Author: megalithix

Turley Holes Stones, Cragg Vale, West Yorkshire

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Standing Stones: OS Grid Reference – SD 9954 2199

Also Known as:

  1. Turley Holes Moor Standing Stones

Getting Here

The 3 main stones (on a piss-wet thru afternoon!)

Get right to the top of the valley, past the end of the tree-line where the moor opens up ahead of you. Keep going till you reach the farmhouse on the left (there are usually sheepdogs outside, barking their heads off!). Take the track on the right, making sure y’ close the gate (the farmer here is infamous – so please shut the gate!). Cross the yummy stream at the bottom & double-back on y’self. If or when y’ reach the derelict house (an old shooting house), drop down the small valley, over the stream and stick to the bottom edge of the slope. (if y’ don’t reach the house, just cross the stream and keep to the contours) Keep walking for about 200 yards, keeping your eyes peeled for some uprights!

Archaeology & History

As with the Turvin Stone a half-mile southwest of here, this too is a very peculiar site.  ‘Peculiar’ inasmuch as no-one really seems to be able to make head or tails what the place actually was.  As you’re approaching the place, it looks like some decent ‘four-poster’ stone circle is ahead of you; but once you reach the place there are a veritable number of other earthfast rocks and tumbled stones all round, making your initial appraisal of the place suddenly grind to a halt! Added to this is the oddity of finding the standing stones on a considerable geological slope, unlike most other megalithic sites in the region (and elsewhere for that matter!).

The tallest standing stone

The tallest, easternmost of the three stones (SD 99547 21992) is more than five-feet tall and is lower down the slope than the other uprights here.  Almost ‘surrounded’ by some denuded stone enclave (a large robbed cairn perhaps?), this is the most visually impressive of the stones here.  Up the slope from here 15 yards (13.56m) away is what may, or may not, be a simple earthfast boulder (at SD 99535 21999): but it’s upright, about 3 feet tall, and due to proximity gives the impression that it was part of whatever monument this site once was.  Due west of the tallest standing stone nearly 20 yards (17.6m) away, is a more rounded stone of ‘female’ character, less than 4 feet tall (at SD 99528 21993).  That’s the general gist of the place.

If you visit here you’ll notice another smaller upright a short distance further down the slope in the green, less than three feet tall  And there’s possibly another one of similar stature more than  200 yards SSE.  But what is this place?  Is it prehistoric?  Was it built in the Dark Ages?  Medieval times?  Does anyone have a clue!?

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  2. Burl, Aubrey, Four Posters: Bronze Age Stone Circles of Western Europe, BAR 195: Oxford 1988.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Turvin Stone, Cragg Vale, West Yorkshire

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SD 98924 21378

Getting Here

Turvin Stone (lookin’ south)

From Mytholmroyd, take the Cragg Vale road (B6138) up and up and up, until you get past the tree-level and the hills open up on either side of you.  Take note of the farmhouse on the right-hand side of the road a half-mile on and park where you can.  Walk down the track by the farmhouse (known as Washfold Road) and cross the stream at the bottom.  OK – from here walk straight up the hill in front of you! (not along the footpath)  In less than 100 yards it levels out and you’re onto the moorland proper.  From here walk straight west for about 400 yards.  If you deviate a little, don’t worry.  You’ll see this small upright stone as you’re getting closer, seemingly in line with several other rocks, almost giving the impression you’ve come across a stone row.  Good luck!

Archaeology & History

The slim upright

This small squat standing stone is just over three feet tall (1m), about 10 inches thick and 3½-feet across.  Leaning at an angle into the ground, this broad but thin monolith has sunk some distance into the moorland peat.

It was located on February 15, 2011, in the company of Dave Hazell (pacemaker in tow!) on our first sojourn of the year.  It hasn’t been mentioned in any previous surveys and aint in anyway what you’d call impressive.  Nearby are the early remains of old walling north, east and west of here (one of them being a small enclosure of some type), for which I can again find no other references.  What looks distinctly like the remains of a large cairn isn’t far away either.  However, it may be that some of the remains up here are medieval in nature and it would be of benefit if someone who specializes in remains from that period could have a look here.  The equally curious Turley Holes standing stones can be seen a half-mile northeast of here.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Two Lads, Withens Moor, West Yorkshire

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Cairns: OS Grid Reference – SD 98394 22116

Getting Here

Best way here is, from Mytholmroyd go up the Cragg Vale road for a coupla miles, then turn right and heading down, then up, towards Withens Clough reservoir.  Once there, walk onto the moor to your left (south) until you’re on the ridge above you.  Keep walking until y’ see the rocky cairn-like creatures stood in isolation on a flat moorland plain.

