Tag: english heritage

Little Almscliffe, Stainburn, North Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 23242 52260

Also Known as:

  1. Little Almes Cliffe
  2. Little Almias Cliff Crag

Archaeology & History

Little Almscliffe Crag (photo by James Elkington)

The crags of Little Almscliffe are today peppered with many modern carvings, such as are found on many of our northern rock outcrops.  Yet upon its vertical eastern face is a much more ancient petroglyph – and one that seems to have been rediscovered in the middle of the 20th century.  When the great northern antiquarian William Grainge (1871) visited and wrote of this place, he told us that, “the top of the main rock bears…rock basins and channels, which point it out as having been a cairn or fire-station in the Druidic days; there are also two pyramidal rocks with indented and fluted summits on the western side of the large rock” – but he said nothing of any prehistoric carvings. Curiously , neither the great historian Harry Speight or Edmund Bogg saw anything here either.

Stuart Feather & Joe Davies here, c.1955
Cup&Ring, left of ‘door’ (photo by James Elkington)

This singular cup-and-ring design seems to have been reported first in E.S. Wood’s (1952) lengthy essay on the prehistory of Nidderdale. It was visited subsequently by the lads from Bradford’s Cartwight Hall Archaeology Group a few years later; and in the old photo here (right) you can see our northern petroglyph explorer Stuart Feather (with the pipe) and Joe Davis looking at the design.  In more recent times, Boughey & Vickerman (2003) added it in their survey of, telling briefly as usual:

“On sheltered E face of main crag above a cut-out hollow like a doorway is a cup with a ring; the top surface of the rock is very weathered and may have had carvings, including a cupless ring.”

Close up of design

Indeed… although the carving is to the left-side of the large hollow and not above it.  Scattered across the topmost sections of the Little Almscliffe themselves are a number of weather-worn cups and bowls, some of which may have authentic Bronze age pedigree, but the erosion has taken its toll on them and it’s difficult to say with any certainty these days.  But it’s important to remember that even Nature’s ‘bowls’ on rocks was deemed to have importance in traditional cultures: the most common motif being that rain-water gathered in them possessed curative properties.

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  2. Bogg, Edmund, From Eden Vale to the Plains of York, James Miles: Leeds 1895.
  3. Bogg, Edmund, Higher Wharfeland, James Miles: Leeds 1904
  4. Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  5. Grainge, William, History & Topography of Harrogate and the Forest of Knaresborough, J.R. Smith: London 1871.
  6. Parkinson, Thomas, Lays and Leaves of the Forest, Kent & Co.: London 1882.

Acknowledgements:  Huge thanks to James Elkington for use of his fine photos on this site.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Longbarrow Field, Timble, North Yorkshire

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Cairn (lost):  OS Grid Reference — SE 18 53

Archaeology & History

Described in the Field Lore of Timble village by William Grainge (1895) are the names and short histories of some of the local place-names—with this in particular standing out like a veritable sore thumb!  Quite plainly, as Grainge told us,

“The name ‘Longbarrows’ is indicative of some burial mounds of a very early day.  None exist at present.  The land is under the plough, and is about the best in the township.”

But I cannot locate the position of this long-lost site and it’s not shown on any of the early OS-maps hereby.  Grainge said that the land on which it once stood was owned by a local farmer called Charles Dickinson, who leased it out to others.  He wrote:

“Dickinson had in Longbarrows 3 roods* and 23 perches*, and William Jackson’s share in Longbarrows was 1 acre, 3 roods and 21 perches.  Besides these, John Ward of Nether Timble had 1 rood and 17 perches int he same field, a long narrow slip without fence, between Dickinson’s and Jackson’s lots.”

Does anyone know where this was?  One of my suspects is the gathering place of the Fewston witches, a half-mile south of the village; but no remains of anything can be found there today and I may just be barking up the wrong tree.

The area south and west of here is rich in little-known prehistoric heritage, from the cairn-fields of Askwith Moor, the cairn circle at Snowden Crags, the settlements of Snowden Carr and the extensive petroglyphs all over the place!  Giants cairns of the early Bronze Age and neolithic period were also once more numerous upon the moors to the west and south, so the former existence of a long barrow in Timble wouldn’t necessarily be too unusual.  But where was it?!

References:

  1. Grainge, William, The History and Topography of the Townships of Little Timble, Great Timble and the Hamlet of Snowden, William Walker: Otley 1895.

