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.

I hadn’t expected them to be quite so close to the town. Heading out from the centre, we found ourselves at the visitor’s car park for the Le Ménec alignments almost immediately. A few stones peeked tantalisingly over the rise on the opposite side of the main road, but we resisted the urge to dive straight in. I’d waited 30 years for this: it had to be done properly.

After a fast visit to the visitor’s centre, to buy guide books, we took our first real look from the viewing platform on top of the building. It’s a staggering sight. For anyone accustomed to seeing standing stones alone or in ragged circles, to gaze on the meandering rows of Le Ménec almost beggars belief.

This is the most westerly alignment. The rows contain around 1,150 menhirs, with the standing stones diminishing in size and the lines edging closer together as you head east.

Like most of the Carnac alignments, Les Alignements du Ménec are closed off by a low, green fence. In peak months, you are allowed in only by arrangements and as part of guided tours. Out of season, however, you can wander freely around the main part of the Le Ménec alignments, from 9am to 5pm (in November, when we were there, that ruled out sunrise and sunset photographs). This protection may be irritating to some, and the locals were furious about it – many still are. But this entire area of the Morbihan département has a fragile ecosystem. Soil erosion is a particular problem. Having countless tourists tramping around the stones destroys the vegetation – particularly the heather and gorse – and that subsequently threatens to topple the stones. The restriction on access is a responsible measure to protect these monuments for the future.

The stones at the western end are truly huge. By the time you get to the road that splits the Ménec group, they are down to waist height. Even a casual examination reveals that the lines are far from orderly: suggestions that this monument was some kind of astronomical computer are hard to credit. True, the majority of the stones have been ‘restored’ to their current positions, primarily during the 19th Century, but such restoration would probably have tended to greater precision, rather than less. Whatever the function of the stones, they make an impressive statement in the landscape.

The eastern section of the Ménec alignments is not open to the public, but is less impressive anyway and quickly peters out.

We continued east, ignoring the small (and fenced off) Kérabus group and spent the next couple of hours at Les Alignements de Kermario. This is the longest of the alignments, with around 1,000 stones. Alas, it is entirely fenced off, though there is an astonishing view from the old, derelict windmill (fitted with a modern metal, and slightly wobbly, viewing platform) about two-thirds of the way along.

What struck me most about Kermario was the variety of shapes. Current thinking is that the shapes are, in fact, entirely arbitrary and random. Around 1764, the Comte de Caylus, one of the founders of archeology in France, attempted (without success) to read the stones as ciphers, as though each row was a line of text written in ancient symbols. Most archaeologists today accept that the shapes are the result of natural erosion, the stones having been quarried from surface locations, rather than mined.

For this trip, we were staying in a gite just outside Erdeven. On our way back, we stumbled across the Kerzerho alignments, on the south-east of the town – utterly unmissable because the road cuts through one end, isolating a handful of stones on the south-west side. Passing by the site you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a quarry, or the yard of a particularly ambitious monumental mason. The stones, many of them very big, appear jumbled at first, as though abandoned or unfinished. Seeing the alignment takes a bit of effort.

There’s no fence here. We found children playing happily on some of the stones, which seemed oddly appropriate. Perhaps that’s because, for me, one of the most compelling impressions created by these monuments is one of joy and optimism. They are the work of people who contemplated the future with hope and confidence, I feel. That’s an entirely emotional response, of course, based on no intellectual foundation. As such, it cannot be denied!

The main group comprises around 165 menhirs, but the proximity to the road and the park-like surroundings don’t make for an auspicious location. The same was true of the the Carnac Le Ménec and Kermario alignments. They’re not exactly McMegaliths , but it’s difficult to achieve a sense of wonder and entrancement with trucks roaring past.

We spotted some more standing stones across a field and found ourselves face to face with the vast menhirs of the Alignements de la Table du Sacrifice. These were among the largest and most impressive standing stones we would see on the whole trip. They form another alignment that winds down a wooded path to the ‘table’ itself – a recumbent stone next to another large menhir. These are on a path that, at the time we arrived, was being used by cows going in to be milked. At other times, it’s used by ramblers – one of many route de randonnée in the area. The path, bordered by gnarly oaks, appeared ancient – you could easily picture yourself in medieval times. We wanted to explore more, but the light was failing. We swore we would return.

Just a few weeks after deciding to embark on this project I found myself at ground zero for megaliths. Carnac.

We like to holiday in Brittany during autumn or winter. On a previous visit, we mooted the idea of driving up to Carnac, but were too busy.  It was a disappointment as visiting the alignments had been a dream for 30 years.

When I first became interested in megalithic sites, as part of an art school project back in 1977, I read about Carnac and its thousands of stones arranged in mysterious rows with both fascination and despair. The despair came from knowing I would never see them. For a working class boy living in Cheshire, the idea of travelling to France just to visit some stones was too fantastic. Now I live about 3.5 hours drive away (3 hours if I drive like a Frenchman) and have at last realised that dream.

I will blog about the sites we visited and sights we saw in subsequent postings – with some pix, once I’ve finished working on them. But first, a general impression.

I wasn’t disappointed. Yes, the main Carnac alignments are now fenced-off, but in the off-season you can stroll freely about the main part of Le Ménec and Kerlescan. And Le Petit Ménec isn’t fenced and is possibly the most beautiful and moving of the monuments.

Other sites weren’t so impressive and my advice to anyone new to the area would be to seek out the more remote and less-visited sites. Le Grand Menhir Brisé, for example, notwithstanding its astonishing size (albeit broken into four pieces) and the accompanying cairns, is in a carefully manicured enclosure, with hedge and visitor centre, hemmed in by modern housing, and feels like a bland piece of sculpture in a small, municipal park. All sense of mystery, any intimation that this may once have been an auspicious place, has been eradicated. It’s like a neolithic theme park. I called it ‘MegalithWorld’ but Trish, my wife, came up with the better, if more savage, ‘McMegalith’. We encountered a few McMegaliths – perhaps a reflection of just how common they are in this area.

Far more interesting, more intimate and infinitely more spooky was the nearby dolmen of ‘Les Pierres Plates’ – but more of that later.

For now, another couple of bits of advice for new visitors:

• The best maps are IGN’s ‘Carte de Randonnée’ series. These are 1:25,000 scale (1cm = 250m). They are designed for walkers and are much more useful than the same organisation’s ‘Carte de Promenade’ (1:100,000). IGN, by the way, is the French equivalent, near enough, of the Ordnance Survey.
• Even at this scale, not everything is marked, so keep your eyes peeled. We went on a walk from the Kerzerho alignments at Erdeven to the dolmens of Mané-Braz (highly recommended) and found a few stones not marked on the chart.
• Autumn is a good time to visit. With the leaves off the trees, you get better light on the monuments, there are fewer grockles to get in the way of your pictures, and you can stroll freely about the fenced-off alignments at Carnac.
• Buy ‘Le Guide des Mégalithes du Morbihan’ by Gabriel le Cam (published by Coop Breizh) if you have even just basic french. It’s a good visual guide to the sites, with at least one photo of each. It’s not so hot at pinpointing where each site is, so you’ll need to cross-reference with a map or another guide, but it gives you an excellent idea of what to expect at each site, and therefore lets you prioritise more easily.

That last point is important. There are so many menhirs and dolmens in this area that you become blasé – and picky. We found ourselves spotting megaliths while driving and thinking, ‘nah, not good enough’. The locals practically use them as doorstops. In fact, new ones are being discovered all the time, much to the annoyance of developers and individuals who want to build houses.

In France, having your house built to order is very common. You buy a patch of land and have a bungalow (‘pavillon’) built on it. That is, unless the digger unearths a dolmen or menhir, at which point all building work stops and an area of one hectare around the discovered rock becomes protected. That’s good, of course, though it does mean (in a country where breaking the rules is the national sport) that builders are motivated to just bulldoze the site and tell no-one.

All the same, for the megalith hunter, there’s more than enough to entrance and amaze you on the ‘Côte des Mégalithes’. About which, more later…

When you’re entranced by the mysteries of the neolithic age, held by the puzzles its people have left for us, it’s all too easy to wander into the realm of fantasy. Those who long for a return to the ‘golden age’ of our pagan forebears often describe it as a time of harmony between man and nature, as a simpler and purer age in which mankind possessed powers and knowledge long lost to the dubious virtues of science and (what is frequently dismissed as) ‘civilisation’.

Hmm, really?

It was a simpler age, certainly – in the sense that amputating a leg is ’simpler’ than a course of antibiotics. It was purer if purity is defined in lack of options. And that oft-lauded harmony with nature? Maybe people then simply had no choice. You lived closer to nature because there was nowhere else to be. You were more strictly ruled by the seasons because a lack of technology left you powerless to act otherwise.

There is much evidence that life then was indeed, in Thomas Hobbes’ famous phrase, “nasty, brutish and short”. Preserved bogmen from various ages have shown the high prevalence of disease and ailments such as tooth abscesses. Life expectancy was probably less than half of what we can reasonably expect today. Violence was common, both in war and in ritual. And there is little evidence – and no reason to expect – any form of intellectual activity outside of the rigid and narrow confines of their religious and social systems.

Frankly, I wouldn’t swap one week of my life today for a lifetime back then. Today I enjoy long hours of leisure with incredible choice of how to spend it, the ability to travel and experience cultures outside my own, centuries’ worth of accumulated knowledge and art (and the ability to discover and encounter it – not least because of modern technology such as the internet and cars), true comfort in which to enjoy these things, the safety net of a (mostly) peaceful society, my health supported by modern medicine (knowledge and technology again). Stephen Fry has said that people often imagine that he might have been happier living in the 18th Century, but that he actually prefers to live right now, at the culmination of mankind’s development. I couldn’t agree more.

If we ever hope to understand the lives, abilities, dreams and challenges of stone-age man, we have to be careful not to look backwards through a dark filter of our own prejudices and desires. It seems to me that so many portrayals of a pagan golden age are rooted more in the inadequacies, fears and prejudices of today’s neo-pagans – for example, that their dismissal of modern science and technology stems from the fact that it leaves little room for their fantasies.

Or perhaps ‘beliefs’ would have been both a kinder and more accurate term there. Because what they actually propose is a form of faith.

I would never rule out the possibility that standing stones and circles are somehow connected to a form of ‘earth energy’. Dowsing does seem to work, sometimes, though I’ve never seen a truly rigid test (all ‘evidence’ I’ve seen is anecdotal or impossible to analyse rationally and failures are rarely reported). And there certainly are plenty of mysteries connected with ancient people and the relics they left behind.

But the same can be said for the artefacts, phenomena and beliefs of any religion. Christians, for example, dismiss the need for proof in much the same way that neo-pagans and new-agers dismiss science as being ‘inadequate’ for testing or validating the powers and capabilities in which they believe. It is the failing of science, they claim, that we cannot detect or measure earth spirits or the charges running along ley lines.

Yet without some degree of rationality, without some kind of reliable yardstick, we can never have any confidence that what we believe is actually anything like the truth. I would rather be certain of a few things than put my faith in a great number of unverifiable hunches. And science is the only way we have of reaching a reasonable level of certainty.

Investigating the possibility of so far unexplained phenomena is both valid and fun. To simply believe in them is lazy. To defend them against conflicting evidence, gathered within a rational, self-correcting and logical framework (such is science) is feeble-minded.

But then dismissing science as being inadequate or wrong leaves one free to indulge in magic. Today’s neo-pagans project their own desires and fears onto the monuments of the past. Perhaps it doesn’t matter to them that this brings them no closer to the people of ancient times: in fact, it creates another barrier, masking what little we actually know beneath a veneer of fantasy. You only have to look at today’s Druids to see a theme-park version of neolithic man.

The mystery is important to me, and is what draws me to these sites. Maybe there are powers at work here, but without knowing what they are, any speculation is worthless – worse, it almost guarantees that you cannot get closer to the truth of these sites and monuments because you are imposing on them fabrications of your own. These sites are mysterious because we don’t know. For me, that’s more powerful an attraction than any magic.

It’s about time I photographed this standing stone. Not only is it just down the road, within easy walking distance, it’s also on land owned by friends of ours – so we’ve passed it many times.

The menhir is clearly signposted from the village. You crest a hill with, to the north, a small ancient-looking wood, full of boulders and the occasional cow. The menhir is on the south side of the road, across a field and on the edge of another small wood.

It’s a large stone, nestled among ivy-covered boulders and rocky outcrops, so it’s easy to imagine there might be other, unrecognised stones within the wood. The creators of these monuments often chose sites with an eerie or auspicious feel, so it’s possible that the arrangement of the boulders is as significant as the standing stone itself.

I hurried down to the stone because it was a beautiful All Hallow’s Eve day. The sun was setting in a clear, wintry sky. Perfect, I thought. Actually, I was wrong. The sun was already behind some trees, and only faint traces of it remained on the stone. So I’m going to have to revisit this one – perhaps many times.

If you visit this stone, please look out for the horses. The owners often have two ponies in this field. If you see electric fencing or tapes, please treat them with respect – for your own sake as much as the animals’.

This is, in fact, a perfect location to base yourself if you want to explore the many megalithic sites in the area. The owners operate three self-catering holiday cottages (gites) – see here for details. They are set within beautiful grounds which include a number of other stones that may be boulders, though some look remarkably like small menhirs.

We always knew the heads were there. They shared our bedroom every night, quiet, unseen. Finally, we decided they should be uncovered.

Our house is old: it was built around 1500 during what is known, in this part of Normandy, as L’Epoque Anglaise (the English Era). Although the property spent part of its recent history as a near ruin, some original features remain. The massive granite blocks that surround the main door and window are carved with a decorative roll and each is surmounted by a carving depicting an inverted shield carrying a fleur-de-lys. The main window is covered by an iron grille in the middle of which is another fleur-de-lys, this time inside an inverted heart. The wooden roof wall plates are carved with a line of tooth-like dentilles. And there are stone seats and a granite sink in the living room.

The main room also boasts a huge fireplace – 2.6m wide and more than 1m deep, with the front edge of the overhanging chimney being one gigantic (though worryingly cracked) piece of granite. This is supported on two huge granite corbels that run back through the wall. Each corbel is about 40cm wide, nearly 50cm deep and more than 1.5m long, so that it pokes out of the wall on the outside of the house to achieve its cantilevering effect.

Part of the house collapsed long ago, and one disused corbel now lies abandoned in the garden, for all the world like a fallen menhir.

All the corbels are carved with a kind of fluting effect. The detail on the right-hand corbel supporting the fireplace is less ornate than the one on the left. In fact, it looks unfinished. This, we thought, is consistent with the rest of the carving. Flanking the fireplace, on the uprights supporting the corbels, are carved heads – unquestionably the best original features in the house. Until now.

The head on the left shows a classically Norman face. A band across the forehead makes it look as though he might be wearing a soldier’s helmet. The feature on the right-hand side, however, is somewhat cruder. There are no facial features – just what we took to be a deeply cleft chin. Again, we thought it was unfinished. We were wrong.

A visit from a local historian put us right. The head on the left, he said, was that of the seigneur, the master of the house. The feature on the right (image, left) represents his lady, but not her face – it is, in fact, a depiction of a far more intimate part of her body. Apparently, the seigneur’s memento would once have had a similarly bawdy embellishment, with the stone below the head carrying a large phallus. This has since been reduced, by people in a more prudish age, to a mere stump.

There are two more heads, but in the 11 years we’ve owned the house we had only barely glimpsed them once or twice. They also flank a fireplace – in the bedroom. By the way, the number of fireplaces (there’s another in the kitchen, a fourth in one of the barns and yet another in the boulangerie), the size of the granite blocks and above all the carving tell us that the house was built by a wealthy man.

The bedroom fireplace lacks a chimney – that disappeared many generations ago. And the heads – at least in all the time we’ve owned the house – had been hidden behind a large bed with built-in wardrobes. We’d never much liked the bed, but it was very French and very useful. Finally, though, we’ve got rid of it and have taken our first proper look at the carved heads. And they’re even better than we imagined – finer, indeed, than those of the main fireplace downstairs.

This time, the seigneur (see first picture) is clearly on the right-hand side, because that head has a beard. (Although, having seen some of the locals, maybe that’s not such a reliable guide.) And, luckily for him, his phallus is intact (see right), if a tad, um, stylised.

And unlike in the salon, his companion has a face (last picture, below). In fact, the head on the left-hand side of the fireplace looks remarkably similar to the one in the same location downstairs. So there’s some debate about where this fireplace depicts two males or whether the crudity of the carving and the stylised representation means that it’s hard to tell male from female (apart from when they show beards and genitals).

Anyway, we’re pleased to have finally met our guests – or maybe we’re their guests, as they were here first and will no doubt outlast us.

(Footnote: Yes, I know this has nothing to do with megaliths, but I will use this blog, from time to time, to talk about other items of historical interest in the region.)