Tag: Airedale

Buck Woods Carving (03), Thackley, Bradford, West Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 17456 39162

Getting Here

A mossy cup-and-ring

Follow the same directions as if you’re visiting the largest and most ornate of the Buck Woods carvings. From here, about 10 yards ahead of you, roughly north, you’ll see another stone, less than half-size of Buck Woods 1, moss-covered and not rising too much out of the Earth.  It’s not difficult to find once you’ve located the largest of the Buck Woods stones.

Archaeology & History

A cup-and-half-ring

Another of the small cluster of little-known prehistoric carved stones in this woodland on the edge of Bradford, not in the Boughey & Vickerman (2003) survey.  This however is possessed of a cup-and-half-ring, with other seemingly carved ingredients fusing onto natural aspects of the rock.  The design is found on the highest part of the stone; and whilst the main cup is easy to make out, the encircling half-ring is slightly troublesome.

…and from another angle

There are two distinct lines running down one side of the rock, both seemingly natural, but they may have been added to—it’s difficult to say with any certainty.  Certainly the one closest to the cup-and-half-ring has the carved line etched to meet the natural geological feature, as you can just make out in the photos here.  There also seems to be other carved features surrounding the central design, with other marks round the main cup, almost suggesting that a complete ring was being made, but never accomplished.  It’s an odd one.  If I’d have stripped the moss from the stone I could have seen the design in greater detail, but I’ve gotta bittova soft spot for mosses and lichens, so left it alone!

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Buck Woods Carving (04), Thackley, Bradford, West Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 17418 39163

Getting Here

It’s the moss-covered stone, centre-right

Follow the same directions as if you’re visiting the largest and most ornate of the Buck Woods carvings. From here, walk 10 yards to the Buck Woods 3 carving, then about the same distance forward again until you reach the low lines of (what looks like) Iron Age walling running roughly east-west through the trees.  Walk 10-20 yards east along the walling until a gap or entrance appears – and on the other side where the walling starts again, check the 2nd or 3rd rock along, beneath the mosses.

Archaeology & History

More simple cup-marks

There are no previous references to this small cup-marked stone, whose cups are on the topmost surface of the stone in this ancient stretch of walling (into which some vandal has recently carved his name, ‘Hunt’). It’s another one for the purists amongst you though, as we only have 2 or 3 cupmarks here, as the photos show – with just one which I can say is a certainty.  Curiously the other two look, for all the world, as if they’re mollusc cups!—but considering you’re about 50 miles from the sea, this seems a little unlikely.  Worth having a look at when you’re checking the other four carvings close by.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Buck Woods Carving (02), Thackley, Bradford, West Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 17473 39152

Getting Here

Buck Woods cup-marks

Follow the same directions as if you’re visiting the largest and most ornate of the Buck Woods carvings. Once there, notice the green field on the other side of the wall less than 50 yards away. Walk towards the wall, about 20 yards from the Buck Woods 1 carving, keeping your eyes peeled for a flat mossy stone.  You’ll find it!

Archaeology & History

Close-up of the cups

A nice simple, almost cute cup-marked stone—not included in the Boughey & Vickerman (2003) survey—with three simple cups running almost in a straight line from the middle of this long stone to its outward, eastern edge.  One of the good features of this and its associated carvings is the setting amidst which it’s found. We tend to associate these carvings with open moorland, where many now live, but when they were first carved they were surrounded by woodland and much more: important ingredients relevant to understanding the nature of these curious carvings…

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


East Riddlesden Cross, Keighley, West Yorkshire

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Cross:  OS Grid Reference – SE 079 421

Archaeology & History

A little-known early christian relic found in the driveway to East Riddlesden Hall was saved and propped up in the stable floor at the back.  In 1984 however, the National Trust got round to moving it and bringing the relic to greater public attention by putting it on display in the great hall of the building. (I think you’ve gotta pay to go in and see the stone these days – which is a bittova pain if you just want to examine the carving)

Old photo of the carved stone (after Margaret Faull)

Measuring just 1 foot across and 2 feet high and carved on all sides, the design is all too familiar to those of you exploring early christian or late-Celtic art forms.  Executed sometime between the 5th-10th century, on the main face of the cross we have the traditional ‘Celtic’ interlacing, with a bird-figure emerging on or around an early ‘cross’ symbol.  There are a variety of interpretations of this, but none relate to any modern christian mythic structures.  Indeed, we should cautiously reflect on the more pre-christian nature of this design: carved as it was at a time when the spirit of the natural world (animism) was endemic amongst all people.  This carving would in some way reflect such implicit subjectivity, though perhaps have had emergent ideals relevant to the christian cult within it.  However, we should be cautious about this christian idea, despite it being much in vogue by prevailing groups of consensus trance historians.

