From Bainbridge, take the A684 road east to Aysgarth. Just out of the town, 200 yards over the bridge, take the right turn down Blean Lane. Nearly ½-mile along, take the minor road on your left and go along here for 1½ miles where, a few hundred yards before the solitary farm of Carpley Green (lucky buggers!), you can park up. (keep plenty of room for a tractor to get in the fields) Walk down the track past the farm and 250 yards along, where the first field ends, a gate leads you into the hills on your left. Go through here and then the next gate 120 yards on, then walk straight along th elong geological ridge ahead of you, veering to the top-side until it meets the walling. You’ll see the giant Stoney Raise cairn on the other side.
Archaeology & History
Stony Raise from above
The remains we find here are nigh-on immense! If giant cairns get you going (like the Great Skirtful of Stones or the denuded Devil’s Apronful near Pendle, etc), this one will blow you away! Along its widest axis, to this day it’s nearly 40 yards across and nearly 7 feet high! But in earlier times it was even bigger—much bigger! The first known description of the site was made by one Charles Fothergill, a Yorkshire-born politician and ornithologist, who wrote a diary of his walking excursions to various places in North Yorkshire at the beginning of the 19th century. (Romney 1984) His account of it was a good one for that period and thankfully he recorded information that would otherwise have been forgotten. After his visit here in September 1805, he told about this,
“wonderful tumulus called Stone raise which is a great curiosity: it is formed entirely of large stones piled up without earth or gravel, differing in that respect from any I have seen. Notwithstanding that upwards of a thousand, nay ’tis said several thousand, loads of stones have been led away from it to build walls with, it yet remains a stupendous monument of this species of antiquity: we measured the base of it as well as we could by our strides and made it 369 feet in circumference and of such an height as to be seen for a considerable distance. It has been most completely rifled…and it now presents a number of small craters formed by the investigations of the money searchers. It is situated upon a hill about half a mile south of Addlebrough. In addition to the particulars I formerly mentioned, I may say the men who first opened it about 50 years ago worked incessantly for 33 days. It stands on Thornton moor, and tho’ the Thornton men would not assist in the labour, they intended to share in the profit if there was any; but the adventurers who had all the work resolved they should not and they carried a large sword with them every day to defend the treasure in case they found any; the wise man who read ’till the stones shook and rattled was a schoolmaster at Bainbridge: the teeth they found were deposited in a hollow place in the bottom of the tumuli formed long and narrow like a coffin by a walling of stones. Tho’ the tumulus has apparantly been compleatly rifled, I do not believe the whole base has been sufficiently searched, but if it was to commemorate one great individual, which appears to have been the case, perhaps nothing more may be found.”
Fothergill’s description of “upwards of a thousand” cartloads of stone being removed from Stony Raise has been doubted by some archaeologists, but this claim should not be dismissed so lightly without evidence. There are immense tombs from northern Scotland to the unholy South that have remained untouched by the hand of industrialists that easily enter the category of such giants and this may have had equal stature.
A few years after Fothergill’s visit, Thomas Whitaker (1823) briefly described the site in his magnum opus, but added very little, simply telling that on the hills behind Addlebrough,
“there is still on that elevated spot a cairn, called Stone Raise, about 120 yards in circumference at the base, to which the usual tradition of its containing a treasure of gold having been attached, two persons were several years ago induced to make the experiment; but having penetrated to the centre, found, to their great disappointment, what an antiquary would have prepared them to expect, namely, a kist vaen of flag stones, with the remains of a human skeleton, the teeth of which were still pretty perfect.”
To this day the site remains unexcavated, so we don’t know too much about the place. It’s likely to have been constructed in neolithic times and its ancestral nature quite obviously venerated. It may have been re-used during the Bronze Age, but without excavations we may never know. A decent dig into this site is long overdue!
Folklore
This gigantic tomb is, not surprisingly, said to be haunted. Strange sounds and visions have been encountered here in bygone times. But the most well-known tale is that it was the site of a great treasure—perhaps hinted at by Fothergill. There are variations on the theme, but this is overall story:
Structured stonework
The tomb was said to be where a local giant had fallen and with him was buried a great chest of gold which he had dropped before he died. Some say that the ‘giant’ was a Brigantian chief – others a great warrior. The great treasure chest beneath the cairn is said to looked over by a fairy who lived by the giant’s tomb. It was this tale which gave the site its local name, the ‘Golden Chest on Greenber’. Several attempts made to find the treasure have all failed to uncover it.
However, by the time Edmund Bogg came to write of the place in 1908, the giant had by all accounts been found within! He told that,
The giant’s cist cover?
“this Kist-vaen was opened, many years back, and the skeleton of a chieftain of great stature was unearthed; the treasure chest of that or some other primal savage was not, and has not yet been discovered – for, take heed ye matter-of-fact money hunters, it is said the lucky one must first see the wraith of the ancient warrior to whom it belonged, who will then shew under which part of the immense Raise it is hidden! May this help any reader who is imaginative enough to find it – having seen the wraith he must keep silence – he has then but to stretch out his hand, and draw it forth.”
There are variations on this tale that have subsequently been penned by a number of Yorkshire folklorists, but this is the general lore. There was also a short rhyme told of toney Raise, that speaks of its apparent use through history by various races:
Druid, Roman, Scandinavia,
Stone Raise in Addlebro’.
References:
Bogg, Edmund, Wensleydale and the Lower Vale of the Yore, E. Bogg: Leeds 1906.
Bogg, Edmund, Richmondshire, James Miles: Leeds 1908.
Elgee, F. & H.W., The Archaeology of Yorkshire, Methuen: London 1933.
Gutch, Mrs E., Examples of Printed Folklore Concerning the North Riding of Yorkshire, David Nutt: London 1899.
Lofthouse, Jessica, Countrygoer in the Dales, Hale: London 1964.
Parkinson, Thomas, Yorkshire Legends and Traditions – volume 2, Elliot Stock: London 1889.
Pontefract, Ella, Wensleysdale, J.M. Dent: London 1936.
Romney, Paul (ed.), The Diary of Charles Fothergill, 1805, Yorkshire Archaeological Society: Leeds 1984.
Whitaker, Thomas Dunham, An History of Richmondshire – volume 1, Longman Hurst: London 1823.
White, Robert, A Landscape through Time, Great Northern: Ilkley 2002.
Cup-and-Ring Stone (removed): OS Grid Reference – NT 12364 32627
Also Known as:
Drumelzier Carving
Archaeology & History
Position of stone in cairn
A carving that was located at the edge of a cairn on a knoll on the east-side of the River Tweed, this is an odd design that now lives in Edinburgh’s central museum: odd, inasmuch as the design looks as if it’s a typical cup-and-ring carving, yet none of the cups on this stone were ever hollowed or pecked out, and so the “cups”, so to speak, are actually small rings (if that makes sense!). There are a number of similar unhollowed “cups” on other carvings that are found associated with prehistoric tombs, so perhaps this aspect was something of a burial trend—amongst a very small tribal group, perhaps… It’s an element that was remarked upon in Simpson & Thawley’s (1972) examination of petroglyphs in neolithic tombs that were called “passage grave style” carvings: a sort of dyslexic cup-and-ring design no less! The intriguing thing about this carving is that it’s one in a small cluster of dyslexic cup-and-rings that are found in this part of Scotland—in an area where rock art itself is pretty scarce. Which begs the question: was it a local tribal style? Anyhow…
The carving was first uncovered when J.H. Craw (1930) excavated the aforementioned cairn, finding therein a number of cists. There’s speculation that the petroglyph might originally have been a covering stone for one of the cists, but we don’t know for sure. Craw described the carving as follows:
Craw’s 1930 sketchRon Morris’ 1981 sketch
“The ring-marked slab…measures 3 feet by 2 feet by 6 inches. It lay at the north side of the cairn (highlighted in sketch, PB), outside the encircling ring, but may originally have been the cover of cist No.2. On the upper side are five shallow ring-markings, four being double and one single. The former measure 3 inches to 4 inches in diameter, and the latter 1¾ inch. The figures are thus much smaller than in typical cup-and-ring-marked stones, and the lines are only ¼ inch in width. The only similar markings known to me are on a slab which I found a number of years ago near the site of several former cairns, and forts at Harelawside near Grant’s House, Berwickshire. The stone is now in our Museum.”
The “museum” in question being Edinburgh’s National Museum (I don’t know if it’s in a box somewhere or on public display, which is where it needs to be). If anyone can get a good photo of this carving, please send it to us or add it on on our Facebook group.
Morris, Ronald W.B., “The Cup-and-Ring and Similar Early Sculptures of Scotland; Part 2 – The Rest of Scotland except Kintyre,” in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, volume 16, 1969.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
Ritchie, Graham & Anna, Edinburgh and South-East Scotland, Heinnemann: London 1972.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Peeblesshire – volume 1, Aberdeen University Press 1967.
Simpson, D.D.A. & Thawley, J.E., “Single Grave Art in Britain,” in Scottish Archaeological Forum, no.4, 1972.
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
A little-known multiple ringed carving was discovered a few years ago during the excavation of a prehistoric cairn just immediately east of the A701 roadside, several miles south of Broughton. The cairn itself had been recognised many years prior to the recent excavation, when one of two cists inside it was noted by R.B.K. Stevenson (1940), and which was subsequently described in slightly more detail in the Royal Commission Inventory (1967). But when the modern investigation was undertaken by the Biggar Archaeology Group in 2008, a damaged but impressive carving was uncovered that somehow hadn’t been noticed before. It was described in Tam Ward’s (2008) excavation report where he told that,
Carving in situ (photo courtesy Jim Ness)Carving looking N: courtesy Jim Ness
“lying almost immediately on the east side of Cist 1 is an angular rock…measuring 1m long and over 0.3m wide on the uppermost face, itself lying at an angle facing SW and away from the cist. The rock has fractured due to weathering in post deposition times, as indeed several other surface stones had, but on the widest part of the upper surface are at least seven concentric lines faintly pecked into the smooth flat surface of the stone. The lines are up to 10mm wide and appear to have been intended to form semi ovals on the edge of the rock. The outer ring forms an arc of c270mm on the long axis by c140mm on the short one (the former measurement being straight between the ends of the lines and the latter being a radius across the design). The terminals of the inner curved line are about 80mm apart. The lines are slightly irregular in distance from one another. Although it is far from certain, it does not appear that the rock has been part of a larger one with a more complete design on it, rather the pecking appears not to have been finished since the surface of the rock is similar in appearance overall while the abrasion of the carving varies.”
Fractured design (photo courtesy Jim Ness)
The carving remains in place with the cist, which was covered back over when the excavation had been finished.
Carvings such as this are uncommon in this neck o’ the woods; although less than a mile downstream from here, on the other side of the river, another petroglyph—known as the Drumelzier carving—accompanied another prehistoric tomb. Apart from this, there’s a great scarcity of carvings scattering the Lowlands—although it’s likely that there are others hiding away, waiting to be found on these hills…
References:
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Peeblesshire – volume 1, Aberdeen University Press 1967.
Stevenson, R.B.K., “Cists near Tweedsmuir,” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 74, 1940.
Naathen… I’d give you the directions of how to find this stone, but I’m not sure of its precise location. Just get to the top of Reva Hill, on its more westerly side, and it’s somewhere on its upper slopes. I was up here again recently and hoped to find it, but the grasses might have grown back over it. If one of you petroglyph fans manages to locate it, please can you send me its exact grid-reference, so I can update the site profile.
Carving when wetFaint Reva Hill carvingCarving when wet
Archaeology & History
This was one in a cluster of carvings that were rediscovered in 2011 and which I’ve not managed to re-locate (bad boy). It’s very plain and simple, as you can see. Indeed, I was lucky to even notice it, as the central photograph above shows how faint and eroded the cup-marks are in normal light. Thankfully with a bit of water, what I initially thought may have been two cup-marks, turned into three or four of them. So the next time you’re having a look at the Fraggle Rock carving and its companions, remember that this little fella is hiding somewhere close by…
Take the road up through Baildon village, across at the roundabout up Northgate and up onto the moor, then after a few hundred yards turn left on the Bingley Road. About five hundred yards along, keep your eyes peeled for where the ruined reservoirs are to the left-side of the road. Straight across the road from here (north) you’ll see the small cliffs of Eaves Crag. Walk along the footpath that runs above the cliffs and, about 80 yards past them, keep your eyes peeled on the ground right in the middle of the path. You can’t really miss it!
Archaeology & History
Basic cup-and half-ring
First mentioned in passing in the magnum opus of W. Paley Baildon (1913) and subsequently in one of Sidney Jackson’s (1955) series of profiles on the Baildon Moor carvings, this all but insignificant carving comprises of a simple cup-and-half-ring and another singular cup-mark a little further along the stone. John Hedges (1986) described this carving as being a “well marked cup surrounded by horseshoe groove – also well marked. Possible small cup and incomplete ring.” Whilst the minimalists Boughey & Vickerman (2003) told it to be simply, “two cups, one with incomplete ring.” A peculiarity with this design is that it might have been cut by a metal implement, perhaps in the Bronze Age, perhaps even in the Iron Age. We might never know…
References:
Baildon, W. Paley, Baildon and the Baildons – volume 1, St. Catherines: Adelphi 1913.
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Wakefield 2003.
Hedges, John (ed.), The Carved Rocks of Rombald’s Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
Jackson, Sidney, ‘Cup and Ring Boulders of Baildon Moor,’ in Bradford’s Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 1:10, 1955.
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
Tumulus (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NZ 6692 2154
Archaeology & History
Location on 1930 OS-map
This long lost burial mound was first located by the local antiquarian William Hornsby in the early 20th century. It had been constructed close to the summit of the prominent rise of Cat Nab, immediately east above Saltburn. Its position was shown on the 1930 OS-map of the area. Destroyed by quarrying, it was thankfully excavated by Hornsby in 1913; and although his finds were never published, he left notes which told us that,
“there were two cremations and the sherds of at least three vessels: a collared urn, a pygmy cup and a vessel with an everted rim.” (Crawford 1980)
Crawford (1980) told that these finds could been seen in the Middlesborough Collection.
References:
Crawford, G.M., Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Cleveland, Cleveland County Council 1980.
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
Numerous ways to get here, it’s probably the easiest (direction wise) to reach here starting from Dick Hudson’s public house on the southern road surrounding Rombalds Moor. From the pub, head left (east) along Otley Road (passing Weecher reservoir) for 1.9 miles (3.1km) until you reach Reva reservoir where a track leads you to the waters. A small parking spot is on the left-side of the road. From here, go through the gate and up the footpath (north) for about 200 yards then turn right and go up the field towards the wall where, about 20 yards before it, you’ll see find the stone in question.
Archaeology & History
This long earthfast stone has two distinct cup-markings: one near its northern upper end, and the other near the lower southern end, as highlighted on the above photo. (forgive the poor image, but we took it when the sun was pretty high in the sky) It seems as if there are two or three other very faint cup-marks on the upper end of the stone, close to the most distinct one, but none of our photos show them with any clarity.
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to Sarah Walker and Thomas Cleland for help with location and imagery for this stone.
Cairn (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NT 3071 7366
Archaeology & History
The only reference I can find of this long lost cairn is in William Baird’s (1898) massive history work of the area—but even in his day he reported that “it has long since disappeared.” He wrote:
“We have a curious reference in a charter of Kelso Abbey, granted about 1466, to a cairn of stones which stood near the south-east corner of the garden wall at Mount Lodge, Portobello. In the charter, where it is referred to as forming part of the boundary of the lands of Figgate, it is described as, ‘a certain heap of stones there deposited.'”
The cairn was likely of considerable size and, said Baird, “in all probability marked the site of an ancient place of sepulture.”
References:
Baird, William, Annals of Duddingston and Portobello, Andrew Elliot: Edinburgh 1898.
Round Barrows (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NZ 692 214
Archaeology & History
Tumuli shown on 1920 map
On top of the large plateau that is Warsett Hill, on the southwest side of the old trig-point, could once be seen a cluster of at least seven burial mounds or tumuli. The mounds are shown on the first OS-map of the area, but merely as mounds. It wasn’t until there’d been a subsequent investigation here by local historian J.C. Atkinson in the 19th century that they were highlighted on the 1920 map as “Tumuli.” Sadly, since then, they’ve all been destroyed.
Very brief notes were written on six out of the seven tombs here by William Hornsby (1917), with only one of them receiving any real attention. “Of the other six,” Crawford (1980) wrote,
“there is very little information; all were excavated by Atkinson prior to 1893, but his excavations revealed no finds and he stated that all of the mounds had been previously disturbed. They were later dug by Hornsby, who stated that although he found no sepulchral deposits, all the mounds contained flints.”
In medieval times this became a beacon site, where bonfires were lit. I can find no further information about this. (NB: This site should not to be confused with another Warsett Hill that exists two miles southeast of here above Skinningrove.)
References:
Crawford, G.M., Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Cleveland, Cleveland County Council 1980.
Hornsby, William & Stanton, R., “British Barrows near Brotton,” in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, volume 24, 1917.
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
It’s easier to explain how to get here if you’re coming from the Burnsall-side of the B6160 road that leads to Bolton Abbey. A half-mile out of Burnsall village you a small woodland with a small parking spot. From here, a footpath runs up the steep hill above the parking spot. It zigzags a little and you eventually come out on the south-side of the trees where it meets some tall walling. Follow this walling further uphill for more than 600 yards (past more woodland) until the land starts to level out. Hereby, go thru an opening in the wall and less than 100 yards away (west) amidst the overgrown heather, you’ll see what you’re looking for.
Archaeology & History
A large but peculiar site resting on a moorland plateau on the eastern edges of the mighty Barden Moor. Peculiar inasmuch as it’s completely isolated from any other monument of the same age and type anywhere on these huge moors. A few miles east, on the moors around Appletreewick, Thruscross and Beamsley we have a plethora of prehistoric sites—but up here on Barden Moor there’s apparently nowt else! I find that hard to believe….
Inner rubble walling
Rubble walling, looking N
Listed on official websites as being a ring cairn, it’s difficult without a detailed excavation of the site (there hasn’t been one) so say that’s what it is. But we’ll stick with it for the time being. My initial impression of the site was that it was a crude form of a collapsed Scottish dun: impressive large circular monuments—buildings if you like—with very well-built large stone walls, usually several yards thick, a little bit like the Scottish brochs (mighty things indeed!). This thing at Folly Top isn’t quite as impressive, but it’s like a collapsed version of a dun.
Arc of western walling
The site consists of large ring of raised collapsed rubble walling, more than a yard high in places, and about three yards thick all the way round, measuring roughly 21 yards (N-S) by 19 yards (E-W) from outer wall to outer wall. There are “entrances” on the east and west sides; but there seemed to be little of any note in the middle of the ring, although the site was somewhat overgrown on our visit here. Outside of the ring there was also nothing of any note. It’s a pretty isolated monument which seems to have more of an Iron Age look about it than the Bronze Age—but until there’s an excavation, we’ll not know for sure.
It’s well worth checking out—and from here, walk onto the huge moorland above you to the west….
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to the Crazy-gang of Sarah, Helen and James for their awesome assistance on our venture up here. A damn good day indeed! Cheers doods. 🙂
“wonderful tumulus called Stone raise which is a great curiosity: it is formed entirely of large stones piled up without earth or gravel, differing in that respect from any I have seen. Notwithstanding that upwards of a thousand, nay ’tis said several thousand, loads of stones have been led away from it to build walls with, it yet remains a stupendous monument of this species of antiquity: we measured the base of it as well as we could by our strides and made it 369 feet in circumference and of such an height as to be seen for a considerable distance. It has been most completely rifled…and it now presents a number of small craters formed by the investigations of the money searchers. It is situated upon a hill about half a mile south of Addlebrough. In addition to the particulars I formerly mentioned, I may say the men who first opened it about 50 years ago worked incessantly for 33 days. It stands on Thornton moor, and tho’ the Thornton men would not assist in the labour, they intended to share in the profit if there was any; but the adventurers who had all the work resolved they should not and they carried a large sword with them every day to defend the treasure in case they found any; the wise man who read ’till the stones shook and rattled was a schoolmaster at Bainbridge: the teeth they found were deposited in a hollow place in the bottom of the tumuli formed long and narrow like a coffin by a walling of stones. Tho’ the tumulus has apparantly been compleatly rifled, I do not believe the whole base has been sufficiently searched, but if it was to commemorate one great individual, which appears to have been the case, perhaps nothing more may be found.”
“there is still on that elevated spot a cairn, called Stone Raise, about 120 yards in circumference at the base, to which the usual tradition of its containing a treasure of gold having been attached, two persons were several years ago induced to make the experiment; but having penetrated to the centre, found, to their great disappointment, what an antiquary would have prepared them to expect, namely, a kist vaen of flag stones, with the remains of a human skeleton, the teeth of which were still pretty perfect.”