*  A rood is an English unit of area, equal to a quarter of an acre or 10,890 square feet; a perch was a more variable unit of measure, being lengths of 161⁄2, 18, 21, 24 and 25 square feet.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 

Stone Rings, Pannal, North Yorkshire

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Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – SE 308 527

Archaeology & History 

‘Stone Rings’ place-names on the 1910 OS-map

The plurality of the place-name implies that there was more than one circle, but we don’t that know for sure either!  But if there was more than one, it is more likely they were cairn circles than traditional free-standing stones circles.  But once again, we simply don’t know….No remains exist of the “stone rings”—or rings of stone—that once stood here in bygone centuries.  The only remains left are in the place-names of the stream and roads hereby, highlighted on several of the early OS-maps: Stone Rings Lane, Stone Rings Beck and the Stone Rings Quarry—the latter of which is probably the reason why there is nothing to be seen here anymore. But we don’t know for sure.

The grid-reference given here is an approximation.

References:

  1. Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire – volume 5, Cambridge University Press 1961.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Briscoe Rigg, Rigton, North Yorkshire

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Settlement (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference — SE 2581 5100

Archaeology & History

Briscoe Rigg on 1851 map

Highlighted on the 1851 OS-map of the area as a ‘Camp’, all trace of this ancient settlement would seem to have been destroyed.  It was already on its way out when the Ordnance Survey lads looked at it for a second time in 1888, finding barely a trace of it.  Thankfully though, when the clearer eyes of that great northern antiquarian Eric Cowling visited the site in the early 1930s, traces of it could still be made out.  Both he and fellow antiquarian, Mr B.J.W. Kent of Beckwithshaw, did their own investigations; and it is their notes we are most grateful for in describing this forlorn antiquity.  Mr Cowling (1946) wrote:

“On the highest point of the enclosed land on the east side of the Briscoe Rigg (to) Rigton road is a small entrenched site.  The enclosed area measures 130 yards from north to south and 70 yards from east to west.  The camp is six-sided, but this appears to be due to bad workmanship and layout rather than intention.  One gains the impression that the original plan was oblong and that the longer sides were bent to conform to the shorter ones.  It is slightly hollow and the whole area is almost levelled by heavy ploughing; the outer bank barely being one foot above the surroundings.  The ditch and outer bank now cover a spread of 60 feet.

“Recent hurried investigations by Mr Kent showed interesting details.  The area seems to have been occupied by hut-sites previous to the hurried digging of a trench some 16ft wide and 6ft deep, going down into the bed-rock nearly 6 feet.  Son after, the ditch was half-filled by boulders and earth amongst which was a fragment of pottery, black in colour and indefinite in type, but probably Roman.  When the ditch was half-full it was used for some time for cooking…”

Cowling’s 1946 site-plan

Cowling also told us there was “a tradition that tools, which by description appear to be socketed celts, were found here when the site was brought under cultivation”, in about 1840.  Mr Kent also discovered various flints hereby, many Mesolithic scrapers and “a fine Bronze Age barbed and tanged point and also a transverse cutting arrow point of the early four-sided types.”

Although these finds from much earlier periods show that people have been living and hunting in the area for an exceptionally long period, the settlement or camp at Briscoe Rigg was probably built in the early Iron Age period and continued to be used into Romano-British times (somewhere between between 500 BCE and 500 CE).

References:

  1. Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Horn Bank, Rigton, North Yorkshire

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Horn Bank on 1910 map

Settlement (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – SE 2905 5035

Archaeology & History

Upon the top of the old ridge where ran the ancient trackway between Rigton and Pannal, could once be found a multi-period settlement, long since gone – as happens all too often in this neck o’ the woods.  And unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be any sketch plans of the site.  It was first described by Edward Hargrove (1789) in his historical old rambles around Harrogate and district.  When the scribe reached Horn Bank, he told that here,

“was lately discovered the remains of several entrenchments forming three distinct enclosures, two of a square and one of a circular form.  Not far from these entrenchments, which were probably of Danish origin, was found, in May 1787, the umbo of a shield, with several other fragments of gilt brass…”

In William Grainge’s (1871) magnum opus he told that,

“At Horn Bank, on the crest of the hill east of Rigton, near a farm-house, are the remains of three camps—two of a square, and one of a circular form; they are probably of British and Roman origin. The location is a lofty and commanding one; but the ploughshare has so often passed over them that they are nearly obliterated.”

Just below the settlements Grainge also said how, “a fine spring of water was formed into a bath here many years ago, but the whole is now in a state of ruin.”  This would have likely been the main water supply for the people living here.  Harry Speight (1903) implied the same thing when he investigated the site, saying:

“At a place called Horn Bank, near Rigton, on the west side of the parish, on the crest of the hill on the north side of the Horn Bank farmhouse, there were formerly to be seen very distinct indications of three camps, each encompassed with fosse and rampart. Hargrove supposed them to be Danish, but as two of them were of a square or rectangular form, and the other circular, they were in all probability relics of the Romano-British contest, at first occupied by the native tribes and subsequently as a temporary camp and look-out post by their conquerors. The site commands a wide and uninterrupted view in every direction, while close at hand is a copious spring of good water. This spot many years ago was converted into a bathing-place, but is now broken down and abandoned… The site has long been ploughed, and little or no trace of these earthworks is now discernible.”

The only thing Eric Cowling (1946) could find when he came to the place were faint scars of walling whose shadows were highlighted by the sun when the conditions were just right.  He thought the settlements were Iron Age in nature, but would have continued to be used in subsequent centuries by local people.  It seems a sensible suggestion…

References:

  1. Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.

  2. Grainge, William, History & Topography of Harrogate and the Forest of Knaresborough, J.R. Smith: London 1871.

  3. Hargrove, E., The History of the Castle, Town and Forest of Knaresborough with Harrogate, W. Blanchard: York 1789.

  4. Speight, Harry, Kirkby Overblow and District, Elliot Stock: London 1903.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Cunnel Fold Well, Marsett, Bainbridge, North Yorkshire

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Healing Well:  OS Grid Reference – SD 88727 85543

Archaeology & History

Cunnel Fold Well on 1856 map

Found high on the moors several miles south of Hawes, this is a small almost insignificant water source that I sat with, drinking in both the landscape and the waters many moons ago in a daydreaming amble.  It’s history is only remembered in the name it was given, no doubt by some local to the Ordnance Survey lads in their own, albeit more focussed assessment on these hills.  Its name puzzled me for a long while and I wondered if some untold story lay behind it.  Sadly that doesn’t appear to be the case.  Although there are doubtless many tales that could be told of the people who, through the centuries, have sat and drank the waters here, we know none.

Its name very probably derives from the misapprehended dialect word ‘cannel’ which, as Mr Wright (1898) explains, is simply “a ditch…gutter, watercourse,” which seems appropriate here.  Of the place-names shown on the 1856 OS-map, it seems the most likely solution to the word.

As for a place to sit and have a drink, it’s very refreshing after the rains have fallen.  All too often nowadays, as with many of the old hilltop watercourses, their life-blood is falling back to Earth…

References:

  1. Wright, Thomas (ed.), English Dialect Dictionary – volume 1, Henry Frowde: London 1898.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Tun Well, Eccleshill, Bradford, West Yorkshire

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Healing Well:  OS Grid Reference – SE 1822 3593

Also Known as:

  1. Tunny Well

Archaeology & History

Tun Well, on 1893 map

First mentioned in local history accounts from 1618—as the Tunwells—it was highlighted on the first OS-map of Eccleshill in 1851.  Located on the aptly-named Tunwell Lane, it was a deep well covered by a large flat slab of stone, at the back-end the old Victorian mill.  The stone was put there to prevent children falling into it.  Some old locals thought the name of the place derived from a ‘tun’, or hundred, meaning it to be a hundred feet deep; although as A.H. Smith (1961) tells, tun could equally relate it to be one of Eccleshill’s town wells, of which there were several.  It used to be one of the principal drinking supplies for the village and was said to rarely run dry.  In William Ranger’s (1854) survey, he told this to be one of the sites to which local people relied in times of drought, where the land-owner allowed local folk to collect their supplies.

Folklore

The old cobbled Tunwell Lane was long ago supposed to be the haunt of a phantom black dog: a visionary precursor of death and Underworld guardian. Its spirit came and went into the deep well.  I remember hearing tales of this when I was a young lad, as the old women who worked in the adjacent mills spoke of it.  The ghost of a so-called ‘white lady’ was also said to walk along Tunwell Lane.

In more recent times, Val Shepherd (2002) included this in her short survey of wells in the area as being on “an alignment” with Eccleshill’s Moor Well and Holy Well.  She thought “it may be part of a ley line”, but her alignment is inaccurate and doesn’t hit the spots.

References:

  1. Crapp, H.C. & Whitehead, Thomas, History of the Congregational Church at Eccleshill, Watmoughs: Idle 1938.
  2. Ranger, William, Report to the General Board of Health on a Preliminary Inquiry into the Sewerage, Drainage, and Supply of Water, and the Sanitary Condition of the Inhabitants of the Township of Eccleshill, George Eyre: London 1854.
  3. Shepherd, Val, Holy Wells of West Yorkshire and the Dales, Lepus: Bradford 2002.
  4. Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire – volume 3, Cambridge University Press 1961.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Swithins Well, Rothwell, West Yorkshire

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Healing Well (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – SE 3442 2686

Also Known as:

  1. St. Swithin’s Well

Archaeology & History

Swithins Well on 1854 map

Highlighted in the fields on the south-side of Rothwell village on the 1854 OS-map, Swithin’s Well was, according to historian Andrea Smith (1982), previously known as a holy well, dedicated to the obscure Saxon saint of the same name.  Although no ‘well’ relating to St Swithin comes from any early texts, the field and farmhouse of ‘Swithins’ were cited in records from the Cartulary of Nostell Priory in 1270 CE; then subsequently in a variety of records throughout the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.  According to Miss Smith (1982),

“The first recording of St Swithin’s Well, Rothwell…was on an estate map of 1792 (‘Plan of St. Clement’s lands in the parish of Rothwell in the County of York, two-third part of the tithes of corn and grain of which belong to the King in right of His Ducky of Lancaster’, PB), and the field-names arising from it—Swithin’s, Swithin’s Barn, Swithin’s Lane Close—serve to give an indication of the well’s past importance as a local landmark.”

When she visited the site around 1980, she reported finding,

“several wet patches running in a line westwards downhill, but the farmer’s wife seemed certain that this was a broken drain and nothing else could be seen in that field or neighbouring ones, which could have been the well.”

Very recently, the Wakefield pagan and antiquarian Steve Jones went to see if the well or any remains of it could still be seen and told us:

“We went looking for the well down a footpath but it was obviously filled in when a colliery was nearby in the early 20th century and (there is) no trace of any spring now.”

Another one’s bitten the dust, as they say…..

But we must note that the grand place-name authority, A.H. Smith (1962) found no references to St. Swithin here and instead suggested the name derived from the old Norse word, sviðinn, ‘land cleared by burning’, which is echoed in the old local dialect word swithen, ‘moorland cleared by burning’ (Smith 1956), and similarly echoed in Joseph Wright’s (1905) magnum opus, where—along with meaning ‘crooked, warped’—it means “to burn, superficially, as heather, wool, etc.”   There is also a complete lack of any mention to the saintly aspects of this place in John Batty’s (1877) primary history book on Rothwell parish, and yet he cites numerous other springs and wells in the region that have fallen out of history.

References:

  1. Batty, John, The History of Rothwell, privately printed: Rothwell 1877.
  2. Jones, Steve, Personal communication, Facebook 27.08.2018.
  3. Rattue, James, “The Wells of St Swithun,” in Source, Summer 1995.
  4. Smith, Andrea, “Holy Wells Around Leeds, Bradford & Pontefract,” in Wakefield Historical Journal 9, 1982.
  5. Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire – volume 2, Cambridge University Press 1961.
  6. Smith, A.H., English Place-Name Elements – volume 2, Cambridge University Press 1956.
  7. Wright, Joseph, English Dialect Dictionary – volume 5, Henry Frowde: Oxford 1905.

Acknowledgements:  Many thanks to Steve Jones of Wakefield for his informing us about the status of this site.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


St. Botolph’s Well, Hadstock, Essex

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Holy Well: OS Grid Reference — TL 559 448

Getting Here

Hadstock lies along the A1052 north of Saffron Walden. Once in the village, a fenced pond will be apparent on the left below the church.  Just above the pond is the well that feeds it – yet there seems some confusion regarding the exact location of the site.

Archaeology & History

John Wilson in his Imperial Gazetteer, III (1872) describes it as:

“A well set round with stones, and called St. Botolph’s Well, is in the churchyard.”

However, by the time of An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex, I (1916) it was:

“In the churchyard—a well, known as St. Botolph’s well, now covered.”

St Botolph's Well

St Botolph’s Well

Indeed there would be some confusion regarding the exact location of this well.  The church guide describes a pump to the west end of the churchyard as the well (but the only pump apparent was that across the road), however I was informed that this well was the one picturesquely situated by the road beneath the church. This is a brick-lined square well whose spring percolates into a pool covered in duckweed.  No evidence of any material earlier than Victorian is apparent, suggesting it may date from when the pump was established.  A wooden fence has been erected around it to prevent people falling in, but apparently the well itself has been covered.

