Category: Northumbria

Tom Tallon’s Grave, Kirknewton, Northumberland

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Tumulus (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NT 9323 2800

Also Known as:

  1. Auld Wife’s Apronful o’ Stanes
  2. Tom Tallon’s Tumulus

Archaeology & History

Site on the 1866 OS-map

Highlighted on the earliest OS-maps about half a mile to the south of the great prehistoric camp of Yeavering Bell and 100 yards southwest of Tom Tallon’s Crag, there once stood an apparently “massive” Bronze Age tumulus, or cairn, called Tom Tallon.  I’d hedge a bet that it was much older, from the neolithic period.  It was described by P.A. Graham (1921) as “the largest cairn in the district,” but when it was visited by the antiquarian Henry MacLauchlan in July 1858, he reported that “it was being removed to make a fence”!!!  Unbe-fuckin’-lievable… Who were the dickheads that did that?!

Folklore

The Ordnance Survey Name Book of 1860 for Tom Tallon’s Crag told that,

“There is a vague tradition about Tom Tallon having been a Warrior and Slain here – hence the name, but nothing authentic respecting Tom, can now be ascertained.”

The word tom derives from “a rounded hill”, sometimes associated with a tumulus and in Scotland (just over the border) associated “with a dwelling place of the fairies” with tallon suggested by Graham (1921) to derive from “tal, a forehead or promontory, and Llan, an enclosure.”

What is quite obviously an older name, or certainly one that was more recognised by local people, is its title of the Auld Wife’s Apronful of Stones: a title we find associated with a number of the giant cairns in northern England and Scotland.  It relates to the creation myth of the site, whereby the countless stones that made up the cairn were dropped or thrown across the landscape by a giantess who inhabited this area.

References:

  1. Hall, James, A Guide to Glendale, M. Brand: Wooler 1887.
  2. Graham, P. Anderson, Highways and Byways in Northumbria, MacMillan: London 1921.
  3. MacLauchlan, Henry, “Notes on Camps in the Parishes of Branxton, Carham, Ford, Kirknewton and Wooller, in Northumberland,” in History Berwickshire Naturalists Club, volume 24, 1922.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Broomridge (1), Ford, Northumberland

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NT 97298 37110

Archaeology & History

In 1863, a bunch of reputable Victorian authors and antiquarians met with the Duke of Northumberland in Alnwick Castle to discuss the matter of making decent images of the petroglyphs which, at the time, had only just been rediscovered in the area.  At one of their meetings, the floor in one of the Castle rooms was covered with rubbings of carvings that they’d made—this one included.  I’d loved to have been there!  Subsequently, from that meeting, sketches of this carving were done and included in the works by George Tate (1864; 1865) and then a few years later in J. Collingwood Bruce’s (1869) rare tome that had been published with the help of dosh from the Duke.

Found along a raised geological ridge running roughly east-west, a number of other carvings are close by and well worth looking at when you visit here.  The basic (and first) description of the site by Tate told that here,

Tate’s 1864 sketch
J.C. Bruce’s 1869 image

“on a high ridge on Hunter’s Moor, a large surface of rock, some forty yards by twenty, having a gentle slope to the northward, is partially uncovered.  In one part, which has been entirely cleared of turf, fourteen figures are scattered over an area of 15 feet by about from 5 to 7 feet.  Some of the figures are of the common type, one of which is 28 inches in diameter; but others present new features; and several are curiously united by straight and curved grooves.  Across the entire diameter of a group of four concentric circles, runs a groove connecting them with other combined figures.  An irregularly shaped, rounded, angular figure, encloses two hollows or cups; and united to this is a broad oval figure.  One figure around four cups approaches to the reniform.”

When the modern rock art expert Stan Beckensall wrote about this site, he mentioned how his own picture of the carving consisted of a number of elements that weren’t included by the 19th century pioneers—which isn’t unusual.

References:

  1. Beckensall, Stan, Northumberland’s Prehistoric Rock Carvings – A Mystery Explained, Pendulum: Rothbury 1983.
  2. Beckensall, Stan, Prehistoric Rock Motifs of Northumberland – volume 1, Abbey Press: Hexham 1991.
  3. Bruce, John Collingwood, Incised Markings on Stone; found in the County of Northumberland, Argylshire, and other Places, privately printed: London 1869.
  4. Tate, George, “The Ancient British Sculptured Rocks of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders,” in Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists Club, volume 5, 1864.
  5. Tate, George, The Ancient British Sculptured Rocks of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders, Henry Hunter Blair 1865.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Cartington Cove, Rothbury, Northumberland

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Cup-and-Ring Stone (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NU 0444 0186

Archaeology & History

In an area teeming with prehistoric sites from the neolithic and Bronze Age periods, we had a rare example here of some cup-and-rings that had been carved within a small cave or rock shelter of some kind.  Sadly it got destroyed in the mid-19th century due to quarrying operations—but not before George Tate (1864; 1865) had a final sniff of the place and was very lucky to see some of the remains before they finally bit-the-dust.  He told us:

“The great sandstone ridge ranges from Eglingham and Beanley across the central part of the county towards Rothbury, near to which is a cave in the rock called “Cartington Cove;” concentric circles with central hollows were incised within this cave.  Mr. Williamson of Alnwick, from whom I had this information, played around them when a boy more than fifty years ago; and they were then popularly called “Cups and Saucers.”  Nearly all of them have been destroyed by the wedges and hammers of quarrymen; but on visiting the spot in 1859, I found sufficient traces to confirm Mr. Williamson’s testimony.”

But they were gone a few years later thanks to the lads at the quarry.  Although the site was subsequently described in Beckensall’s modern surveys (1992; 2006), nothing more was found about them.

Folklore

Whilst David Dixon (1903) reiterated Mr Tate’s notes on the “series of incised concentric circles and central hollows” here, he also mentioned an old piece of folklore:

“At Cartington Cove (is) a recess or cave which, local tradition says, is connected by a subterranean passage with Cartington Castle, three miles distant!”

Intriguing ingredients: caves – Underworld journey – north – all symbolic of Death in pre-christian lore.  Just saying…

References:

  1. Beckensall, Stan, Prehistoric Rock Motifs of Northumberland – volume 2, Abbey Press: Hexham 1992.
  2. Beckensall, Stan, Circles in Stone: A British Prehistoric Mystery, Tempus: Stroud 2006.
  3. Dixon, David D., Upper Coquetdale, Northumberland, Robert Redpath: Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1903.
  4. Tate, George, “The Ancient British Sculptured Rocks of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders,” in History of the Berwickshire Naturalists Club, volume 5, 1864.
  5. Tate, George, The Ancient British Sculptured Rocks of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders, Henry Hunter Blair 1865.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Yeavering, Kirknewton, Northumberland

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Cup-and-Ring Stone (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NT 931 302

Archaeology & History

Little is now known of this carving which was described briefly by Stan Beckensall (1983):

“A cup and ring marked stone was found in the field north of Yeavering Bell in the neighbourhood of the monolith.  The last heard of it, according to the Northumberland County History (14:67) was that it was in the grounds of Ewart Park.”

The monolith he speaks of would be the one called the Battle Stone (NT 9299 3038) and Ewart Park is 2 miles ENE of here.  The carving remains lost. (the grid reference where the stone was originally located is an approximation, but a pretty good one)

References:

  1. Beckensall, Stan, Northumberland’s Prehistoric Rock Carvings – A Mystery Explained, Pendulum: Rothbury 1983.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Market Cross, Glanton, Northumberland

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Cross (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NU 0708 1445

Archaeology & History

This site has long since gone, but its existence is worthy of note.  Indeed, when Dippie Dixon (1895) wrote about it in his classic work, faded memory was all he could tell of it too, saying:

“Glanton once possessed a market cross.  Not a vestige of it now remains; but it is said to have stood about the centre of the village, on a slight knoll facing the Whittingham road…”

This would place it close to the old Red Lion pub.  Old crosses that are found at the centre of a village or township represent (albeit forgotten) the spot whence the community was born: a faded form of an omphalos, in the christian guide; later debased into little more than where markets and trade was done. When the ‘market’ wasn’t active, it was the gathering place for local people. As George Tyack (1900) told us:

“The village cross, in its more humble way, played the same part in the rustic life of its neighbourhood as did the high cross in the more bustling life of the town. Such public matters as stirred the still waters of rural existence were there discussed: the items of news from the great world without that reached the village gossips were there recounted, and the summons to the yearly Manorial Court, and other notices not suitable for procalmation in church, were there made public.”

This is the mundane function of the cross.  In its earlier status, it was the animistic symbol not only of the centre of the village, but the origin of the world itself, where moots or gatherings took place annually, calendrically, to ritually re-establish and commemorate the birth of the local tribe and their world through consecration.  But all of this has long since faded…

References:

  1. Dixon, David D., Whittingham Vale, Robert Redpath: Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1895.
  2. Eliade, Mircea & Sullivan, Lawrence E., “Center of the World,” in Encyclopedia of Religion – volume 3, MacMillan: New York 1987.
  3. Tyack, George S., The Cross in Ritual, Architecture and Art, William Andrews: London 1900.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Holy Well, Bingfield, Northumberland

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Holy Well (destroyed):  OS Grid reference – NZ 01 74

Archaeology & History

We add this site in the hope that a local historian may be able to rediscover its whereabouts.  Long since lost, the last account of it was mentioned in notes by the prodigious northern antiquarian John Crawford (1899) in his vast work on Northumbrian history.  Its whereabouts is vague as its final writings were scribed in The Black Book of Hexham in 1479 CE, where it was told that “the Haliwell flat (was) lying between the vill of Bingfield and Todridge.”  Mr Crawford told us it was somewhere in this area:

“The south-west extension of Grundstone Law is a tract of poor pasture land called Duns Moor; and rising opposite to it on the north-east is the Moot Law, in Stamfordham parish, the valley between being watered by an affluent of the Erring burn.”

The Well was included in Binnall & Dodds’ (1942) fine survey, with no additional notes.  To my knowledge, no more is known of the site.

References:

  1. Binnall & Doods, “Holy Wells in Northumberland and Durham – Part 2,” in Proceedings Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, July 1942.
  2. Hodgson, John Crawford, The History of Northumberland – volume 4, Andrew Reid: Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1899.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Hawklemass Well, Whittingham, Northumberland

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Healing Well:  OS Grid Reference – NU 0683 1228

Archaeology & History

Hawklemass Well on 1866 map

Hawklemass Well on 1866 map

References to this site seem very scarce.  A well is highlighted on the 1866 OS-map of the region close to the spot which D.D. Dixon (1895) said it was found, “near to the Howbalk Lane end, where is also the Hawklemass Stile and Hawklemass Well.”  A stone trough could once be seen here, but its presence today needs to be confirmed by local researchers.  The site is listed in Binnall & Dodds (1943) survey, but with no additional comments to those made by Mr Dixon.

Folklore

The historian D.D. Dixon (1895) told that the village of Whittingham only had one ghost, but it was known as the “Hawklemass Ghost” and was occasionally encountered at the Hawklemass Well:

“This was a place never passed after nightfall by the youth of the village without feeling an eerie, creepy sensation, and with many a furtive glance on either side.  This unearthly visitant, in its gambols and uncanny pranks, was said to rattle the chain by which it was supposed to be bound in a fearsome manner.  It was usually seen or heard by persons who, having lingered long at the village inn, could say with Tam o’ Shanter,

“While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An gettin’ fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and styles,
That lie between us and our hame.”

One Saturday night many years ago—perhaps fifty—a poor fellow on his way from Whittingham to Glanton fel into the roadside at Hawklemass, where he was found, quite dead, the next morning by some persons on their way to Glanton meeting.  This sad affair may have given rise to the tradition of the Hawklemass Ghost.”

