Lost dolmen of La Coupe

In today's episode, we are going to be exploring the lost dolmen of La Coupe, a series of ancient stones on the sea shore in Jersey, that have given local archaeologists and geologists much to deliberate.

Are these stone just a jumbled mass on the sea shore, or are they actually a megalithic monument?  If so, how did they get there?  Where they carefully placed there in prehistoric times or did coastal erosion mean they tumbled from a hill top near by? 

Join hosts Mel and Perry with special guest Paul Chambers, Head of the Aspiring Jersey Island Geopark project, to discuss the mystery surround the lost dolmen. Find out why we call these megalithic structures are called dolmen in Jersey (an incorrect term) and the prehistoric origins of Jersey.

Paul also talks about the Aspiring Jersey Island Geopark project, an Island-wide initiative to become a Geopark.

To find out more about the Geopark project visit the Jersey Island Geopark website.

You can read more about the Igneous Origins of Jersey on the Jersey Heritage website. 

To support Jersey Heritage, become a Member or make a donation here.

Transcript

Perry (00:02):

Welcome to the Jersey Heritage Podcast,

Mel (00:05):

The Small Island Big Story Sessions.

Perry (00:08):

You are listening to Mel and  Perry.

Mel (00:11):

In today's episode, we are going to be exploring the Lost dolmen of La Coupe, a series of ancient stones that have given local archaeologists and geologists. Much to deliberate.

Perry (00:22):

We are joined by Paul Chambers, our head of geoparks, who'll be giving his insight.

Mel (00:29):

Welcome, Paul, to our episode Today, obviously we're gonna be talking about the lost dolmen of LA Coup. However, I thought it might be nice to give our listeners a bit of background in terms of how you got into geology and how did that kind of come about for you?

Paul (00:44):

Yeah, of course. Well, I probably introduced myself, so I'm Paul Chambers and I've recently started at Jersey Heritage as the head of Geo Park here. So I've only been working in the organization for a few weeks and things, but my background is actually in geology. So I grew up in Jersey, had a fascination with a seashore initially, and used to collect seashells and things, and eventually ran out of new shells to find and so started collecting fossils. And that went on to an interest in geology which I did at university. And then as a job for a while. Then switched into other things, worked in the media and the environment sector for a long time. And now life's gone full circle and <laugh> I'm, I'm back doing geology in Jersey as part of the Geo Park, which is great.

Mel (01:35):

It was really nice to have you as part of the team. You've already taught us so much in terms of being head of Geo Park again. For our listeners, what is a Geo Park for anyone that might not know or has ever heard of the term? Well,

Paul (01:50):

Geo Park is a an initiative by UNESCO to recognize the importance of, of global geological heritage. And by that, that's not just you know, sort of dull rocks with lots of minerals and, and things like that. It's actually recognizing that geo heritage is part of our landscape, it's part of our culture. It's obviously got a scientific importance as well. But it's something that needs to be conserved and properly treated. So the Geo Park Initiative is coordinated by UNESCO and it's a status. So at the moment, Jersey has an in an aspiring, I should say, I was gonna say inspiring. It is obviously inspiring <laugh>, but aspiring as well, <laugh> an aspiring geo park the Jersey Island Geo Park. And we are working our way towards getting accreditation as a sort of full geo park as part of the global network. And that process is ongoing. So there's, there's a website that people can see. And that will give a better idea is to the, the, the, the sort of scope of the Geo Park and, and what it includes. But there's also to see what the end product looks like. Just type geo Park into Google or something, and you'll see there's loads of them around the world, and that's what jersey's working towards.

Mel (03:03):

Yeah, it's such an interesting process, isn't it? It's kind of taken us quite a long time to get to where we are already. So hopefully, fingers crossed, there'll be that accreditation in due course.

Paul (03:14):

Yeah, I, I think we, we, we've, we've got a, a great headstart in the sense that an awful lot of our sites have been recognized already through the SSI network, the sites of special interest, which is a, a government of jersey sort of designation in order to sort of protect particular sites and things. But also there's a huge history of geological research here. Jersey's geology is extremely unique. And so in that respect, we, we are ahead of the game at the moment, we hope. And as I say, it's a, there is a process you have to go through for to get the accreditation. And we are working our way through that at the moment.

Mel (03:54):

Let's get stuck into talking about our topic today. So really interestingly, when you started at Heritage, you sent out an email to some of our colleagues about this Lost Dolman of Laco. And obviously that title in itself made me kind of perk up, like, oh, what is this? It sounds really, really exciting, but there's actually, since we did our little field trip to go and see this collection of stones we've actually come to kind of some conclusions of what it could or couldn't be. So let's just start off with what you think it is, Paul. What do you actually think these stones are?

Paul (04:29):

Well, there's the, the million dollar question, I suppose. And I think the, what sparked the interest in the first place was having stumbled across a 1929 article in one of the sote geiers bulletins, which described a, a sort of field trip that was taken by a couple of geologists who were actually going down there to look at something else, but discovered all these stones that were out of place. And they were speculating, well, you know, the, these, this could be due to a shipwreck or megalithic remains or something like that. And it's one of those things I think everyone likes a, a mystery, everyone, even though those of us that grew up with Scooby-Doo and other sorts of things like that, yeah, there's, there's always that <laugh> love of something that's unusual or unknown. And having arrived at Jersey Heritage and really just by chance come across the article again, I thought, well we've got some huge tides coming up and you need a huge tide to get to this site.

Paul (05:30):

Would this be a good opportunity to perhaps go and visit it with, with people that know what they're doing? 'cause I'm, I'm a geologist, I'm not an archeologist. And so that was when a group of us went down there. It, it, we genuinely was a lost doman for a while in the sense that we couldn't find it <laugh>. And we're standing in the wrong gully up to our sort of thighs in freezing cold water until realized that it was actually the next gully across that we needed to be in <laugh>

Mel (05:57):

Saw part of the farm. It was a good,

Paul (05:58):

Yeah, it was. We gotta

Mel (05:59):

It was, wasn't it? We some of the the kind of floor and fauna of the area too, which

Paul (06:03):

Was Yeah, that, yes. 'cause There were lots of those sea hair things, which are these they, they're sort of purple. Well, they, they look like purple bags of jelly. Really? But they're

Mel (06:12):

Actually, yeah, they're like big slugs, aren't they? They are. They,

Paul (06:14):

They, they're not technically a sea slug, but they, that's exactly what they look like. And if they get annoyed, they squirt purple dye everywhere. And

Mel (06:20):

Yeah, sadly, which happened quite a lot. We, yeah, sadly there was a lot of purple dye everywhere. 'cause They are everywhere. You can't miss them once you start spotting them.

Paul (06:28):

Yeah, it's, well, some years you, you get hundreds of them, or, well, millions really. We dunno why and then other years, you, you, you, you just see a few of them around. But this year's a this year is a sea hair year, but we don't know exactly what causes that, whether it's it was triggered by their food or whatever it happens to be. But so loads of those around but no stones. And then we realized we're in the wrong gully, <laugh> and suddenly you see what the, the, the geologists of a hundred years ago meant. There are probably around, I, I think it was around about 80, isn't it? 80 of these stones of various sizes. Some, probably a couple of tons in weight. Others you could lift you know, people that were also low water fishing whilst we were down there.

Paul (07:11):

And, you know, were capable of lifting and looking under these, some of these stones and things, huge assortment of them lying along the length of this gully. It's quite a tight gully. It's not v-shaped, but it is quite narrow. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And the stones are in a sort of long line along it in two groups. There's a, a group of big ones right at the beginning of the gully, and then the rest of 'em are sort of scattered down at the far end. And the point about them is that they are all the rock type that they're made of is either granite or dite. And the nearest source of that is several miles away. In fact, the type of granite and dite that's there means that they would almost certainly have come from the area between sort of Seymour Tower and Eco Tower, that sort of area around there.

Paul (07:54):

And yet these boulders as I say, some of a couple of tons in weight have ended up several miles away, right on the northeast point of the island up at Laco. So how did they get there? And a hundred years ago, the, the guys that looked at there said, well, you know, this is potentially, in fact, their conclusion was, this is a megalithic monument. This is something that probably would've stood on a, a, a mont tree of, of soil that has since been eroded away. And the stones have fallen down the shore into this gully. And so they're now a big jumbled mess. But they, they would've been part of a megalithic monument. And so that was one of the reasons for going down there was to, to take a look. And in terms of conclusions and things, we have got some conclusions.

Paul (08:35):

I don't think they're, they're very definite though. And I suppose chatting to all of us at the time we finished the the sort of field work and things the conclusion is, well, these are probably moved by humans. The reason for that being is that they, they, there seems to be a very select rock type there. So it's not a jumble of different rock types, which is what you'd probably expect if it had been moved by the, the action of the sea or some other sort of thing. Or e even, you know, one of the ideas other I possibilities that they, they were part of icebergs and when the icebergs melted, they dropped their stones and things. Obviously in prehistoric times, this seems to be quite a select very narrow range of, of rock types all from the same bit of the, the south coast.

Paul (09:21):

They are water worn, so they're very smooth boulders. There's no obvious sign that they've been quarried. There's no sharp edges. There's none of the typical sort of quarrying marks and things that you'd expect to see when stone's been chipped away from rock faces and things like that. So somebody's taken some sea warm boulders and they've moved them a, a considerable distance and they've moved them into a very awkward bit of the, the seashore. It's not easy to reach by any means at all by road or, or, or other sorts of means. And so the two obvious options, and there may well be others, but the two obvious ones really are, well, this could have been the result of a shipwreck or perhaps even someone jettisoning stuff off the side of a boat or something like that. So they've been picked up for whatever reason they've been moved and the boat has either come to grief or, or for whatever reason they've, they've dumped them on the seashore there, or the other one, which is that they are part of something part of a structure of some form possibly prehistoric.

Paul (10:21):

We dunno. And that's, I suppose the next stage really having got down there. We've, you've got a, a relatively short window. You need a big tide and obviously low tide gives you a, a certain amount of time on the seashore. And we've managed to achieve quite a lot in that time. We've managed to map out what the rocks, where the rocks are using some of the lidar information that Jersey heritage has got. We've got a rough idea of the height of these things. And the next stage is probably to go back to try and measure and get more precise information on the stones with the idea. I suppose then of trying to see whether it's possible from that and by looking at other monuments and things that we have in Jersey, whether it's possible to actually say, well, if you reconstructed these, if you, if you had the selection of stones, could you actually make a megalithic monument out of it? Or is the range of stones too ridiculous? Are the shapes wrong? Exactly. That kind of thing. So we're at the start of a process there, but given that this is a mystery that's sat around for best part of a hundred years, you've gotta take the first step. And I think we've done that. It,

Perry (11:20):

It certainly would be a huge megalithic monument if, if it did sit on a previous land surface or something. 'cause This really is like a quite a, a long line of stones, especially compared to other sort of gallery graves and stuff like that we've got in Jersey. But an interesting archeological find that I, I recorded last year in the area near Le Cooper on gallery grave is the granite bronze age to neolithic neolithic to Bronze age corn stone saddle corn that was found kind of, I presume, or just eroded out of the side of the, the cliff kind of near the, the carpark. And interestingly, that that is the kind of pink granite that is not typical of the area as well. So I don't really know what to make of that. Presumably it, it is related to the, the kind of like ary landscape around the Cooper on we know that cornerstones are quite often related to tombs and stuff in Jersey. And it, it just kind of begs the question, you know, is, is this part of a wider ritual landscape or ary landscape or something is, it's really hard to note, but yeah, as you said, it's the, the first stages of trying to work out, you know, what can we work out with this? I remember with one of the stones, there was possible signs of quarrying. What can you tell us about that? It was just one stone out of the, the 80 or something, and why might that be there?

Paul (12:49):

It's, yes, there was a potential, what they call a slot mark, which in the days or pre dynamite days before you, you know, the solution to quarrying was just blow everything up. It was a very manual process and people would physically split the rock. So you would use a, a chisel or hammering a chisel to, to put a, a, a long, lengthy groove into the rock and then use a series of wedges and things to try and split the rock. So you, you, you, you put the, the wedges into that groove and then work your work the, the, the sort of cracks and things in the rock to, to sort of split it. If that's the case from my imperfect knowledge of local sort of quarrying techniques and things, it would make it either very early or pre 19th century.

Paul (13:38):

'Cause After that dynamite became the king. And you tend to see on the seashore drill marks where they would drill a hole in the rock, drop the dynamite in, and then run like crazy. Whereas this is a, a, a slot. So a couple of potentials there. First is, well, these, these are great bits of masonry stone. They're fantastic bits of southeast granite and, and diorite and things. Somebody may well have come across them, you know, whether they're a megalithic monument or not. They were sat on the seashore and somebody thought, oh, that's fantastic. I'll nick that for my front door or something. And possibly has taken some of the rocks. So we may not even have a complete set down there or quarried them already. And then started quarrying one of the boulders, but never finished the job. So it just leaves the slot mark in there.

Paul (14:23):

You do see that a lot on the seashore, particularly on the southwest coast, but also round Seymour Tower and things. When people were building seawalls piers, all the towers themselves, the round towers, the you know, Rocco tower and places like that, quite often you, you would use the, the rock that's there locally. And so every now and then when you're on seashore, you come across something that is quite clearly a quarried face. It's done very deliberately. Most of it's done using dynamite, but very occasion you come across the older ones. Anyone that's ever been to the main island at the Minke, that island in the very early 19th century I think it was after about 1805 was very extensively quarried to the point where the, the, the, the fishermen that used to stay out there at the weekends and things took the quarry man's tools and dumped them all in the, in, in the sea <laugh>.

Paul (15:15):

Yeah. Because they thought there wasn't gonna be anything of their iron left. But what it means is if you have a visit there, if you go across there with one of the rib tours or whatever, actually an awful lot of what you are, you're looking at is a very quarried landscape. You'll see very vertical faces and things. Yeah, that's true. Because they were using the old technique. There are loads of these slot marks and other sorts of things there. It's a very good reference point. So the, the, the rocks at Laco, yeah. It's maybe that is evidence of quarrying, although the boulders themselves, as I say, are sea worn which means, and that's not a quick process with granite. Yeah. So that, that's evidence that they've, they've or will probably sea one when they were moved even if it was many hundreds or thousands of years ago. So it could be that somebody's had a go since we also, and again, goes back to it. 'cause You can only do so much in a, in a couple of hours. We need to go back and make sure that it's actually a proper slot market need, needs to be cleaned up and, and properly looked at the same.

Perry (16:09):

But, but yeah, interestingly, definitely not quarried from any cliff face, all the stone of the land around there because it's all this conglomerate kind of stuff that looks really strange and you kind of only really get that corner of the island. Am I right in thinking or

Paul (16:24):

That's right. Yeah. It's, it Roselle conglomerate, which is it's what I think his kids used to call it, pudding stone <laugh> because it's, it, it, it funny, essentially it's this huge massive of boulders and pebbles and things like that, that's all sort of frozen in a, in a, in a sort of mud matrix. Mm-Hmm. So it looks a bit like an old fashioned pudding where you've got raisins and plums and things like that all mixed within there. So it was, it was always, we were always told it was pudding stone. That was the name of it. And then

Paul (16:55):

I think after I joined the so learned that no, no, no, you call it Roselle conglomerate, which is the, the, the technical term for it. But it forms the whole of the southeast of the island. St Catherine's breakwater is built of it et cetera, et cetera. So it, it's something that people in Jersey will be very familiar with. It's very distinctive. And therefore, when you get something like the, the southeast granites and the di rites there, which are very light colored rocks, by and large, they're granitic. So obviously they are crystalline, which means they are in, instead of being sedimentary with loads of bits and pieces in them, they're, they, they're, they're a very well, they're made of minerals that interlock. That's what I'm trying to say. And very distinctive in terms of the patterning that those minerals make. So the, the is is speckled or, or spotty is, is what it looks like. And the granite has this sort of pink texture with, with you know, sort of the occasional minerals and things flaking through it. And that stands out like a sore thumb. Mm-Hmm. I mean, you can see the stones on some of the aerial photos, some of the government aerial photos when they're taken at low tide, that they're, they stand out very obviously at, at Laup because they are completely different to anything that's there.

Perry (18:04):

And it, there definitely is it, it seemed quite common for stones to move a very long way if they were megalithic structures in Jersey. There. There definitely seems to be a lot of selection and careful selection on these stones for, I guess, aesthetic purposes, possibly, or, or some other purpose that we just can't know now. But Stones at the Hbe, for example, have come from, you know, halfway across the island, full way across the island in, in some cases just to be put there. So people might wonder why would they go all that way to grab a load of boulders when there, there's probably some boulders closer by made of different stone. Well, one we don't really know. We can't really ask them. And two, probably some kind of aesthetic choice going into those stones possibly, or some other associations of the stones that, you know, I wouldn't want to guess on. But <laugh>, I wouldn't wanna make up reasons for that.

Paul (18:58):

We do it now, don't we? Yeah. I mean, you know, everyone loves a granite farmhouse. And so we, we, we select building stones, if we're having our kitchens, whatever redone you, you think about what you're gonna use as a surface, you know, for the, so I, I suppose it's, it's perhaps it's human nature. And again I always used to be amazed. I lived in the UK for a while near Cambridge and occasionally go to Ely and look at the cathedral and things there. And I'm embarrassed to say, I dunno how old it is, by any guess, let's say something like 12th century, 13th century, something like that. So several hundred years old and, and yet it's this absolutely enormous thing, reaching right up into the sky with the aspire and all the rest of it would've been by far the biggest thing in the landscape at the time. And you think, well, wow, somebody's gone to all that effort to build this enormous great structure as part of the sort of belief system they've got. And I, I suppose it comes back to it. So yes, they probably could have built something outta wood or, you know, cobbled together something else, but they didn't, they chose to make a statement as part of their sort of belief system. I don't know, speculation, but yeah.

Perry (20:08):

Could very well be the, the effort <laugh> included in getting the stones as part of the part of the kind of symbolic effort into it. You know, I'd like to learn more about geo parks pop into our aspiring Jersey Island Geo Park Visitor Center at the Jersey Museum. It's free to visit

Mel (20:29):

Or visit the website, jersey Island Geo park.org. Do je how, who was the first person that came across these stones and thought themselves, oh, this is interesting. And this is, this could be something who, who first found this and then started researching into it.

Paul (20:52):

It was a local geologist called Charles Buro who I believe was French in origin and not absolutely certain on that. And he was one of actually several geologists we had at the time, this was early 20th century that were busy doing the, what you call the proper locking down of jersey's geology. So making the maps of where all the rock types are making proper studies of the minerals and the, the various sorts of associations and things that were there. And according to the, the article they wrote, they on a, a very big spring tide in the spring of 1928, went onto the seashore there to look at an interesting purple stone or an outcrop of a purple rock that was, was down in that area only to find all these weird outta place boulders. Which obviously took their attention.

Paul (21:47):

And then they started sort of studying that instead. But probably by saying a couple of things, first is it's not the only potential megalithic structure on the seashore. There is a, I ironically we're talking about the Rosee conglomerate being in the northeast of the island, but there's a absolutely whopping great block of it in the middle of the reef just near to Seymour Tower, completely isolated. There's no outcrop anywhere near it that it could come from and everything else. So in the same way that was sort of saying, well, all the granite from the southeast coast has ended up at Laco. There's a huge block of Roselle conglomerate down there. There's also Granitic boulders, which I must admit I've not actually seen. But they are certainly there again, 'cause you can see on the aerial photo and things down by Rocco Tower big line of them there that people have flagged up as potential megalithic monuments before there were some down on the beach at ard, which I have looked for and can't find them anymore.

