From Bingley, take the B6429 road up to Harden. After going up the wooded winding road for a few hundred yards, stop where it levels out. Cross onto the right-hand side of the road and walk up the slope a little, veering to your right. You’ll notice a small disused building just off the roadside, in overgrowth, with a pool of water. You need to be about 100 yards up the slope above it!
Archaeology & History
Elm Crag Well, Bell Bank Wood, Bingley
This is a beautiful old place. If you walk straight up to it from the roadside, past the derelict building, you have to struggle through the brambles and prickly slope like we did – but it’s worth it if you like your wells! However, if you try getting here in the summertime, expect to be attacked on all sides by the indigenous flora! The waters here emerge from a low dark cave, in which, a century of three ago, someone placed a large stone trough. When I first came here about 25 years ago, some halfwits had built an ugly red-brick wall into the cave which, thankfully, someone has had the sense to destroy and rip-out.
Shown on the 1852 Ordnance Survey map and highlighted as a ‘spring,’ Harry Speight (1898) gives a brief mention to this site, though refers us to an even earlier literary source when it was first mentioned. In John Richardson’s 18th century survey of the Craven area, he makes reference to an exceedingly rare fern, Trichomanes radicans, which was later included in Bolton’s classic monograph on British ferns of 1785. In it, Bolton wrote that the very first specimen of this plant was “first discovered by Dr. Richardson in a little dark cavern, under a dripping rock, below the spring of Elm Crag Well, in Bell Bank.”
Elm Crag Well
The waters from here come from two sides inside the small cave and no longer run into the lichen-encrusted trough, seemingly just dropping down to Earth and re-emerging halfway down the hillside. But the waters here taste absolutely gorgeous and are very refreshing indeed! And the old elms which gave this old well its name can still be seen, only just hanging on to the rocks above and to the side, with not much time left for the dear things.
References:
Bolton, James, Filices Britannicae: An History of the British Proper Ferns, Thomas Wright 1785.
Speight, Harry, Chronicles and Stories of Old Bingley, Elliott Stock: London 1898.
Probably the easiest way to get here is by starting on the Moor Road above Burley Woodhead, where the road crosses the Rushy Beck stream. Looking upstream, follow the footpath up the right-hand side of the waters, nearly all the way to the top. Where it crosses a footpath near where the moor begins to level out, look up to your right and you’ll see the raised crown of stones a coupla hundred yards off path, NNW. That’s it!
Archaeology & History
This very large Bronze Age cairn was reported by Faull & Moorhouse (1981) to have been surrounded by a multiple stone circle, citing it to have been shown as such on an estate map of Hawksworth Common in 1734. When I contacted the Yorkshire Archaeology Society to enquire about this map, it could not be located. (This needs to be found!) No evidence of such a stone circle presently remains, though there were at least two standing stones once to be seen at the edge of this tomb, though only one of them — now laid more than five-feet long in the heather — is still evident on the western side of this giant tomb. But anyone who might know anything about the 1734 Estate Map – pleeeeez gerrit copied or take a photo of it! Then stick it on TNA so everyone can see whether the circle surrounded this, or the Great Skirtful of Stones, 500 yards to the south.
Single cup-marked stone on outer edge of Little Skirtful
The Little Skirtful is in better condition than its big brother on the hill to the south and — unlike the Great Skirtful — there are said to be at least five cup-marked stones amidst the great mass or rocks constituting this site. There could be more. The carvings are just single cup-markings etched onto small portable stones, typical of sites like this. They are found near the centre above a small cist and outwardly towards the northern edges of the cairn (for more info about them, see the main entry for the Little Skirtful Carvings).
It’s been said by Stan Beckensall (1999, 2002) that no cup-marked rocks “are known near…the really large cairns” on the moor—meaning the Little Skirtful and her allies—but this isn’t true as there are at least 4 definite carvings (a possible fifth seems likely) on the moorland immediately around the Little Skirtful. Though to give Beckensall his due, if he got his data from the Ilkley archaeologists, his information isn’t gonna be too accurate, as they’re quite unaware of many sites on these moors! A good number of local people have a much greater knowledge-base on such matters than those in paid offices, as this and other websites clearly shows. The times they are a-changin’, as one dood said, not so long ago…!
Folklore
Paul Bowers & Mikki on top for scale!
The creation myth of this place tells that the giant Rombald (who gives his name to the moor) was in trouble with his wife and when he stepped over to Almscliffe Crags from here, his giant wife – who is never named – dropped a small bundle of stones she was carrying in her apron. (In traditional societies elsewhere in the world where this motif is also found, it tends to relate to the site being created by women.) Harry Speight (1900) tells us of a variation of the tale,
“which tradition says was let fall by the aforementioned giant Rumbalds, while hastening to build a bridge over the Wharfe.”
Variations on this story have said it was the devil who made the site, but this is a denigrated christian variant on the earlier, and probably healthier, creation tale. Similar tales are told of the Great Skirtful of Stones, 500 yards south.
References:
Beckensall, Stan, British Prehistoric Rock Art, Tempus: Stroud 1999.
Beckensall, Stan, “British Prehistoric Rock Art in the Landscape,” in G. Nash & C. Chippindale’s European Landscapes of Rock Art, Routledge: London 2002.
Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Chieveley 2001.
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAA 2003.
Collyer, Robert & Turner, J. Horsfall, Ilkley: Ancient and Modern, William Walker: Otley 1885.
Colls, J.N.M., ‘Letter upon some Early Remains Discovered in Yorkshire,’ in Archaeologia 31, 1846.
Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
Faull & Moorhouse, West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Survey – volume 3, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
Hedges, John (ed.), The Carved Rocks on Rombalds Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
Speight, Harry, Upper Wharfedale, Elliott Stock: London 1900.
Wood, Butler, ‘Prehistoric Antiquities of the Bradford District,’ in Bradford Antiquary, volume 2, 1901.
OK – OK – stop laughing at the title! If you wanna check the hill out for yourselves, get to Hebden Bridge, then go up the long and very steep Birchcliffe Road. Keep going all the way to the very top (a couple of miles uphill). When you reach here, the building in front of you was the Mount Skip pub. From here, walk up over the golf course and you’ll hit the disused quarries on the moor edge.
Archaeology & History
The grid reference given above is an approximation. The tomb (long gone) was within 100 yards of the coordinate. But don’t let that put you off having a good bimble around the moors here, cos there are several sites to see.
This long-lost burial was located in May, 1897, when quarrying operations were being undertaken behind the Mount Skip Inn, on the edge of Wadsworth Moor. Ling Roth (1906) told that
“the first indications were the rolling down of pieces of urns which the delvers called flower pots. Then in digging a hole to fix the leg of a crane, human bones were discovered.”
Geoffrey Watson (1952) later echoing Mr Roth’s comments wrote that,
“a grave containing a skeleton was discovered at a quarry about Mount Skip Inn. The grave was about 6ft long, 14-18 in wide, and about 2ft deep. The bones, which were exceedingly brittle, crumbled on handling. Within the grave, and mainly at the ends, there appeared to be about 6 in of mixed charred wood and bones. The larger portion of a small earthenware vessel was picked up and retained by one of the quarrymen.”
According to Mr Roth, the “earthware vessel picked up…by one of the quarrymen” was “picked up by a man named Thomas Greenwood, of Shawcroft Hill.” What became of it, I do not know! If anyone knows, please let us know!
The description telling that “the grave was about 6ft long, 14-18 in wide, and about 2ft deep,” implies it to have been a stone cist – although this is quite long. The nearest of any similar form would be the giant cairns at Low Bradley, 12½ miles (20km) to the north This may have been the last remnants of a giant cairn (its landscape position would allow for this).
References:
Roth, H. Ling, The Yorkshire Coiners…and Notes on Old and Prehistoric Haifax, F. King: Halifax 1906.
Watson, Geoffrey G., Early Man in the Halifax District, Halifax Scientific Society 1952.
Taking the A629 road between Shepley and Ingbirchworth, as you hit the staggered crossroads at High Flatts, take the west turn up the slightly sloping straight road of Windmill Lane. Just where the road ‘kinks’ at a small bend, stop and look into the field on your left.
Archaeology & History
Deemed by some as a hillfort, and others as settlement remains, what little are left of the remaining earthworks here were first described by local historian Henry Morehouse in 1861. Found about a mile west of Upper Denby, the site was described in the Victoria County History as being “on a commanding though not exactly a defensive situation on the slope of a hill.” This remark coming from the belief (and that’s all it is) that this was an Iron Age castle site. In 1924 James Petch said of it,
“The earthwork seems originally to have been almost square, and two sides and an angle remain. The external ditch is from ten to twelve feet broad in its present state.”
While Faull & Moorhouse (1981) tell of there being “evidence for Neolithic activity” here, modern surveyors reckon it as an old prehistoric settlement — which makes sense; though little of the site remains to be seen today.
References:
Faull, M.L. & Moorhouse, S.A., West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Survey, I, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
Morehouse, Henry James, History and Antiquities of the Parish of Kirkburton and the Graveship of Holme, Roebuck: Huddersfield 1861.
Petch, James A., Early Man in the District of Huddersfield, Huddersfield 1924.
One of two ways to get here really. The easiest is from Sutton-in-Craven: go through the village and up the steep hill (don’t take the right turn as you start up the hill). Go all the way up until the hill starts to level out and on the left-side of the road you’ll notice a boundary stone stood upright (this is the Sutton Stoop). Stop here. Of the 2 gates, climb over the top-most one and walk down the path into the adjacent field, heading over to the gap a couple of hundred yards away where the gate to another field is. That’s it!
Archaeology & History
Stinking Stone, Steeton
Now here’s a weird one. With a name like this you’d expect there to be plenty of info or historical comments. But despite all the books and journals in my huge library, aswell as visiting town libraries and exploring the resources on-line, there’s nowt written about this ‘ere spot. Not a jot! Even the usually satisfactory place-name fellas have a thing-or-two to say about sites with names such as this—but even their old tomes are closed-lipped. Hmmmmm…..
I visited the place several times to try ascertain what this site was, thinking — perhaps — that it was an old boundary stone whose name had been convoluted from some older, more obvious title.* The nearby Sutton Stoop boundary stone, right by the roadside, seemed a good indicator to such an assumption, as it was a recognised boundary marker with written history and a meeting point along the local perambulation. But the curiously-named Stinking Stone was neither on the same line, nor ever had been according to old records, and couldn’t be located either. There had been obvious quarrying and other industrial destruction along the hilltop where the old stone was marked and it seemed logical to assume that it had been destroyed in bygone years by that usual breed of capitalist industrial halfwits. Until a psilocybin venture one afternoon, last season…
Twas a lovely sunny day, though windy on the tops as usual. I was out with a couple of neophytes showing them Psilocybes and various other species, chewing them here and there and talking the way of healthy usage. We passed by an old well, long forgotten, before heading onto Stinking Stone Hill. Bimbling somewhat, and ruminating about the moss of colour, we decided to sit by the walling in-field and dream for a short while. As we hit the old gate the Stinking Stone came up right before us. Literally!
There in the old walling, blunt as you like, stood this four-and-a-half-foot tall standing stone, smoothed on one side by a short aeon of weathering, upright and proud as if it had been stood there for centuries, awaiting attention! I exclaimed a few triumphant expletives; rubbed myself here and there over the old thing, then sat for a while behind the wind with the old upright, solidly embedded in old earth — then awaited the dream…
Twas a good day…
And then I returned home and later sought what I could on a possible etymology. Around the hilltop a hundred yards away were small depressions and the faded remains of industrial workings, like I said; and with this in mind the awesome Mr Wright (1905) told us about the existence of ‘Stinking coals’, “an inferior kind of coal” no less. Referring us to a work from 1818, we’re told,
“The Stinking-coal is noted for containing a great proportion of sulphuret of iron, thick seams or layers of these pyrites running in it. In consequence of this it cannot be used for smelting purposes.”
Another account from 1868 telling us that:
“On opening the body, it contains a strong sulphureous smell, characteristic of the disease; hence it is called the stinking ill; and the stomach and bowels are prodigiously distended with air, having the same intolerable foetor.”
Worn metal scratches, made when dragged here?
This old worn gatepost however, perhaps has a history that only goes back a few centuries. It has been cleaved in half, as you’ll see if you visit it; but its western face is old and worn and it’s been embedded in the ground for a long time. On its northern face are the curious etchings of carvings, which are more akin to wounds from some past offence (perhaps when it was split in half), cleaved by metal toolings and dragged by farmers to be fixed in into present spot. It’s history may not be truly ancient. Twouldst be good to know for sure though…
References:
Wright, Joseph, The English Dialect Dictionary – volume 5, Henry Frowde: Oxford 1905.
* ‘Stinking’, stone-king or King Stone? Unlikely though…
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 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.
Take the directions to reach the Haystack Rock, then head onto the moor following the southeast 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. It accompanies the Young Idol Stone with its two small cups, just a few yards away. Keep your eyes peeled and y’ can’t really miss it! If you hit the large slightly-pyramidal-shaped boulder with its well-worn lines running from its top (the Idol Rock), you’ve gone past it.
Archaeology & History
An intriguing carving this, and one which has always had me edging towards a manifest linear or logical myth underscoring its form. It’s the almost binary or primal numeric system in the lay-out of the cups which seems to do it. Few other carvings in the region exhibit this tendency.* If you aint seen it ‘in the flesh,’ check it out.
First described by that old Victorian J. Romilly Allen (1882), he seemed equally impressed by it, calling it “the most beautiful specimen of prehistoric sculpture,” continuing:
“The stone is of grit, and measure 3ft 2ins, by 2ft 6ins. Its upper surface is nearly horizontal, and has carved upon it cups varying in diameter from 2ins to 3ins. A row of cups in the middle of the stone are entirely surrounded by a groove. There is also a channel running round the outside. Single cups are often found encircled by one or more concentric rings; but it is very exceptional indeed to find several cups surrounded by a single groove, or to find the cups so symmetrically arranged as in the present instance.”
Idol Stone – looking SW
Prehistoric walling runs very close to this and the adjacent rock carvings, with the well-known ‘enclosure’ just a short distance to the east on the same moorland plain. This carving is very much on the edge of, or within, Green Crag Plain’s ‘Land of the Dead.’
This carving was one of several that Alan Davis (1983) measured in his exploratory survey on the validity of Alexander Thom’s ‘megalithic inch’ unit. This issue absolutely fascinated me as a boy, as it brought the attention of these curious non-linear images into the domain of mathematics and the higher sciences, instead of the lowly social sciences within whose domain archaeology is embedded, with its many inaccuracies and falsehoods. A number of astronomers and other academics did a great number of papers exploring potential units-of-length, surveying the carvings (and megalithic rings) in much greater detail than any previous archaeologist. Much of it was excellent work. However, the mythos of our ancient ancestors possessing great technical knowledge and mathematical ability was unfounded. In Davis’ (1983) paper — edited and expanded a few years later (1988) — he found no evidence of mathematical units of measurement here; though left the option ‘open’ for further discussion and analysis on several others, where multiple units of megalithic inches were measured. These findings however, are more likely the result of mere chance.
Idol Stone with “21st century informal unauthorised” art added
In 2011 some unnamed people visited the Idol Stone carving and vandalized it (this sadly happens more and more up here); but this form of vandalism is now being termed “twenty-first century informal unauthorised carvings” and is actually sanctioned by Ilkley Parish Council members, local businessman Tom Lonsdale and his affiliates as artistic “tradition”! Indeed, the damage done here and vandalism done on some other ancient carved stones that have been redesignated by Tom Lonsdale and friends as “twenty-first century informal unauthorised carvings”, legitimizes and encourages others to follow in their shallow-minded ignorance, enabling others to add their own form of ‘art’ on these supposedly protected monuments, on a region with an alleged SSSI status. They even encourage supposedly ‘nice’ people — y’ know the sort — to etch poems and such things onto the stones on the moors, in violation of regulations that apply to the general public. As a result, expect more vandalism — sorry…arty “twenty-first century informal unauthorised carvings” both here and elsewhere. This same appalling debacle — sorry, “tradition” — has been encouraged on the Haystack Rock, Hanging Stones and other prehistoric carvings on the moor.
Folklore
The name ‘Idol Stone’ was an invention of one of the Victorian romanticists, who saw heathen idolatry and perversion all over these moors (you’ve gotta ask y’self, what the hell were these people up to!?). Our old friend Nicholas Size (1934) told there to have been ghostly figures and druidic activities occurring at this site.
References:
Allen, J. Romilly, ‘Notice of Sculptured Rocks near Ilkley, with some Remarks on Rocking Stones,’ in Journal of the British Archaeological Association, volume 38, 1882.
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, West Yorkshire Archaeology Service 2003.
Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
Davis, Alan, ‘The Metrology of Cup and Ring Carvings near Ilkley in Yorkshire,’ in Science and Archaeology, 25, 1983.
Hedges, John, The Carved Rocks on Rombalds Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
Hotham, John Paul, Halos and Horizons, Hotham Publishing: Leeds 2021.
Jennings, Hargrave, Archaic Rock Inscriptions, A. Reader: London 1891.
Size, Nicholas, The Haunted Moor, William Walker: Otley 1934.
Speight, Harry, Upper Wharfedale, Elliott Stock: London 1900.
Get to the Twelve Apostles stone circle, then walk just 100 yards down the main footpath south, towards Bingley, and watch out for a small footpath immediately to your left. Walk on here and head for the rocky outcrop a half-mile ahead of you. Once past the outcrop, take the first footpath right and walk down for another 100 yards. Stop! – and walk into the heather. The circle’s about 50 yards away! You can of course come from the Menston side of the moor, following the same directions for the Great Skirtful of Stones, but keep walking on for another 200 yards, towards the rocky outcrop again, turning left down the path for 100 yards, before stopping and walking 50 yards into the heath again!
Archaeology & History
Roms Law circle
This is one of my favourite sites on these moors. I’m not 100% sure why – but there’s always been something a bit odd about the place. And I don’t quite know what I mean, exactly, when I say “odd.” There’s just something about it… But it’s probably just me. Though I assume that me sleeping rough here numerous times in the past might have summat to do with it, playing with the lizards, and of course…the sheep… AHEM!!! Soz about that – let’s just get back to what’s known about the place!
Grubstones is an intriguing place and, I recommend, recovers its original name of Roms or Rums Law. It was described as such in the earliest records and only seems to have acquired the title ‘Grubstones’ following the Ordnance Survey assessment in the 1850s. The name derives from two compound words, rum, ‘room, space, an open space, a clearing’; and hlaw, a ‘tumulus, or hill’ – literally meaning here the ‘clearing or place of the dead,’ or variations thereof. But an additional variant on the word law also needs consideration here, as it can also be used to mean a ‘moot or meeting place’; and considering that local folklore, aswell as local boundary records tell of this site being one of the gathering places, here is the distinct possibility of it possessing another meaning: literally, ‘a meeting place of the dead’, or variations on this theme.
The present title of Grubstones was a mistranslation of local dialect by the Ordnance Survey recorders, misconstruing the guttural speaking of Rum stones as ‘grub stones.’ If you wanna try it yourself, talk in old Yorkshire tone, then imagine some Oxford or London dood coming along and asking us the name of the ring of stones! It works – believe me….
The site has little visual appeal, almost always overgrown with heather, but its history is considerable for such a small and insignificant-looking site. First described in land records of 1273 CE, Roms Law was one of the sites listed in the local boundary perambulations records which was enacted each year on Rogation Day (movable feast day in Spring). However in 1733 there was a local boundary dispute which, despite the evidence of written history, proclaimed the Roms Law circle to be beyond the manor of Hawksworth, in which it had always resided. But the boundary was changed – and local people thenceforth made their way to the Great Skirtful of Stones on their annual ritual walk: a giant cairn several hundred yards east to which, archaeologically, there is some considerable relationship. For at the northern edge of the Roms Law circle is the denuded remnants of a prehistoric trackway in parts marked out with fallen standing stones and which leads to the very edge of the great cairn. This trackway or avenue, like that at Avebury (though not as big), consists of “male” and “female” stones and begins – as far as modern observations can tell – several hundred yards to the west, close to a peculiar morass of rocks and a seeming man-made embankment (which I can’t make head or tail of it!). From here it goes past Roms Law and continues east towards the Great Skirtful, until it veers slightly round the southern side of the huge old tomb, then keeps going eastwards again into the remnants of a prehistoric graveyard close by.
In my opinion, it is very likely that this trackway was an avenue along which our ancestors carried their dead. Equally probable, the Roms Law Circle was where the body of the deceased was rested, or a ritual of some form occurred, before taken on its way to wherever. It seems very probable that this avenue had a ceremonial aspect of some form attached to it. However, due to the lack of decent archaeological attention, this assertion is difficult to prove.
A previously unrecognised small single tomb is in evidence to the immediate southeast (5 yards) of the circle. There is also another previously unrecognised prehistoric trackway that runs up along the eastern side of the circle, roughly north-south, making its way here from Hawksworth Moor to the south. The old legend that Roms Law was a meeting place may relate to it being a site where the dead were rested, along with it being an important point along the old boundary line. Records tell us that the chant, “This is Rumbles Law” occurred here at the end of the perambulation – which, after the boundary change, was uttered at the Great Skirtful. This continued till at least 1901.
Northern section of the Ring
Modern archaeological analysis of the site is undecided as regards the actual nature of Roms Law. Ordnance Survey maps show it as an “enclosure” (which is vague); Faull & Moorhouse’s survey (1981) erroneously tell us it had no funerary nature, contrary to Eric Cowling’s (1946) report of finding bones and ashes from the small hole in near the centre of the ring, aswell as the 1880 drawing of the site in Collyer & Turner’s survey (above). And we find the single cairn on the south-eastern edge of the ring indicating burial rites of sorts definitely occurred here. Described variously by previous archaeologists as a stone circle, a ring cairn, cairn circle, an enclosure, aswell as “a rubble-fill wall of a circular house” (by some anonymous member of the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service, who didn’t respond to my queries about this curious assumption), the real nature of Roms Law leans more to a cairn circle site. A fine example of a cup-and-ring stone — the Comet Stone — was found very close to the circle, somewhere along the Grubstones Ridge more than a hundred years ago, and it may have had some relevance to Roms Law.
This denuded ring of stones is a place that has to be seen quite blatantly in a much wider context, with other outlying sites having considerable relationship to it. Simple as! (If you wanna know more about this, check out my short work, Roms Law, due out shortly!)
Describing the status and dimensions here, our great Yorkshire historian Arthur Raistrick (1929) told that:
“The larger stones still standing number about twenty, but the spaces between them are filled with stones of many intermediate sizes, so that one could with only considerable detail of size, etc, number the original peristalith.”
…Meaning that we’re unsure exactly how many stones stood in the ring when it was first built! Although a little wider, the Roms Law is similar in form to the newly discovered ‘Hazell Circle‘ not far from here. The site has changed little since Raistrick’s survey, though some halfwits nicked some of the stones on the southwestern edge of the site in the 1960s to build a stupid effing grouse-butt, from which to shoot the birds up here! (would the local council or local archaeologist have been consulted about such destruction by building the grouse-butt here? – anyone know?) Thankfully, this has all but disappeared and the moorland has taken it back to Earth.
There is still a lot more to be told of Roms Law and its relationship with a number of uncatalogued sites scattered hereby. Although it’s only a small scruffy-looking thing (a bit like misself!), its archaeology and mythic history is very rich indeed. “Watch This Space” – as they say!
Folklore
Alleged to be haunted, this site has been used by authentic ritual magickians in bygone years. It was described by Collyer & Turner (1885) “to have been a Council or Moot Assembly place” — and we find this confirmed to a great extent via the township perambulation records. Considerable evidence points to an early masonic group convening here in medieval times and we are certain from historical records that members of the legendary Grand Lodge of All England (said to be ordained in the tenth century by King Athelstan) met here, or at the adjacent Great Skirtful of Stones giant cairn 400 yards east.
The boundary perambulations which occurred here on Rogation Day relate to events just before or around Beltane, Mayday. Elizabeth Wright (1913) said of this date:
“These days are marked in the popular mind by the ancient and well-known custom of beating the parish bounds, whence arose the now obsolete name of Gang-days, and the name Rammalation-day, i.e., perambulation-day, for Rogation-Monday. The practice is also called Processioning and Possessioning… The reason why this perambulation of the parish boundaries takes place at Rogationtide seems to be that originally it was a purely religious observance, a procession of priest and people through the fields to pray for a fruitful Spring-time and harvest. In the course of time the secular object of familiarizing the growing generation with their parish landmarks gained the upper hand, but the date remained as testimony to the primary devotional character of the custom.”
And the calling of, “This is Rumbles Law” maintained this ancient custom when it used to be uttered here.