Archaeology & History

Two Lads – on a dark, rainy, windy day

Truly weird spot this one, but I love it! Seemingly miles from anywhere, it’s one helluva walk to most folk, but utterly worthwhile when your arrive.   On a clear day you can see for miles and the landscape is adorable!  On a cloudy rainy day, the feel of the place changes if you take care to stay with the site, saturated, meditating (as no other people ever turn up when She’s like that – so you and the place get the best from each other!).

The site comprises of two boulders, each crowned with a cairn of stones.  The westernmost one of the two (SD 98392 22111) is intriguing as it has, carved upon the rock beneath the stone cairn on the northwestern edge of the stone, what looks like a singular cup-marking, plus a large water-worn bowl on its northern edge, and a very distinct deeply-cut cross-base, several inches deep, near the northeastern corner of the rock.  This cross-base seems slightly more rectangular in form than square; although the large covering of stones makes an accurate ascription difficult.  If this cross-base and cup-markings are authentic, we would have here a clear example of the christianization of a previously heathen site.

A cursory examination of the easternmost of the Two Lads (SD 98397 22117) doesn’t indicate any artificial workings on the rock surface.

Two Lads on 1853 OS-map
Two Lads on 1853 OS-map

Although the two ‘cairns’ on top of these two rocks are not prehistoric in nature, about 20 yards behind the Two Lads (south) may once have been the severely denuded remains of a once large prehistoric cairn.  Although the position in the landscape is perfect for such a construction, this is somewhat tentative, it’s gotta be said!  Further examinations are obviously necessary here.

The studious A.H. Smith (1961-63) believes that a field-name record from 1624, describing some ‘Lad Stones’ in the parish of Heptonstall relates to this site.  We know with certainty however, that this site was first illustrated on Greenwood’s 1771 map of Yorkshire, then highlighted on more recent 19th century Ordnance Survey maps as ‘cairns.’

Folklore

Drawing of the Lads in 1877

The creation myth behind this place is that two lads were walking over the moor in midwinter and got caught in a blizzard. Losing all sense of visibility they tried to shelter from the wind and snow by hiding behind these rocks, but perished. Sometime later their bodies were found and the curious “cairn” of rocks were mounted onto the boulders to mark where they’d died.  This is a folktale we find at many other old stone remains on the hilltops of northern England and Scotland.

The Two Lads seems to be very close to a midwinter alignment (or izzit a lunar standstill line?), linking it with the huge Rudstoop Standing Stone and, eventually, Robin Hood’s Penny Stone on Midgley Moor – which might be the root of the folktale. (i.e. midwinter, snow, death)  Any archaeoastronomy buffs out there wanna check this one out?  Then we can confirm or dismiss it.

References:

  1. Anonymous, “The ‘Two Lads’, Withens Moor,” in Todmorden & Hebden Bridge Historical Almanack, T. Dawson: Todmorden 1877.
  2. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  3. Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Cambridge University Press 1961-63.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Nancekuke Carving, Portreath, Cornwall

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SW 67 46*

Archaeology & History

Another one of those rare cup-marked stones from Cornwall, once again found in association with a burial— but once again destroyed, this time by having an airfield built over the tomb!  This “cup-marked and perforated slab” was said by Paul Ashbee (1958: 192) to have been unearthed “by Mr C.K. Andrew” in 1941 when he was digging in the Nancekuke round barrow.  Yet an earlier reference to the same site by Mr o’ Neil (1948: 26) told that “the grave was rifled c.1926, but in the ditch there were found traces of a Bronze Age wooden shovel and a perforated and cup-marked slate.”  For any students studying this arena, the correct date would appear to be the earlier of the two.

I’ve not been able to locate any decent photos or diagrams of this small cup-marked stone and would truly appreciate an illustration of it if anyone could get hold of one.

References:

  1. Ashbee, Paul, “The Excavation of Tregulland Burrow, Treneglos Parish, Cornwall,” in Antiquaries Journal, volume 38, 1958.
  2. o’ Neil, B.H. St. John, “War and Archaeology in Britain”, in Antiquaries Journal, volume XXVIII, January-April 1948.

* The OS grid reference here is an approximation

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Carse Farm (north), Dull, Perthshire

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Stone Circle:  OS Grid Reference – NN 8022 4873

Also Known as:

  1. Carse Farm I
  2. Weem circle

Getting Here

To get here, follow the same directions to reach its nearby colleague of Carse Farm south — but instead of walking down the track to where its companion is found, this small ring of stones is found a coupla hundred yards into the first field by the roadside.  Unless the field’s fulla corn (in which case, give it a miss cos even if you do find it, you won’t be able to make much out), y’ can’t really miss it!

Archaeology & History

As with its nearby companion of Carse Farm south, this small “ring” of four stones is found along the Tay valley floor and, though cited as a stone circle in many archaeology tomes, should more accurately be defined as a cairn circle of sorts.  Structurally akin to other four-posters, it reminded me of a distant companion in North Yorkshire more than 200 miles south: the Druids Altar at Bordley, which is also a robbed prehistoric tomb and not a stone circle.  But it’s a fine little site sat amidst the majestic temple of surrounding hills on all sides, bar east, where the Tay valley reaches into the distance.

Faint cup-marks
Carse Farm, looking north

Like its damaged companion in the field below, some of the stones in this circle also have well-defined cup-markings on top of the uprights; although when we visited here, low cloud and late daylight conditions prevented us from getting good images of the cup-marks concerned (as the photo of one of them here illustrates).  The cup-markings are, curiously, carved on the top of the small standing stones.

Described briefly in Alexander Thom’s Megalithic Rings (1980), he regarded its geometry as “circular” in structure.  Aubrey Burl (1988) gave the lengthier archaeological history of the site, telling:

“On the ‘carse’, or lowland…this 4-poster was excavated in 1964.  When Coles saw it in 1907 only three smallish stones remained standing although “it seems clear that at this site there were originally four Stones as in so many other Perthshire groups”… The SW stone was missing but halfway between the NW and SE stones a long, thin slab lay half-buried.

“Coles noticed that there were cupmarks on the tops of both the NE and SE stones.  The SE had three carvings but the top of the NE had no fewer than 17, the largest ‘cup’ being 4 by 3½in (10 x 9cm).  In the group were two ‘dumb-bells’.  In the same field the farmer had dragged away a buried stone which was also cupmarked.* (my italics, PB)

“Of the three standing stones, the NE is 3ft 11in (1.2m) high; the SE, 5ft 1in (1.6m); and the NW, 4ft 1in (1.3m).  These heights…are almost double those cited by Coles (1908: 126).

“”The 1964 excavation discovered the SW stonehole.  The 5ft 10in (1.8m) long stone lying at the centre of the 4-Poster was erected in it, a task made easier by the fact that its base had been keeled… The base was unweathered showing that the stone had been toppled in quite recent times as had the stones of the two Fortingall 4-Posters…3¾ miles to the WSW. The four stones stood at the corners of a rectangle 12ft by 8ft (3.7 x 2.4m) on a long ENE-WSW axis.  They also stood on the circumference of a circle 14ft 5in (4.4m) in diameter.

“A tapering pit was discovered against the inner face of the NE stone, about 2ft 6in (76cm) across and 1ft 2in (37cm) deep.  It was filled with cremated bone and sticky black earth and charcoal.  At the bottom, a collared urn lay on is side, its rim decorated in geometrical designs.  A flint flake lay near it.  Within the 4-Poster there were three shallow pits, two between the NW and NE stones, another between the SE and SW.  Their edges were clean and they had been backfilled with brown loam.  The excavators thought they might have “been used for stabilising props during the erection of the stones.” …As the heaviest block, that at the NW, weighed about 6 tons it would have required 20 to 30 people to drag it upright…and the use of such props would have made their insertion safer.”

Burl’s collated ground-plan
Fred Coles’ 1908 drawing

Unless the people building this site were dwarves, we’ve gotta re-assess this latter remark (which Burl quotes from the earlier archaeologist’s report from the 1960s).  Having personally been involved with the creation of modern stone circles with stones larger than the ones here, we know that the uprights here could have been erected by 8-10 people at the very most.

Archaeology and folklore records describe many other prehistoric sites along this section of the upper Tay valley, but it’s also very likely that other “circles” or cairns of similar structure to the two known at Carse Farm once existed close by that are not in modern literary accounts.

References:

  1. Burl, Aubrey, Four Posters: Bronze Age Stone Circles of Western Europe, BAR 195: Oxford 1988.
  2. Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire – Northeastern Section,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, volume 42, 1908.
  3. Stark, Gordon (ed.), Cupmarked Stones in Strathtay, Breadalbane Heritage Centre 2005.
  4. Stewart, M.E.C., “Carse Farm 1 and 2,” in Discovery & Excavation, Scotland, 1964.
  5. Thom, A., Thom, A.S. & Burl, H.A.W., Megalithic Rings, BAR 81: Oxford 1980.

* Is anyone aware of further details about this carving? Do we have any sketches of it?

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Eagle Stone, Blubberhouses Moor, North Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 14605 53815

Also Known as:

  1. Eagles Stone
Eagle Stone

Getting Here

To get here, follow the same directions as you would to reach the curious Green Plain settlement; but just before you reach that, you’ll notice this rather large boulder known as the Eagle Stone right in front of you next to the ever-decreasing stream.  Wander down and give it a fondle — you can’t really miss it!

Archaeology & History

Cupmarks on top (image by Graeme Chappell)

Curiously not included in Boughey & Vickerman’s rock-art survey (2003), this large boulder stands just below the ancient ford which crosses Sun Bank Gill and is pitted with a number of cup-marks on its top (though not the 38 we counted when Graeme Chappell and I in the early 1990s), plus a large “bowl”, not unlike the Wart Well on top of Almscliffe Crags and other such sites.  Although some of the cups seem natural, others are artificial — as even an English Heritage rock art student could tell you!  A small cluster of ‘cups’ are on top of the stone, but a number of them have been etched onto the sloping southern face; a curved line running across the rock-face towards these cups may be natural.

The straight track above you was known as Watling Street in bygone years and was the old Roman road running between Ilkley and Aldborough.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Carse Farm (south), Dull, Perthshire

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Stone Circle:  OS Grid Reference – NN 8026 4847

Also Known as:

  1. Carse Farm II
  2. Tegarmuchd

Getting Here

Carse Farm Standing Stone

Pretty easy to find – assuming it aint at the height of summer and the crops are approaching maturity, otherwise you’re only gonna see its head!  But, this aside: from Aberfeldy, take the B846 road over the river bridge that bends you along the valley of the River Tay towards Appin of Dull.  After some 2 miles you’ll pass the right-turn up to Dull.  Go past this for another coupla hundred yards or so, watching out for the left-turn down towards the farmhouse of Carse and park up where you can (if you go past it, there’s the second turn up to Dull, again on your right, where you can turn round). As you walk down the track towards Carse Farm, watch out on your right in the field below Carse I, in the second field down.  You can’t really miss it. (and the farmer here is spot on if you ask to check the stone – as long as the crops aint growing)

Archaeology & History

Although all that’s left of what is thought to have been a once proud stone circle is the singular upright standing stone in the middle of the field.  Aubrey Burl (1988) thought that this was one of the typical “four poster”rings that scatter our isles, but I’m not so sure misself.  There were other stones associated with the site when Burl described it, but these were covered over in our visit here a few months back — which is a pity, as two of the stones are reported as possessing cup-markings (if/when we revisit the site, I’ll try get some images of the respective stones and add them on TNA as individual carved stones).  The site gives the distinct impression of it having a funerary character of some sort and not a true stone circle — and this was strongly suggested by some of the finds inside the “ring”, described below.

Fred Cole’s old drawing
Aubrey Burl’s groundplan

Both this and its associated “circle” a few hundred yards away — known as Carse Farm north — sit on a flat level of ground in the Tay valley, with rounded hills all most sides.  This landscape setting was obviously of some importance to the people who put the circle here in the first place but, not living in the region, it’s difficult to assess the mythic relevance some of the hills will have obviously played in the siting of these stones.

