Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Category: Ancient Sites

Ancient Sites

The Tarxien Temples

The Tarxien Temples were discovered in 1913 or 1914 by local farmers ploughing the field and the sites thorough excavation began in 1915. A World Heritage Site, the megalithic Tarxien Temples are made up of four interlinked structures dating from between 3600BC and 2500BC. The structures are referred to as the South Temple, East Temple and Central Temple.

Ancient Sites / Hauntings

Cholesbury Camp

The oval shaped Cholesbury Camp or The Danish Camp is a multivallate Iron Age hill fort covering 15 acres with ramparts measuring between 9.5 ft. and 34 ft in height. Within the defences can be found the Church of St Lawrence and if stories are to be believed, phantom animals that have been heard snorting and fighting each other.

Ancient Sites

St. Catherine’s Hill

St. Catherine’s Hill is a prominent chalk hill not far from Winchester in Hampshire’s South Downs. The hill appears to have had a significant place in local life since early times, and indeed the remains of an iron age hillfort can still be seen there today, hinting that St. Catherine’s Hill was of military, economic and perhaps spiritual importance.

Ancient Sites / Earth Works

Julian’s Bower

The village of Alkborough lies at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Trent and overlooks the Humber. The village’s claim to fame is a bizarre circular turf maze of unknown origin.

Early Christianity / Hauntings

Pershore Abbey

The Anglican Parish Church of Pershore Abbey was originally part of an Anglo Saxon abbey, the ruins of which were thought to be haunted in the early 20th century.

Ancient Sites / Wells

Leper’s Well, Lyme Regis

Situated on hill leading down into the town of Lyme Regis, the Leper’s Well stands on the site of the Chapel of St. Mary and the Holy Spirit. There is a worn inscription above the well telling that a hospital stood on the spot 700 years ago, presumably connected with the alleged curative properties of the well.

Apparitions / Early Christianity / Hauntings

Stoneleigh Abbey

The Grade I listed Stoneleigh Abbey is country mansion dating from the 16th century, built in the grounds of a Cistercian Abbey which had been founded in 1154 and destroyed after the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII. ‘A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 2’ (1908) gives the following historical background of the Abbey.

Ancient Sites / Early Christianity / Folklore

St Nidan’s Old Church and The Thigh Stone

St Nidan’s Church in Llanidan is associated with a stone that had strange magical like properties including aiding fertilisation and having the power to move on its own.  Wirt Sykes in his British Goblins (1881) mentions that ‘The old British historian Nennius speaks of a stone, one of the wonders of the Isle

Ancient Sites / Early Christianity / Legends

Church of St. Meilig, Llowes and Moll Walbee’s Stone

The medieval church of St Meilig was rebuilt in 1853, though the bottom of the tower may be a remnant of the earlier building. Inside the church is a standing stone with a cross carved into it, which possibly dates from the 6th or 7th century. The stone which is thought to have stood at or near the site of a 6th century monastery founded by St Meilig at Croesfeilig.