Paul (22:47):

And they were certainly there a hundred years ago. And so there are other potential sites there, but this is quite controversial stuff. And not everybody in Jersey and certainly I suspect not everybody in the archeological community will agree that these things just because there are stones that are in the wrong place, they've moved somehow. Mm. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's a, that humans that move them, or if it was the humans that move them, that they, it was done in prehistoric times. You know, it could be something that was done more recently. And so there is a potentially quite big controversy around this. I mean, certainly Charles Buro, who is a, a very respected geologist, his conclusion was that it was a, a megalithic structure that had through erosion had tumbled off the, the sort of hillside in effect there. And I'm not an archeologist, but looking at it that seems has to be one of the possibilities, I think. But you will find other people on the island who will not be quite so keen on explaining things in that way, but Right. It, it's, it's difficult because obviously we it, and, and there's horrible thing to say, but we may never know it, it's a jumbled mass of stones. That's

Mel (23:55):

Kind of the appeal, is that there's a bit, there's all this mystery around these kind of sites with special interest. And we might, you're right, we might not ever know what they are, but that kind of, I think that's kind of adds to its appeal that there are lots of different theories and, you know, I guess people can argue it till they're blue in the face or, you know, but it's, it's worth having the discussions of what everyone thinks it could be.

Paul (24:17):

Yeah. They shouldn't be ignored, in my view. Well, partly because it may be particularly as technology improves and everything else, maybe that some you can narrow down the possibilities or even find a solution, but more importantly, as you say it, it, it's that they're there, they're there to be visited. Although if doing so, choose a big tide and be very careful make sure, you know, when low tide is in that part of the world, and it, I think you're saying is at the beginning, they people like mysteries. They, they, they like the fact that we don't know everything in life. There's uncertainty and things there. But and then as I say, the trouble coming from a scientific perspective is that you, you have to take every possibility into account. You, you, you, you can't just say, well, it's probably this, you, it, it's a case of narrowing down the possibilities.

Paul (25:10):

And then you, you're probably left with two or three that you know, you can say, well, okay, they probably didn't fall out of an airplane as a thing or, or something like that. So you then left with a, a narrow range of possibilities. I, I did have a hunt through for any shipwrecks and things in that part of the world and can't find anything obvious. But again, shipwrecks by and large, you're reliant on newspaper reports and things and, and so you really, that's a couple hundred years worth. So if it was a shipwreck prior to that, it, it wouldn't have been recorded. There's none of the other, on the southeast coast, there's quite a few shipwreck sites, and you do tend to get other things with them if it was a, a, a later shipwreck. So if it was a steamer you, you get piles of coal in some areas.

Paul (25:56):

It's fascinating. And there's one brilliant one out beyond the caramel which is right on the very, very southeast coast about as far as you can walk at low water. Where many years ago I was poking around that area and came across this extraordinarily heavy iron rock. Whereas a lump of, of iron, and I thought I'd found a meteorite <laugh>. And I thought, this is fantastic. This is brilliant. We've got a a, a meteorite here and got all excited about it. And you know, it was the them do what everybody does these days, look up on the me on the internet, you know, how do you tell a meteorite? Well, you need to work out its specific density. And everything was absolutely great. And I thought, well, there we go. That's brilliant. And I was just on the point of sort of approaching natural history museum to say, would be interested in this and thought, well go back and just have a look in the area. Went back and did a bit more poking round and just found tons of this stuff. Yeah. 

Perry (26:52):

It

Paul (26:52):

Was, oh, no, <laugh>, it was wedged in amongst the bowl as it was scattered across the seashore. Absolutely. Loads of it. And it was the cargo from a, a, a ship that in the end it was a ship that hit the rocks there in 1877, I think the SS Linwood, and it was carrying a cargo of of pig iron. And so <laugh>

Perry (27:11):

That's so interesting in it's, its own right. You know, it's,

Paul (27:14):

It's just all over the seashore. Yeah. There as I say, waiting for some idiot like me to think it's something else. But

Mel (27:21):

Don't be hard on yourself, Paul. I would've been very excited too if I was a geologist

Paul (27:26):

<Laugh>. Oh, no.

Perry (27:27):

Exciting archeologically as its own thing.

Paul (27:29):

Absolutely. Yeah. God, can you imagine finding a meteorite? That would be brilliant.

Mel (27:32):

Anyway, you mentioned earlier, Perry, the HER, which is the historic environment record. Yes. So I actually think it'd be really interesting to have a little chat about that, because some of these images that we have in front of us are, are they accessible on the HER record? Is this where we, we are keeping this information? Or if someone wants to look for it, where would they find it? Yeah,

Perry (27:53):

So the HER is an online resource kind of managed by the ER team of which I'm a part of as the fines latest officer, in which records of basically everything archeological and historical, in theory, it will be put on there or has been put on there already including archeological fines, buildings landscapes

Mel (28:16):

Across the island, across

Perry (28:17):

The whole island. Yeah. for example we were talking about the lidar before. If you access the HER, then you can just turn on the LIDAR and have a look at, look at it yourself. So most of the information's online. We do have some information that isn't online yet, but we have access to it internally. So, for example, we have a, a map layer of shipwrecks, again, for, for the past 200 years, the ones we know about because they've been written about the newspapers or, or they're, you know, well known for other reasons. So yeah, we have access to, to all of the different shipwrecks. And we do have what we're talking about today, the, these, these stones mapped on there as well. And any further research we, we do do going into it, you update it we, yeah, it will be put on the HER. So the HR is kind of like a living, living document, if you will, in which, you know, we put further research on there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, if we write a full report about these stones, then, you know, you'll, you'll be able to download and read the report yourself. Yeah. So, yeah. I definitely recommend people checking out the HR.

Mel (29:22):

Yeah, it's a really interesting tool. I mean, I can't say that I've investigated it in much depth from, but from what I have seen of it, it's pretty fascinating what I've managed to discover just from looking at the system. So if anyone's interested in having a look at anything island wide, please have a look at the historic environment record.

Perry (29:40):

Yeah. And you can, you can read about all the archeological fines I record. So we're talking about the cornerstone earlier. There is a record of that on there, so you can look at the photographs of it and my measurements and my, my report and all that. So there's plenty of stuff like that if you wanted to start researching stuff yourself or if you wanted to go out and have a look at these stones and find the Latin long of them, you can look on the HR and see the point.

Mel (30:05):

Yeah. I mean, if anyone has any desire to go on the hunt for some more lost dolmans, then that is the place to find them. Although, interestingly, we spoke earlier and you mentioned Perry, something really interesting that I didn't know that actually we call Dolmans the wrong thing. So the way that we describe a dolman isn't necessarily a dolman. Yeah. So do you want to kind of elaborate on, on that, because that was really interesting. Yeah.

Perry (30:31):

So Dolman is kind of a, a colloquial term that we use for basically every megalithic structure in Jersey when, when we're just talking informally. But a, a dolman is a, is a very specific type of megalithic structure. One that we don't really have much evidence for in Jersey, except for maybe one example, a dolman. You know, we get a lot of them in Britney and stuff like that. And I think that's probably where we got the word for them. I think it's safer usually just to call them megalithic structures because a lot of what we have are, you know, gallery graves or passage graves. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, for example. The Dolman Cooper on is actually a gallery grave if we were talking about it in kind of specific archeological terms. Right. and you know,

Mel (31:20):

So like a dolman is basically a structure that has like three stones with a capstone, right?

Perry (31:24):

Pretty much, yeah. A dolmans a a much more kind of simple structure in, in its architecture, I guess. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> yeah, usually three stones with, with a, with a capstone. I'm sure there's some variations out there, but a lot of the graves tombs we have here, you know, we might colloquially call a doman, but archeologically or, you know, scientifically that's not, not the exact right word.

Mel (31:50):

So, Paul, what would you say is your favorite megalithic structure on the island? If you had to choose Just one. Just

Paul (31:57):

One. Just one. Oh dear. Yeah, I'm afraid it, it's foul way megalithic structure. I was gonna say Doman <laugh>. But

Mel (32:04):

That's my favorite.

Paul (32:05):

I partly because I, I, I grew up near there. I'm a sort of gory boy. Yep. Yeah. And it's just an association that

Perry (32:14):

Yeah, it's just an amazing site, isn't it? It it,

Paul (32:17):

It a really good place for star gazing. Yeah. Yeah. I bet. And I used to go up there as a a as, as a teenager on really dark nights and you lie on your back on the capstone a bit like Snoopy on his house sort of thing, <laugh> and just look at the, the stars and things. It's really dark. There's not much light pollution or there certainly wasn't, I haven't done that for decades, but at the time there was very little light pollution. So if you've got a moonless night and things and then just watch the shooting stars and stuff, it was absolutely lovely. So I'm gonna go for that one.

Perry (32:48):

I, I've gotta say, you know, this is probably,

Mel (32:50):

What's your favorite

Perry (32:52):

Hook bee? Well, beards just,

Mel (32:54):

I just always think of it as like, it's like the grandfather of the megalithic structure. So I kind of always just like second in my mind, but it should be that, I guess. Yeah.

Perry (33:03):

Not that I have to pick a favorite though. I

Mel (33:04):

Love the, no, we can have multiple favorites.

Perry (33:06):

And I love the, the landscape down on the, the sand jeans, like with the ossie and the men, his and stuff, and Teta cane. That's just,

Mel (33:13):

Yeah, those cool. Such

Perry (33:14):

An interesting area.

Mel (33:15):

I do like Grande as well. That one's a really beautiful one. Yeah, that one's a good one.

Perry (33:19):

That's lovely though. One

Mel (33:20):

That is really nice with that lovely kind of wall that's been built around it. Yeah. Kind of gives it a little bit more significance. I find

Perry (33:27):

You feel what you're going underground.

Mel (33:28):

Yeah. Literally doing that one. Yeah. It's really cool.

Perry (33:32):

Research your family history at the Jersey Archive. Dive into our vast online catalog or visit in person. Our expert staff await to guide you on your journey. We are open Monday to Thursday, nine to one, and then two to five subscribe today.

Mel (33:52):

We're not just looking at, you know, geology. We are looking at like wildlife. We're looking at landscape. We are looking at lots of very contemporary issues that are happening now. Right.

Paul (34:03):

That is the point of the geo park really is geo heritage. Yes. Very important. But it's more than just rocks. Yeah. It's the, the scenic aspect of it, the tourism aspect of it, the wildlife,

Mel (34:16):

Whatever. It happens. It's so multifaceted. Be

Paul (34:17):

Yeah. So that's point. Which is

Mel (34:18):

Why it's so interesting point,

Paul (34:20):

Right point. It's, yeah. And it's why it's, it's quite a big project. 'cause It isn't just about rocks. It, it's about creating an entire framework around them so that people can use and appreciate the, the geo park in any way that they see fit. I mean, the thing I always sort of say is, you know, if you've got not unlike my family situation sometimes where you've got one person in a family that is interested in rocks and others that aren't, you've still gotta give a reason as to why everyone would want to go to particular site. So yes. You know it might be me that's interested in the rocks and things there, but the other members of the family might find that the beach next door is, is great. Or the fact that it's got a amazing view. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> or rare plants. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> or it's a good place for bird watching whatever it happens to be. There has to be this, this wider context so everyone can

Mel (35:12):

It appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. 

Perry (35:13):

And the archeology we've been talking about

Paul (35:15):

As well. Exactly. Yeah. It's, you know, this is all part of it. It's, it, it's often difficult to draw the line between archeology and and geology and I I think where you're, you're an archeologist, I'm a geologist and I think there is a definite line in <laugh> in certainly I, you know,

Perry (35:31):

When we're talking about these megalithic structures and stuff, and we, we couldn't analyze them properly without some geological

Paul (35:37):

Yeah. Knowledge in the first place. So, and, and same here. I mean, archeology to me is, you know, is what you learn through time. Team <laugh>. It's not so yeah, so there are different disciplines, but nonetheless, people tend to have if you've got an interest in one, you'll have an interest in the other. So the geo park has to be able to reflect that.

Mel (35:56):

Are you guys loving on each other here? <Laugh>, like appreciating your work. It's so nice. But yeah. So. Well, thank you very much, Paul. It's been such a pleasure talking to you today and really looking forward to our next trip.

Paul (36:09):

Yay. Thank you. Yeah, no worries. You enjoyed today's episode. Don't forget to click on the subscribe button for more.