Maison du Loup dolmen 1

Trip No.203  Entry No.111  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Passage Grave Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 22nd May 2005

Log Text: The book I have says this one is 100 metres from the D.2 road near Marsalès at a place called Borie-Neuve so I thought this one was findable and worth a go. I found Borie-Neuve easily enough but no obvious dolmen. So I looked round all the lanes and tracks in the vicinity but still found nothing. There was nobody here to ask so I had a look in the forest here but its all thick undergrowth and there's no way of finding anything without knowing where to look. Why oh why don’t they all have signposts or at least footpaths to them ?

Point du Jour dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.110  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Yes on 22nd May 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: This one is signposted from the D104/D2 between Villereal and Montpazier and has a little picnic area by it. It was pouring with rain when I arrived and it looks for all the world to be in somebody’s private garden. In fact I think it is but they have been good enough to create a little sort of public area near it and a sign as well ! What Good people.

A single giant capstone 6 metres by 2 metres sits on top of about half a dozen supports in two parallel rows making a sort of alleyway within woodland on a slope which is very steep at the end of the dolmen and indeed has probably been quarried away at some point in the past. In the wet it’s a strange reddish orangish stripy sort of rock with lots of moss growing on top of it. From certain angles this one looks like its come straight out of a fairy story.

Dolmen dit la Peyrelevade (Beaumont)

Trip No.203  Entry No.109  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Yes on 22nd May 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 3

Log Text: What a palaver it was finding this one despite being on my map and signposted from the road. The trouble is that’s where the signposts stop and its more than a kilometre walk to the thing. There is no way I would have found this had I not spoken to a chap at the farm out doing jobs in his shed who told me where to go and even then I was close to giving up on more than one occasion.

It’s down the lane till it runs out then continue on down the track on the left. This track then runs out and had an electric fence across it (The man had warned me of the electric fence to keep the cows in). It should normally be continue on down to the bottom of the valley through the cows field and the dolmen is up on a mound to the left of the field but as I entered the field several very inquisitive and tough looking cows with big horns rushed towards me bellowing. So I did as the man suggested and skirted round the outside of the electric fence in a couple of fields with very long grass which soaked me right though. Then down another lane into the valley bottom and search for the stones. Nothing can be see at all. So I remember the bit about it being on a mound and there's two possibilities. The cows are guarding one so I climb to the top of the nearer one and eventually find the dolmen a small little thing for so much effort !

The capstone sits on top of a rectangular chamber about 2 metres in length and a metre wide which has collapsed on one side. This really is one for the enthusiast and I would never have found it without the mans directions but its surrounded by lovely orchids and even on a wet grey day like this it was nice to have been there. And it gave a great deal of satisfaction for having found this a good adventure despite all the obstacles. A real feeling of triumph ! And of course a cheery Merci to the man on the way back.

Dolmen de Baneuil

Trip No.203  Entry No.108  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 22nd May 2005

Log Text: The book says this one is close to the Mairie and I found that OK but no signs of a dolmen nearby. I spend a fairly long time walking round all the lanes and ask a couple of locals but they know nothing. I also checked in the nearby wood nothing was obvious. These Perigord wild goose chases are pissing me off. Decide its time to leave here and stick to those on the maps.

Dolmen le Roc del Ser (Faux)

Trip No.203  Entry No.107  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 21st May 2005

Log Text: Supposedly very close to the D.19 is this 5 metre long stone the remains of a dolmen capstone but I couldn’t find it. Have to say that by now I wasn’t looking hard. It said that if you recite an Avé Maria to it the stone will turn nine times.

I really must try and find this one tomorrow. Its been one of those afternoons where I couldn’t find anything and became frustrated. Then it started to rain and then thunderstorms and I find I am driving around fairly aimlessly so decide to stop and find a camp site for the night which as seems to be the case at times like this isn’t easy. I find several closed ones until I find an open one back at Beaumont again but it only accepts tents.

Its got a tiny car park and someone has parked awkwardly behind me and I have to reverse out from a tight spot uphill between the cars. This I do successfully but believing I was out crunch and I have hit the gatepost on the other side and have buggered the new plastic trim at the back corner. It seems to be the only damage. Poor van.

I eventually find a campsite at Couze but with nobody around so I just take a place and plug in for the night. At least the showers work. Wonder who won the F.A. Cup this afternoon ?

Le Bourdil Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.106  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 21st May 2005

Log Text: Supposedly close to the D.19 but I couldn’t find it. Have to say that by now I wasn’t looking hard. Maybe tomorrow.

Menhir dit le Caillou (Boisse)

Trip No.203  Entry No.105  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 21st May 2005

Log Text: Could I find this ? Nope.

Dolmen de Pedorat

Trip No.203  Entry No.104  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 21st May 2005

Log Text: Could I find this ? Nope.

Le Breil Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.103  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 21st May 2005

Log Text: Could I find this ? Nope.

Dolmen de Pincanelle

Trip No.203  Entry No.102  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 21st May 2005

Log Text: I spent ages walking around many small lanes near the hamlet of Pincanelle looking for this 5 metre long dolmen capstone and asked an old lady in her garden but got nowhere. The lady apparently has no interest in such things and didn’t want to help although she was very interested in what I was doing !

Dolmen de Case du Loup

Trip No.203  Entry No.101  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 21st May 2005

Log Text: This dolmen is supposedly 2.5 metres high and three metres long. But beware it houses a giant and monstrous wolf with eyes burning with fire. I spent hours in the hamlet of Larocale looking for this and asked many people who didn’t know until I fond a man out strimmering in the garden who did at least know of its existence. It turned out he was a Professor of Prehistory but of older stuff than megaliths. He told me where to find the dolmen “turn right then right again and up a footpath into the wood on the left about a kilometre. Its small and difficult to find” but he knew of none of the others in the area.

Too right it was difficile a trouver. The wood was being cleared and logged by a man with a tractor splitting logs who I asked but he knew nothing. I had a look round but could find nothing. Just where is that monstrous Loup when you nee him ? On my way back to the Campingcar a couple of the people who I had asked enquired if I had found it. No such luck. One lady then told me about the dolmen at Nojals. At least they know of that one round these parts.

Dolmen de Peyre Nègre

Trip No.203  Entry No.100  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Yes on 21st May 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: 500 metres to the west of the Le Blanc allée couverte in a field just beside the road to Naussannes this dolmen has become covered in brambles and bushes. It is still 2 metres high the large capstone resting on at least three big support stones of which at least one has collapsed.

This one is guarded by a tricky barbed wire gate which caught my shirt on the way in and on the way out I tripped on it and it ripped my trousers and leg to shreds. Its obviously one of those days.

Allée couverte de Blanc

Trip No.203  Entry No.99  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Passage Grave Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Yes on 21st May 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: At last I have found one which is signposted and looked after. It’s a couple of kilometres south of Beaumont on the D.676 towards Villereal and is in a little signposted area with parking and lots and lots of orchids around everywhere. Its said to be one of the best preserved megalithic remains in the Perigord region and if that’s the case the rest aren’t much to look out for !

The original allée was supposedly 12 metres in length but its now cut short and I only counted 6 metres length of remains. The main chamber is in two parts facing on an alignment of 100° and consists of only two capstones sitting on 3 or 4 side slabs each side. Interestingly the western end is only about a metre wide and a metre high but the eastern end is much larger easily double the size of the closed west end. The south side is continuous while the northern side is stepped out

Cayra Levada

Trip No.203  Entry No.98  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Yes on 21st May 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Just beside a little road northwest of Belvès but fenced in a garden and becoming overgrown this 1.5 metre high dolmen had several polished axes found within it. There’s a raised capstone on a couple of supports but its difficult to make out much more.

While sitting making notes here I got overrun and attacked by a lot of vicious little ants and am still paying the price for sitting down carelessly 12 hours later. Bastards !

Bonarme polissoirs

Trip No.203  Entry No.97  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Polissoir Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Yes on 21st May 2005. My rating: Condition 4 Ambience 4 Access 3

Log Text: Further into the forest from the Bonarme dolmen are two polissoir stones dated to about 3000 BC which can also be found by following the marked and signposted forest walk for a kilometre or so. It’s a nice little spot on a hillside with an ancient spring below and some hut circles above. While I was there it was very humid and buzzing with insects.

One of the two stones has about 6 grooves in it with a natural basin for holding water a necessity for the polishing action. The other stone is superb and has about 10 grooves and flat polishing areas on it all of different sizes and in different parts of the stone almost a complete toolkit. Unfortunately the end of the stone has been broken off which may have had more grooves. I was not the first person here to rub a bit of stone up and down in the grooves as some are still well polished.

Its quite moving sitting rubbing a stone up and down in a groove thinking people were doing exactly this thousands of years ago. There's a little signpost telling about the stones which reckons that the sort of polished axes found around here would have taken about 70 hours each to have polished properly into shape. Too much like hard work !

Bonarme Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.96  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Yes on 21st May 2005. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: This was a pleasant find northwest of Belvès where there is a nicely arranged forest park area with a waymarked and signposted walk. The dolmen is still partially buried in its tumulus with remains of a stone circle or perhaps two still surviving around its outside. The capstone is about 3 m by 2.5 m and still covering a rectangular chamber which is completely dry which can be seen down below the level of the surrounding ground.

It has been dated to 3000 BC and the capstone has several markings in the top of it which are probably natural and caused by freezing and thawing action. However there is a legend surrounding the dolmen about the marks in the top being the imprints of cows feet on the stone. To me a couple at the north end could well have been cows feet but at the other end of the capstone there are most definitely two imprints of a giant’s feet.

Cayre Levat

Trip No.203  Entry No.95  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 21st May 2005

Log Text: I drove round all the lanes I could find north of St Amande looking for something here but other than signs pointing to the farm of the same name I couldn’t find that farm. None of them seem to have names. I saw a poste van and was tempted to stop it and ask the postman. I was not helped by long winding lanes with nowhere to turn and various road works.

Langlade Dolmen

Trip No.203  Entry No.94  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 21st May 2005

Log Text: I spent hours looking for this after it looked easy on the 1:25000 map in the supermarket. To start with I was looking on the wrong ridge for a different stone called Cayrelevada. After asking some people logging in a forest they pointed me in the right direction which was several kilometres away ! The book says it’s a beau dolmen beside the road in a garden in the hamlet of Langlade. Try as I might I couldn’t find this. I even looked in the woods around here. I really do need the 1:25000 maps to hunt these things down but at €10 a time for such small areas that’s just not on.

Pierre du Diable (Vitrac)

Trip No.203  Entry No.93  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Burial Chamber or Dolmen Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Yes on 20th May 2005. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: What I found here was a tiny little dolmen right beside the road which is being incorporated into a garden wall a few kilometres south of Sarlat-le-Caneda on top of a hill towards Vitrac. The capstone is not 2 metres by 2 metres and sits on a couple of stones both less than a foot in size. Its probable that there was more to this dolmen which is now under some trees and in the garden wall.

Peyrebrune megalith

Trip No.203  Entry No.92  Date Added: 6th Apr 2020
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: France (Aquitaine:Dordogne (24))
Visited: Couldn't find on 20th May 2005

Log Text: Near the hamlet of Rozas to the east of Saint-Orse is the farm called Peyre Brune where there are some megalithic remains. I understand it is a large menhir but with stories surrounding it that it is a meteorite which has crashed to earth. On the tiny roads in this area I could find nowhere to park or indeed turn round so gave up perhaps a bit too easily.