Stoney Littleton Long Barrow

Stoney Littleton Long Barrow was built in the early Neolithic period, probably c3800-3400 BC.   It contained the remains of over a dozen men, women and children, possibly 3 or 4 generations of the same family.  It may also have been a religious shrine and/or way of marking territory.

Most of the stone and earth used to build the long barrow were quarried from near the site but the large slabs, which form the chambers, came from outcrops over 5 miles away.  The barrow was used for about 200 years before the forecourt was filled with stone and the entrance was blocked up. There is a large fossil ammonite on the western portal stone at the entrance.

The site was rediscovered by a farmer in 1760 and the site was excavated in 1816. It was partly restored in 1858 and again more recently.  Visitors to the site can explore the tomb by crawling along the 13m narrow passage.

Stoney Littleton Long Barrow

Entrance to the long barrow

Inside the long barrow

Fossil ammonite at the entrance

Diagram showing the internal layout of the long barrow

Standing Stones - Ancient and Modern

Standing Stones aren't particularly numerous in Somerset.  They are notoriously difficult to date and in many cases there is disagreement over how old they are and what their original purpose was.

The Cove, Stanton Drew

Triscombe Stone

  This small standing stone is on the border between Over Stowey and West Bagborough Parishes but its origin isn't known - some sources say it dates from the Bronze Age but others that it is more modern

Devil's Stone, Luckwell Bridge

 

Devil's Stone, Luckwell Bridge

This stone is so called because apparently the devil hurled it here from Dunkery Beacon!  It is thought to have been erected during or since the Middle Ages. It is made of quartz and is likely to have come from a quarry in the adjacent field.

"Seascape" by David Milton, 2011, Watchet

Longstone, Challacombe Common, Exmoor

This is a pre-historic standing stone.  It is 2.6 metres high and is located just over the border in Devon.

Modern standing stone in Batcombe Hollow near Draycott

Modern standing stone in Batcombe Hollow near Draycott

I was unable to find out who had erected these two standing stones in Batcombe Hollow but they are thought to have been put there since the 1980s.

Portbury Standing Stone

 Quantock House, Taunton

These two standing stones were erected in February 2022 outside the Platinum Skies' Quantock House retirement flats in Paul Street, Taunton.  They each weigh 4 tonnes and are over 9 feet high.  The one on the left is Permo-Triassic red sandstone from Capton in West Somerset and the one on the right is Ham stone (Jurassic Upper Lias limestone) from Harvey's Quarry at Ham Hill.  They each have one cut and polished side. The sculpture was created by Olivia Sanders of Curload.  They are supposed to bring together the new building and its location and to make people think about the relationship between geological time and the present time and between the landscape of Somerset and the urban landscape.

Culbone Stone

The Culbone Stone is an inscribed stone, with a wheel cross cut into its south east side.  The carving probably dates from the 7th to 9th century.  The stone was found in a nearby wood in 1940 and re-erected. It is 65cm high and is made of local Hangman grit. The Culbone Stone is located in a wood on Culbone Hill (grid reference SS 832 473).  It is on private land but access via a permitted path is occasionally allowed. 

The Culbone Stone may originally have been part of a prehistoric (probably Bronze Age) stone row, which was discovered nearby in 1975.  The stone row now consists of 21 stones but there may once have been more of them. One of the stones in the row also has a cross inscribed on it.

Culbone Stone

My thanks to Alison for letting me use her photo.

Portbury Standing Stone

 A 1.8 metre high standing stone of Dolomitic Conglomerate is currently situated on a patch of grass between the school and the parish church of St Mary the Virgin in the village of Portbury. It is thought to have been quarried from nearby Conygar Hill around 2,000 BC but its original location and purpose are unknown. It was re-erected by the Portbury Historical Association in its present position after it was retrieved from an old dew pond behind the church in September 1987.  It had been placed in the pond in the 1950s along with other rubble when the pond was filled in.

Portbury Standing Stone

Standing Stone outside the church

Stone Circles - Ancient and Modern

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology defines a stone circle as "a setting of upright stone pillars forming a ring whose exact ground plan many vary between being almost exactly circular through to elliptical or egg‐shaped".  Ancient stone circles date from the late Neolithic through to the early Bronze Age and many of them are the final phase in the development of a monument, which started as a timber circle.  They are located in western parts of the British Isles, northern France and Scandinavia.

Ancient stone circles are not common in Somerset (e.g. Withypool Hill and Stanton Drew).  However there are several modern ones e.g. at Ham Hill, Pilton (Glastonbury Festival site) and Ashill.

Stanton Drew
The three stone circles and three stone "cove" at Stanton Drew to the east of Chew Magna, make up the third largest complex of prehistoric standing stones in England.  The Great Circle, which is 113 metres in diameter and has 26 surviving upright stones, is one of the largest stone circles in England.  There are two smaller stone circles: to the south west and north east of the Great Circle.  The Cove, which consists of three large stones, is located in the garden of the Druid's Arms pub.  Across the River Chew to the north of the stone circles is a single standing stone known as Hautville's Quoit.  The Cove, stone circles and Hautville's Quoit were almost certainly parts of a single complex.

According to legend, the Stanton Drew Stone Circles are the petrified remains of a group of wedding guests and the musicians who were entertaining them: they were lured by the devil into celebrating on a Sunday and they were punished for doing so by being turned into stone.

Withypool Hill
The stone circle on the south west side of Withypool Hill is visually underwhelming, as the stones are not very large (the tallest one is only 50cm high).  There are 27 surviving stones and 3 fallen ones and the diameter of the circle is 36 metres.  The circle may originally have consisted of up to 100 stones.  It was first identified in 1898 and was recorded in 1906 by Harold St George Gray.  Grid reference:  SS 838 343.

Ham Hill
This modern stone circle consists of 15 standing stones made of the local Hamstone.  It was erected as a Millennium project to commemorate the many centuries of quarrying that have gone on at Ham Hill and all the men who have worked there.   Pieces of shell and other small fossils can be seen in the stones.  Grid reference: ST 478 171.

Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton
This stone circle is located in King's Meadow on the southern edge of the Glastonbury Festival site at Worthy Farm, Pilton.  It consists of 20 large stones and was erected in 6 weeks in 1992.  It is known as the Swan Circle, after the constellation Cygnus (it is egg shaped).  Ivan McBeth constructed it using local limestone quarried from the nearby Torr Works Quarry.  Each stone was individually chosen by Ivan and Michael Eavis.  Ivan McBeth, who was a Druid, later constructed a number of other stone circles for private clients at various locations across England and also in the USA, Canada and Australia before his death in 2016.  The Swan Circle is located on private land and is normally only accessible during the Glastonbury Festival.  We were given permission to walk around the empty site in February 2019.  The grid reference for the Swan Circle is ST590 397.

Glastonbury - Street Road
As you drive into Glastonbury on the A39 coming from the south, there is a small modern stone circle in what may be a private garden but it is clearly visible on the right hand side of the road opposite the Red Brick Building.

Ashill
There is a small stone circle located on a public footpath, 400 metres west of the parish church.  It is in a field, which also has 5 life size white statues of ladies in various states of undress, so I presume they all belong to the same person.

Ham Hill

Ham Hill

Withypool Hill

Withypool Hill

 Withypool Hill

The Great Circle, Stanton Drew

The Great Circle, Stanton Drew

The Cove, Stanton Drew

The Cove, Stanton Drew

Ashill

Ashill

Swan Circle, Glastonbury Festival Site

Swan, Circle, Glastonbury Festival Site

Glastonbury Festival Site

Centre of the Swan Circle, Pilton

Stone Circle, Street Road, Glastonbury

Stone Circle, Glastonbury

Stone Circle, A39 Glastonbury

Robin Hood's Butts

Robin Hood's Butts are a group of 9 Bronze Age barrows located on the top of the Blackdown Hills at Brown Down.  Five of the bowl barrows are arranged together on a north/south alignment to the south of School Farm between the hamlets of Fyfett and Otterford.  Four of them have a diameter of c20 metres and are 2.2 metres in height.  The fifth one has a diameter of c28 metres and is 2.5 metres high.  The grid reference is ST 230 143.  The other four barrows are located at different points up to a mile to the south of the group of 5.

Legend has it that Robin Hood used the barrows to support the targets for his archery practice or that Robin Hood and Little John threw their quoits from one barrow to another, thus creating bowl shaped indentations on the top of them.  An alternative story is that they were created by giants throwing earth at each other.

Bowl barrows to the south of School Farm

Robin Hood's Butts, School Farm

Robin Hood's Butts

Robin Hood's Butts, School Farm

Robin Hood's Butts, School Farm

Cist burial in Langridge Wood

A few metres south of the Coleridge Way footpath as it runs through Langridge Wood on the northern slopes of the Brendon Hills, there is Bronze Age cist or burial chamber.  It would originally have been covered by a cairn of stones.  The cist was discovered in 1820 when workmen removed the stones from the cairn to use for road building.  The stone lined grave contained a skeleton, which was re-interred in Treborough Churchyard.  The large capstone, which is about 5 feet in diameter, is still in place, although when I visited in January 2019 it was covered in fallen leaves.

Grid reference: ST014 373

Langridge Wood Cist - partly obscured by fallen leaves

 

Inside the Langridge Wood Cist

Whit Stones, Porlock Hill

The Whit Stones are two large sandstone slabs located at the top of Porlock Hill and about 50 metres to the south of the A39.  They are currently slanting eastwards but would originally have been over 1.5 metres high when they were upright.  They are both over a foot thick.  They are located at grid reference SS 853 462.

According to legend, the Whit Stones were thrown to their present location by the Devil (with or without help from an unnamed giant) from Hurlstone Point (hence its name).  It is more likely that they were in fact either boundary markers of part of a prehistoric burial chamber, stone row or stone circle.  They were sometimes referred to in the past as White Stones.  They may date from any time between the Neolithic period and late Bronze Age (2350 BC to 701 BC).

The Whit Stones

Whit Stones

Whit Stone - looking east down Porlock Hill

The Sweet Track and other Ancient Trackways across the Somerset Levels

Trackways were constructed across the low lying marshy land of the Somerset Levels by Neolithic people to link the islands and hills together.  They were skilled woodworkers even though they only had stone axes and knives and wooden mallets and wedges to use as tools. The trackways would have been used by farmers and hunters.  Although off the beaten track today, in their time they were themselves very much the beaten track!

The Sweet Track is the oldest prehistoric trackway found in Britain.  It has been precisely dated by dendrochronologists in Sheffield and Belfast who studied the tree rings in the timber to 3807/3806 BC.  It is named after the peat cutter Ray Sweet, who discovered it in 1970.  It ran from the bottom of the Polden Hills near Shapwick towards the 'island' of Westhay. 

The trackway was constructed across marshy ground where there was often standing water and where sedges and reeds grew.  Its aim was to provide a raised walkway to allow people to cross this part of the levels with dry feet even in winter.

Long pegs of hazel, alder, elm, ash and holly sharpened at one end were driven diagonally into the ground in pairs to hold posts or rails laid end to end in place.  Flat oak planks were then laid over the top of the poles and in the same direction as them.  In places spare pegs and pieces of planks and rails were wedged in to make the planks secure.  The ends of some of the planks were held in place by thin pegs driven through pre-cut holes vertically into the peat.

Neolithic people dropped or hid various artefacts along the route of the Sweet Track, which have subsequently been found by archaeologists e.g. a flint axe possibly from Sussex and an unused axe head of polished light green stone from the Alps.  A few bits of broken pottery have also been found and a wooden dish and some flint arrowheads.

The Sweet Track was built along the line of an even older structure, which is known as the post track.  This was comprised of long ash and lime planks laid on the surface of the marsh and held in place by vertical wooden posts mainly made from hazel, which were placed about 3 metres apart.

A short section of the Sweet Track has been reconstructed on the Shapwick Nature Reserve. It was built by volunteers and friends of Shapwick Heath in 2011.  It was funded by the family, friends, colleagues and pupils of Shapwick School in memory of David Walker, who died in 2011.  He was Headmaster of Shapwick School 1983-2011.

 Line of the original Sweet Track 

 Sweet Track Reconstruction
 

 Sweet Track Reconstruction

This notice by the reconstructed section of the Sweet Track says:

 "The management would like to apologise for the 5,814 year delay in rebuilding this trackway since its closure in 3,800 BC.  The trackway is not yet complete, so please do not attempt to walk on it. Hopefully we will be able to allow public access later this winter."

The reconstructed Sweet Track in April 2022

Neolithic people using the Sweet Track

Other later trackways have been discovered on the Somerset Levels.  

The Walton Heath Track was a 40 metre stretch of carefully made hurdles or panels of coppiced hazel.  

The Abbot's Way Track ran for 1.5 miles between the islands of Westhay and Burtle.  It was built around 2500 BC and was constructed using alder planks, slats and branches held in place by alder, hazel and ash pegs and stakes.  

Photo of the excavated Abbot's Way Track in 1974

The Eclipse Track, which stretched across 1 kilometre of marsh near Meare, was constructed in around 1800 BC.  

The Blakeway Farm Track, which was excavated in 1944 ran between Westhay and Mudgeley and is also Neolithic in origin.

The Meare Heath Trackway was discovered by archaeologist Arthur Bulleid in the early 1930s.  It ran from the bottom of the Polden Hills near Shapwick to the island of Meare.  More of it was exposed in the 1970s by peat cutters.  It was built around 1500 BC and its construction has similarities to a modern railway line - sleepers were placed at intervals over a bed of brushwood (guelder rose, alder buckthorn, hazel, alder and willow) and held in place by oak stakes driven through holes cut into the sleepers.  Pairs of oak planks were then laid at right angles to the sleepers and these where kept in place by the top of the oak stakes.  A short section has been reconstructed on the Shapwick Nature Reserve.

Reconstructed section of the Meare Heath Trackway

Meare Heath Trackway in April 2022

Could this be a ladder to the Underworld?  Or maybe as this is the Avalon Marshes, King Arthur is going to reappear at any moment?

Further Reading:

• Prehistory of the Somerset Levels: John Coles and Bryony Coles.  Revised edition published in 1990 by Somerset Levels Project

• Sweet Track to Glastonbury: the Somerset levels in prehistory: Bryony and John Coles.  Published in 1986 by Thames and Hudson

Lending and reference copies of both titles are available in various Somerset Libraries.