The name of the old lane at whose junction the Hawklemass Well once flowed, ‘Howbalk Lane’, may derive from a lost tumulus, as the word how (and its variants) regularly relate to prehistoric mounds in our more northern climes.  Such an ancient tomb, close to the well, may be the origin of the ghost story.

References:

  1. Binnall, P.B.G. & Dodds, M.H., “Holy Wells in Northumberland and Durham – part 2”, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 10:2, 1943.
  2. Dixon, David Dippie, Whittingham Vale, Northumberland, Robert Redpath: Newcastle 1895.

Acknowledgements:  With thanks to Gill Rutherford for prompting me to finish this; and to Claire Heron for the OS-map reference.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Fairy Stone, Fourstones, Northumberland

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Legendary Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NY 893 680

Archaeology & History

Thought to have been destroyed in the 19th century, folklorists and historians alike didn’t seem to be able to locate this little-known folklore relic, which is still alive and well in one of the fields by the village.  The exact nature of the stone isn’t known for certain.  Legend reputes it to have been one of the four boundary stones which gave the village its name; it was also said that they were Roman altars and the Fairy Stone was one of them, which was moved from the village boundary during the Rebellion of 1715 and placed nearer the centre.

Folklorist M.C. Balfour (1904) seemed to think that stone had gone when he wrote about it.  Writing about it in the past tense, he told,

“The Fairy Stone however, certainly had an existence, for a person, 80 years of age, remembered its situation to the south of the village, near the old road, and that it was squared, and had a square “cistern hewn out of its top,” which was called the Fairy Trough, and traditionally said to have had a pillar fixed in it.”

But when former Ley Hunter editor Paul Screeton (1982) came looking for the stone in the late 1970s, he was fortunate in coming across an old local:

“Some time ago while looking for the Fairy Stone at Fourstones…I came across a farmer who pointed it out and remarked that a few years previously when the road was widened the local lengthsman made sure it was not destroyed, though it had to be moved a short distance.”

Folklore

Of the four boundary stones surrounding the village, they were “supposed to have been formed to hold holy water,” said Balfour (1904).  But the title Fairy Stone given to one of them had this tale to account for it:

“A couple of miles or more down the South Tyne is Fourstones, so called because of four stones, said to have been Roman altars, having been used to mark its boundaries. A romantic use was made of one of these stones in the early days of “The Fifteen.” Every evening, as dusk fell, a little figure, clad in green, stole up to the ancient altar, which had been slightly hollowed out, and, taking out a packet, laid another in its place. The mysterious packets, placed there so secretly, were letters from the Jacobites of the neighbourhood to each other; and the little figure in green was a boy who acted as messenger for them. No wonder that the people of the district gave this altar the name of the ‘Fairy Stone’.”

References:

  1. Balfour, M.C., Country Folk-lore volume 4: Examples of Printed Folk-lore Concerning Northumberland, David Nutt: London 1904.
  2. Screeton, Paul, “The Long Man of Wilmington,” in The Ley Hunter, no.92, 1982.
  3. Terry, Jean F., Northumberland Yesterday and Today, Andrew Reid: Newcastle 1913.
  4. Watson, Godfrey, Northumberland Place Names, Sandhill: Morpeth 1995.

Acknowledgements:  Big thanks to Paul Screeton for the grid-reference!

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Barrasford Common, Barrasford, Northumbria

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Settlement:  OS Grid Reference – NY 9212 7538

Also Known as:

  1. Toddle Crags Settlement
  2. Gunnerton Settlement

Archaeology & History

Aerial view of settlement, 1967 (courtesy, Antiquity journal)

Some of the extensive remains of an Iron Age settlement on the northeastern edges of Barrasford Common, on the edge of Toddle Crags a couple of miles north of Chollerton, are thankfully still visible, despite the increased quarrying operations taking their toll on other (now lost) prehistoric sites between the little villages of Gunnerton and Great Swinbourne.  The remains of earthworks and walling are clearly visible at ground level, despite being overgrown.

The archaeologist J.K. St. Joseph (1970) described them in a short piece in Antiquity journal more than 40 years ago, saying:

“The site as first described by the reverend G. Rome Hall (1876) in the course of a survey of settlements around Birtley and Barrasford, made a century ago.  It is the easternmost of three settlements that he noted on the crags east of Gunnerton, and his sketch-plan shows rather irregular enclosures within which appear a dozen hut-circles, between 27ft and 15ft…in diameter according to his account.  The western of the three settlements was subsequently excavated by Rome Hall about 1880, and re-examined in 1941 by Mr A.H.A. Hogg (1942), who was able…to show that the period of occupation fell within the Roman Age. Mr Hogg refers to the earthworks illustrated (above) as ‘a very large settlement, much robbed.’

“…The site consists of a roughly square enclosure, 300ft across, or a little more, defined by a low bank… The SW and SE sides are straight: on the other two sides the boundary mark conforms to the cont0urs of the ground.  The enclosure is subdivided, and evident traces of hut circles and of more rectangular-shaped buildings are still to be seen.  Some of the small compounds may be pens for stock, and the general impression conveyed by the earthworks is of a settlement that has developed over a period of time, additions and rebuildings being involved.  It is thus a notable example of the rectangular settlements of the Roman Iron Age, which occur widely in south Northumberland, as Mr G. Jobey has demonstrated.  The earthworks compare well in point of weathering, at least in an aerial view, with the best preserved of the Iron Age settlements on the moors in the north of the county.”

The writer notes how the this settlement had evidence of continued human use all the way from the Iron Age to perhaps as late as the 18th century!  This isn’t too unusual.  The best example I’ve yet to come across is the little-known settlement complex in the far north, on the small plateau known as Baile Mhargaite near Bettyhill, Sutherland, where a living community began in the neolithic period and only came to an end with the Highland Clearances two hudnred years ago!

References:

  1. Hall, George Rome, “Ancient British Remains near Birtley and Barrasford, North Tyne,”  in Archaeologia Aeliana, Volume 7, 1876.
  2. Hogg, A.H.A., “The Native Settlement at Gunnar Peak,” in Archaeologia Aeolina, Volume 20, 1942.
  3. St. Joseph, J.K., “Air Reconnaissance: Recent Results 19,” in Antiquity no.173, March 1970.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:  Many thanks to Antiquity Journal for use of the photo.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Pike Hill, Stamfordham, Northumbria

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NZ 0774 7048

Archaeology & History

1928 photo of carving

Found inside a prehistoric tomb that was excavated in the late 1920s “by Messrs R.C. and W.P. Hedley at Pike Hill, near Stamfordham,” this fascinating-looking carving was found on a stone that “was overlying the primary burial” cist in the middle of the tumulus, measuring “2 feet 9 inches long by 2 feet wide and 12 inches deep, with an orientation on the longer axis of NE.”  As we can see in the old photo that accompanied Mr Hedley’s (1928) short article in Antiquity journal, four single cups are arranged in a rough square and are joined with each other by a single line, running from cup to cup, outlining a clear quadrilateral formation.  Two other single cups are outliers on the left and right side of the ‘square.’

A second smaller cist was also found inside the same mound and on the central inner face of this was another, more simplistic carving described as “a very fine cup-mark 1½ inch in diameter and ¾-inch deep.”  These carvings are no longer in situ (I think they’re in Newcastle Museum) and apparently this second single cup-marked stone can no longer be located.

References:

  1. Beckensall, Stan, Northumberland’s Prehistoric Rock Carvings, Pendulum: Rothbury 1983.
  2. Beckensall, Stan, Prehistoric Rock Motifs of Northumberland – volume 2: Beanley to the Tyne, Abbey Press: Hexham 1992.
  3. Hedley, R. Cecil, “Ancient British Burials, Northumberland,” in Antiquity Journal, volume 2, December 1928.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian