The landscape around this part of Normandy, France is full of man-made monuments – from standing stones to iron mines.

While out driving recently, Trish spotted something in the distance. It was a brick-built tower sitting in a small valley.

We crossed the field to get a closer look. This involved clambering through a barbed wire fence and hacking through undergrowth. We stood on the top of the ridge looking down into the heavily overgrown valley. In front of us, seen through the trees, was a gigantic megalith.

The brick-built tower was at least 100ft high. There was another, further across the valley. The construction showed that they were clearly Victorian. A bridge, then, but lacking any superstructure.

The structure was just outside the village of Rapilly, in the Calvados département but very close to the border with the Orne. It’s part of an area known optimistically as the Suisse Normande (Swiss Normandy). It’s hilly, full of gorges cut by rivers through the schist and granite.

As we drove towards home, we discovered another viaduct, also brick-built and clearly of a similar age, but arched. It sits, disused, towering over the hamlet of Mesnil-Villement.

Research quickly revealed their history. They supported a branch railway line built between Flers and Falaise and opened in 1874. It was fairly shorted-lived. Traffic stopped on much of the line in 1938. And the final short section was closed in 1969. The viaduct at Rapilly was dynamited.

We paid another visit, from the opposite side of the valley, a couple of weeks later. It’s not easy getting to the viaduct. There are no paths: you have to cross farmland, dodge under a couple of barbed-wire fences and fight your way through a wild wood.

We got to the base of one of the towers, now largely covered in ivy. A tiny stream wends its way past the monument. A field on the river’s flood plain is choked with bramble and nettle. It feels very wild and remote and a strange place to find such a massive structure. It was like something from a sci-fi or fantasy novel – a giant obelisk of inscrutable purpose.

The image on the right shows Trish standing at the base of the tower – she’s the tiny yellow blob. The camera is angled up sharply and the lens set to its shortest focal length, but I still had trouble getting the entire structure in the frame.

This is a site to which we intend to return, at frequent intervals. It has a truly magical and also slightly tragic atmosphere.

It’s difficult to photograph the towers through the foliage, so winter might provide better opportunities to show the structures in the landscape.

I intend to shoot picture tracing the remains of the Flers-Falaise branch line. It has left many relics in the landscape – embankments, cuttings, tunnels (of which more in the next post), station buildings and, of course, bridges.

I’ve already posted a few images in the Branch Line section of the portfolio, and will add more soon. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a postcard image of the viaduct from its heyday, when it still had the steel, box-section superstructure that carried the trains.

Our new calendars – Signals in Stone and Dust & Shadow – are out now.

Each calendar features 12 images taken from my portfolio. Signals in Stone focuses on the megalithic monuments of France’s Grand Ouest region (in this case, mainly Brittany and Normandy), including several photographs taken at Carnac.

Dust & Shadow is about more recent monuments that mankind has left in the landscape. This first publication concentrates on German coastal defences in France, left over from World War 2. The images explore how these sites are starting to acquire a mysterious and enigmatic quality similar to that of ancient monuments.

The calendars are printed and delivered via the online service RedBubble. They are large format (A3) and printed on heavyweight art paper. This means the images are large, making them ideal for cutting out and framing once the year is over.

These images, and many others from both projects, are also available from RedBubble as framed, card-mounted or laminated fine-art prints, with the same high-quality printing used for the calendars. And you can also buy them as greetings cards. Visit the WebVivant Gallery on RedBubble to view the images.

The calendars are the first publications from our new web-based publishing venture, WebVivant Press. We’re planning a whole range of books and calendars for 2010. These will include novels and non-fiction books available in both print and e-book versions, and high-quality photography books. There will be a series of Human Landscape titles based around the photographs in the portfolio and others not available online.

If you would like to be alerted when these books appear, visit the WebVivant Press website and use the form on the home page to sign up for email alerts.

A new guide to the megaliths of Central Brittany

There’s a handy new guide to the menhirs and other megaliths of Central Brittany – an area often overlooked by those who head straight for the rich pickings of Carnac.

The Guide to the Menhirs and other Megaliths of Central Brittany, by Samuel Lewis, does just what it says on the cover: it provides you with a comprehensive listing of these important monuments, among them the largest menhirs that Brittany – indeed, France – has to offer.

Lewis knows his subject. He lives and works in the region and has had a passion for these megaliths spanning many years.

The guide is heavily illustrated, and as well as information on each megalith you get some useful background to the region and the age in which these monuments were created. The guide is also printed in a handy format that fits equally well in pocket or glove compartment.

You can download the book as a PDF, but as it costs just €5.00, buying a printed version is going to be far more convenient for those field trips in Brittany.

Guide to the Menhirs and other Megaliths of Central Brittany
by Samuel Lewis (Nezert Books)
72 pages, 10cm x 21cm paperback
ISBN 978-952-270-595-2
Price: €5.00

If you’ve been here before, you may have noticed that the portfolio has shrunk somewhat. That’s because I’m in the process of reworking many of the images.

La Tables aux Diables, Passais, Orne, Normandy

Until now, I was happy to upload the photographs I’d taken of megalithic sites in Normandy, the Pays de la Loire and, most importantly, Brittany. I’m grateful for the number of people who’ve emailed me to say that they enjoyed my pictures of Carnac and other places.

But while the images were fine as records of the places I’d visited, they didn’t really express what I felt about the places. I always knew that the final images would be heavily treated. So now I’m going through that process (as with the image of the dolmen, above) and will be uploading the pictures as and when they’re ready.

The first to be finished are my ‘Modern Megalith‘ images of World War 2 coastal defences, including those at Pointe du Hoc – appropriate, perhaps, given the time of year.

