Tag: english heritage

Druid’s Altar, Bordley, North Yorkshire

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Ring Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – SD 94945 65270

Also Known as:

  1. Bordley Circle

Getting Here

Druids Altar on 1852 map

From Threshfield, go up Skirethorns Lane for about 1/2 mile, where the lane takes a sharp right. Continue uphill for nearly 2 miles to a metal gate. Go through the gate, where you’ll see a pair of curious standing stones ahead of you, but instead walk about 250 yards along the line of the old field wall running to the west.  You’ll see on the modern OS-map that a ‘cairn’ is shown: this is where you’re heading!

Archaeology & History

First highlighted on the 1852 OS-map of Bordley and district, this is a lovely site in a beautiful setting, surrounded by a veritable mass of other prehistoric remains at all quarters, including the large settlement of Hammond Close immediately south, the little-known settlement at Kealcup to the west, the Lantern Holes settlement up the hill immediately north, some standing stones due east, and much more.  Although it was described in Aubrey Burl’s Four Posters (1988) as just such a type of megalithic relic (a “four-poster stone circle”), an earlier description of the site from the mighty pen of Harry Speight (1892) told of a much more complete ring of stones, with trilithon to boot. He wrote:

“This prehistoric relic consists of a round stone and earthen mound, about 150 feet in circumference and 3 feet high, and was formerly surrounded by a circle of upright stones, only three of which are now left standing. On one side was a large flat stone resting upon two others, and known as the Druid’s Altar. On the adjoining land an ancient iron spear-head was found some years ago, and fragments of rudely-fashioned pottery have also from time to time turned up in the same neighbourhood.”

Edmund Bogg’s (1904) description following his own visit a few years later described this “remains of Druidical sacrifice” as consisting of,

“a mound some four feet high, and fifty yards round the outer rim. In the centre are two upright stones about four feet in length; and others nearly buried in the mound. Numerous stones from this circle have been used in building the adjoining walls.”

Bordley Circle, looking SE
Bordley Hill, looking south to Pendle Hill

A decade later another writer (Lewis 1914) merely copied what Speight and Bogg had recited previously. And whatever the modern books might tell of its status, I think we can safely assert that this was originally a much more substantial monument than the humble four-poster stone circle that meets our eye nowadays.  Our megalithic magus, Aubrey Burl (1988), wrote the following on Bordley’s druidical stones:

“On a circular mound 41ft (12.5m) across and 3ft (1m) high, three stones of local limestone form the corners of a rectangle 11ft 6in (3.5m) square, from which the SW stone is missing.  At its corner is ‘a stump, possibly the base of a prostrate stone,’ 5ft 10in (1.8m) long, now lying near the centre.  The tallest stone, 3ft 7in (1.1m) high is at the south-east.  The sides of the square are close to the cardinal points.  Between the SW and SE stones is a scatter of round cairnstones… Characteristically, the 4-Poster stands at the edge of a terrace from which the lands falls steeply to the west.”

Plan of the Druid's Altar (after Burl, 1988)
Plan of the Druid’s Altar (after Burl, 1988)

The Druid’s Altar seems to have originally been a large prehistoric tomb, perhaps even a chambered cairn.  Its situation in the landscape where it holds a circle of many outlying hills to attention, almost in the centre of them all, was evidently of some importance.  The only geographical ‘opening’ from here is to the south, where a long open valley widens to capture the grandeur of Pendle Hill, many miles away.  This would not have been insignificant.

We must also draw attention to what may be a secondary tumulus of similar size and form to the mound that the Druid’s Altar sits upon only some 25 yards to the west of the “circle”.  The shape and form of this second mound is similar to that of our Druid’s Circle — though to date, it seems that no archaeologist has paid attention to this secondary feature.  It measures some 21 yards (east-west) x 19 yards (north-south) in diameter and has the appearance of a tumulus or buried cairn.  The mound may be of a purely geological nature, but this cannot safely be asserted until the attention of the spade has been brought here.

Druid's Altar, Bordley (drawing by Neil Wingate, 1976)
Druid’s Altar, Bordley (drawing by Neil Wingate, 1976)

Folklore

Although we have nothing directly associated with the circle, the surrounding hills here have long been known as the abode of faerie-folk.  Threshfield — in whose parish this circle lies — is renowned for it.  There have been accounts of curious light phenomena here too.  Modern alignment lore tells the site to be related to the peaked tomb above Seaty Hill, equinox west of here.

References:

  1. Bogg, Edmund, Higher Wharfeland, James Miles: Otley 1904.
  2. Burl, Aubrey, Four Posters: Bronze Age Stone Circles of Western Europe, BAR 195: Oxford 1988.
  3. Feather, S.W. & Manby, T.G., ‘Prehistoric Chambered Tombs of the Pennines,’ in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol 42, 1970.
  4. Lewis, A.L., ‘Standing Stones and Stone Circles in Yorkshire,’ in Man, no.83, 1914.
  5. Raistrick, Arthur, ‘The Bronze Age in West Yorkshire,’ in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol 29, 1929.
  6. Speight, Harry, The Craven and Northwest Yorkshire Highlands, Elliott Stock: London 1892.
  7. Wingate, Neil, Grassington and Wharfedale, Grassington 1977.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Snowden Carr Carving (600), Askwith Moor, North Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 17987 51162

Also Known as:

  1. Coped Stone

Getting Here

Follow the same directions as to reach the Tree of Life Stone carving.  From here walk 7 or 8 yards east.  You can’t miss it!