Folklore

The village has a St. Botolph’s Well although there is no direct link recorded between it and the saint of that name, but local tradition believes that he was interred in this church. This view was supported by the discovery of an empty Saxon grave in the east wall of the South Transept. Greater credence being lent by the fact that this had previously been exhumed, which is in accordance with the knowledge that the relics were removed in 970, and then distributed around East Anglia.

Its waters have had a mixed reputation. Tradition records their ability to cure scrofula. Until recently the well was the important source of drinking water for the village. One tradition suggests that if a ring was dropped into it by a lovelorn girl she would find her true love. This tradition was supported by the finding of two rings recently in the cleaning of the well.  Wilson (1970) notes a strange activity was practiced within living memory by the white witch: to keep the water pure, dead cats were placed down the well.  Obviously, this was not continued for on one occasion the water was the harbinger of a typhoid outbreak, and forty percent of the population—or 40 people—died (although there is no evidence for either). The contamination was the result of the Rev F. E. Smith using the spring as an outlet for his lavatory. If this was not bad enough, one of his staff was a typhoid carrier! This is also notwithstanding, that it was commonly believed that the spring water drains from the graveyard above it: and hence it has earned the name ‘bone gravy’. Despite all these traditions, this did not deter the locals, who vouched for its goodness. Even when piped water was brought to the village in the 1930s, many locals could not see the point as the well water was good enough.

References:

  1. Parish, R.B., Holy Wells and Healing Springs of Essex, Pixy Led Publications 2008.
  2. Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex – volume 1, HMSO: London 1916.
  3. Wilson, John M., The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales – volume 3, A. Fullarton: Edinburgh 1872.

Extracted from the R.B. Parish Holy Wells and healing springs of Essex (2008)

Links:

  1. Holy & Healing Wells

© R.B. Parish, The Northern Antiquarian


Old Red Well, Knapwell, Huntingdonshire

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Healing Well:  OS Grid Reference – TL 3381 6300

Also Known as:

  1. Red Well

Getting Here

If you wish to find it park the car at the church and follow the footpath beside the church and after crossing the stream and style turn right and continue along the woods passing the information centre (where a wooden box holds maps) and then after a few feet one reaches a small clearing and a path leads to the right into the woods. Take this and this will lead to the well.

Archaeology & History

The origin of the name ‘Knapwell’ is unclear: Cnapa may be the name of the first settler, or simply ‘boy’ ‘moneylender’ or even ‘mound’ referring to the earthworks to the end of the present village.  The site is doubtless ancient and probably pre-Christian origin. Interestingly, one wonders whether the boy meaning is the correct one considering another Cambridgeshire site, the Barnwell on the outskirts of Cambridge has the same suggested origin. It may suggest that the local tribes here perhaps washed their infants in its water in a ritual fashion. There is some evidence of wells associated with ritual washing in other locales so it is possible. Knapwell is first mentioned in a will by A.D. 1000, and the settlement is noted in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Chenewelle, being held by Abbot of St Benedict of Ramsey.  However, this was the estate not the well so nothing should be implied from Ramsey Abbey’s ownership.

The spring produces copious but sluggish red water and is protected  by a red brick domed or arched well house similar to those of Holywell and Longstanton. When I visited the well is in fear of collapsing, and had deteriorated over a number of years, but recent pictures suggest it is in better condition.

Folklore

The well was the sole source of freshwater for both Boxgrove and Knapwell parishes and footpaths still lead from both communities to the well. Knapwell was also known as Little Wellesworth indicating the importance of this and The Victoria County History notes for Knapwell:

‘..named from the chalybeate Red Well, supposedly medicinal, in Boxworth Wood just east of the village.’

Like many Chalybeate springs, healing traditions are attached to it but curiously no details are recorded.

The water was well thought of well into the 20th century, for the Parish guidebook, KNAPWELL VILLAGE And The Parish Church of All Saints (1978) notes:

“Within living memory a drinking cup used to hang on the small brick arch over the spot where the spring rises.”

Copyright © Pixyledpublications

Re-posted from the following blog

http://insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/one-for-the-children-or-the-moneylenders-the-old-red-well-of-knapwell/

Forthcoming from Holy Wells and healing springs of Huntingdonshire