At the same time, I’m uploading many of the images to RedBubble, where you can buy high-quality greetings cards, prints and posters. There’s already a full selection of the Modern Megaliths images and I’ll be adding pictures of the ancient megaliths – in the Signals in Stone section – as they’re ready.

I’m also planning a series of calendars and books. So please do keep popping back.

The past is soon forgotten. Even recent history is quickly reduced to facts and statistics. And when that history involves suffering and death, we seem to want to forget.

A Time Team episode I saw recently, where Baldrick and his pals excavated World War 2 anti-aircraft emplacements on Shooter’s Hill, talked about how quickly we lost, and are still losing, the artefacts of that recent conflict.

Pointe du Hoc, Normandy

The monuments of the war still litter the countryside across Europe. The stop lines and pillboxes in England, and coastal defences along the Channel and Atlantic shores of France are among those that interest me most. But the fascination comes in part from the way they seem to be slipping into a kind of obscurity. We can read about the conflict that spawned them. We know how and why they were built – even the names of some of those who built them. This is not prehistory. But for many of the people who encounter them – the tourists and beachcombers – they probably appear as bizarre and mysterious objects left by a long-lost race of people.

In many ways they are acquiring the same obscure and inscrutable mystery as neolithic monuments – the standing stones and dolmens whose true purpose and significance are lost to us. The exact purpose of some of the remains is almost secondary: they seem to have acquired a layer of indecipherable symbolism.

Gun emplacement

Last year, I was lucky enough to visit a key site for these ‘modern megaliths’ with my artist friend Doug Selway. We spent a day at Pointe du Hoc, the cliff-top German artillery emplacement a short distance west of Omaha Beach in Normandy. It was taken, with immense bravery and sacrifice, by US Rangers.

The shattered (and sometimes surprisingly intact) remains of the massive concrete structures have now assumed the air of an auspicious location. Perhaps the fact that it certainly was a sacrificial site – and parts are effectively war graves – lends it that solemn and faintly menacing aspect.

The broken blocks of concrete often directly echo the abandoned melancholy of many of the best neolithic monuments. And added to this, as World War 2 slips from living memory, is a sense of mystery – a veil slowly descending over the relics so that they assume their own importance. They are no longer simply reminders of a past time but assume a significance of their own, right now: they become phenomena in our time, places of wonder and mystique.

Pointe du Hoc by Doug Selway

Doug has recently completed a painting (above) of one of the gun emplacements at Pointe du Hoc. It brilliantly conveys that sense of mystery and the strange impression one gets that this was a place of ritual and sacrifice, and that whatever went on here is no longer fully understandable – that the true meaning was understood only by the now-lost generation that experienced it.

Megalithic monuments may have been around for thousands of years, but they can still take you by surprise.

Heading south out of La Roche Jaune, in the Côte d’Armor département of Brittany, I was astonished to see a huge standing stone by the side of the road. The surprise was all the greater because I’d just checked the IGN Carte de Randonnée for nearby megalithic sites and had found none.

I was sure of the road we were on, and that we couldn’t be more than a kilometre or two south-west of La Roche Jaune. Yet the IGN map – usually so reliable at marking mehirs and dolmens – showed nothing.

And it’s not like this was a small stone. It stands around three metres high, perhaps more. And while one may talk in abstract terms about the phallic symbolism of standing stones, the connection seems especially clear here. This is enhanced by the pink granite – a feature of this part of the Breton coastline. And the stone has been broken at some point and the pieces cemented back in place to form the ‘head’ of the stone.

The cement looks recent. And the stone is very clean. And so my suspicions were somewhat, um, aroused. It is such a surprise to find a stone of this magnitude to easily visible from the road, and yet not marked on the IGN chart, that I do wonder if this is a fake.

French farmers are a canny lot. It wouldn’t be beyond them to erect some random slab of stone as a tourist attraction (which might also attract grants for maintenance of the patrimoine).

If anyone has any more information on this menhir, I’d be glad to hear it.

Update (12/01/2009): Martyn (aka TheCaptain) over at The Megalithic Portal managed to find a reference to this stone on the net. The Plouguiel page at Les Côtes du Nord de l’Armorique deals mostly with the Medieval period, but mentions that the area was populated for a long time before. The ancient people of this area left several traces, among them:

… menhir de la Roche Jaune, dont l’origine remonte au néolithique. Couché, presqu’entièrement recouvert de terre et oublié de tous, il fut découvert en 1991 puis redressé en janvier 1998.

Fallen, almost completely covered by earth and forgotten by all, the neolithic menhir was discovered in 1991 and ‘restored’ in 1998.

So it’s real. Well that’s a relief.

There is a certain frisson that comes from being in the presence of antiquity. Standing by a menhir, or gazing on an ancient relic, connects us with the past. But from where does this excitement originate?

It can’t be a purely aesthetic buzz. Certainly, we may find beauty in the artefacts of the past. Yet I’m sure that the visitors to the display of Chinese terracotta warriors in Hamburg obtained the same pleasure from them as those who saw the figures in London – even though the ones in Germany turned out to be fakes.

Would they have been so thrilled if they had known the figures were modern copies? Almost certainly not. That’s in spite of the fact that their experience of them was in no way affected. The figures were behind glass. The only contact was visual. And a faithfully executed replica is likely to be visually indistinguishable from the original. It has the same physical effect, then – so the difference must be emotional.

Take another example. In our village, there is an old well, hidden down a short lane quite close to the church. The church itself is modern by local standards – mid 19th century. But there was a priory built near this spot in the 12th century and the place has had holy connections ever since.

Marking the well is a standing stone, maybe 2m high. It is formed from granite, but then so is everything around here, including our house. Standing stones conform to no rigid design guidelines, but the shape is sufficiently menhir-like. But is it a real standing stone?

What does that even mean? If you take the attitude that a menhir is a form of expression, a signifier, then anything that looks like a menhir and gives the same emotional response as a menhir must qualify as one. You might reasonably insist on the stone having been selected and positioned back in the neolithic period. Of course, many ‘real’ standing stones have been moved since – does that affect their authenticity?

I haven’t yet discovered if the ‘menhir’ is ancient. A local guidebook for the church simply mentions about the well: ‘Une stèle de granit faite d’un bloc au naturel et une croix rustique le signalent depuis quelques années’. That’s a tad ambiguous. Maybe it’s just the rustic cross that has been there ‘quelques années’.

If the ‘menhir’ is modern (if we apply that ‘quelques années’ description, it probably dates it to the 1950s) then we could regard it not as a fake or replica standing stone, but as a continuation of an ancient tradition of marking significant or auspicious sites this way. That would make it a real menhir, albeit a fairly new one.

This is a landscape photography project about my response to megalithic sites and what they mean – not in the archaeological or wider cultural sense, but what they mean to me. With their original significance forever obscured, this kind of personal response is the most appropriate – the question is, how to do it.

The images I have posted so far – in this blog and in the portfolio, won’t always look like that. Some of them are pretty enough, some of them function quite well as record shots. But that isn’t the purpose of this project.

I am slowly working towards the right approach, towards the right expression of how I feel and what I think about these human marks on the landscape.

As part of that process, it helps to look at the work of other artists. As always, I find myself inspired by the painting, drawing and printmaking of Doug Selway – a fine artist and, I’m proud to say, a very good friend.

The painting above is one panel from a multi-panel panorama, part of a body of work Doug has produced about Orford Ness. This is a strange and intriguing part of the country. A bar of land just off the Suffolk coast, Orford Ness is now a major nature reserve. However, it was once the site of dark and inscrutable activity.

The Ministry of Defence (as now is) used it for many years, exploiting its remoteness to carry out work it would rather others didn’t see – and also work that would be safely distant from the general population should anything go horribly wrong. To this day, there are strange concrete buildings, their heavy roofs held up by pillars designed to blow out, allowing the roof to slam down and seal the building. The reason? They were developing triggers for nuclear weapons.

Other work, like the development of certain types of radar, has also left its enduring mark. Over time, the purpose of these sites has become increasingly hard to fathom purely from what remains. Of course, they were created in recent times, in an age of history: unlike megalithic sites, documentation and even living memories exist to explain their function. Taken at a purely personal level, however, and dealing only with one’s intuitive response to the sites (either personally, by being there, or by benefiting from Doug’s interpretation), they become fascinating enigmas on to which we can project our own emotions or fantasies – much like we do with megalithic sites.

Looking at this panel again, it struck me that the concrete structure sits in the landscape much like a circle of standing stones, with a similarly obscure significance. It is a deliberate presence within the landscape whose purpose is not readily apparent (it’s the base of a radar array, apparently, but you’d have to do research – or ask Doug – to know that).

It’s not uncommon with stone circles to find a single stone standing alone some distance outside the circle. These are sometimes given names like the ‘King Stone’ (eg, the Nine Ladies on Stanton Moor, Derbyshire). In this image, the lighthouse stands like a king stone and it is impossible not to make a meaningful connection between it and the circle.

In Doug’s painting of a grain tower (right), connections are suggested through the framing. A chief attraction of panoramic images is that they mimic, and exaggerate, our visual system’s preference for landscape-format images (a genetic adaptation, I believe, because it helps us scan the landscape around us for food and threats). Using a vertical panoramic format tightly constrains our tendency to scan horizontally and creates tension by forcing us into an unusual and unnatural vertical scanning mode. Knowing that your attention has been directed in this way, you cannot avoid concluding that there is a significant association between the tower at the top of the image and the objects beneath it.

Just as interesting, from my point of view, is that it is hard, or even impossible, to take in and comprehend the entire image at once. You have to build it by scanning down the image (and then up again, as though checking the links your mind has just made). That process means that you discover the various parts of the image in a sequential, even narrative way.

That has real potential for what I want to do with these megalithic sites, because there are many that you cannot grasp at once.

Standing stones that you approach via a woodland path (such as Carnac’s Géant du Manio), dolmens hidden by trees or a rise in the ground until you are almost upon them, alignments of menhirs – these are all sites where you go through a process of discovery that does not happen in a single instant. Typically, you find yourself stopping to take in the scene, scanning and building up an understanding of what stands before you. This is often the most wondrous moment of all (after half an hour at the site, there is a danger that the mystery evaporates and all you are left with is a bunch of stones).

Creating that sense of discovery won’t be easy. I’m not even sure it’s possible. But the attempt should be fun.

For me, it’s all about the landscape.

My interest in megalithic sites was rekindled by another, long-term project. Called ‘The Human Landscape’, it’s a photographic study of how we leave our marks on the world around us.

In part, this project is a reaction to the immense amount of twaddle that underlies landscape photography today. I’m tired of the highly pictorial, ‘camera club’ mentality by which landscapes must conform to arbitrary and artificial notions of purity. Any overt sign of human presence, such as a car or electricity pylon, is deemed unacceptable.

This isn’t unique to photography. On one trip to Cornwall, we stayed at a National Trust cottage on the edge of a lake. The cottage is visible from a number of public footpaths. A few hours after arriving, an NT person pitched up at the door to ask us to park our (medium blue) Ford Sierra around the back of the property, so as to not spoil the view. And while I was happy to comply, it made me wonder what was so objectionable about the car. That it was a man-made object? So was the cottage. That it was blue? Actually, it matched the colour of the sky quite well. That it was modern? Maybe that was it. If so, how old would the car need to be to be acceptable in that scene? As old as the cottage? Where does the threshold lie? Wherever it is, I guarantee it will seem no less arbitrary.

There are few landscapes in the UK – few in Europe, probably – that do not carry the marks of mankind. Dry stone walls, power and phone lines, fences, paths and roads, tracks trodden through grass or bracken, hills and valleys denuded of trees, crops, fields, farm buildings, cairns – which of these is acceptable in landscape photographs, and why? The signs can be very subtle. Most fields, even entire hillsides or ranges, are effectively artificial because they would not look that way if farmers had not kept sheep or goats grazing on them for centuries.

Do we read significance into these signs? Of course. We read significance of some kind into every part of an image. How we read these signs is the interesting part. Take the picture at the top of the page. Is it a ceremonial route to a sacred site of ancient ritual? No. It’s a public footpath that passes by a fenced-off mineshaft in Cornwall. But each of us can add whatever meaning we like. Some of us will see a path winding through some coastal woodland (also in Cornwall) as leading to something mysterious, or frightening, or enchanting, or maybe we see it just as an opportunity for a brisk stroll.

Megaliths are among the most ancient of mankind’s marks on the landscape – certainly the oldest deliberate marks. This is the source of my interest in them now, as signs of people who passed this way and felt the need to create such enduring memoranda. Their message may have been forever obscured by time, but the signal remains. I’m not trying to decode it, merely acknowledge and perhaps honour it in some way – find a place for it in today’s landscape.

Because, of course, the landscape has changed immeasurably since neolithic times, and in a way that any people find surprising. On our recent visit to the Carnac region, we found many of the megalithic sites – the standing stones, dolmens and alignments – nestled in tranquil and picturesque woodland. And that is woodland that simply did not exist when the stones were originally erected. Stone-age man denuded the landscape of much of its forests, hacking down the trees for firewood, building materials and to make way for primitive farming techniques that quickly exhausted the soil. Brittany is now far more wooded than it was 6,000 years ago.

That significantly changes the atmosphere of the megalithic sites, and changes how they relate to the landscape. And regardless of speculations about their use as astronomical devices, as portals for earth energies or whatever (and there are many hypotheses that range from fascinating but unproven down to the frankly wacky) our encounters with these monuments are affected by how this sit in today’s environment. And those encounters are what I want to explore.

For the megalith enthusiast, visiting the Carnac region can be an overwhelming experience. There’s just so much to see. But here are some personal recommendations, as well as a few photography tips.

Many of the monuments in the Morbihan department of France are among the most important megalithic sites in the world. And the department has one of the highest concentrations of megalithic sites you’ll find anywhere. Alas, that brings with it popularity and a responsibility to protect and manage, and it risks turning the sites into McMegaliths – well-preserved but devoid of atmosphere.

If you visit the Morbihan and see only the main Carnac alignments (Le Ménec, Kermario, Kerlescan) and the famous Locmariaquer megaliths (Le Grand Menhir Brisé, Er Grah and La Tables des Marchands) you might easily leave with a vague sense of disappointment. Yes, you would have seen magnificent artefacts of great historical and cultural significance. But it’s hard to be moved by them.

I would strongly recommend visiting these famous sites at the beginning of your trip. Tick the boxes, take the snaps, browse the gift shops then move on to the places that retain something of their auspicious character. Those we visited that fit into this latter category would include Le Dolmen des Pierres Plates at Locmariaquer, Le Géant du Manio near the Kerlescan alignments, the Petit Ménec alignments and the rambler’s path from the Kerzerho alignments at Erdeven (a route that takes in standing stones and the Mané-Braz dolmens). I’m sure there are many others, but in a week we only just scratched the surface in terms of megalithic sites in Brittany.

It also pays to plan what you’re going to see in advance and have at least a rough itinerary each day. If you can, get hold of a copy of Gabriel le Cam’s Guide des Mégalithes du Morbihan, even if your french isn’t up to snuff. Because it has at least one, reasonably sized image of each site, you can make valid judgments on which are likely to prove worth the trek.

Going out of season turned out to be a good move. True, we were lucky with the weather, having had bright sun and cloudless skies most days (which is rare in Brittany in November). But megalithic sites are just as fascinating on cloudy or rainy days – and often even more atmospheric. By turning up in the off-season, we had free and unfettered access to the Le Ménec and Kermario alignments and were also able to walk around by ourselves at Le Grand Menhir Brisé at Locmariaquer. We also had fewer other tourists to contend with – a real plus for photography. Talking of which…

A few photo tips

• Bend your knees! A lower viewpoint places the monuments against the sky, where they stand out and you achieve a better impression of their massive nature. It also helps to eliminate or minimise distracting background details, such as nearby buildings. Don’t take it to extremes though, unless you want to seriously distort scale. I spent a lot of time on my knees (which some might feel appropriate ).
• Have something to sit or kneel on. I didn’t, and my knees ended up seriously scratched by the gorse. Also, if you are visiting these sites with a partner, they might appreciate having a ground sheet or blanket to sit on (and maybe a book to read) while you busy yourself taking pictures.
• Wear practical clothing. You’re going to do a lot of lying down, kneeling and scrambling about, especially where dolmens are concerned. In cooler seasons, something like a Barbour or hunting jacket will keep you dry,clean and protected while providing plenty of pockets for lenses, flashguns etc, so that you don’t have to drag camera bags into tight spaces. Which brings me to…
• Keep your gear light. You may end up walking fair distances or squeezing into tight spaces. My preference now is for a backpack (a Lowepro CompuRover), which means I can haul water and some snacks without putting a strain on my shoulders. But if you can get all your gear in your pockets, so much the better.
• Carry a torch at all times. You’ll want this anyway when you’re inside a dolmen or tumulus, but it also has photographic applications. You can ‘paint’ with light using long exposures (I plan to blog on this technique very soon). And even if you plan to use flash, a torch (or flashlight, for our American friends) gives you enough illumination to frame and focus the picture. I always have a tiny LED torch on my keyring, but also carried a 2 D-cell Maglite.
• Flash is more useful than you might think. For interiors, it may be the only light you have. But even when shooting menhirs in broad daylight, it’s useful to be able to fill in the shadows, to retain some detail. Also, flash on a nearby standing stone helps pick it out from the background. So carry a flashgun at all times. I’ll be blogging on this, too.
• A tripod is good – sometimes essential. But if you can’t be bothered, carry a monopod. It’s often the case that you need to use a small aperture to get the depth of field you need – for example, to render both a menhir and the landscape behind it sharp, or perhaps multiple stones in an alignment. A monopod lets you stop down a couple of extra stops over what you’d risk hand-held. A monopod also makes a reasonable walking stick when hacking across the landscape (and there are walking sticks available with camera mounts, though I like to have a quick-release plate on my monopod).
• Think about the context. One standing stone or dolmen looks much like another when isolated in the picture frame. Think about what’s around it and the relationship the monument has to its surroundings.

When we first visited the Alignements de Kerzerho, we’d walked a short way down what seemed like a ancient path before being defeated by tired legs and loss of light. We vowed to return and on our last full day, we did.

First, we had some practical issues to attend to – shopping, dull stuff like that (though it did include buying kouign aman – Brittany’s justly famous buttery, caramelised pastry which, once experienced, will change your life forever. It’s like crack for gourmands).

On the way back from the shops we stopped at Les Dolmens de Rondossec in Plouharnel, and wished we hadn’t bothered. It’s another set of megaliths now crowded by modern development. I also had a problem with a low sun casting my own shadow on nearly everything I wanted to shoot. And there was the eternal problem with sweet wrappers and cigarette stubs (praise be for Photoshop’s spot healing brush and clone tool).

At Erdeven, we parked and strolled into the Kerzerho alignments, which, now familiar to us, looked even more like a neolithic playground. While not an especially auspicious place – it being robbed of its atmosphere by the nearby road – the profligate jumble of stones has an exuberant character, so it is tempting to interpret the monument not as an abasement or fearful tribute (as so much religion seems to demand) but as an expression of joyful optimism. Maybe that’s just because it was sunny.

Taking the path that winds past the Alignements de la Table du Sacrifice, Trish noticed one, smallish stone that had a hole, so that it looked like Fred Flintstone’s doughnut. It brought to mind Men-an-Tol in Cornwall, though significantly smaller (you wouldn’t be able to heal even the most scrofulous child by passing it three times through the hole). Holed stones like this are sometimes assumed to be the entrances to since-destroyed tombs, but that can’t be the case here.

The ‘randonnée’ (rambler’s) path strikes out from the Table du Sacrifice itself. As I mentioned, the first stretch takes you winding along between old, dry-stone walls covered in ivy and lichen, gnarled oak trees and ragged hedges. It is a timeless scene that one could have encountered at any time in the past thousand years. Or perhaps in Narnia, or the fantasy land of your choice.

As you proceed, the scenery changes frequently, a field here, a copse there. If you see any kind of break in the hedge, take a look. We did this and found a gaggle of standing stones, nearly buried in brambles and bracken, veiled by the broken light of the trees. There are menhirs along this path that are not marked even on the 1:25,000 scale walker’s maps. Perhaps they are simply too unremarkable for the cartographers. I found them fascinating, enduringly enigmatic.

At one point, the map simply says ‘Menh.’. This turned out to be misleading. What we found was an area not much smaller than a hockey pitch, partly camouflaged in the dappled light of trees, forming a kind of magical arena in which stood a multitude of stones. The arena was bounded by old walls and a line of stones that could have been ancient (a cromlech, in fact), medieval or 18th Century – hard to tell.

These are the Menhirs de Kerjean. Even Gabriel le Cam’s excellent and comprehensive Guide des Mégalithes du Morbihan pays them scant attention, saying little more than “you will find some stones”. There are, in fact, at least a couple of dozen, some set into the dry-stone walling. Alas, this was the one occasion where we saw an act of overt vandalism – the tag of a graffiti ‘artist’. I didn’t photograph it – I didn’t want to validate it that way.

As usual, we had the place to ourselves – in fact, it was hard to shake the feeling that we had somehow discovered it. With the bright, low sun, the autumn foliage and the complete sense of isolation, this was the most peaceful, most timeless place we visited. It was hard to leave.

After that, the footpath began to climb through glittering beech woods. Then a wide path, heading further uphill, opened up to the left. This was studded with smoothly worn rocks so that the route resembled a partly revealed Roman road. I have no idea of any of these rocks had been placed deliberately, but they certainly aided us in the climb up the slope. At the top, the path opens out into a clearing near the centre of which is a large pine tree. Huddled beneath this, as if sheltering, is a large dolmen. And there are others here, too. This is the site known as Mané-Braz (or Mané-Bras). All the dolmens show some wear and tear, but the largest is truly monumental and gives you a great appreciation for the architecture of these tombs.

With no road anywhere nearby, the only approaches being by footpaths through the woods, this is a serene spot. The dolmens, however, do command your attention. You are aware that this place belongs to them and whatever it is they signify. Trish said she found the place beautiful, but would not want to be there alone at night. However, Zola, our breton spaniel, was happy. The dolmens are above ground, bereft of their covering tumuli, and therefore light and open. He explored them without any visible qualms.

We returned the way we came, making another, brief pause at the Kerjean menhirs. The sun was getting low by the time we got to the car park and we wanted to make a final trip to the beach before heading to the gite.

This was our last day. The next morning we pointed the car for Normandy and home. The Morbihan had impressed us with its beauty and with the wealth of its megalithic heritage. And we live only a few hours away. We’ll be back.

We hadn’t intended to visit Le Petit Ménec – and that would have been a huge mistake.

Most of the guide books, if they mention it at all, treat it as the least important of the Carnac alignments. Then we bought the Michelin guide to Brittany.

A quick aside here about guide books. It’s terribly important to find one that matches your way of travelling and your outlook. A couple of months before making this trip, we’d bought the Rough Guide to Brittany and Normandy. And we found it both irritating and useless. It’s written for young backpackers and so spends a lot of its time telling you how to get there and how to stay cheaply (irrelevant to us). Worse, it shares all the prejudices of youth – deeming places ‘boring’ or worthless if they don’t offer facile distractions. It assumes you can’t possibly want to go somewhere that doesn’t have a bar, club or shops.

The Michelin guide is far more adult. It assumes you are driving and it concentrates on telling you what there is to see and appreciate. It is, as far as I’m concerned, the best guide for the region.

And what it said was: don’t miss Le Petit Ménec. I couldn’t agree more.

This is the most easterly, and among the smallest of the alignments. It is not well signposted – you have to hunt for it down small, forest lanes. In November, the woodland was beautiful, still in its autumn colours picked out by a sharp winter light. On this morning, the sky was cloudless, though winter was making its presence felt by the sharpness of the air.

We arrived at the north end of the alignments, from where they curve east-south-east. There is no car park, just a rough lay-by. Nor is there a fence. Indeed, it has the feel of private land and the path through the alignments seems to be a favourite route for cyclists and locals making their daily walk. Mind you, that’s an assumption based on the very few people we saw there.

The standing stones – few of which are any appreciable size – run down the edge of the woodland, and so are mostly under a canopy of trees (don’t bother looking for the stones on Google Maps – they’re invisible under the foliage). This makes for a very peaceful, contemplative setting. After the initial group, the space, bounded by old, dry-stone walls, opens out and the number of rows increases. This area gave the impression of an arena, a defined area populated by a subdued crowd of stones and skinny trees. Trish and I each felt that the stones looked like a gathering of people upon whose silent and mysterious ceremony we had stumbled. Kind of like the way a bar-room falls silent when a stranger enters. But the effect was not hostile: it was as though they were simply waiting patiently and politely for us to leave.

Someone had had a bonfire here, a ring of small rocks enclosed the ashes (and the twisted remains of a bicycle wheel and some empty beer cans). The setting imbued even this act of littering with a ceremonial veneer.

While the size and number of the standing stones in the main alignments, at Le Ménec and Kermario, boast of the importance of those sites, Le Petit Ménec was the place where we had the strongest emotional response, a place where the inscrutable and mysterious significance of the stones was felt rather than demanded. And, mixed with the young trees, surrounded by woodland, and with no fence or obvious signs of restoration or management, this was the alignment most in harmony with the landscape. Even Zola was happy among these stones (although he’s on guard duty in the picture, right).

Le Petit Ménec was the only megalithic site we visited during the day. It was enough. It was the best. It was the highlight of this trip. Don’t miss it.

This was the day Trish dubbed me ‘Megalith Man’ – a superhero with all the special powers of … a rock. Oh well…

We started early with a drive to Locmariaquer, situated on a small peninsula that frames the west side of the Gulf of Morbihan. Our objective was one of the most famous sites of the region – indeed, one of the most famous megaliths in the world – Le Grand Menhir Brisé. ‘Big Broken Stone’ might not sound like much of an attraction – DisneyWorld doesn’t have a great deal to worry about – but there is a certain magnificence to the idea of stone age man raising a 280-tonne, 20-metre high stone. Whatever they were celebrating, they obviously felt it deeply.

Of course, it was shut. Being one of the most famous sites, it’s kept behind a fence, with entry through the visitor centre (and a fee of 5 € a head). We were there an hour before opening time (10am in the off-season). No matter: there’s plenty to see in this area.

First, we took a look in the nearby cemetery. This wasn’t always a graveyard – somewhere under those bones is a Roman amphitheatre. Tucked in one corner is a large grave monument with a crucifix carved on to the front of what looks, for all the world, like a menhir. It’s a Victorian-era grave. Maybe the ’standing stone’ is just a stylised tribute to the region, or maybe it really is a menhir, stolen for the purpose.

We drove a short while to a nearby dolmen, chosen at random. By a stroke of luck, we had stumbled on one of the best of its type. The Dolmen des Pierres Plates is close to the beach, its covering stones visible among the dunes but the passageway and chamber still mostly underground. It is a rare type, with the passage angled, turning left through about 60 degrees after a couple of metres.

The site’s keepers have allowed a few holes to appear between the capstones and the ground, so some daylight penetrates at strategic places. But I was glad to have a couple of torches with me, especially as I had to crouch very low.

One shaft of daylight strikes a beautifully carved stone. There are other carvings too. There is a side chamber just beyond the turn in the passageway, and a large (but thin) stone nearly blocks the end of the passage creating a chamber behind it.

I spent a long time down there, shooting pictures with a combination of flash, the meagre daylight and ‘painting’ selected stones with the light from the torch.

Trish loved it too, especially the carvings. But Zola, our dog, wanted nothing to do with it. The reluctance to enter a dolmen, that we’d seen at Mané Kerioned, became out-and-out refusal. This was strange behaviour for him. He’s an outstanding guard dog. Wherever we walk, he insists on taking point duty, walking ahead of us to fend off any danger. And he’s not afraid of confined spaces or the dark. He had no hesitation in running in and around the derelict German fortifications on the beach near our gite, even when the tide was starting to lap at their openings. But no amount of cajoling or dragging would get him into that dolmen. He’s not afraid of Nazi ghosts but obviously has to draw the line somewhere…

On the way back to Locmariaquer, we stopped to photograph a single standing stone and the tumulus de Mané-er-H’roueg. The latter is hidden along a narrow lane between houses (the wall in this lane, at one point, looks to have been made from a menhir). The tumulus has the appearance of a quarry. There’s a stone staircase (looks relatively modern) leading to the burial chamber itself. This boasts some simple carving but is otherwise fairly bland. It is some way underground, however, and you do get a sense of the weight of stone above you. Zola was happy to come down the steps but point-blank refused to enter the chamber.

Then back to Le Grand Menhir Brisé. The guide books say that visits are by guided tour. Once again, however, we benefited from visiting out of season. We were the only people there and could wander freely – visite libre.

The Grand Menhir, even broken into four pieces, is impressively huge. There is no telling when it was toppled, though current thinking is that it might have been within a few hundred years of being raised. Fairly recent excavations have revealed signs of a number of other menhirs raised in a line with the big one. It may be part of one of these that is now a capstone in the Tables des Marchands dolmen that stands just yards from the Grand Menhir. Another part of this same stone (identified by the carvings on the two pieces, which match up like a jigsaw) is to be found in the dolmen on Gavrinis island, 4km away. And the large rock that caps the Er-Grah tumulus, also alongside the Grand Menhir, may be a third piece from the same stone.

This raises the fascinating idea that neolithic man placed no great value in the stones themselves – that while their function may have been sacred, the stones themselves were not. It also demonstrates that we cannot regard megalithic society, and its monuments, as a single, consistent entity. If it was neolithic people who toppled the Grand Menhir, what was their reason? Was there a change in religion? Or was it more social or political? If the stones were raised as a function of the status and powers of a priestly class, perhaps that class lost its status. This is all speculation, as much else about this period. But we must be careful not to get too dewy-eyed and mystical about these things, because it’s possible that the original owners and users of these monuments were not nearly so romantic.

The Table des Marchands dolmen is also impressively large. The sun was still low and cast interesting patterns inside the large burial chamber – one of the few dolmens in which one can happily stand upright. There is some carving, most notably on the large stele opposite the entrance, covered with a crosier (shepherd’s crook) motif. A nearby sign asks you not to touch this stone – which we obeyed, though we temporarily removed the sign to take pictures – one of the advantages of being there alone!

The site is also home to the Er-Grah tumulus – basically a big pile of stones. This remained largely undiscovered until recently. The main section, with its burial chamber (which is not open, so you can’t go in) has been known about for some time – at least since the 19th Century (although it had already been plundered by then). But in 1991, excavators started to uncover more of the tumulus, and by the following year they had revealed a structure 140 metres long! And that’s after a significant amount of it had disappeared: the north end of the tumulus was known as Er Vinglé – the Breton word for ‘quarry’ because that’s how it had been used – as a source of stones.

These three monuments are important sites and a visit is obligatory if you’re in the area and haven’t been before. But as I mentioned before, this is theme-park archeology, a site so carefully and perfectly preserved that it has become a museum exhibit, robbed of atmosphere. I was glad we visited. I doubt we’d go again.

In the afternoon, we drove to Carnac’s Kerlescan alignments. This is the most easterly of what are regarded the ‘main’ sets of stones -by which I guess they mean those in need of protecting with a fence. Fortunately, the gate is left open during the day and you’re free to wander around. At the western end of the group, lines of stones form three sides of a near-rectangle, the fourth being occupied by what’s left (which isn’t much) of a long barrow. As usual, the standing stones at the western end of the lines are huge, diminishing and converging as you move east. Although there’s a riding school right up against the Kerlescan site (and some of the stones seem to have been moved to make way for it), the surrounding woodland makes this a very peaceful and picturesque place.

Once again, however, Zola had moments of doubt. He was profoundly suspicious of the large standing stones you see at the left-hand end of the row in the photo (above right). He wouldn’t go near them.

The photography was challenging, with lots of fast-moving cumulus making for highly unpredictable light. I found myself shooting into sun a great deal, and discovered just how much my 18-70mm Nikkor lens likes to flare at the least opportunity.

The gorse and heather are especially thick here – which I discovered every time I knelt to take a shot.

We walked around the riding school and along a footpath that took us deep into the woods to find Le Géant du Manio and Le Quadrilatère de Crucuno (or du Manio, as some have it). It’s the latter you find first and the effect is magical. One moment you are enjoying a walk in the woods: the next, you are faced with a strange, inscrutable construction of obviously ancient provenance. It helped that the sun was getting very low now, so we saw the Quadrilatère in veiled and dappled light.

The low stones create a rectangle that looks like an arena for some arcane ceremony. In fact, it’s believed that these are the retaining stones for a long-gone tumulus. Whatever the explanation, there is a definite sense that one is on sacred ground.

The Quadrilatère had so stolen my attention that I missed seeing the ‘Giant’ at first – which is surprising given that it stands some 6.5m high! It is the tallest stone in the Carnac group. It is given a respectful space, the trees having been cleared back to form an open area stretching from the Quadrilatère. At first, this bare ground appeared disconcertingly like a parade ground, or perhaps a car park. After we had spent a little while there, however, contemplating the stone in the golden, broken light coming through the trees, this open space took on a more ceremonial aspect.

It does make the setting somewhat boring for photography, however. We were joined by another couple. The husband busied himself taking snaps while the wife complained that they had missed the light because it was behind the trees. They left. Soon after, faint shafts of sunlight began hitting the menhir. I moved into the surrounding woodland to get my shots, having to use some relatively low shutter speeds. Fortunately, I was using a monopod. I think these may be among the best shots I got on this trip. I’m still working on them but will post a note as soon as I add them to the portfolio. They place the menhir very much in the context of the landscape, so much so that it is not immediately obvious, and has to be discovered.

Walking back to the car, we found that the light had become very rich indeed. I fired off some more shots of the Kerlescan stones, now in a much more subtle mood. It’s obvious that I will have to revisit these sites many times, in different seasons and different lights.

Mostly a sightseeing day, in spite of the dull, overcast conditions. We spent the morning at St Cado, a beautiful little village on an island in the River Etel estuary. While finding somewhere to eat our packed lunch (yes, we have become our parents) we passed through the village of Kerhuen which has its own dolmen. That’s not unusual around here, of course. Pretty much everywhere has its own dolmen.

Kerhuen’s megalith is perched on a small plot of land tightly ringed by bungalows and roads. It’s a patch of scrappy lawn that, in an English village, would probably house a phonebox and a bus stop – a token piece of public land indifferently maintained by the council. The dolmen is average,but notable for the impossibility of photographing it without including overhead power and phone cables and/or bungalows. It was also littered with beer cans, cigarette stubs and sweet wrappers – something we would see many times. Dolmens appear to be places that teenagers can use as clubhouses. I think I would have done the same at that age.

On the one hand, you could think that, in such an unrelentingly suburban environment, it is wonderful and surprising to find a monument built 5,000 or 6,000 years ago. What village wouldn’t benefit from having a piece of history like this?

On the other hand, one can reflect on how this important artefact has been so grudgingly granted its place in this urban sprawl, and how such a parsimonious allotment of space has robbed it of its magic.

Oh well, perhaps if there weren’t so many dolmens in this region, it might have been treated more generously. As it was, I stopped the car and got out to shoot what pictures I could, more out of a sense of duty than any expectation of creating a worthwhile image.

The weather brightened somewhat in the afternoon. We drove to Larmor-Baden to get a look at the Gulf of Morbihan. I’d read so much about the tumulus on the island of Gavrinis – one of the major sites in the region – and felt a little frustrated that the boat trips to the island don’t run at this time of year. But, looking at the map, we thought me might at least get a glimpse of the island.

Standing at the port at Larmor-Baden, we tried to work out which of the many islands was Gavrinis, and deduced that it must be hidden by the small, tree-lined island that seemed close enough to touch. It was only later, having become more accustomed to the small scale of the map, that we realised that island was Gavrinis! The tumulus, however, is on the far side, out of sight.

We drove a little further east, parked, and took a stroll around Ile Berder. This is private property but with a public footpath around its periphery, through stunningly beautiful pine woods. At one point we found a jumble of rocks, a few of them seemingly shaped and carved, cleverly arranged as seats. There was something about them that suggested the carving of the rocks was old. The trouble is, granite always looks ancient. And it can be hard to tell a ruined ancient monument from a collection of boulders. I’d like to know more about this seat, though.

At the southern tip of the Ile Berder, we had a good view of the tiny island of er Lannic. Silhouetted against the bright water, we saw the jagged shapes of its cromlech – a semi-circle of standing stones that curves down into the water, so that half of them are submerged. There is, apparently, a second semi-circular cromlech continuing from the first (so that, together, they made a shape like the number 3), but this is now permanently under water.

This wasn’t always the case. In neolithic times, the water level was as much as 6 metres lower. Most of what is now the Gulf of Morbihan would have been a fertile valley system with three rivers running through it. It makes you wonder what else is under there…

Things weren’t going well. Here’s a technical tip for you: if you decide to take your desktop Mac with you on holiday, and opt for the cordless keyboard and mouse, first check that you haven’t switched off Bluetooth. Logging into a Mac without a keyboard is problematic. I won’t bore you with the details, but the solution involved buying a USB keyboard and borrowing a USB mouse. It was on our way back from the shop that we found the Mané Kerioned dolmens.

They are by a main road, on a rise nearly surrounded (as so much is in this part of Brittany) by beautiful pine forest. Two of the dolmens are on the surface, their covering tumuli having disappeared. They have that massive, Flintstone-like quality: although never intended to be seen this way, they have a wonderfully sculptural solidity that tempts you into reading significance into the form. This is a mistake, of course. They are like that for practical, structural reasons.

A squeal of delight told me that Trish had discovered something interesting. It was the third dolmen, which is still underground. I joined her in the small burial chamber, its roof so low that Trish (at 5ft 1.5in tall) could only just stand near-upright in one spot – in all other places she had to crouch. What had delighted her was finding carvings on a number of the stones. Indeed, there is something about these engraved surfaces that adds a special dimension to the monuments. They are like a message, a direct connection between us and the people who felt compelled to grind them into the stones’ surfaces several thousand years ago. Inside the dolmen, you could forget about the nearby road and slip back those many millennia.

Zola wasn’t impressed. He’s our breton spaniel, a profoundly bolshy and uppity hound who would normally be scampering all over the place. But he seemed reluctant to enter the dolmen – Trish found herself dragging him inside. We didn’t think much about it … until a day or two later.

We had the site pretty much to ourselves – something that would be repeated throughout the trip and another good reason for going out of season. We were also impressed by the easy access to these sites. Mané Kerioned is regarded as one of the best megalithic sites in the region, certainly among the best of the dolmens. Yet there is no fence, no fee, no permission required.

In the afternoon, we decided on a quick tour of the Quiberon peninsula (Presqu’île de Quiberon). The object of the trip wasn’t strictly megalithic – just general sightseeing. We found a few menhirs along the way, of course, usually near the road and therefore enjoying all the auspicious atmosphere of a fire hydrant. But worth documenting all the same.

We also came across some derelict German blockhouses from the Second World War. These are littered all over this coastline (much of which remains in military use). They reminded me of the ancient monuments we had come here to see: although their function is known, unlike standing stones, they sit there with the same kind of monumental imperviousness.

My good friend Doug Selway is an artist who has produced some striking work – painting and printmaking – based on the military constructions at Orford Ness. Thinking about his work and seeing these monolithic relics made me decide to start a companion project to my photos of ancient sites – working title, ‘Modern Megaliths’. These images will be posted on my professional photography website.