Archaeology & History

Coped Stone carving (after Boughey & Vickerman)

About 20 feet away from the more renowned Tree of Life Stone — and seemingly linked to it by a small stretch of ancient walling that runs between the respective stones — is this rather large boulder close to the walling with at least seven cup-marks on it.  A number of vague lines run down and around the edges of some of the cups, but they can be somewhat hard to see if the light conditions aint right (I don’t recommend trying to suss it out on dark grey overcast days — unless you’ve got awesome eyes!).  Immediately next to this rock is a large collection of small stones, looking to be the remains of some man-made construction from time past.  The nature of this pile of rocks has yet to be ascertained, but it would be reasonable to assume that it was at one point earlier a much larger pile that has been plundered for use to make the drystone walls hereby.  Less than 10 yards below this and the Tree of Life Stone carving is a line of ancient walling, at least Iron Age in nature, possibly earlier, running for some distance east-west up and across the moorland.

Cup-marks near top of the stone

The carving was described for the first time, albeit very briefly, by Eric Cowling (1937) in his lengthier description of the Tree of Life Stone, saying how “a small coped stone to the east has several scattered cups” on its surface — meaning this old thing!  Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) survey (2003) describe it as a “medium-sized, upstanding, worn rock.  Seven or eight possible cups, mostly at the top of S face, but one at its bottom of E face.”

…And the poor old fella has had nowt else said of it until now!  I reckon this carving will only be of interest to the most serious of meditators or hardened rock-art freaks!

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
  2. Cowling, Eric T., “Cup and Ring Markings to the North of Otley,” in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, part 131, 33:3, 1937.
  3. Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way: A Prehistory of Mid-Wharfedale, William Walker: Otley 1946.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Elm Crag Well, Bingley, West Yorkshire

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Healing Well:  OS Grid Reference – SE 1028 3907

Getting Here

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
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
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:

  1. Bolton, James, Filices Britannicae: An History of the British Proper Ferns, Thomas Wright 1785.
  2. Speight, Harry, Chronicles and Stories of Old Bingley, Elliott Stock: London 1898.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Little Skirtful of Stones, Burley Moor, West Yorkshire

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Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – SE 13829 45186

Also Known as:

  1. Little Apronful of Stones

Getting Here

Little Skirtful of Stones, looking north
Little Skirtful of Stones, looking north

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:

  1. Beckensall, Stan, British Prehistoric Rock Art, Tempus: Stroud 1999.
  2. Beckensall, Stan, “British Prehistoric Rock Art in the Landscape,” in G. Nash & C. Chippindale’s European Landscapes of Rock Art, Routledge: London 2002.
  3. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Chieveley 2001.
  4. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAA 2003.
  5. Collyer, Robert & Turner, J. Horsfall, Ilkley: Ancient and Modern, William Walker: Otley 1885.
  6. Colls, J.N.M., ‘Letter upon some Early Remains Discovered in Yorkshire,’ in Archaeologia 31, 1846.
  7. Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  8. Faull & Moorhouse, West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Survey – volume 3, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
  9. Hedges, John (ed.), The Carved Rocks on Rombalds Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
  10. Speight, Harry, Upper Wharfedale, Elliott Stock: London 1900.
  11. Wood, Butler, ‘Prehistoric Antiquities of the Bradford District,’ in Bradford Antiquary, volume 2, 1901.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Cock Hill, Wadsworth Moor, West Yorkshire

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Cist:  OS Grid Reference – SE 009 275

Also Known as:

  1. Mount Skip tomb

Getting Here

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:

  1. Roth, H. Ling, The Yorkshire Coiners…and Notes on Old and Prehistoric Haifax, F. King: Halifax 1906.
  2. Watson, Geoffrey G., Early Man in the Halifax District, Halifax Scientific Society 1952.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Castle Hill, Upper Cumberworth, West Yorkshire

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Settlement:  OS Grid Reference – SE 2042 0697

Getting Here

Morehouse’s 1861 plan

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:

  1. Faull, M.L. & Moorhouse, S.A., West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Survey, I, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
  2. Morehouse, Henry James, History and Antiquities of the Parish of Kirkburton and the Graveship of Holme, Roebuck: Huddersfield 1861.
  3. Petch, James A., Early Man in the District of Huddersfield, Huddersfield 1924.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Newchurch-in-Pendle, Lancashire

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Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – SD 822 387

Also Known as:

  1. Pendle Stone Circle

Archaeology & History

A destroyed site mentioned by several local historians. It was positioned at the valley bottom just below Faughs, a hundred yards west of Lower Moss End, where today it is simply overgrown meadows with the typical excess of Juncus reeds.  As local investigator John Dixon said, there are “five stones shown on (the 1848) map just west of Spen Brook Mill.”

In the 1970s, one writer described there being several uprights still in place, but a visit here a few weeks back (though I – unusually! – didn’t walk all through the boggy grounds and explore as extensively as I normally would) found nothing.

Its geomancy, however, was striking. The unnamed hill immediately to the north of its position (at the southern end of the legendary Pendle Hill, a coupla hundred yards west of St. Mary’s church) rises up like a great singular ‘pap’ which, to our old ancestors, was animated with female spirit. I sat here in the pouring rain looking up at this hill and its presence in front of the circle was striking.

…And so I walked onto the top of the said hill. Thereupon I found a small gathering of rocks, not unlike a cairn-spoil. When I enquired with a few local people about the age or nature of this rock-pile, I found no-one seemed aware of its existence. Weird. But from the hill itself, the view is excellent – and the small valley amidst which the old circle once stood teems with legends and myth: of cailleachs, ghosts, wells, witches and more. An excellent spot!

The local writer, historian and walker, John Dixon, sent us the following notes of his exploration here:

“Clifford Byrne, the late Nelson antiquarian, mentions in his book ‘Newchurch in Pendle’ the site of a former stone circle that stood just below Faughs, a hundred yards west of Lower Moss End. Today no large stones of any kind can be located anywhere near this spot, the stones having been removed or broken up some time in the past. However, the 1848 6” OS map records the number and position of these stones as being in two parallel lines about a hundred yards apart lined up west to east. The northerly line (SD 823 389) consists of 3 stones, the southerly (SD 823 387) of 4 stones, all being some 3 yards apart.

“It appears that we have an avenue of stones, not a circle. But why their position in the landscape at the headwaters of two valley streams? The Sabden Brook starts its journey westward to meet with the Calder from the stones, while Dimpenley Clough rises from the stones running east to join Pendle Water – could this be of any significance?”

References:

  1. Byrne, Clifford, Newchurch-in-Pendle: Folklore, Fact, Fancy, Legends and Traditions, Marsden Antiquarians: Nelson 1982.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Kendall Stone, Whitby, North Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NZ 94 06?

Also Known as:

  1. Kendall Stone

Archaeology & History

In James Simpson’s precursory essay (1866) to his monumental Archaic Sculpturings (1867), he details the former existence of a decent piece of prehistoric rock art, lost to us until very recently by the intrusive diggings of one Thomas Kendall of Pickering.  Simpson wrote:

“A large mass of sandstone in the moor above Robin Hood’s Bay, near Whitby, had some sculpturings upon it, part of which were split off by Mr Kendall of Pickering, in whose garden I have seen the slab of carvings which he thus procured.  Mr Kendall’s slab is about five feet long and two and a-half broad. Upon its surface are three or four isolated cups about an inch and a-half in breadth, and five or six others surrounded by ring-cuttings… Two or three of the ring-cuttings consist of single circles.  One consists of a triple circle and straight radial groove. The ends of the circles, as they reach the traversing groove, turn round and unite together, as in the horse-shoe pattern… The two remaining circles, which are respectively five inches and eight inches in breadth, and consist of cups surrounded by two and by three circles, are conjoined together by a long gutter.  The upper circle shows a single-and the lower a double horse-shoe pattern. In the uppermost or double circle the rounded ends of the rings are united and bestridden by a shallow right-angled line; and the ends of the lowest or triple circle are in part also conjoined by the gutter which runs from the double circle above, and by a cross straight line which runs off from it.  The circles are more imperfectly finished than usual, and at some parts present almost an appearance of being punched out rather than cut out.”

Cup-and-Ring Stone, once near Robin Hood's Bay
Cup-and-Ring Stone, once near Robin Hood’s Bay

In recent years, thanks to the cup-and-ring huntings of Chris Evans and  Graeme Chappell, the carving has re-emerged from its lost position and, it would seem, is located in someone’s garden in Pickering.  The carving is catalogued as Stone REM 1/P1 in Brown & Chappell’s (2005: 257) work on North Yorkshire rock art.  Hopefully, in the months to come, we’ll have a decent photograph and description of its present condition.  Fingers crossed!

References:

  1. Brown, P.M. & Chappell, Graeme, Prehistoric Rock Art in the North York Moors, Tempus: Stroud 2005.
  2. Simpson, J.Y., ‘On Ancient Sculpturings of Cups and Concentric Rings’, in PSAS volume 6, 1866.
  3. Simpson, James Y., Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, etc., upon Stones and Rocks in Scotland, England and Other Countries, Edmonston and Douglas: Oxford 1867.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Stinking Stone, Steeton, West Yorkshire

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 01814 42411

Getting Here

Stinking Stone on 1853 map
Stinking Stone on 1853 map

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
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 scratch-marks caused when dragged here
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:

  1. Wright, Joseph, The English Dialect Dictionary – volume 5, Henry Frowde: Oxford 1905.

* ‘Stinking’, stone-king or King Stone?  Unlikely though…

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Mini-Skirtful of Stones, Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire

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Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – SE 1346 4606

Getting Here

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.

Mini-Skirtful of Stones, looking north

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
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:

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

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian