Good news for all megalith maniacs -- the Bedd Morris standing stone in Pembs (which was knocked over by a reversing car some months back) is now back in position again.
Our friend Prof GW took part in a little dig at the site, while the going was good, which is excellent. It doesn't look as if they found anything interesting -- not even the bones of the dastardly robber who is supposed to have been buried there, with his little dog.
So there we are then.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-20669802
12 comments:
meanwhile in Kernow
http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Fury-plan-Cornish-ancient-monument-homes-scheme/story-17564882-detail/story.html
Pete G
My grandma's maiden name was Morris and there are rumours of a Welsh connection even though she were a right Yorkshire lass: but she liked dogs and was a farmer's daughter! I realise this link is rather tenuous but certain very optimistic/ spaced out archaeologists have made even more tenuous links in my humble opinion.....
Hi, How far south has the ice ever reached in Pembrokeshire? Would you find erratics on the limestone peneplane at Castlemartin?
Yes Adrian -- there are erratics in the churchyard at Flimston that have come from the St David's area. In the Anglian Glaciation the WHOLE of Pembrokeshire was deeply inundated by ice.
Hello Brian, thanks for the information about the extent of glaciation in Pembs. In my wanderings across the Castlemartin range area I have seen many examples of such erratics sitting on the limestone.
Glad to see the Bedd Morris stone is back.
Brian, how do you know the erratics around Castlemartin came from St David? There are not that many and perhaps they came by horse and cart in the 17th century, or earlier. Castlemartin looks today like a remote area but it has had a reputation as prime beef country for hundreds of years - the best beef in UK according to reports, and a centre of economic importance although with few traces today.!
There are several enigmatic stones but when or how or why is a puzzle - to me at least. It seems the general landscape has very few erratics, so those that exist have been placed deliberately - there are none that I know of which lie casually.
Chris and Brian, I have little expertise in the processes behind the dumping of erratics at Castlemartin beyond that of an interested layman, but I too have wondered why there are not more of them! Some of the stones that I have seen are not particularly large, but the stone in the farm yard at Loveston, as I mention in my Blog at...
http://pdboyinsuffolk.blogspot.co.uk/
is pretty big, and not unlike Bedd Morris in size. Likewise Devils Quoit (near Samson).
Smaller stones I have noticed are at Mewsford Point, very near the cliff top; the valley south of Carew farm, where a range track crosses the old lane (and another about 200 metres SW of this) and one near the quarry at Winter Pits. There are a few much smaller stones built into walls at Warren, St Twynnells(?) and Hayston(?) Chris, is it your notion that these are late medieval cattle rubbing stones? Why import rocks from St Davids when there is no end of Babbaloobies that can be lifted from the cliff top pavements, all with wonderfully nobbly bits?
The erratics in the churchyard were collected from various farms in the area (inc Bulliber?), perhaps at the time that the chapel was renovated. I have often wondered why these stones should have been so treated? Is there some lost folklore attached to them? Were they just in the way? Why were they not built into local field boundaries? Perhaps they were intended as a reserve stock of gravestones for the subsequent gnerations of the Lambton family of Brownslade?
Brian, is there any geological link between these erratics and the clay with quarzite inclusion deposits at Flimston?
Thanks for your interest.
I ought to give some more precise locations for the places mantioned in my last post - some readers may not be familiar with the lesser known places of Castlemartin range! Apologies!
Mewsford Point:
SR 942 942
Winter Pits:
SR 914 962
Near Carew Farm:
SR 953 951
SR 951 950
The grid references give the "ball Park" location of the stones I recall.
The stone at Hayston was/is embedded in the hedgebank opposite what was Thorne Chapel and Wakes Well Cottage.
The stone at Warren was in the garden of the cottage next to the church.
The stone at St Twynnells was in the south wall/bank of the churchyard.
Nobe of these is larger than 1 metre long, most much less.
I have just remembered another one!
Trevallen Down:
SR 974 930
78
Forget the horses and carts, Chris. I don't see what the problem is here. The erratics are from St David's Peninsula, as you would expect -- gabbro and other rocks that are well known. The geology was done many years ago and has never been disputed. Ties in nicely with all the other evidence in ice directions. There are other erratics in the Castlemartin till, and we know there is also fresh till on Caldey Island -- so I am increasingly coming to the view that Castlemartin was glaciated at least twice.
That's all very useful info, Adrian. Naturally most large stones would be built into hedgebanks just to get them out of the way. On a glaciated plateau like this one would not necessarily expect thousans of erratics prominently exposed. There may be thousands, but most will of course be buried in sediments. I think it;s quite natural that the most exotic of them found in the Fklimston area will have been used as headstones for graves -- just as red granite headstones are ordered, or black marble. I think this has more to do with the stones being noticeable and different, rather than being sacred. I think we would be going too far if we were to pretend that the stones were "revered" in some way.... but I guess we'll never know.
Forgot to mention the famous Flimston Clay. I had a jolly time once srrabbling around in the Flimston Clay Pits, looking at it (it's assumed to be Oligocene) before somebody told me that the pits were used for dumping unexploded ammunition, and that it was strictly a no-go area on the firing range. I survived, anyway, to tell the tale....
No, the stones in the clay are quite different -- mostly quartz pebbles. Very strange they are too.
Brian, thanks for the clarification. I visited Flimston earlier this year and did not know where the stones had come from.
@Adrian. When I looked into Drovers much mention was made of the importance of the Castlemartin area for beef cattle and grazing. It was presumably open land until the enclosures and likely used for thousands of years - there are mesolithic remains at Bosherton apparently. It must be an interesting area to study and I look forward to following your blog.
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