The first walk proper of a brand new year, and the perfect way to christen a new blog. I went walking last weekend around the villages of Dyffryn, St Nicholas and St Lythan's in the Vale of Glamorgan, combining exercise and culture as the route takes in not one but two Neolithic cromlechs, starting with Tinkinswood.
It was built almost 6,000 years ago, which makes it
something like a millennium older than Stonehenge, and the dolmen capstone
weighs around 40 tons – that’s the weight of about five double decker buses.
The barrow is badly eroded now, but it still gives a good
idea of how these tombs were laid out - you can pick out the rectangular
outline of the mound with its external revetment wall (partially reconstructed
when the site was excavated in 1914) along with the wide forecourt, leading to
a single cell chamber.
Over 900 human bones were found at the site when it was
excavated, suggesting that the burial chamber was used by the entire settlement
rather than a favoured few. Legend has it that anyone who spends a night here
on the evenings preceding May Day, St John’s Day, or Midwinter Day will die, go
raving mad, or become a poet.
Well, much as I’d love to improve my poetic skills, I
avoided all three of those dates and didn’t stop long enough to be affected
anyway, but I would advise fellow visitors to pick a slightly drier day to
visit - access to the site is through a field which gets quite muddy!
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