In bygone days, it was reported that the much of the site was ploughed away due to agricultural excesses, so there was obviously much more to it in earlier centuries.  Describing the solitary stone that’s left today, along with the earlier excavation results, Mr Burl (1988) wrote:

“The stone still standing, of quartziferous schist, is 6ft 3in (1.9m) high.  Its longer faces are aligned NW-SE.  32ft 6in (9.9m) to its SW is a large prostate block, sub-elliptical and about 8ft long and 4ft 3in wide (2.4 x 1.3m).  It has probably fallen outwards. (my italics, PB)  If so, when standing near the top of its inner face were four cupmarks in a cross pattern.

“About 32ft ((9.8m) to its NW is a fallen and enormous schist slab, 11ft long and 5ft wide (3.4 x 1.5m).  It also appears to have toppled outwards.  Near the bottom of its inner face are two cupmarks.  The situation of these three stones suggests that they once stood at the corners of a rectangle some 32ft (9.8m) square, the pillars of a huge four-poster nearly six-times the national average and with an internal area ten times bigger than the small 4-poster (Carse Farm north, PB) just to its north.

“Excavation  in 1964 found the socket from which the great prostrate slab had been dragged… Cash (1911) had noted the presence of a small stone inside the ring about 20ft (6.1m) west of the standing stone.  It proved to be 4ft (1.2m) square with a carefull-dressed face.  It had been set upright, standing about 1ft 4in (41cm) above the ground.  Three sides of the worked face ‘had been carefully chiselled away to a straight edge.’ It may have been a slab lining the inner central space of a destroyed ring-cairn.  Burnt bone was found near it. There was also a rounded river pebble with a worked hollow on one side…”

Folklore

Carse Farm stone

Stewart (1964) described the site as having been “christianized” not long ago, by having the northernmost standing stone in the ring removed.  This is intriguing inasmuch as “north” is the place of greatest symbolic darkness in the pre-christian mythos, and represented death and illumination in magickal terms.  North was also the point taken by witches and shamans in their excursions into Underworlds, usually via the North Star, which tethered the Earth to the heavens (see Godwin’s Arktos [1993], and Grant, The Magical Revival [1973])  In the removal of this northern stone for the reasons given, that implies some magickal events or folklore were in evidence here when this took place.  Anyone got any further information along these lines, or has it long since been subsumed?

References:

  1. Burl, Aubrey, Four Posters: Bronze Age Stone Circles of Western Europe, BAR 195: Oxford 1988.
  2. Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire (Aberfeldy District),” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, volume 44, 1910.
  3. Stewart, M.E.C., “Carse Farm 1 and 2,” in Discovery & Excavation, Scotland, 1964.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Loch Glassy, Weem, Perthshire

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Sacred Loch:  OS Grid Reference – NN 850528

Also Known as:

  1. Loch Glassie

Folklore

Here we have another case of another loch in Scotland that was said by local people to be inhabited by legendary water monsters.  In the tale which follows we may simply have a case of a very bad accident that was, in more superstious times, bestowed upon this legendary animal.  We may never know.  James Kennedy (1928) told the story, saying:

“It was inhabited, like Loch Derculich, by the ‘Each Uisge‘ of Icelandic origin.  On summer evenings it could be seen roaming at large on a green meadow adjacent to the tarn, and to all appearance a canny enough creature.  One summer Sunday afternoon, six Strathtay girls and a boy set out from their homes to inspect the ‘Each Uisge.’  They found him, patted him on the head and neck, and this kindness is apparently relished, for it lay on the sward and allowed them to sit on its back.  The boy, who had a semi-bald scabbed head, stood at a distance and watched developments.  He concluded that this animal was not the genuine horse it seemed to be, and thought that it grew considerably larger than it was at first.  When the Each has the six girls comfortably seated on its back, it suddenly rose, plunged into the loch, and drowned the lot.  The boy immediately took to his heels and the Each after him, but fear enabled the boy to outstrip the horse, who would stop now and again in the pursuit and cry, “Fuirich mo ghille maol carrach!  Fuirich mo ghille maol carrach!” — Stop, you bald scabbed-headed boy.  Ultimately the Each gave up the chase, and the boy, much frightened, got safely home and related all that happened on that eventful Sunday evening.  The parents of the girls found parts of their bodies floating on the waters of the loch, and the name Loch Lassie was given to it, which it retains to this day.”

References:

Kennedy, James, Folklore and Reminiscences of Strathtay and Grandtully, Munro Press: Perth 1928.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Loch Derculich, Dull, Perthshire

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Sacred Loch:  OS Grid Reference – NN 864 549

Folklore

Although this upland loch is today renowned as little more than a decent fishing spot, the waters here were long known to be haunted and the abode of a legendary water spirit.  In local tradition, the loch is said to be named after “an ancient Chief of Pictish origin” — whose burial mound is nearby — and in James Kennedy’s (1928) fascinating folklore work he also told that,

“Loch Dereculich was the habitation of a ‘Tarbh Uisge’ (water bull), the dangerous water demon… This dreaded monster, as the Norwegian peasant will gravely assure a traveller, demands every year a human victim, and carries off children who stray too near its abode… Less than one hundred and twenty years ago, the Loch Derculich Water Bull was seen sauntering along its shores.  At peat-making times it was observed very frequently.”

References:

  1. Kennedy, James, Folklore and Reminiscences of Strathtay and Grandtully, Munro Press: Perth 1928.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Lantern Holes, Bordley, North Yorkshire

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Settlement:  OS Grid Reference – SD 9528 6574

Getting Here

Aerial view of settlement

Follow the same directions to get to Bordley’s Druid’s Altar circle.  Where the little rough car-parky-bit happens to be by the cattle-grid, look up the sloping field where the wall runs up in a line and follow it up on foot.  A coupla hundred yards up you’ll see a small craggy outcrop in front of you and another line of drystone walling in the corner.  Just below this craggy outcrop you’ll notice a raised embankment comprising a line of small rocks running along the edge of the hill.  This is the first bitta prehistoric walling that makes up a part of the settlement system.  From hereon, follow y’ nose along and up the hill and look around.  The settlement’s all around here!

Archaeology & History

This is quite an extensive area of prehistoric (seemingly Iron Age) enclosures on the top and around the edges of the unnamed rocky peak at the top of the large open Lantern Holes field.  I’m not aware of any excavation work that may have taken place at this site, so please excuse me of any errors in the description that follows. (if anyone’s got an excavation report of the site, I’d love to read it!)

As with the many other settlements and enclosures in this region, much of it comprises of extensive stonework built up into and against the geological limestone bedrock either side of this hilltop site.  Huge lines of prehistoric walling, measuring anything between one and three yards across, runs for hundreds of yards in and around this set of enclosures.  We also find several distinct and well-preserved examples of old hut circles (one of which appears to have been re-used as a sheep shelter in more recent centuries) dotted around the edges and in the middle of larger sections of enclosed stone walls.  This is all very impressive when you consider it was done a coupla thousand years back!

Walled enclosure on south side
Walling along SW edges

Very similar in design to the prehistoric settlement enclosures on the other (south) side of the valley at Hammond Close Pasture, above the Druid’s Altar, though more extensive.  Measuring roughly 340 yards (311m) along its longer southeast-northwest axis, and nearly 280 yards (254m) from east-to-west, the uppermost parts of the site have at least seven separate large elliptical ‘enclosures’ built within the rocky enclaves, made up of typical Iron Age wall systems: a series of large upright monoliths packed up by smaller packing stones all along the length of the walling (using a system that still prevails today in drystone walling techniques on our upland moors).  A couple of the photos here illustrated the walling very well and give you an idea of what to look out for if you’re out wandering the region, looking for old sites.

Although the walling we see today is barren and easy to spot, remember that in the time when people built these great structures, you wouldn’t have been able to see them, as they’d have been deliberately covered over and camouflaged with dressed earth and plants.  In watching people emerging from these enclosures, you’d have got the distinct impression that they literally came out of the hill itself: a motif well-known to folklorists in relation to the origin of faerie-folk and other ‘little people.’

We need to go back up here and explore this settlement a bit more, as there’s tons more to be seen.  And if anyone knows of any surveys that have already been done of this site, it’d be good to read the reports, preliminary or otherwise.  A rough-camping weekend is planned on the tops at the break of Spring – so contact us if you’re into joining us for the amble.  I reckon there’s gonna be other sites hidden in the landscape up here that even Arthur Raistrick missed out on!

…to be continued…

References:

  1. Raistrick, Arthur & Holmes, Paul F., Archaeology of Malham Moor, Headley Bros: London 1961.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian