Tag: prehistoric sites

Black Hill Round Cairn, Low Bradley Moor, Skipton, North Yorkshire

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Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – SE 0087 4753

Also Known as:

  1. Black Hill Cairn
  2. Bradley Moor Round Cairn
  3. Queen’s Cairn
The Black Hill Round Cairn, Bradley Moor - looking north
The Black Hill Round Cairn, Bradley Moor – looking north

Getting Here

Various ways here.  Best is probably taking the footpath onto Farnhill Moor a few hundred yards east of Kildwick Hall.  Head for the cross-bearing Jubilee Tower (supposedly built upon an ancient cairn), NW, keep going past it uphill until you reach the walling 350 yards north, where a seat let’s you have a rest.  Climb over the wall! Alternatively, walk eastwards and up through the steep but gorgeous birch-wooded slopes of Farnhill Wood; and as the moortop opens up before you, the great pile of rocks surmounts the skyline ahead. You can’t miss it! (NB: the spot cited on the OS-map as the cairn is in fact another site, 100 yards NW)

Archaeology & History

Its an awesome place in an awesome setting. You can see 360-degrees all round from this giant mass of rocks — something which was of obvious importance to the people who built it. If it had been placed 20-30 yards either side of here, that characteristic would not occur. Indeed, this is the only place anywhere on these moors where such a great view was possible. Important geomancy, as they say (or whatever modern term they give it these days).

Bradley Moor Cairn - looking down to the Long Cairn
Bradley Moor Cairn – looking down to the Long Cairn
Small section of the old cairn

Although the tomb is still of considerable size (at least 100 feet across) and made up of thousands of stones, it has been severely robbed of stone in years passed, for walling and other building materials.  A number of other small cairns scatter the heathlands a few hundred yards roundabout this central giant (though are hard to find in the deep heather); and there is a distinct cairn circle about 100 yards to the northwest, which has yet to be excavated.  This cairn circle can be made out quite easily if you stand on the ridge about 30 yards west of here, looking down the slope.  An then of course we have the equally huge  Black Hill Long Cairn, less than 100 away, aligned northwest-southeast, which obviously had an important archaeological relationship with this giant round cairn.  Also around this and the adjacent long cairn, numerous flints and scrapers have been found, showing humans have been here since at least the early neolithic period.  And recently, what seems to be a fallen standing stone has been found laying in the heather, 168 yards to the north.

This site in particular gives me the distinct impression that it was the most important of the various sites upon these moors. It’s got a distinctly female flavour to it – and it’s old name of the Queen’s Cairn seems just right.  Maybe it’s the fact that when I first visited the place, a great thunderstorm broke through the previously perfect skies, scattering lightning bolts all round for perhaps thirty minutes — so I stripped myself naked and reached my arms out-stretched, cruciform, screaming to the skies in the pouring rain!  Thereafter, no clouds appeared in the skies for the rest of the day.  It was a brilliant welcome to the place!

References:

  1. Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  2. Keighley, J.J., ‘The Prehistoric Period,’ in Faull & Moorhouse’s West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Survey, I, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
  3. Raistrick, Arthur, ‘Prehistoric Burials at Waddington and Bradley,’ in YAJ 119, 1936.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Long Bredy Cursus, Dorset

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Cursus:  OS Grid Reference – SY 5718 9115

Also Known as:

  1. Martin’s Down Cursus

Archaeology & History

Although very little of this cursus can be discerned on the ground, the scar of the monument is clearly visible from the air (as the GoogleEarth image shows, below).  In 1989 the great archaeo-geomancer, Paul Devereux, visited the place hoping to see the monument, but said that no remains were visible at ground level, although noted how its western end is marked by the Long Bredy burial mound.  Sitting amidst a mass of later neolithic and Bronze Age ceremonial remains, this old cursus aligned SE to NW.  Devereux told how,

“the extended axis of the cursus…to the east, goes through a group of round barrows on the crest of a ridge on Black Down about a mile away. If diagrammatic material published by an investigating archaeologist is accurate, the alignment continues to the Nine Stones circle…immediately by the roadside a short distance west of Winterbourne Abbas.”

The monument has been measured at be at least 130 yards (100m) long and 28 yards in diameter at its greatest point.

References:

  1. Pennick, Nigel & Devereux, Paul, Lines on the Landscape, Robert Hale: London 1989.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Litton Cheney, Dorset

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Timber Circle / Earthworks:  OS Grid Reference – SY 556 917

Getting Here

From Litton Cheney go north up the White Way road until it meets the main A35 crossroad.  Go across the road, then get over the fence on your right and onto the rise in the hill.  These earthworks, or timber circle remains, are under your feet!

Archaeology & History

Lay-out of site by O.G.S. Crawford, 1939
Lay-out of site by O.G.S. Crawford, 1939

Shown on modern OS-maps as an ‘earthwork’, but ascribed elsewhere as a timber circle, when Stuart & C.M. Piggott visited and surveyed this site in the 1930s, they thought it to be the remains of stone circle.  Found on a prominent rise in the landscape with excellent views all round here, the Piggott’s description of the site told:

“It consists of a shallow ditch with internal bank, enclosing a somewhat oval area measuring 75 feet from north to south, and 63 feet from east to west. The ditch, which lies on the southeast, where the ground has been disturbed, does not reach a depth of more than about one foot, while the bank rises nowhere above 2.5 feet. It is possible there was an entrance on the southeast, but the bank is disturbed at this point. On the crest of the bank on the southwest are 3 almost circular depressions, some 6 feet in diameter, and placed 20 feet distant from one another along the circumference of the bank. Another similar depression is on the northeast, while yet another may have existed in the disturbed portion of the bank on the southeast.”

It was these finds which led them to suppose a ring of stones originally surmounted this small hillock, twelve in all.

Lay-out of the circular remains, by O.G.S. Crawford
Ground-plan by O.G.S. Crawford

Another site — which they called ‘Litton Cheney 2’ — was found less than 50 yards to the east of here by a Mr W.E.V. Young and the Piggotts.  These remains comprised of, “a very shallow and regular ditch surrounding a circular area 47 feet in diameter.  A single sarsen lies on the inner lip of the ditch on the southeast” which, they thought, may have been the solitary remains of yet another stone circle. Three other sarsen stones were found 90 feet south of here, but they were unsure whether they related to the circle or not.

Archaeological remains from here dated from 2200-1400 BC and local researcher Peter Knight (1996) thought that the sites ascribed here as megalithic rings to be correct.  He also found that tumuli visible some 5 or 6 miles southeast of here, on top of Black Down Hill (where the Hardy Monument’s found), “marks out the winter solstice sunrise.”  A dip in the horizon to the northwest, he claims, also marks the summer solstice sunset from here.  Knight also mentions how “both Litton Cheney sites lie close to a ley line going to the Nine Stone Circle and beyond.”

References:

  1. Knight, Peter, Ancient Stones of Dorset, Power: Ferndown 1996.
  2. Piggott, Stuart & C.M., ‘Stone and Earth Circles in Dorset,’ in Antiquity, June 1939.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Lechlade Cursus, Gloucestershire

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Cursus:  OS Grid Reference – SP 2125 0046

Archaeology & History

In Pennick & Devereux’s (1989) early assessment of our enigmatic cursus monuments, he wrote the following brief notes of this particular site:

“The crop marks of another fragmentary cursus were found in Gloucestershire immediately north of Lechlade, to the west of the River Leach. The crop marks aligned northwest-southeast for 174 yards (160 metres) and were 160 feet (50 metres) wide. Only the square northwest end is known. Excavations were carried out in 1965 in advance of gravel workings. No finds were reported, but two out of three cuttings revealed a post-hole on the inside of the ditch.”

References:

  1. Pennick, Nigel & Devereux, Paul, Lines on the Landscape, Hale: London 1989.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Langbar Stone, Langbar Moor, North Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 11180 52052

Also Known as:

  1. Carving no.41 (Feather)
  2. Carving no.459 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

Langbar Moor carving - with extra ring
Langbar Moor carving © Richard Stroud

Various ways to get here (being in the middle of the moor n’ all).  I s’ppose the best way is to go from Langbar village, up hill to The Old Pike giant cairn, then follow the footpath on about 100 yards before dropping down the slope to your right, south (NOT the other way!).  You’ll notice some walling and an old path near the bottom of the slope SE from you – head in that direction, but before you get there, a coupla hundred yards before, stop and look around.  Good luck!

Archaeology & History

Found halfway up the southern slope beneath The Old Pike giant cairn, we find this large, flat earthfast stone, on which are the very faded remains of archetypal cup-and-ring motifs. At the top-end of the stone are slightly more pronounced cup-markings – seemingly more than is shown on the drawing, with the multiple-rings halfway along the stone. On the southeastern part of the stone, Richard Stroud found another previously unseen aspect of the carving, consisting of one large ring, with perhaps a line running out to the east. This can be seen in the water-highlighted photo.

Langbar Stone, with small single circle not noticed by archaeologists
Langbar Stone, with extra single ring not previously noted

If you visit this carving, try and get to the Middleton Moor CR-482 stone half-a-mile southwest – where I for one got the distinct impression that whoever carved that stone, also carved this one!  Barmy p’raps — but if we don’t allow subjective interface here and there, we never learn a damn thing!

Listed as stone 459 in Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) survey, they erroneously ascribe Eric Cowling to have found it in Rombald’s Way (1946), whereas the first mention of it appears to have been by Stuart Feather in 1966 (though Cowling does mention a ‘Langbar Stone’, but illustrates another one nearby).

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
  2. Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  3. Feather, Stuart, ‘Mid-Wharfedale Cup-and-Ring Markings. No.41, Langbar Moor, Ilkley,’ in Bradford Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 11, 1966.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Knotties Stone, Otley Chevin, West Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 20772 44181

Also Known as:

  1. Carving no. 396 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

Knotties stone (photo, James Elkington)

From The Royalty hotel, walk along the footpath onto the Chevin itself, turning left then walk about 350 yards east, past the small copse of trees.  Just north of the main path before the land slopes down you’ll find it.  It’s carved on an earthfast rock about 6 feet long.

Archaeology & History

This is an excellent carving if you’re into cup-and-rings!  Eric Cowling (1940) first described the stone* in an article for the Yorkshire Archaeology Society.  Although it’s somewhat faded, when the stone’s wet and the sun’s low on the horizon, you can make out more rings than just the three which Boughey & Vickerman (2003) described in their survey.

Folklore

Knotties Stone (E.T. Cowling)

Although the Chevin itself has a tradition of ‘supposed’ heathen goings-on in bygone days, the carving has nothing specific said about it.  Although one intriguing bit of info comes from the old Otley historian, Harold Walker (1974), who said that, “blocks of stone were sent from (the) Chevin to form the foundations of the Houses of Parliament”!

Those lying deviants probably smashed up a few bits of extra rock art when they did this — not that those sort of people give a shit about anything unless it’s about money.

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
  2. Cowling, E.T., ‘A Classification of West Yorkshire “Cup-and-Ring” Stones,’ in Archaeology Journal, 97, 1940.
  3. Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  4. Hotham, John Paul, Halos and Horizons, Hotham Publishing: Leeds 2021.
  5. Walker, Harold, This Little Town of Otley, Olicana: Otley 1974.

* Graeme Chappell tells me that this carving was named after Cowling’s nickname, Knotty!

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


High Carr Rocks, Keighley, West Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stones:  OS Grid Reference – SE 0578 4395

Getting Here

High Carr Cup-Markings (1 & 2)

Loadsa ways to get to this little outcrop, which the Boughey & Vickerman survey (2003) says comprises of five different carvings (CRs 33-37).  I’m not so sure misself.  When Stuart Feather first found these in the 1950s, he only thought three stones were carved, which I think is the more accurate.

Most folk would probably prefer to walk down the slope from Holden Gate down the footpath past Jaytail Farm, then dropping down to the very bottom of the fields (south) where you’ll see a small knoll with a cluster of rocks just in front of the tree-line.  But I wandered up thru the ‘Private’ (ahem!) woodland, wet-thru in the pouring rain, and clambered over the wall right to the very spot (the old dowser’s ‘seek-and-find-rock-art’ nose worked again!).

Archaeology & History

High Carr Cup-Marked Stone
High Carr Cup-Marked Stone – from Hedge’s Carved Rocks on Rombald’s Moor

Listed in John Hedge’s (1986) survey as carvings 1-5, I’d say there’s one “definite” carving here, but the others – comprising simply of cups – are a little dubious.  The main carving has at least six definite cup-markings, found on the rock at the highest point of the knoll at the bottom of the field.  The drawing in Hedge’s survey shows as many as 12 cups on this stone, but I’m not totally convinced.  Another stone right next to the main one has, perhaps, a cup-marking or two on it – but again, these may be natural.

Of the other alleged carvings, it was difficult to work out as they were literally covered in tons of cow-shit. It seems this rock-outcrop is the local bovine toilet!  A lovely secluded place though, with plenty of wildlife to see.  Next stop from here: the great Holden waterfalls!

References:

  1. Boughey, K. & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYMCC: Wakefield 2003.
  2. Feather, S., ‘Three Bronze Age Rock Carvings near Keighley,’ in CHAGB 4:3, 1959.
  3. Hedges, John D., The Carved Rocks on Rombald’s Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Hare Hill Stone, Oakworth, West Yorkshire

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 014 381

Archaeology & History

Hare Hill Stone, Oldfield, Oakworth

About a metre tall and found standing near the bottom of one of the fields diagonally across from the old farmhouse of Laverock Hall, here’s another old stone which may not have a prehistoric provenance.  It is seemingly unknown by all but local people and would seem to be an old rubbing post for cattle — albeit a small one!  There seems to be no written accounts of this stone; though until all of the local field-name maps have been checked, we can’t discount the possibility that this is the “standing stone” described in early place-name records that was mentioned by A.H. Smith in 1963.

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  2. Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire – volume 6, Cambridge University Press 1963.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Harden Moor Circle, Bingley, West Yorkshire

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Ring Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – SE 07496 38675

Getting Here

Harden Moor circle01
Harden Moor Circle, looking SE

From Harden, go up Moor Edge High Side (terraced row) till you reach the top. Follow the path thru’ the woods on the left side of the stream till you bend back on yourself and go uphill till you reach the moor edge. Keep walking for about 500 yards and keep an eye out to your immediate left.  The other route is from the Guide Inn pub: cross the road and go up the dirt-track on the moor-edge till you reach a crossing of the tracks where a footpath takes you straight onto the moor (south). Walk on here, heading to the highest point where the path eventually drops down the slope, SE. As you drop down, watch out for the birch tree, cos the circle’s to be found shortly after that, on your right, hidden in the heather!

Archaeology & History

This aint a bad little site hidden away on the small remains of Harden Moor, but is more of a ‘ring cairn’ than an authentic stone circle (a designation given it by previous archaeologists).  An early description of it was by Bradford historian Butler Wood (1905), who also mentioned there being the remains of around 20 small burials nearby.  When the great Sidney Jackson (1956; 1959) and his team of devoted Bradford amateurs got round to excavating here, he found “four or five Bronze Age urns” associated with the circle.  His measurements of the site found it to be 24 feet across, and although the stones are buried into the peat with none of them reaching higher than 3 feet tall, it’s a quietly impressive little monument this one.  About 20 upright stones make up the main part of the ring.

I’ve visited the place often over the last year or so since a section of the heather has been burnt away on the southern edges of the circle.  This has made visible a very distinct surrounding raised embankment of packing stones about a yard wide and nearly two-feet high, particularly on the southern and eastern sides of the circle, giving the site a notable similarity in appearance and structure to the Roms Law circle (or Grubstones Ring) on Ilkley Moor a few miles to the north.

There is also the possibility that this ring of stones was the site described by local historian William Keighley (1858) in his brief outline of the antiquities of the region, where he wrote:

“On Harden Moor, about two miles south of Keighley, we meet with an interesting plot of ground where was to be seen in the early days of many aged persons yet living, a cairn or ‘skirt of stones,’* which appears to have given name to the place, now designated Cat or Scat-stones. This was no doubt the grave of some noted but long-forgotten warrior.

* The Cairn was called Skirtstones by the country people in allusion to the custom of carrying a stone in the skirt to add to the Cairn.”

However, a site called the ‘Cat stones’ is to be found on the nearby hill about 500 yards southeast – and this mention of a cairn could be the same one which a Mr Peter Craik (1907) of Keighley mentioned in his brief survey of the said Catstones Ring at the turn of the 20th century.  We just can’t be sure at the moment.  There are still a number of lost sites, inaccuracies and questions relating to the prehistoric archaeology of Harden Moor (as the case of the megalithic Harden Moor Stone Row illustrates).

Section of the inner ring
Section of the inner ring

The general lack of an accurate archaeological survey of this region is best exemplified by the archaeologist J.J. Keighley’s (1981) remark relating specifically to the Harden Moor Circle, when he erroneously told that, “there are now no remains of the stone circle on this site” — oh wot an indicator that he spent too much time with paperwork!  For, as we can see, albeit hidden somewhat by an excessive growth of heather, the ring is in quite good condition.

It would be good to have a more up-to-date set of excavations and investigations here.  In the event that much of the heather covering this small moorland is burnt back, more accurate evaluations could be forthcoming. But until then…..

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  2. Craik, Peter, “Catstones Ring,” in C.F. Forshaw’s Yorkshire Notes & Queries, volume 3 (H.C. Derwent: Bradford 1907).
  3. Faull, M.L & Moorhouse, S.A. (eds.), West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Survey to AD 1500 – volume 1, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
  4. Jackson, Sidney, “Harden Moor Circle,” in Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 1:18, June 1956.
  5. Jackson, Sidney, “Harden Circle Found,” in Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 2:1, July 1956.
  6. Jackson, Sidney, “Bronze Age Urn found on Harden Moor,” in Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, no.7, 1959.
  7. Keighley, J.J., “The Prehistoric Period,” in Faull & Moorhouse, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
  8. Keighley, William, Keighley Past and Present, Arthur Hall: London 1858.
  9. Wood, Butler, ‘Prehistoric Antiquities of the Bradford District,’ in Bradford Antiquary, volume 2, 1905.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Hameldon Pasture, Worsthorne, Lancashire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SD 891 327

Archaeology & History

Hameldon Pasture cup-marked stone

In the vicinity of the denuded ring-cairn and old tumulus of Wortshorne Hill, the Calderdale historian Mr J.A. Heginbottom (1979) described finding this simple cup-marked rock, a hundred yards or so northwest of the old circle. In my ambles here I was unable to locate it. The stone may have been reburied or destroyed.  Prehistoric cup-marked carvings are (officially at least) rare things in Lancashire – and usually where you find one, others lurk close by.  Do any local folk out there know anything more about this site?

References:

  1. Heginbottom, J.A., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Upper Calderdale and the Surrounding Area, YAS: Leeds 1979.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian