Follow directions to get to the Pancake Stone. From here walk SE on the footpath that runs on the edge of the moor. After about 200 yards you’ll hit a small footpath which heads into the moor (south). Walk on here for about 200 yards and notice the small rise in the land to your right (if you cross the small stream where the land dips into a very small valley, you’ve gone past). That’s it! The Little Haystack Rock is less than 100 yards away down the slope from here.
Archaeology & History
Of approximately eighty prehistoric cairns that have been alleged to exist along the Green Crag Slack ridge on Ilkley Moor, this site in particular is worthy of note, due mainly to its size. As independent archaeological researcher Paul Bowers said of it when he first saw this cairn-spoil, “it seemed too big to have not been discovered in the past.” Too right!
Mini-Skirtful, looking west
When we tracked across Green Crag Plain a few days ago, it was Michala Potts that called our attention to it. Half-covered in full heather growth, only the eastern edge was exposed. At first it seemed that it was loose prehistoric walling, but then I realised it was on the edge of small knoll and the stone work was deeper and wider than walling. As we explored through the heather atop of the knoll, it was obvious that there was a more extensive gathering of stones scattered all over the top of this small rise, and it seemed that we were looking at the remains of a reasonable sized cairn. Its extent carries about ten yards down the slope from the small hillock, but only a few yards either side of it. It seems likely that the extended loose stones have, over the centuries, simply slipped further down the slope. However, not until a decent excavation occurs will we know anything certain. It is possibile that this is simply the scattered remains of damaged neolithic or Bronze Age walling, but only a more detailed exploration of the site will tell us for sure.
Cowling (1946) mentioned the numerous cairns and scattered walling reaching across this part of Ilkley Moor, but gave no specific information relating to this mini-skirt full of stones! (blame Mikki for the title!)
References:
Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
Follow directions for getting to the Haystack Rock. Once here, walk dead straight south onto the moor and go up the slope you see a few hundred yards ahead of you. Once you’re at the top of the slope, a few yards onto the ridge itself, look around! If there’s deep heather growth when you arrive, you’ve no chance!
Archaeology & History
To my limited knowledge, it appears there’s no previous references to the cairns here. We found at least two of them, with a probable third not far away; but we were lucky inasmuch that the heather had all been burnt away, allowing a clearer inspection of the sites. The larger of the two is nearly four yards across and nearly a yard high. It’s somewhat larger than the majority of what are thought to be single-person cairns along Green Crag Slack ridge, down the slope.
Much denuded cairn
A smaller cairn less than 100 yards west on the same ridge (near the large boulder with a couple of cup-markings on top) looks as if it was robbed of stone sometime in the past. About six-feet across, this one is more typical of the cairns found on the Ridge below.
There are what seems to be other remains along this ridge, including a very distinct thin, six-foot-long stone, which looks very much as if it could have stood upright in the not-too-distant past. We could do with more heather-burning on this part of the moor to help us out!
Dead easy! Follow the directions to the unmissable Haystack Rock, then look at the small upright stone about 40 yards west, just off the footpath.
Archaeology & History
This is another one of the many carvings I first saw when I was a small lad, about 12 years old, in one of my countless walkabouts over these moors. It’s thought by some to be a small cup-marked standing stone (it’s possible I s’ppose, but improbable); whether that’s the case or not, it certainly has three distinct cup-markings on its east-facing vertical face. There are also what appears to be lines cutting through the cups and running out to near the edge of the stone which may or may not be natural. A small, cute little thing! Boughey and Vickerman (2003) make a note that this carving may be recent — but if so, it was done some considerable time before 1975, when I first clapped eyes on it!
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock art of the West Riding, WYAS: Wakefield 2003.
Hedges, John, The Carved Rocks on Rombalds Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
Follow the directions for getting to the Haystack Rock, then bear right (west) along the footpath, past the little Three Cups Stone, until the path bends and goes up onto the moor. A hundred yards or so, walk left into the heather (you’re straddling the remains of considerable prehistoric walling and enclosure remains by now) and look around. You’ll find it!
Archaeology & History
I was only about 12-years old when I first saw this and the nearby prehistoric carvings — but when I came to look for any references to it as a boy, there were none I could find at the time. Then, ten years later when John Hedges (1986) brought out his fine work on the cup-and-ring art of Ilkley Moor, its presence was shown in pen-and-ink at last. Found amidst the remains of an extensive settlement or series of walled enclosures, the carving’s name comes from the curious urn-like element that Hedges showed faintly. There is also an additional ring around one of the cups above the ‘urn’.
Excavations that were done on the prehistoric ‘enclosure’ close to this petroglyph in the 1990s, uncovered the remains of a decent amount of ‘grooved ware’ pottery and worked flint (Edwards & Bradley 1999), dated between 2900 and 2600 BC. As such pottery has been found elsewhere in Britain within and/or near earthworks and other prehistoric remains (obviously!), its incidence here isn’t really too much of a surprise. However, Edwards & Bradley (1999) speculate — albeit vaguely — that there may be a link between the cup-and-rings here and the pottery, saying, “if so, the rock carvings (here) might be indicating a place of special significance.”
This may be so: considering the prevalence of rock-art along the geological ridge and its close association with the large number of burial cairns. If it can be ascertained that the charred remains of humans were kept inside the pottery or vases, the relationship between death and the carvings (well established on this part of Ilkley Moor) would be reinforced.
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, West Yorkshire Archaeology Service 2003.
Edwards, Gavin & Bradley, Richard, ‘Rock Carvings and Neolithic Artefacts on Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire,’ in Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland (edited by Cleal, R. & MacSween, A.), Oxbow: Oxford 1999.
Hedges, John, The Carved Rocks on Rombald’s Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
The Young Idol Stone (bottom) & parental Idol Stone above
Take the directions to reach the Haystack Rock, then head onto the moor following the south-east footpath for a few hundred yards, towards where the moor slopes uphill. 20-30 yards before the uphill slope, a yard to the right of the path, a couple of yards below the well-known Idol Stone carving – you’ll find it!
Archaeology & History
Described simply as a “small, rounded, smooth grit rock,” this long-tooth-shaped stone has just two cup-markings on its upper face: one on the more southern tip, and the second smaller cup several inches below it – as shown on the photo. The adjacent carving seen at the top of the photo is the parent guardian, Idol Stone! If you visit this, or any adjacent carvings here, please remember that all along this moorland plain are numerous unexcavated prehistoric tombs. You’re effectively stood at the edge of, or within, a huge prehistoric cemetery.
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
Hedges, John, The Carved Rocks on Rombalds Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
Head for the binary-like Idol Stone carving and keep walking on the footpath, up the hill. Once on top of the ridge, walk along it to your right (west) for about 300 yards, then walk south (left) into the flat heathland plain. Look around!
Archaeology & History
I’m probably not reading it right – but it seems this large stone with several distinct cup-marks on its vertical south-face, isn’t in the surveys of either Hedges (1986) or Boughey & Vickerman (2003). If someone can correct me on this one – please do!
Green Crag Top Stone, looking north
This is quite a large boulder, as the photos here show. At least two average-sized cup-markings have been etched onto the south face, and two larger ones accompany them on the same edge. There’s another larger cup-mark on the northeast side of the stone, and a possible companion, which may or may not be artificial. Then on top of the stone we have several large cups and a ‘bowl’ — though some of these upper markings may be natural, or just well-eroded cup-marks. It’s hard to tell for sure!
Now I’m gonna have another look in the Hedges, Boughey & Vickerman surveys. They surely can’t have missed this!
Go through Haworth and head for the well-known Penistone Hill country park. On the far western side of the hill up near the top of Moorside Lane, there’s a car-park. Right across the road from this there are two footpaths: one heads you into the moor, whilst the other (going the same direction) follows the edge of walling onto the moors. Take this path. Walk on and downhill, past the end of the reservoir, then the path continues uphill. You’ll hit a nice cheery tree beside the path a few hundred yards up. Stop here, look into the boggy region with bits of walling on the moor in front of you. That’s where you’re heading!
Archaeology & History
The first, weaker of the Spa Wells
This was a really curious spot to me, as I found absolutely nothing about the damn place! But thanks to the assistance of local historian and writer Steven Wood (2009), that’s changed. Shown on the 1852 OS-map, at least two springs of clear water trickle slowly from the wet slope above you into the boggy reeds. Close by there are overgrown remains of old buildings, covered with the time of moorland vegetation, seemingly telling that the waters were collected for bathing rooms. But who the hell even started the notion that they’d be able to get Victorian rich-folk up here at the crack-of-dawn to drink or bathe in the waters is seemingly forgotten. And, as is evident from the lack of local history, the project was a failed one which seemed not to have lasted too long.
Folklore
The stronger Spa Well
It was quite obvious that of all the springs around here and despite the strong-flowing streams either side of these spa well, that the local animals drink here more than the other nearby springs of water, as there were literally hundreds of animal tracks all across the boggy ground of the spas.* The waters also seem to have the usual ‘spa’ qualities of stinking, but once we’d cleaned out the overgrown springs — which looked as if they hadn’t been touched for 100 years or more — the waters were clear and tasted good, and were curiously slightly warm!
Although my initial search for information on this site drew a blank, Steve Wood pointed us in the right direction for info on the place. As with many other holy wells and spas in Yorkshire, it turned out that this was another spot much revered around Beltane, indicating strongly there would have been earlier pre-christian rites practiced at this site. Steve pointed me to Martha Heaton’s (2006) local history work, which told:
“For many years the first Sunday in May was a special day. It was known as Spa Sunday, for on this day people gathered up in the hills overlooking what is now Leeshaw Reservoir, here was a well, known as Spa Well, and the stream which now feeds the reservoir is known as Spa Beck. People came from Haworth, Oxenhope, Stanbury, and other villages sitting round the well, they sang songs, some bringing their musical instruments to accompany the singing. Children brought bottles with hard spanish in the bottom filling the bottle with water from the well, shaking it until all the spanish or liquorice had been dissolved. This mixture was known as ‘Poppa Lol’ and would be kept for weeks after a little sugar had been added, then it was used sparingly as medicine. The custom seems to have died out when Bradford Corporation took over the water and made Leeshaw Compensation Reservoir in 1875, though up to about 1930 two men from Haworth would wend their way to the spot on the moor, the first Sunday in May. The men were John Mitchell and Riley Sunderland, better known, in those days as ‘Johnny o’Paul’s’ and ‘Rile Sun’.
It was a great day for many people, the Keighley News of May 1867 mentioned it, the report of local news reads thus: ‘A large assembly met on Spa Sunday on the moors about two miles from Haworth, and a party of musicians from Denholme performed sacred music’.
This locality was often visited during the summer months by the Bronte family.”
References:
Heaton, Martha, Recollections and History of Oxenhope, privately printed 2006.
Wood, Steven & Palmer, Ian, Oxenhope and Stanbury through Time, Amberley Publishing 2009.
Acknowledgements: – Huge thanks to Steven Wood for his help; and to Hazel Holmes for permission to quote from Martha Heaton’s work.
* A common creation myth behind many healing wells is that animals with breaks or illness drag themselves to drink from otherwise small or insignificant springs and wells, despite of the copious streams or rivers which may be nearer.
Follow the same directions to get to the nearby Ponden Kirk and, once on top of the rocks, overlooking the valley, walk on the footpath to your right. It bends round and follows the stream up onto the moors. About 100 yards along, walk up the heathery slope to the right and you’ll find several boggy watering holes on the top of the ridge. In looking at the first OS-map of the area in 1853, it seems that the northernmost of six boggy springs is the Robin Hood’s Well – although we don’t know this for certain. It’s one of them though!
Archaeology & History
Robin Hood’s Spring, above Ponden Kirk
There’s little to see here really: it’s little more than a small boggy spring of water emerging from the edge of the ridge, as the photo shows. Curiously, descriptions of the site (and its neighbouring compatriots, Will Scarlett’s Well and Little John’s Well) are sparse aswell. It was noted by the Ordnance Survey lads in 1848 and subsequently posted on the first OS-map of the area in 1851. Both Horsfall Turner (1879) and Johnnie Gray (1891) mention the site passing, saying nothing of the place. However, several years after Gray’s work, Halliwell Sutcliffe (1899) ventured here and gave us the first real description of the place, telling:
“Half-hidden underground, and fringed with fern and bog-weed, lie the three wells which go by the names of Robin Hood, Little John and Will Scarlett. One may stop to ask how they came by their birth-names, to wonder why a man should have troubled to fashion them in this out-of-the-way spot; but neither speculation nor questioning of the moor folk brings one nearer to an answer.”
Folklore
Halliwell Sutcliffe’s scruffy quick sketch, circa 1898
Apart from this site being a spot where the legendary outlaw stopped and drank in ages past, the healing attributes of these waters have long since been forgotten. Considering the proximity of the Ponden Kirk and its legendary association with fertility and marriage rites, I’d guess that such lore wold have centred around Beltane, or Mayday; and Robin Hood is very well known in folklore to have close associations with the same period. So — and I’m guessing here — it’s likely that whatever might have occurred at this well, would have taken place around Beltane aswell.
References:
Gray, Johnnie, Through Airedale from Goole to Malham, Walker & Laycock: Leeds 1891.
Sutcliffe, Halliwell, By Moor and Fell in West Yorkshire, T. Fisher Unwin: London 1899.
Turner, J. Horsfall, Haworth, Past and Present, Hendon Mill: Nelson 1879.
From Carlton, take the western Hirst Road to Temple Hirst village, then turn right once you’re in the village and go up Common Lane up for about a mile. There’s a footpath on your left leading you to the Fair Oaks farmhouse. This was the spot!
Archaeology & History
This is fascinating sounding place which marked the central point of three old township boundaries nearly 1000 years ago. I first found it mentioned in Morrell’s History and Antiquities of Selby (1867: 36-7), where this once famous tree is described in land sale transactions. Morrell told:
“At Carlton the (Selby) abbey had considerable property, which was sold to the neighbouring priory of Drax. The boundary of the property sold was a certain oak tree, called Fair-haia, in Burn Wood, which Adam de Bellaqua gave for this purpose, binding himself and his heirs never to cut it down or root it up, sub poena anathematis.”
But we found a more detailed outline in Dugdale’s Selby Abbey in Yorkshire, where the premises and townships given to Selby Abbey in the 12th and 13th centuries are listed. In the township of ‘Carleton’ (as it was then spelt) Dugdale wrote:
“Peter de Brus gave the grange here, which the monks had held of Agnes, late wife of Ranulph FitzSwain. Richard abbat of Selby granted to Robert prior of Drax all the tithe from the north part of the oak called Fair-haia, in the wood of Birne, or Berlay, through the middle of the marsh to Hundolfsweith; and from thence by the strait ditch directly to Espholm, and all the tithe from Espholme to Appletreholme, as the ditch goes to the new fosse or ditch of Carleton: and the prior granted to the abbat all the tithes on the south to the new ditch, and from thence to the river Ayre. And Adam de Bellaqua gave this oak tree, called Fair-haia, as a boundary, never to be cut down (ad standum in perpetuum et non rescindendum), binding himself and his successors never to cut it down or root it up.”
One wonders: are there any remains left of this once great tree? Has anyone actually transgressed and uprooted it in times past? Is any other lore known of it? And who was Adam de Bellaqua?
One of the most intriguing elements to this site is its name, for the word ‘haia’ literally means ‘god of the land’ — but whether we can take this meaning seriously is questionable, as it’s of Sumerian origin. However, no local dialect words throw any light on the word and it may aswell be the name of the spirit of the tree as anything else. Does anyone know owt more about this place?
Dead easy this one! Go along North Street in Keighley, towards the main church in the middle of town (a St. Andrew’s church, previously St. Pete), by the once-infamous Lord Rodney pub, and the old stone edifice stands outside by the Green. The much better Red Pig public house is across the road from here.
Archaeology & History
Keighley’s Town Cross, 1847 – on a painting by Edwin Riby
For a relatively trivial archaeological site, it’s got a bittova history. Not that this is an old site either! We’re not sure just when this cross was made, but it’s certainly no more than 300 years old. Before standing in its present position outside St. Andrew’s Church, sometime before 1840 it was said to have been a few hundred yards away above the present roundabout on Oakworth Road; and one record tells that it originally came from nearby Utley, a mile to the north. Due to lack of decent records, we’re not sure about its early status as a market cross, nor when it was first erected. Indeed, even the steps on which the cross presently stands are clearly more recent than the ones illustrated on Edwin Riby’s 1847 portrait, reproduced here.
Keighley Cross, on a grey wet day!
It would be good to get a complete history of this archaeological relic but it’s difficult with artifacts such as these; and although gaining access to the church now takes less time and effort than it used to (the vicar here used to be quite unhelpful, but has recently changed his ways – which is good!), it’s only open at certain times of the week.* Friday afternoons seem OK to have a look round. Please – if folk begin having trouble gaining access to the Church once more, let us know on here so we can make complaints about it. The Church is paid for by local tax-payer’s cash, and so needs to be open to all of us. Let’s hope this humble ingredient can be maintained for the good of all in this otherwise regressive social community (Keighley, that is…).
There’s also some very curious folklore to be added here in relation to the market and its cross, but its tale is gonna have to wait…
References:
Gray, Johnnie, Through Airedale, from Goole to Malham, Elliott Stock: London 1891.
Keighley, William, Keighley, Past and Present, R. Aked: Keighley 1858.
* There isn’t even a notice giving information, email or phone numbers, telling you who you can contact if you want to know anything about the history of the church, or visit it — which is quite dreadful considering how much money they get paid by tax-payers for their supposed socio-spiritual duties.