References:

  1. Faull, Margaret L., “The Display of the Anglo-Saxon Crosses of the Keighley Area,” in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, New Series no.30, 1986.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Rivock East Carving, Keighley, West Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – SE 07640 44215

Getting Here

Cupmarks at Rivock East

Take the same directions as if you’re going to Dave’s Stone, to the eastern end of Rivock Edge itself. Then take less than 10 steps further onto the moor itself and you’ll see the stone pretty low down in the heather. (please note that grid-reference above needs revising)

Archaeology & History

…and looking straight down!

Found about 10 yards onto the flat ridge south of Dave’s Stone cup-marked stone, the vegetation covering this carving had only recently been brushed off when we revisited the place in 2012, by members of the Ilkley CSI team in their own survey of the area.  As you can see, it’s a simple design of just two well-preserved cups on a small rounded stone. What may be the remains of a very faint ring arc is possible over one of the two cups. Nowt much more to say really!

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Quarry Hill, Leeds, West Yorkshire

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Settlement (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – SE 309 336

Archaeology & History

Absolutely nothing is left of the large series of ancient earthworks that were reported to have existed near the very centre of Leeds by Ralph Thoresby, James Wardell and others in the 18th and 19th centuries.  Although we do not know with certainty the age and nature of the site, it would seem very likely to have had a prehistoric provenance.  However, this wasn’t the opinion of either Thoresby (1715) or Thomas Whitaker (1816).  They both thought the remains were of Roman origin – but we must remind ourselves of the inaccuracies made, particularly by Whitaker, when it came to estimating the dates of early monuments (e.g., Whitaker’s assertions of the huge Counter Hill earthworks above Addingham).  Sometime later, James Wardell (1853) thought the remains on Quarry Hill were distinctly pre-Roman; though reasoned that the invading force may have used the site at a later date.  Wardell wrote:

“Traces of a prior occupation were, until recently, observable on the summit of Quarry-hill, along the western edge of which ran an earthwork of considerable length and magnitude, and of semi-circular form.”

We know little else of the place, sadly, but the shape of the site around the hilltop edges would seem to support the likelihood of an Iron or Bronze Age origin.  Further information would, of course, be more helpful…

References:

  1. Thoresby, Ralph, Ducatus Leodiensis, Maurice Atkins: London 1715.
  2. Wardell, James, The Antiquities of the Borough of Leeds, Moxon & Walker: Leeds 1853.
  3. Whitaker, Thomas D., Loidis and Elmete, T. Davison: Leeds 1816.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Buck Woods Carving (05), Thackley, Bradford, West Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 17554 39290

Getting Here

Single cup-marked stone against wall

From Thackley corner, take the Esholt road down Ainsbury Avenue.  Walk past the Thackley football ground and another 50 yards on, to your left, there’s a field.  Cross this and go through the gate into the trees.  Another field is across the footpath, but turn right and walk on the muddy path, keeping parallel with the other field, until the walling bends round to the left.  About 15 yards round where the wall bends left, watch out for the silver birch tree and the small cup-marked rock at its base, right up against the wall.

Archaeology & History

This is an archetypal single cup-marked stone known as a ‘portable’ — though in its original state, when the rock was obviously larger than it is today, I doubt anyone could have carried it further than a couple of yards!  The stone has been split from a larger rock, and we’re unsure the size of its original form—but presume it to have been perhaps double its present size.

The broken rock stands (now) upright against the wall and nice birch tree (Betula pendula), but wasn’t like that when we first found it, and the cup was barely visible as it faced down into the Earth.  As the images show, we have just a single cup-mark on its outer face.  It looks typical of those carvings found in the larger Bronze Age cairns scattering the moors to the north, but we have no evidence nor folklore indicating the existence of such a monument hereby.  The extensive amount of overgrown multiperiod walling all over this woodland may have used up such a cairn, but we will probably never find out, as the woods have been overused by industrialists, who are now, slowly, turning the woods here into a park.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Buck Woods Carving (01), Thackley, Bradford, West Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 17456 39155

Getting Here

One of the Buck Woods carvings
One of Buck Woods carvings

From Thackley corner, take the Esholt road down Ainsbury Avenue.  After a couple of hundred yards, note the metal gateways into the woods.  Go through here, following the main path, until you reach another split in the paths where one of those awful touristy signs tells you where you are.  Walk past this (not left or right) into the opening of large oaks and other trees on a flat plain.  A path swings round the right side of this, and less than 100 yards along, watch out for some rocks on your right, heading towards the wall and small field.  You’re damn close!

Archaeology & History

Close-up of cup-markings

This is one amongst a cluster of at least five cup-marked stones very close to each other in the woods here — and probably the best of the bunch.  Also found in conjunction with what seems to be an Iron Age walled enclosure 20 yards away, there are at least eight cup-marks on top of this rock,  They occur in two groups: one, on a sloping section of the boulder where three fading cups can be seen; and the other is on the topmost section of the stone, where five larger cups distinctly stand out, and occur in conjunction with what seems to be a long carved line running close to the edge of the rock before it drops sharply to the ground.

This and its associated carvings are found in close proximity to some sort of walled enclosure.  It’s difficult ascertaining the age and nature of the enclosure walling, as masses of it are found throughout this section of woodland and it appears to be multiperiod in age and nature: from Iron Age to Victorian by the look of things.  Neither this cup-marked stone, nor any of its close associates (the closest of which is the Buck Woods 3 carving, less than 10 yards away), were recorded in the Boughey & Vickerman survey of rock art in West Yorkshire.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Crutch Well, Baildon, West Yorkshire

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Healing Well:  OS Grid Reference – SE 14678 38688

Getting Here

Crutch Well pool (Goat Stone carving to rear)

Whether you’re coming here from either Baildon, or Shipley, head for the Cricketer’s Arms on Green Road (ask a local).  About 50 yards uphill from the pub, on the other side of the road, notice the small pool on the green surrounded by large rocks.  That’s y’ spot!

Archaeology & History

First illustrated on the 1851 6-inch to the mile Ordnance Survey map of the region, this little known medicinal spring of water appears to get its name from the northern dialect word, crutch, meaning a plough, a plough-handle, a spade and variants thereof. (Wright 1898)  There is another possibility of it deriving from “an ash or hazel pole” that were given as payment to workers each day in bygone times—a curious custom in itself! But we actually don’t know for sure and could even assume that people came here on crutches to be cured, or something along those lines.

The place has clear running water and had a chapel built near it in the early 19th century.  The old public house across the road (Cricketer’s Arms) has spring water from this well running underneath it, which was said to never run dry and also keeps the drinks forever cool in warm weather!  A few yards above the source of the spring, on the grass to the north is a small cup-marked stone.  Another cupmarked rock listed by archaeologists as a prehistoric carved stone nearby on the same grass verge is probably of more recent industrial origin.

References:

  1. Baildon, W. Paley, Baildon and the Baildons – parts 1-15, Adelphi: London 1913-1926.
  2. Wright, Joseph, English Dialect Dictionary – volume 1, Henry Frowde: Oxford 1898.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Goat Stone Carving, Baildon, West Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 14690 38699

Also Known as:

  1. Carving no.193 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

The goat on its cup-marked stone!

Whether you’re coming here from either Baildon, or Shipley, head for the Cricketer’s Arms pub on Green Road (ask a local).  About 50 yards uphill from the pub, on the other side of the road, notice the small pool on the green surrounded by large rocks: it’s the small stone about 15 yards behind the source of the spring. The goats living there usually give the game away!

Archaeology & History

This small stone, found amidst a cluster of others surrounding the medicinal Crutch Well, has its name from the friendly goats who live hereby and, when I came here for the first time in a while the other day, had trouble getting one of the little fellas to shift from his stone!  We first found this when we did a lotta venturing around the area when we lived nearby as kids.  This particular stone was noted during one of our many exploratory rambles round here, albeit briefly, when I wrote:

“Before going up the slope to Robin Hood’s House we looked at the stones around Crutch Well and found one with some cup-marks on it, on the grass behind the waters.”

I can’t say for sure, but think this carving was later added in the Boughey & Vickerman (2003) survey as stone no.193.  They described the stone as:

“Creamish coloured rock about 1m N-S and less than 0.5m high carries two possible shallow cups to centre of surface and a possible third cup (doubtful) to N.”

Close-up of the cups

This would seem to be the stone, though there is another faded fourth cup, between the ‘doubtful’ cup and the two distinct ones, with a faded carved line running from it.  Their grid-reference isn’t accurate for this and a companion single cup-marked rock (which I’d say was dodgy!), so I’m not 100% sure that we’re dealing with the same carving.  There are a lot of small rocks here and in the fields opposite, many with industrial marks on them which, over the years, have faded and give the appearance of cup-markings — which most are not!

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, Of Cups and Rings and Things, unpublished: Shipley 1981.
  2. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Wakefield 2003.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian