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This ones dedicated to TheSweetcheat and his Dad and all our Dads without whom we just wouldn't exist.
Parking can be tricky, there is no good place, I parked on the first corner to the south of the barrows on the A34 next to a pond.
A five minute walk up the road brings us to the woods in which is the first of today's sites. A weakness in the hedge was exploited to good effect and I was in the woods, not knowing exactly where the barrows was, only that it was quite big, I simply headed up the slight hill to its highest point thinking that is where it would be. Twas.
It is a big one too, bigger than I thought Cheshire had, shows what I know, and it shows you there's still plenty to see, even in your own back yard, though my back yard is fifty miles across and today it was foggy and snowy but not too cold.
It was a strange one to photograph, from the south it's just another hilltop and there's a lot of dead wood about, especially on the northern side of the barrow, and all the trees about it either get in the way or make an avenue leading straight to it, there is a big mature tree growing right out of it's center. Iv'e driven past it a few times but never spotted it from the road, Iv'e only seen its northern nieghbour.
Back on to the A34 and two hundred yards up the road and I can see the pedestal topped barrow dimly through the thick helpful fog.
It was helpful because these barrows are on extremely private property, Capesthorne park, in thick fog no-one can see you sneak (sorry Aliens is on).
So a quick jump over a gate and a straight to it walk of five minutes is all this trespass takes. The barrow is more plowed out than it's neighbour but is still quite prominent. The two barrows would have been inter visible if not for the trees and a house and the pea soup. The pedestal on top seems to serve no purpose other than to direct the eye across the perfect lawn, past the groups of four trees to the bump, to the barrow that is now only a lawn feature.
I will have to come back in the spring to get another look, especially to the wooded one.
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Down the road southwest one mile from Henbury destroyed stone circle, turn right in lower Paxhill, after a few hundred yards look right over hedge and there it is.
I parked inconsiderately next to a seldom used field gate, crossed the road and jumped another gate, this as I was about to see is not common land or even farmland, but is part of the sprawling over manicured feng shuied garden belonging to Henbury hall. Pretty it is too with the big hall looking on impressively.
The Bowl barrow, for it is of this variety, is cordoned off by a rickety fence that nearly fell down as I climbed over. Inside the fence the barrow is covered by rough untouched grasses, fallen branches, three trees and a sapling, standing in stark contrast to the neatly coifed lawn.
Finds include a collared urn with a lid made from a
round based vessel containing an 18yr old male, over 100 flint flakes scattered across the surface of the barrow, and a crude leaf shaped arrow head. The urns are now in Grosvenor Museum in Chester.
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Like Gawsworth henge a couple of miles southeast, this stone circle is now utterly destroyed. I'd heard that maybe one stone survived, and was hiding out in the local hedges, near where he once dwelled with others in circular fashion.
Despite it's good hiding place I still found it, quite easily about thirty feet from a metal stile in the hedge. It doesn't look dumped, it is earth fast with no wobble, light grey in colour, perhaps limestone? it certainly looked the part anyway.
But there is a big open field, so the circle could be shifted about for a hundred yards in any direction.
I shall return at a later date for more rummaging in the hedgerows.
Until then, any more information anyone.
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I parked near the junction of the A523 and the Oakgrove Fools nook crossing, just by the canal, the barrow is up the lane one hundred yards and in a field to our right.
I crossed into the field by a yellow road side grit box, though this is trespassing, but as it's Cheshire's only beaker barrow a quick cloaked survey was well on the cards.
It was crowded with sheep as I approached but these soon scattered into the next field, leaving us alone. About one meter high and about fifteen across it is not a mighty work of old but it is in a good position, Gawsworth henge and Broad Oak barrow are almost visible and from on the barrow (sorry) I can see the snow in the Peak district not far away. Oh for a few dollars more.
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Just a couple of hundred yards down the road from the destroyed henge, is this apparently well preserved round barrow, with what we may take as a mature Broad Oak tree growing out of it.
With the big posh farm and the whir of a quad bike nearby I settled for a gander from the road. it didn't half behoove me but settle I did.
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Off the A523 at Oakgrove, the henge was in a field behind the Fools Nook public house, I parked at the corner of the field at the junction with the old Leeke to Macc road and a small upwards pointing little lane.
The only hint of this henges existence is hearsay at best really, it was apparently finally destroyed in the 1980's by my old buddy agriculture.
There is one picture on the megalithic portal (and some minor information) a picture of some trees, Iv'e recreated it here, but I don't know if its a picture of the field in general or weather the trees mark the henge. There is a seat carved from a tree stump and by it there is some sandstone rubble at the foot of another tree, but niether of these miniscule scraps of information reveal the henges former where about's, or if it was a henge at all.
To be better safe than sorry I took to wandering the field up and down looking for anything suspect, a couple of features caught my eye and iv'e supplied a picture of each, but at the end of a fruitless search we can only confirm that it is most decidedly gone.
After I'd quit the field I was having a further shufty nearby when I watched an unsuspecting fox come trundling over to within ten feet of me it saw me almost too late and yelped and careered off into another field, it fair gave me goosebumps and kind of repaid me for having no henge .
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This time I parked about a hundred yards further down the road from the trig point, the shortest point between the road and the barrow, just a quick hop over a barbed wire fence and whilst Bob isn't technically my uncle we're certainly good friends.
In the same field as me and the long barrow were some ponies, as soon as they saw me confidently striding across the field they all came galloping over,
some getting a little too close for comfort, eight of them there were, big muscular ponies, that looked me straight in the eye, I looked back and radiated masterful intentions, then I jumped over a small stream and left them behind, they seemed unwilling to cross the very small stream but I was glad they had lost interest so quickly, move along nothing to see here.
Now, in the winter, the barrow is more visible and easier to traverse than in the summer, eighteen months ago was my first visit and i'm happy to be back so relatively quickly. The north-western end is larger than its southeastern partner, higher and wider, but I don't know whether these things have fronts and ends, only that it points south east vaguely towards the Bride stones and the winter solstice sunrise, closer inspection may yield a more definitive picture. The long barrow also sports three sets of rabbit holes, nothing outside they're entrance but sand, is this an indication of they're build and make up.
I also jumped across the loach brook and scrambled up the opposite bank for a wider view of the small river valley, the long barrow really stands out, looking good even in the mid afternoon gloom of perhaps the greyest day of the year so far, weather wise.
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