Going back in time

 Yesterday too much sadness to even write anything, the bad news continues apace.  The people of Lebanon are getting angry about their government, glass heaped in piles on the streets, bodies still to be found, please let there be an answer.

The virus still dominates the news, we are beginning to learn what a load of rubbishy people we are as places such as Dartmoor is strewn with litter.  Watched an interesting programme about two brother doctors as to how they were seeing the virus in the hospital and a care home.  Watched middle-aged men slowly recover from death's door. Saw the love and loyalty in care homes.  One of the brothers had a dose of Covid19, but got over it.  Then, and this is important, his heart began to behave erratically and he had to go back to hospital with an arrhythmic heart, the truth being is that the virus does terrible things to the body afterwards.  I shall now stop going down a depressive road.

Well my mind has strangely been on cromlechs in Wales, it has wandered over past journeys, always alone with dear old Moss.  I always left behind a full house, though I must have been escaping the language students that dotted my life for many years and taking a moment when they were not there.

The journey out of Bath to the motorway outskirts of Bristol, then crossing the toll bridge would give me a thrill of escape.  The drive down to Pembrokeshire along half empty roads, the excitement mounting.  I normally took a small cottage which had other cottages and the farm made into holiday cottages.

The first cromlech that has been haunting my mind was way out in the middle of nowhere.  You had to walk along a long path to get to it, past a derelict school set in the middle of the field.  The children would have probably walked up from the coastal village below in the 19th century.

Well yesterday I listened to a 'live' discussion on Youtube about stones, and someone mentioned about whether all these cromlechs were in actual fact covered by earth.  Well looking at the scant soil cover in Wales, the answer must be surely not, the stones were hauled into place and then the capstone levered onto the upright stones, which are invariably pointed.

Garn Wynda is a simple burial place, looking over the West coast to the sea, as so many of the cromlechs are on the West coast, this was a final burial place. It is very 'hidden' in the rock face, the tall stone to the left of it is the only distinguishable feature.

The term sub-megalithic or earth-fast was coined by Glyn Daniels and to quote him;

"What we have called the 'sub-megalithic' tombs, however, are in a different category. The essential constructional pecularity of these tombs is that the capstone instead of resting on two orthostats and appearing roughly level, has one end resting on the ground-the whole monument being triangle in section. For this strange and fairly rare kind of monument, which exists in Western France, Wales and Ireland - many names have been suggested such as primary, earth-fast,demi-dolmen or half-dolmen".......

There is a small group of sub-megalithic or earth-fast cromlechs to be found in Pembrokeshire and further afield. They are simply designed with the capstone normally supported by one or several orthostats with the back of the capstone resting on the earth or a ledge, they are very low to the ground the underlying ground having been dug or excavated out and the capstones raised on small uprights.