three support-stones, the tallest being 1.8 metres high. The capstone fits very neatly into a concavity in the smaller portal-stone, echoing other megaliths in South Down. The chamber is no longer definable.
~ 400 metres SW to the E of a by-road are the remains of another megalithic tomb with a portal-stone 2.7 metres high and carved with the name of Jeremiah Atkins. |
