La Varde
Many of the other dolmens didnÕt have the fortune of being filled and buried with sand for many years like La Varde and therefore been kept ion good condition. This site was rediscovered in 1811 by soldiers who were stationed on this hill. While raising a rampart around their camp using the grass for turf, they exposed the capstones. Sir John Doyle, the Governor sent a party to excavate but for safety reasons stopped the exploration. During the summers of 1837-38 La Varde was thoroughly explored by the Lukis family. Full of sand, the grave revealed burials in at least two phases separated by a layer of limpet shells and pebbles. They also found many bones, some of children and some cremated remains in the lower of the two layers. Bones and skull fragments were found between the uprights and sherds from over 150 pottery jars were also unearthed.
Ferdinand Brock Tupper wrote in his 1854 History of Guernsey and its Bailiwick (p 392):
Cromlech at LÕAncresse Š In the year 1811, a large cromlech was accidentally discovered, completely buried with drift sand, on an eminence near the beach at LÕAncresse, in Guernsey: it is 45 feet in length by 15 feet in width, and nearly 8 feet in height within the area at the western end, whence it gradually contracts on each side and at the top, near the eastern end. This space is covered by five larger and two smaller blocks of granite, which are not in contact: the western block is computed to weigh about thirty tons, it being nearly 17 feet long, 10 1Ś2 wide and 4 1Ś2 thick; and it was probably placed there by means of rollers. The second block is 16 feet long, the third smaller, and so they gradually diminish until the seventh. This fine cromlech was left filled and most imperfectly explored until the year 1837, when, after considerable labour, it was cleared of sand, and its primeval contents exposed, at the expense and through the antiquarian zeal of F. C. Lukis, Esq. before mentioned.
On the floor were then found two layers consisting of human bones, urns of coarse red and black clay, stone and clay amulets and beads, bone pins, etc., the layers, like those of cists, being separated by flat fragments of granite: the lower stratum was laid in a rude pavement on the natural soil. The remains were deposited in a singular manner: the unburnt bones occupied either end of the floor, the middle third being allotted to those which had been submitted to the action of fire; not a vestige of charcoal was to be detected with them. The bones of individual skeletons were heaped together confusedly, and each heap surrounded by a ring of round flat pebbles; the urns, which were of remarkably rude shape and material, being near or within the rings. Some heaps consisted, as it were, of parentÕs and childrenÕs ashes mingled together, for within the same ring of pebbles were the bones of persons of all ages: an unusual quantity of bones of very young children were found. The lower stratum only contained the burnt bones, among which likewise a few tusks of the boar, perhaps worn as trophies of the chase, and consigned to the fire with the dead hunterÕs body.
Four flat discs, from six to twelve inches in diameter and one in thickness, formed the same ware as the urns, were also found, and doubtless served as lids to some of the urns, which had broad flat edges: as these lids are furnished with central handles, it may be inferred that the urns were replenished from time to time, the cromlech being a hollow vault or catacomb. In no instance was the urn used to contain the ashes of the dead, and it was doubtless filled with liquid or food Š some were quite entire, and of those broken many had been restored. As time and ages elapsed, and, possibly, as all memory of the departed became lost, their remains were removed to make room for others; those so removed were placed in the interval between the props, and were lost to site; but further space being again required, many cart loads of limpet shells, and a little yellow clay, were strewn upon the original deposit; and flat stones, as already said, were placed over all to form a new floor.
On one of my visits I took a compass. Passage graves Creux ¸s Fees, Le Trˇpied and Le Dˇhus (and La Rocque Qui Sonne) are pretty much aligned east-west which makes reasonable sense as this is the line of the sunÕs rising and setting - not difficult to understand how and why. La Varde does not do this and points east-south east. Standing on the first capstone and standing right at the back of the dolmen, it is very clear to see that the passage to this grave may be aligned to Rocque Balan. This I believe is the basis of the rocks link to the Beltane cult of rebirth. Before the days of writing, beliefs and practices where passed down from generation to generation and played a large part in the everyday lives of the people. Over the years the worship of the stone in the memory of the dead ancestors buried over at La Varde could easily have become the spring rebirth festival. |
