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.
Park up at the singular dusty car-park on the east-side of Askwith Moor Road. If you walk to the sloping eastern edge of the car-park and then go down and over the collapsed fence onto the moorland immediately east, walk in the direction of the Tree of Life Stone to the north-east (be aware that there’s no footpath here and it’s boggy as fuck in places) . Just over halfway towards the carving, nearly 400 yards from where you’ve parked, you’ll begin to see various ruinous piles and scatters of stone. You can’t really miss them!
Archaeology & History
Cairn, looking north
In a region teeming with prehistoric sites, the great Eric Cowling (1937) seems to have been the person who stumbled across this “barrow group”, as he called it, during one of his rock art forays in this neck o’ the woods. Little has been written of them since. Not to be confused with the Snowden Moor cairnfield more than 350 yards to the north, at this place we find at least a dozen quite distinct cairns scattered around the grid-reference cited, most of them much larger in size than the cairns to the north, ranging between five to twelve yards across and up to three feet high. They have all been opened and robbed, with considerable disturbance on the largest of the ‘barrows’. We know not who may have done this, but there’s been a history of quarrying close by and it may have been some of the workmen who did the damage, knowingly or otherwise.
Large scatter of cairn-spoilCairn covered in bilberries!
As far as I’m aware, no burial or funerary remains have been found here—but there’s been negligible archaeological attention given to any of the sites on this moorland, meaning that we can draw no real conclusions about the nature of the cairns. They seem to be far too large to be clearance cairns; and the proximity of large scale prehistoric settlements and rock art all round here would strongly suggest they possessed a funerary nature. Several impressive petroglyphs exist right at the edge of this group, literally yards away from them. Check them all out out the next time you see the Tree of Life stone…
References:
Cowling, Eric T., ‘Cup and Ring Markings to the North of Otley,’ in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, volume 33 (part 131), 1937.
Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way: A Prehistory of Mid-Wharfedale, William Walker: Otley 1946.
If you’re looking for this carving, you’ll have been to the impressive Tree of Life stone first. From there, you need to walk further away from the walling, 30-35 yards southwest, across the other side of the footpath. There’s a scattered mass of stones all over the ground here: you’re looking for a low-lying long curved stone—longer than most of them hereby. If the heather’s grown back over the stone, it might take some finding!
Archaeology & History
Close to a line of prehistoric walling (seemingly a section of a settlement), this typically curvaceous female stone is possessed of two pairs of faint cup-marks on the eastern side of the rock. It was included in Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) survey where they described the carving as being, “two small cups visible and two further cups under heather.” A third possible cup exists close to one of the pairs. The carving is found in an area rich in untouched prehistoric remains.
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
Pretty easy to find: from Whitby town centre, head uphill to the great ruins of Whitby Abbey. You go past Caedmon’s Cross and past the more recent church and graveyard to the car-park at the top, outside the abbey. At the edge of the car-park on the grass, you’ll see this tall hard upright, nice and erect!
Archaeology & History
Cross shown on 1894 map
Highlighted on the earliest OS-maps and not to be confused with the nearby and more modern Caedmon’s Cross, this tall large monolith stands upon a stepped plinth comprising of six steps (originally five), about 18 feet high. The top of the cross was knocked off a century or two ago, when it was reported to have been twenty feet! Initially it stood about fifty yards closer to the Abbey, but was removed to its present position following the Dissolution.
The brief history regarding its origin was described in George Young’s (1817) major work, in which he told that in 1474, on John Nightingale, rector of Sneaton parish, in his will “appointed his burial to be on the north side (of the Abbey), before the cross,” which was already standing at that time. Young wrote:
“By this it would appear that the ancient cross, now standing in the abbey plain was then within the cemetery of the abbey.”
Abbey Cross, c.1900Young’s 1817 sketch
This has subsequently been taken as the standard regarding its origin. Tradition also told that it was an old market cross, but this was treated with considerable scepticism by George Young, who believed that the monks here simply wouldn’t have allowed such a thing at the edge the abbey and burial ground. He found evidence to indicate that it “was at the port or harbour of Whitby that corn was bought or sold, that here were kept the standard bushels for measuring corn, and that here the market-clerk had his station.” In spite of this, T.H. Woodwark (1934) reported that fairs had been held at the cross early in the 20th century. In a thoroughly profane way, electrical wiring was wrapped around the bottom of the cross and led to a generator, along with washing-lines running from it to a caravan! Mr Young would have been apoplectic!
References:
Atkinson, J.C., Memorials of Old Whitby, MacMillan: London 1894.
Holt, Robert B., Whitby, Past and Present, Copas: London 1890.
Woodwark. T.H., The Crosses on the North York Moors, Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society 1934.
Young, George, A History of Whitby and Streonshalh Abbey (2 volumes), Clark & Medd: Whitby 1817.
Acknowledgements:Massive thanks to Lindsay (wherefore art thou…?) Mitchell for getting us up here… Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
In High Bradley village, you need to go up Mill Lane for 140 yards and then bear left up High Bradley Lane for just over a half-mile, past the last row of houses on your left where it becomes a dirt-track and park-up a short distance up here. 400 yards up, in the field past the new house on your left, walk up the hill over the field, past the wall at the top and head for the large protruding boulder a few hundred yards further up on the near skyline. Once here, walk to the right of it and there’s a scatter of rocks and stones. Look around!
Archaeology & History
In an area that was extensively cut up by the Industrialists in the 18th and 19th century, Thomas Cleland came across this scarce example of a cup-marked, possibly cup-and-ring marked stone in March 2025 high up on Millstone Hill, where extensive views reach out to the south, east and west, gazing with particular attention to the mightily impressive King and Queen’s cairns, more than 1½ (2.6km) south of here—and which would have stood out much more back then than they do today.
Close-up of faint arc
An arc of cups is faintly visible on the more western-side of the stone—five, perhaps six of them. Several others are in a typically chaotic scatter across the rock, with one or two looking as if they may have been affected by the heavy industrial actions that occurred up here. When Tom first found the carving, he could see a faint ring around one of the cups near the middle of the stone, but on our visit here the sun was near its apogee and due to the slope of the rock to the north where the cups are carved, this was nigh on impossible to make out. Near the bottom edge however (as shown in the photos), a cup-and-incomplete ring seems evident; although we didn’t notice this on our visit here and it may just be a fortuitous play of the light (but I hope I’m wrong!). This is a design that mainly comes to life, so to speak, is more easily visible, when the sun is either rising or setting. (typical of many petroglyphs on flat rocks)
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks to Thomas Cleland for use of his photos in this site profile.
Cup-Marked Stone (lost): OS Grid Reference – SE 2556 4687
Also Known as:
Carving no.556 (Boughey & Vickerman)
Archaeology & History
We know very little about this carving, which was first highlighted on Eric Cowling’s (1940) map of Wharfedale petroglyphs. Described simply as one of the “cup-marked rocks”, he mentioned it briefly in Rombald’s Way (1946) as being “the most easterly carving” in mid-Wharfedale—which it was at the time (a very recent find by Benn Potts of a cup-marked stone at Weeton has pushed the boundary further eastwards). Oddly for Cowling, he left no further notes nor sketch of the carving and when Stuart Feather (1961) came to write of it, he merely copied Cowling’s earlier words. It’s not been seen since. In Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) survey, they could find no cup-marked stone in the wood but thought instead that,
“this may be due more to confusion than to loss of the carving. Riffa Wood does contain a carving: of a Native American on a conspicuous rock alongside one of the many woodland paths. Furthermore, one or two local residents recall a German prisoner carving something on a rock in Riffa Wood during the Second World War. Presumably, this is the origin of the Native American carving. Could it be that this man added something of his own to what was already a carved rock, in which case the Native American as he now appears is the site noted by Cowling before the War?”
No cup-marks exist on this Native American carving, and it’s highly unlikely that Cowling would have made such an elementary mistake. The carving no doubt lies covered in woodland vegetation waiting, once more, for the day that someone comes along and exposes its visage to the world again. Let us know if you manage to find it…
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Wakefield 2003.
Cowling, E.T., ‘A Classification of West Yorkshire Cup and Ring Stones,’ in Archaeological Journal, volume 97, 1940.
Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way: A Prehistory of Mid-Wharfedale, William Walker: Otley 1946.
Feather, Stuart, “Mid-Wharfedale Cup-and-Ring Markings,” in Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, volume 6, no.3, March 1961.
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.
From near Skipton town centre, at the Cross Keys Inn along Otley Road, go up Short Bank Road all the way to the very top and then into the trees onto the Dales High Way footpath. Walk up for literally ¼-mile (0.4km) and where the path bends and heads ENE, notice here a footpath that takes you over the wall. Once on the other side, the path splits with one heading SE and the other roughly alongside the walling to the SW, which is where you need to go. About 200 yard on, go through the gate into the field and then another 375 yards on you’re into another field (copse of trees in front of you). Just as you’ve gone into this field, walk immediately left, uphill, by the walling for about 100 yards, over the marshy dip, then head into the field where, about 75 yards in, you’ll see some rocks scattered about…
Archaeology & History
Cleland Stone, looking S
In an area that’s had some considerable quarrying done to it, we’re lucky to find that this carving still exists. It was rediscovered by Thomas Cleland (hence its name!) in the summer of 2024. It consists of four distinct cups, with a possible fifth (and maybe more?) on its smooth elongated surface. The cups, as we can see, are quite deep and unmistakable. An incomplete ring seems to be around at least one of the cups; and there seems to be a carved straight line running between another two of them. A simple but distinct design and in a lovely setting gazing cross the Airedale valley from here.
There are very few other carvings in this neck o’ the woods (the Great Laithe Wood carving aint too far away), but the fact that this has been found would suggest that others are probably hiding away in the undergrowth. Check out the Iron Age Horse Close Hill enclosure while you’re up here too.
Acknowledgements: A huge thanks to Thomas Cleland, not only for finding the carving, but also for allowing use of his photos in this site profile.
From the Askwith Moor car-park (SE 1757 5067), walk along the road north for a few hundred yards until you reach the gate on your right and head through the heather to the Death’s Head carving. From here walk in a northwesterly direction up the gentle slope for 50-60 yards and, before reaching its crown, keep your eyes peeled for a low flat stone with a curvaceous crack running roughly halfway across it. If the heather’s deep, you might not have a cat in hell’s chance of finding it!
Archaeology & History
This carving isn’t much to look at on two levels: i) it’s a pretty simplistic design with no rings, and (ii) it’s very faint and almost impossible to see until the light is just right—except for one of the cups, which itself might be natural (there are a few like that amidst the Askwith complex). It’s very much a carving for the purists among you, as I always say. Nonetheless, for the record:
Crap sketch of design
Faint cups visible
The most notable element is the single “cup mark” on the more easterly section of the stone, on one side of the natural crack. It catches your eye and is what makes you give the stone a little more attention, although I couldn’t make up my mind whether this was Nature’s handiwork or humans. It may be a bit of both. On the other side the crack we can see a small group of very faint eroded cup-marks — just! What seems to be three of them cluster in a small triangle formation, but one of these may be natural (tis hard to say for sure), with another isolated cup closer to the crack, and a final one further to the outer edge of the stone. All are very faint but stood out when the sun was low on our recent visit here. Give it your attention when you’re next having a look at the settlement and cairnfield close by.
From the Askwith Moor car-park (SE 1757 5067), walk along the road north for several hundred yards and go through the gate on your right. Head northeast through the heather to the Death’s Head carving and keep along the same direction for barely another hundred yards onto the ever-so-slight crown of a small hillock. This is a hut circle you’re standing in/on. A few yards away just to the southeast of where you’re standing is the very denuded remains of this ring cairn.
Archaeology & History
Low remains of rubble wall
Not visible when the heather’s in full growth, it’s nonetheless worth visiting if you’re trying to get a picture of the prehistoric landscape hereby. Less than 10 yards southeast of the notable hut circle on the small crown of a hill, it was first noticed by Sarah Walker on a group visit here recently. Roughly 12 yards across, the most notable section of the circle is the remains of the rubble bank on its east and southeastern sides, raised a few feet above ground level. The majority of the monument comprises of a scatter of various rocks and small stones within and round the edges of the circle. There’s a lot of scattering from other adjacent remains, such as the hut circle and nearby walling, that give the initial impression of it being little more than a spurious mess of stone; but the more you walk around and inside it, the more you come to recognize its structure.
It has that Bronze Age hallmark look about it, but without an excavation this is just educated guesswork. It might actually be older. The widespread mass of prehistoric remains all round here shows that it was once a mass of activity in prehistoric times. It’s a brilliant area, even if you can’t find this particular site!
Cup-and-Ring Stone (destroyed?): OS Grid Reference – SE 314 537
Archaeology & History
The chances of this carving still being alive, so to speak, are pretty slim. It was reported by a Mr. Sullivan to the old Yorkshire petroglyph researcher Stuart Feather back in 1965, in the days when English archaeologists didn’t really give a shit about rock art. Sad but true. The carving was found in the grounds of what used to be the ICI Fibres Research Centre, in the present landscape of Hornbeam Business Park, a hundred yards or more west of Hookstone Beck. According to Feather’s report, the carving consisted of “a single-ringed cup and a groove” surrounding “two short pecked grooves and a meandering groove leading off,” all with clear signs of being pecked and carved in the old-school manner. All trace of the carving has vanished and it was probably destroyed by the Industrialists. (the grid-reference to this site is an approximation)
“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.”
