View from The Cloud |
Jodrell Bank in the distance |
Early autumn heather |
After lunch, we went down another path to the bottom of The Cloud and walked around to The Bridestones, a strange arrangement of vertical stones off to the side of a double chamber open tomb, with other stones in the nearby underbrush. Apparently, the only other similar arrangement is in the Orkneys, though I was reminded of the forecourt at Cairn Holly II in Scotland (about which I will write about at another time).
Front view of The Bridestones |
Side view |
Grevel inspecting the stones |
Berry-ladened holly tree |
At one point, I noticed a crow sitting in the middle of a field and, a few yards away, a short, single standing stone, which was not marked on Grevel’s Ordnance map. Like the Allgreave Menhir, it had a flat vertical face, facing north, not south, and sinuous curves on the other side. The stone was streaked with white droppings, as if a bird had spent a lot of time sitting at its top. Grevel spotted an owl’s pellet made up of insect bodies and small white stones. Owls have these stones in their mouths to help grind down their food. So, we decided to call our discovery The Owl Stone.
Raven and standing stone |
The Owl Stone, showing the west face |
View of The Cloud when we walked back to the car |
We then drove back home for dinner and to watch a DVD of Frenzy, which I hadn’t seen before, and a BBC program on Southern Rock.
Earl