Contributory members are able to log private notes and comments about each site
Sites BarryC has logged. View this log as a table or view the most recent logs from everyone
Rollright Stones
Date Added: 24th Jan 2023
Site Type: Stone Circle
Country: England (Oxfordshire)
Visited: Yes on 24th Jan 2023. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 3 Access 4
Rollright Stones submitted by Energyman on 21st Dec 2020. This was the closest the weather forecast would allow me to get to this year's solstice sunrise, 20/12/20 8:30am. Luckily very little cloud. The shot is from the altar as I call it, through the entrance at the King's Men, Rollrights.
This alignment was calculated by Jack Morris Eyton, though he never got the chance to confirm it.
(View photo, vote or add a comment)
Log Text: Not my first visit and hopefully not my last. A clear, bright January day with "see for miles" visibility. The right sort of day to visit this place, I think. Had some time to myself, which was a bonus, but some chaterers arrived and that was my cue to leave - in truth, I never feel inclined to stay long at The Rollrights.
Lots of - what is it called now? - "ritual litter". Persumably from the Winter Solstice. It's interesting (to me) to wonder what might be in those little bags, or what the tied messages might say. It would be rude to touch though, so I wondered and wandered on...
Bicester Burial Mounds
Date Added: 21st Sep 2022
Site Type: Barrow Cemetery
Country: England (Oxfordshire)
Visited: Yes on 21st Sep 2022. My rating: Condition -1 Ambience 3 Access 4
Bicester Burial Mounds submitted by BarryC on 21st Sep 2022. Nothing at all to see (as far as I was able to ascertain), but there is at least a nice bench on which to sit and commiserate the lack.
(View photo, vote or add a comment)
Log Text: I visited primarily to take a photograph of the location, for uploading, but not expecting to see anything. In that, I wasn't disappointed: nothing to be seen *at all*, not even an information board or marker, which I had half-hoped for.
Checked location from available archaeological reports online - looks to be correct, albeit part of a larger area of excavations which have now totally disappeared under a massive housing estate which seemed to appear over 'lockdown'. Disappointing, but at least it was excavated before disappearing forever.
Asthall Barrow
Date Added: 17th Sep 2022
Site Type: Barrow Cemetery
Country: England (Oxfordshire)
Visited: Yes on 16th Sep 2022. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4
Asthall Barrow submitted by BarryC on 16th Sep 2022. Videw from the North side (B4047 where the footpath enters the field and crosses beside the barrow - relatively easy to stop here).
(View photo, vote or add a comment)
Log Text: A gorgeous autumnal day, out aimlessly trundling on the motorcycle, I remembered this site as having no photographs, surprisingly. I'm sure I remembered this site as having confiers on it, but the single tree is so mature that I must have been imagining that. Footpath across field, and close to the site. Access from the A40 side perhaps unqise - such a fast road, but from the B4047 side one might park relatively easily, and there's a 'stone wall stile' to be negotiated. In September the crop (cereal?) had been harvested. Photogrpahs taken, site seen, onwards in search of coffee and cake...
Thor Stone
Date Added: 26th Aug 2022
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir)
Country: England (Oxfordshire)
Visited: Yes on 23rd Aug 2022. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5
Thor Stone submitted by hamish on 9th Aug 2011. I love this Stone, it looks like it is having a rest.
(View photo, vote or add a comment)
Log Text: Having visited the nearby Hoar Stone just a few days previously, I investigated 'nearby sites' only when I got back home. Lesson learned! Back I went to visit The Thor Stone, less than 2 miles down the road from The Hoar Stone (and only a couple of miles again from The Hawk Stone, which I have visited before).
Just me and the stone, which was partially hidden in the hedge it was leaning into.
As when I visited The Hoar Stone at Enstone, couldn't help musing on what the landscape around here once looked like, and just how much has been lost to the plough, road-building, and so forth.
Hoar Stone at Enstone
Date Added: 26th Aug 2022
Site Type: Chambered Tomb
Country: England (Oxfordshire)
Visited: Yes on 21st Aug 2022. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5
Hoar Stone at Enstone submitted by Richard13 on 11th Mar 2021. The Hoar Stone at Enstone, seen in summer 2020.
(View photo, vote or add a comment)
Log Text: Somehow, despite living relatively close by (<20 miles) I've never visited this site, having been put off by reports of it being "partially hidden in vegetation", "dark, hard to photograph" and similar. In the event, I found the site to be remarkably open, accessible, and more than light enough to explore and get good photographs. Perhaps I was lucky!
I found the site to be very tidy, only a couple of small pieces of "ritual litter" (no offence intended), and nil regular litter. Nobody else about, either, so I was able to just quietly explore and think about how the place might have been there - and around - in times long gone.