<< Our Photo Pages >> Pierre Tourneresse, Cairon - Chambered Tomb in France in Normandie:Calvados (14)
Submitted by TheCaptain on Sunday, 19 December 2004 Page Views: 6445
Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Pierre Tourneresse, CaironCountry: France
NOTE: This site is 7.54 km away from the location you searched for.
Département: Normandie:Calvados (14) Type: Chambered Tomb
Nearest Town: Caen Nearest Village: Cairon
Latitude: 49.235200N Longitude: 0.4414W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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jopplanje would like to visit
johnstone visited on 22nd Jun 2009 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 4
TheCaptain visited on 23rd Apr 2005 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 4 I wasn’t expecting to find much here if anything at all as all the information I had of this site was a menhir symbol on my ign map. But as I was passing I decided to have a look anyway and luckily stopped to look at my map right by a little road at the east of the southern end of the village with a sign to “Pierre Tourneresse”. So I followed it down to the end of a little modern housing estate and parked. A further signpost at the end of the road points to Pierre Tourneresse 300 metres distant. Turn left here and stick to the back of the houses rather than go straight on up the hill.
What a lovely site this is. In a little dip down near the stream is a newly made and signposted enclosure which at the time of my visit was still under construction with a ring of trees being planted well around the outside of it. Inside the enclosure is the remains of a large approximately round cairn which has a diameter of about 19 metres and is edged all around with dry stone walling within which are two chambers.
The main chamber is large stone lined chamber in approximately the middle of the cairn which has a seven metre long entrance passage which exits to the east of the cairn at a bearing of 100° magnetic. The chamber is approximately rectangular dimensions about 4 to 5 metres in length by 3 metres in width and is made with large upright slabs with drystone walling between. At various positions around this large chamber there seem to be smaller alcoves or features. The second much smaller chamber opens to the west side and is positioned approximately opposite to the main chamber entrance with an alignment of 269°. It is about 3.5 metres long and opens up to about 2 metres in width at its maximum. It is made with drystone walling only and has a ledge of some sort along its northern side.
Outside the cairn at a distance of about 15 metres in a northwesterly direction are two very large stones. I wondered whether these were once menhirs which marked the position of the cairn (these northern French cairns are often associated with menhirs) and which would explain the marking of menhir on the ign maps. Looking at these stones more closely however suggested that it is much too wide to have been a menhir so I wondered whether the stones were the remains of the chamber capstone. I spent quite a lot of time here the place seemed to give off a nice happy atmosphere which was probably helped by the fact that for once one of these much neglected ancient Normandy monuments is being lovingly cared for and looked after what was probably many years of neglect.
As I was leaving I met a man walking his dog and asked if he knew anything about the site. By an amazing stroke of luck I had met one of the few people in France who has an interest in these ancient sites and who collects flint artefacts ! Despite the language problems we talked for about half an hour about things. He told me that the cairn had been much more complete up until the war during which the Germans had used it as a shelter and gun emplacement. As they were leaving after the D-Day invasion they went about destroying it and the two large stones are indeed the remains of the capstone to the main chamber. He also told me that an excavation of the site was done 5 years ago and the restoration has been going on since then.
We got on to discussing other sites in the region and other than the various sites I knew about (he was surprised indeed to find an Englishman who knew anything about any of these places and seemed very interested when I told him I intended to write a book) and he told me of a menhir nearby he knew which was destroyed only a couple of years ago by a farmer who didn’t want it in the middle of one of his fields. He also showed me on my map a couple of places where he goes to find flint items one of which he called a quarry. He said that if I went to one of these places he showed me then if the fields were recently ploughed I would almost certainly find some worked flint items and that he had a collection of over 700 items. He also then told me in detail how to find the two polisher stones near Mont Joly which was of great interest as I would probably not have even looked if I had no detailed information to go on. It was very nice to meet a man like this particularly on my first real day of French stonehunting and it made me think that the whole trip is going to go well.
neolithique02 have visited here
Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3.5 Ambience: 4 Access: 4
The main chamber is large stone lined chamber in approximately the middle of the cairn, which has a seven metre long entrance passage which exits to the east of the cairn at a bearing of 100° magnetic. The chamber is approximately rectangular, dimensions about 4 to 5 metres in length by 3 metres in width, and is made with large upright slabs with drystone walling between. At various positions around this large chamber there seem to be smaller alcoves or features.
The second, much smaller chamber, opens to the west side and is positioned approximately opposite to the main chamber entrance, with an alignment of 269°. It is about 3.5 metres long, and opens up to about 2 metres in width at its maximum. It is made with drystone walling only, and has a ledge of some sort along its northern side.
Base Mérimée (Historic Monument)
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