Acharn Burn, Kenmore, Perthshire

Tumulus:  OS Grid Reference – NN 7607 4294

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 25011

Getting Here

Acharn Burn tumulus, Kenmore
Acharn Burn tumulus, Kenmore

From Kenmore, take the minor road on the south-side of Loch Tay for 1½ miles (2.4km) until you reach the hamlet of Acharn.  From here take the track uphill for ½-mile past the Acharn waterfalls and when you come out on the east-side of the trees, keep walking uphill parallel to the trees and burn until the land levels-out and the track heads away, east.  200 yards ahead, on the left-side of the track, you’ll see the large fairy-mound.

Archaeology & History

The tumulus looking NE
The tumulus looking NE

First reported in archaeological circles in the Discovery & Excavation Scotland mag in 1964, this archetypal fairy-mound or tumulus sitting on the grassy plain overlooking the eastern end of Loch Tay and district would have been known of by local people in older times, but I can find no early accounts of it, nor its traditions.  When Bob Money (1990) came here, he told of the grand vista stretching into the distant mountains:

“From here the views…are superb, and the little mound, which is an ancient tumulus, or burial mound, has sat here undisturbed for several thousand years, guarding the secret of its once important occupant.”

Circular in structure and measuring 20 feet across, the mound rises nearly four-feet high and is probably Bronze Age in origin.  Although mostly covered in grass, there are some loose stones visible on the side of the mound, seeming to indicate that it may be a covered cairn.  No excavation have yet taken place here.

References:

  1. Money, Bob, Scottish Rambles – Corners of Perthshire, Perth 1990.

AcknowledgementsMany thanks to the unholy bunch who helped travel, locate, photograph and take notes on the day of our visit here, including Aisha, Lara & Leo Domleo; Lisa & Fraser; Nina and Paul.  Let’s do it again and check out the unrecorded stuff up there next time!

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Physic Well, North Kelvin, Glasgow, Lanarkshire

Healing Well (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NS 5805 6728

Archaeology & History

Physic Well on 1865 map

Any site named as a ‘Physic Well’ anywhere in Britain is, by definition, a spring of water renowned for its medicinal properties.  Nowadays however, at this and other sites with the same name, local people aren’t even aware that such places exist.  A sad state of affairs indeed…  This Physic Well was once found just off Trossach Street in Maryhill—which was once called ‘Well Street’, after the medicinal spring itself—in fields just above the road.  Today a small housing estate has been built on top of the site and the only sign of it ever being here appears to be marked by a birch tree in the gardens at the middle of the enclosing buildings.

Birch tree marks the spot!
Birch tree marks the spot!

The site was listed in several early 19th century municipal surveys of Glasgow, but the greater references to it seem to be from local people who described it as a place that was visited annually along the perambulation of the old Barony parish, despite it being just over the edge and into Maryhill.  In an extensive footnote in Renwick’s Glasgow Memorials he gives us a fascinating insight into the gatherings at the Well, and the popular customs and social activities of the period:

“William Graham, of Lambhill, aged 69, recollected in his school days, “drinking at a well a very little to the north of the Barony glebe, which was called the Physic Well, and there was then a Royalty stone a little to the west of the glebe.” The Physic Well, perhaps all that effective drainage had left of the former loch, otherwise called ‘Plommaris Hole,’ was utilised at the periodic perambulation of marches for impressing on the memory recollection of this part of the boundary. The means taken for this end may be gathered from the evidence of John Alston, weaver, aged 54, who says that, when he was an apprentice, his master told him that it was a custom, “when the magistrates rode the marches to duck some of the last-made burgesses in the Physic Well”; and, on the same topic, James Bryce, victualler, aged 70, depones that, forty years ago, it was commonly reported in the town that at the marches-riding it was the custom “to duck the youngest town-officer in a well called the Physic Well, which is now filled up, but which was near the Barony glebe.”  Janet Paterson, widow of William Paterson, labourer, aged 78, recollects of another well, called the Loanhead Well, in the Barony Glebe, from which she carried water when a young girl. ”About 57 yean ago she saw two ploughs going in the Barony Glebe on the Fast Day of the town Sacrament.  In general people wrought the Physic Well Park on the town’s Fast Day, but she never saw them working on the Barony Glebe except on the occasion mentioned.”  William M’Culloch, farmer, Lightbum, aged 57, says that when Mr. Hill was minister of the Barony parish, the deponent’s father was employed by him, for a good many years, to plough the Barony Glebe, and on one occasion he recollects the glebe being sown and harrowed upon a Fast Day preceding the town Sacrament.  Mr. Hill told his father that the glebe was not within the town’s bounds, that the sowing and harrowing it on the Fast Day could disturb nobody, and that his father could have the sowing finished in time to go to church.  Peter Ferguson, weaver, aged 5$, had resided in the neighbourhood of the Barony Glebe from his infancy. When he was a boy he heard it very frequently mentioned by old people, as a common report, that when delinquents or debtors, prosecuted before the town courts of Glasgow, were pursued by the town officers, for the purpose of being apprehended, they were in the practice of endeavouring to get across the Howgate Strand; and if they accomplished this they set the officer at defiance and pointed their fingers at them in derision, as being then without the city’s jurisdiction. Howgate Strand was a small run of water which crossed Castle Street, at the south end of the glebe, then passed through the infirmary grounds and joined the Molendinar Burn a little to the north of the High Church. Another witness, Thomas Alston, manucturer, aged 55, places the fugitives’ point of escape at the north end of the glebe. In his young days it was the practice for the town officers to apprehend boys who were playing on the streets upon the Sabbath and the Fast Days preceding town Sacraments; and he remembered well that it was a common opinion with him and his companions that they were safe from the town officers when they got beyond the Physic Well, on the Glasgowfield road, or beyond the spot marked on Mr. Fleming’s plan ‘Toll-house’, on the Kirkintilloch road, as they considered themselves to be then without the town’s jurisdiction.”

The Well was close to a series of old boundary or ‘merche’ stones, but no ancient ones seem to remain.

The medicinal potential for the water was examined in 1771 by a Dr William Irvine, who found it to be a chalybeate or iron-bearing spring, and to possess “a little muriatic acid”, giving the well both tonic and fortifying properties.

References:

  1. Irvine, William, Essays, Chiefly on Chemical Subjects, J. Mawman: London 1805.
  2. Renwick, Robert, Glasgow Memorials, James Maclehose: Glasgow 1908.

Acknowledgements:  Huge thanks to Nina Harris for guiding us to the spot where this old well once existed.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Pear Tree Well, Kelvinside, Glasgow, Lanarkshire

Healing Well (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NS 56728 67797

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 164370
  2. Three Tree Well

Archaeology & History

Site of the Pear Tree Well
Site of the Pear Tree Well

The demise of this old healing spring of water occurred a few generations ago by the look of things.  Marked on the earliest Ordnance Survey maps—erroneously as the ‘Three Tree Well’, as Mr McDonald (1860) will soon explain—it was located on the west side of the River Kelvin, halfway between the Kirklee footbridge and the ancient ford, but the only remains we can see of it now appears to be the brick-walling above which a pair of sycamore trees rise, or perhaps beneath the man-hole cover on the path lower down.

Three Tree Well on 1865 map

…But it wasn’t always this way… Known to be a chalybeate, or iron-bearing spring (which are always regarded as tonics in local lore, fortifying the blood general health), when the local writer Hugh McDonald (1860) wrote about it in his wonderful Rambles round Glasgow in the middle of the 19th century, he cast a picture of the area that few Glaswegians would recognise today—and a damn good swipe at the incomers trying to alter the names of traditional places:

“At the western extremity of the Botanic Gardens a narrow passage, in popular parlance called “the Kyber Pass,” leads over a green knoll to the volley of the Kelvin at the famous “Pear-tree Well.” …The scenery of the Kelvin in the vicinity of the Pear-tree Well is of the most romantic and beautiful description.  The banks are bold, and in many places fringed with masses of foliage to the water-lip; while the rustic bridge, the lonely cottage, and the picturesque mill, seem planted by the very hand of taste, along the meanderings of the rippled and murmuring stream, wherever they are likely to produce a telling effect… Altogether the scene and its accessories present the very choicest of those harmonious combinations of colour and form which the landscape limner loves to gaze upon, and fondly endeavours, in the pride of his skill, to transfer to the living canvas.  No wonder it is that Kelvin Grove has long been the favourite haunt of our City lovers, and the favourite theme of our local poets; for Nature has, indeed, strewn its recesses with charms as fresh and beautiful as though it were situated far from the dwellings of men, instead of almost under the wing of our most dinsome and dusky of towns.

“The Pear-tree Well issues from the bottom of a steep and thickly-wooded bank, which, at this point, rises gracefully from the rocky bed of the streamlet.  The crystalline and deliciously cool water is collected into a considerable cavity in the earth; immediately over which three large trees—a plane and two handsome ashes—raise on high their umbrageous heads, while their sturdy roots, in serpent-like convolutions, twine around the watery hollow beneath, as if to defend it from the intrusion of the penetrating noonday sun.  Some suppose that it is from this trio of sylvan guardians that the fountain has received its name — and that the ‘Three-tree’ and not the ‘Pear-tree’ Well is its proper denomination.  The advocates of the latter theory further remark, that there is no pear-tree in the vicinity, and that consequently the popular name is probably but a corruption of “Three-tree.”  There is high authority for saying that names are things of slight consequence; but however that may be, we are inclined, in the present instance, to be conservative of the old name for this favourite well, and to retain it in spite of all attempts at innovation.  Whether from langsyne associations or not, we shall not attempt to discover, but Pear-tree Well sounds most musically on our ear — and we should be loath to have it suppressed by the word-coinage of any crotchety theorist; and besides, who can tell what kind of trees may have formerly graced the locality?  A perfect orchard of the pear tribe may, at some past period, have clothed the banks of Kelvin for anything that these violators of a time-honoured name—”these men who are given to change”—know to the contrary.  No, no!  Pear-tree Well it has been, and Pear-tree Well to us, at least, it must remain.  We had as lief meet an old friend with a new face, as an old haunt with a new name.

“Having done our devoirs to the spirit of the fountain, by draining a bicker of the translucent water, which, by the way, is slightly impregnated with iron, we sit ourselves down on the bank above, under the ashen tree, when one of two friends with whose company we have been honoured, inspired by the half-gelid beverage, bursts suddenly out with—

“Let us haste to Kelvin Grove, bonnie lassie, O.”

“We of course join heartily in the measure, which has for many years been highly popular in the west of Scotland, and which we naturally enjoy with double zest, amid the scenery to which it refers…”

Pear Tree Well in 1896

The great historian and romantic, J.A. Hammerton (1920) even passed here, telling how sufferers of disease relied upon its curing waters to heal them.  It is just such a pity that this picturesque medicinal spring and its rivulet are with us no more…

References:

  1. Brotchie, T.C.F., Glasgow Rivers and Streams: Their Legend and Lore, John Maclehose: Glasgow 1914.
  2. Brotchie, T.C.F., “Holy Wells in and Around Glasgow,” in Old Glasgow Club Transactions, volume 4, 1920.
  3. Hammerton, J.A., Wonderful Britain: Its Highways and Byways – volume 1, EBC: London 1920.
  4. McDonald, Hugh, Rambles round Glasgow, John Cameron: Glasgow 1860.
  5. Millar, A.H., By-gone Glasgow, Morison Bros: Glasgow 1896.
  6. Pagan, James & Stoddart, J.H., Relics of Ancient Architecture and other Picturesque Scenes in Glasgow, David Bryce: Glasgow 1896.

Acknowledgements:  Huge thanks to Nina Harris for guiding us to the spot where this old well could once be seen.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Homer Well, Looe, Cornwall

Healing Well (lost):  OS Grid reference – SX 25 53

Archaeology & History

This curiously-named and long lost well would almost have us believe that the Greek poet and philosopher himself was a-wandering in this neck of the woods.  But that sadly wasn’t the case.  It seems to have been mentioned just once in Looe’s early Town Books:

“In 1621 that part of West Looe Down which lieth on the West part of the Homer Well, was let to rent, for two crops, at 6s.8d. per acre”

In Courtney & Couch’s (1880) Cornish dialect work, the word homer is said to mean “homeward”; this is also echoed in Wright’s (1905) magnum opus. It seems to imply that it was a drinking well used by folk traveling the short distance from Looe village, across the river and onto or over West Looe Down towards their cottage or farmhouse; akin to a refreshing resting place halfway home, so to speak.  Sometimes the word homeward can be taken to simply mean “at home,” in which case it would suggest that the Well was simply next to someone’s house.  We may never know…

References:

  1. Bond, Thomas, Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Boroughs of East and West Looe, J. Nichols: London 1823.
  2. Courtney M.A. & Couch, T.Q., Glossary of Words of Use in Cornwall, English Dialect Society: London 1880.
  3. Wright, Joseph, English Dialect Dictionary – volume 3, Henry Frowde: London 1905.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Black Burn (3), Aberfeldy, Perthshire

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 83318 46049

Getting Here

Black Burn (3) carving

Follow the same directions as if you’re going to the Black Burn (2) carving (which you’ll obviously be looking at if you’re checking this one out!); and from there, walk two or three steps southwards down the slope – and you’re just about stood on it!

Archaeology & History

This, at first sight, seems little more than two cup-marks: one rather small, and the other somewhat larger than usual.  I walked round it, crouched down and fondled it, poured water on it and heightened the carving… and noticed what seemed to be a carved arc around the western side of the large cup.  But I couldn’t make my mind up whether this was natural or not.  And then as laid down and looked across the stone, it seemed as if a very faint triangle completely enclosed the large cup!  I crawled round it at ground level and the shape appeared and disappeared as the light altered.  So I took a few more photos and wondered whether or not the shape would become obvious in them.  And it did!

An eye in the triangle?
Cup and faint triangle, or a trick of the mind?

It’s unusual – and I’m still not sure whether it’s natural or not.  The carving needs more attention, in better daylight.  Or perhaps the computer-tech kids might have a look at it and see if this really is an eye-in-the-triangle style design we’ve got here.  It would be damn good!  Anyhow, the carving was first mentioned by George Currie (2005), who told of it being two metres south of the Black Burn (2) cup-and-ring and, plainly, that it “has two cups: 60 x 15mm and 25 x 8mm.”  It overlooks the urisk-haunted Urlar Burn, a creature known in some places for having milk and other offerings poured into cup-marks to appease it and gain good fortune.

References:

  1. Currie, George, “Perthshire: Black Burn (Dull Parish) – Cup and Ring Marked Rocks”, in Discovery & Excavation Scotland, volume 6 (new series), 2005.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Black Burn (2), Aberfeldy, Perthshire

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 83318 46055

Getting Here

Black Burn (2) carving

Take the A826 Crieff Road uphill for 275 yards then turn right up the Urlar Road.  It’s a long uphill walk from here, up the private road, through and past Urlar Farm and along the track, making sure to go right where the track splits, keeping to the west-side of the burn. (don’t cross over it!)  From here, the fields open up ahead of you into the distant hills.  Keep along the track until, after a few hundred yards a small copse of trees is on your right.  Walk past the bottom of this and then walk immediately up to the top of the large rounded knoll, or Tom, on your right.  Once at the top, look for the triangular stone on its southwestern edge.

Archaeology & History

Upon this rounded tom, beloved of faerie folk and overlooking the urisk-haunted Urlar Burn, is this small flat triangular-shaped stone, embedded in the ground, possessing an unusual set of seven, possibly eight cup-markings (not five as Currie [2005] initially described) of varying depths and age, carved into straight geological fissures in the rock which, I hasten to add, were probably intended as part of the original design.  Such elements are not unusual in carvings in other parts of the world, tending to relate to some spirit or ancestral ingredient.  Whether that was important here, we might never know.

Black Burn (2) carving
Black Burn (2) carving

But in addition to the cups on their geological cracks, a large faint wonky incomplete ring has been carved around the centre-most cup-mark, seemingly stopping where it meets the natural crack.  You can just make it out in the photos. One side of this ring may continue onto the top of the longer crack, but it was difficult to see in the cloudy daylight and another visit is necessary.

The carving was first described by George Currie (2005), who told, in his usual minimalist manner:

“On W side of large knoll, triangular-shaped rock, 0.7 x 0.7m, flush with ground; five cups, largest being 50 x 20mm and smallest, 25 x 8mm.”

Two or three yards away, just slightly down the slope to your south, is another cup-marked stone: the Black Burn (3) carving.

References:

  1. Currie, George, “Perthshire: Black Burn (Dull Parish) – Cup and Ring Marked Rocks”, in Discovery & Excavation Scotland, volume 6 (new series), 2005.

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

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Shotley Bridge, Consett, County Durham

Cist (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NZ 10 53

Archaeology & History

The location of what was, in all likelihood, a small Bronze Age burial on the edge of old Shotley Bridge (as it was in the mid-19th century) remains a mystery.  It’s likely that the position of the site  is now beneath someone’s house in the town.  Its existence was thankfully recorded in correspondence between a “Mr. John Dixon, of the  Engineer’s Office, Consett Ironworks,” and the great John Collingwood Bruce. Dixon’s letter dated October 13, 1856, told:

“I take the liberty of informing you of the discovery of a coffin, of some description or other, in a field near ShotleyBridge.  I have visited the place and enclose a sketch² made on the spot as it appeared when I saw it.  Some workmen were excavating sand and came upon it about a foot beneath the surface. The only remains that we can ascertain to have been in it, are a few pieces of bone, barely recog­nizable as such, and now in the hands of Dr.Renton.  I have not yet seen them.  He tells me that one fragment resembles a portion of a skull, but that they are in such small pieces it is difficult to say what they are.  I shall endeavour to get a piece — as, if the surface remains, I apprehend we shall be able to say whether they are human or not. Possibly it may never have been a human coffin —though from the paved bottom and the ap­pearance of great age the stones possess, and also the bearing NW and SE, I am inclined to think it must be one. The dry situation — a sloping hillside — would tend to preserve the remains of bones.  I cannot hear of any urns, or the fragments of any, having been found in it.  They may, if ever there were any, have been destroyed.  The coffin may have been opened before, and rifled — say hundreds of years ago.  It seems unaccountably short — as I believe the older ones are generally distinguished by their great size; but it may have been, and probably was, merely a receptacle for burnt remains, either in urns or not. The paving I mentioned had all disappeared when I saw it.  As it consisted of small stones, they had doubtfully been carried away.  Not being an antiquarian, or skilled in antiquarian lore, I cannot do more than form an idea about it, but shall be glad to hear your opinion at any time you may find it convenient.”

In a second letter, replying to Mr Bruce’s en­quiries, Dixon added that a piece of flint had been found amongst the debris which, he thought,

“might possibly turn out to be part of an ancient weapon; and if so, might lead to some solution of the question.”

As Dr. Bruce pointed out: many ancient British graves were not uncom­monly as short as three feet.  In so called “rude times it would seem that a grave was made much shorter than the body—which was doubled up, and thrust in.”  It was his opinion that the grave here was prehistoric.  We have to agree with him.  But where exactly was this place?  Does anyone know…?

References:

  1. Anon., “Discovery at Shotley Bridge,” in Proceedings Society of Antiquaries Newcastle-upon-Tyne, volume 1, no.22, 1856.
  2. The sketch seems to have been lost.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Trinity Well, Trinity Gask, Perthshire

Healing Spring:  OS Grid Reference — NN 9631 1812

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore 25993

Getting Here

The spring is by the trees. The roof of the church is visible past the tree
The spring is in the trees. The roof of the church is visible past the tree

Take the B8062 North from Auchterarder, and turn right immediately after crossing Kinkell Bridge. Continue through the hamlet of Trinity Gask, and take the next turn left. The Well is situated in the wooded area of land to your left, before you reach the church on the right. I tried visiting in summer but was beaten back by the boscage of man high nettles, goose grass and brambles. An autumn visit was made, and access was readily available to the wooded area over a barbed wire fence from the field behind the wood.

Archeology & History

The Canmore description quotes from an August 1967 report by an Ordnance Survey inspector:

“Trinity Well is now dry, and all that remains is an overgrown hollow. A manhole cover nearby suggests the spring is now piped.”

On the day of my 2014 visit, the water was flowing from an issue on the field side of the woodland. There was some low walling on the field side of the enclosure, otherwise no masonry or paving was visible. Any there may have been is now either buried or robbed for building material.

The waters still flow despite a 1967 report to the contrary
The waters still flow despite a 1967 report to the contrary

The 1796 Statistical Account has this to say: ‘ The most noted well in the parish is at Trinity Gask. It is remarkable for the purity and lightness of its water; the spring is copious and perennial. Superstition, aided by the interested artifices of popish priests, raised, in times of ignorance and bigotry, this well to no small degree of celebrity. It was affirmed, that every person who was baptised with the water of this well, would never be seized with the plague….. But the extraordinary virtue of Trinity Gask well has perished with the downfall of superstition, and the introduction of a free and rational enquiry into nature and religion.’

Walling is visible behind the spring issue
Walling is visible behind the spring issue

The 1837 New Statistical Account goes on to say: ‘….the Trinity Well, a little to the South of the manse, of great renown in Popish days for the performing of miraculous cures, fortifying against plague, witchcraft and such other evils. The right of bleaching at this well is one of the privileges of the minister’.

The Rev. John Wilson writes, in The Gazetteer of Scotland: ‘…a noticeable object is a well famous in Roman times for alleged thaumaturgic properties…’.

Processions to the Well were made on Trinity Sunday and the first Sunday in June

References:

  1. The (First) Statistical Account of Scotland, 1796, Volume 18, page 487
  2. The New (Second) Statistical Account of Scotland, 1837, Volume 10, page 335
  3. Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1981.
  4. Wilson, John, The Gazetteer of Scotland, W.A. & K. Johnston: Edinburgh 1882

© Paul Hornby, The Northern Antiquarian 


Holy Well, Hollinshead Hall, Tockholes, Lancashire

Holy Well:  OS Grid Reference –  SD 6636 1994

Getting Here

Take the A675 road to Bolton from Abbey Village, going up the track opposite Piccadily farmhouse until you reach the ruins in the woods.  The site can also be reached by going south down the Tockholes Road car park following the sign for Hollinshead Hall on your right.

Archaeology & History

Hollinshead Hall
Hollinshead Hall

Associated with Hollinshead Hall, which is now a ruin, the well is made of the same sandstone rubble as the hall with a stone slate roof. The building a single cell is built into a slope from which the spring arises and is encapsulated by it. Either side a high walls creating a sort of forecourt with side benches with inward-facing chamfered piers with ball finials at the ends. The well house itself is quite an attractive building and is certainly not thrown up, having a symmetrical facade with chamfered unglazed widows which are fitted with spear-headed iron bars and clearly the building has never been glazed. The gable end has a large oval opening with a matching one at the rear. In the centre is a heavy board door with a chamfered doorway. This doorway unfortunately is locked baring any entrance to the well house.

Peering in through the windows one can see how strong the vaulted roof is, adorned by a pendent ball in its centre. The spring’s water flows from a crudely carved lion’s head, either side of a reredo of Ionic colonnettes, with a sunken stone tank beneath or each side a rectangular recess which enclose rectangular pools. There is a diamond-paved floor with a central gutter draining from this well or trough at centre of rear wall.

Local tradition accounts that there was a site here from Medieval times and indeed, that the name Hollinshead was derived from a version of holy well although O.E hol, for hollow is more likely although there is a Halliwell Fold Farm nearby being derived from O.E halig for healing. The pool with steps down above the well house may be the original well of course. The discovery of a hoard of medieval coins in 1970s would support the date and perhaps they were an offering.

Folklore

Abram’s Blackburn (1877) is perhaps the first to state that the water was curative. However, anonymous quote in Nightingales History of Tockholes  describes the well as:

“Here no less than five different springs of water, after uniting together and passing through a very old carved stone representing a lion’s head, flow into a well.  To this Well pilgrimages were formerly made and the water which is of a peculiar quality, is remarkable as an efficacious remedy for ophthalmic complaints.”

 Another tradition is that the site was a resting place for pilgrims to Whalley Abbey and that the trough was used as  baptistery, however, this would be more likely to be the spring above the well house.  It is probably a spring house, a structure built over a natural source of water for the storage of dairy products and other foods that needed to be kept fresh.

Reculsancy was very prevalent in Lancashire and the well house does the bear the coat of arms of the Radcliffes.  It would suggest why the structure is so ornate and suggest a 1600s date—although many authorities suggest an 18th century origin.  The site would be a secret baptistery and its design as a dairy would also help as well as being still function, certainly the presence of benches suggest this functionality.  It appears to be too close to the house to be a garden folly such as a grotto!  The suggestion of stained glass in the windows suggests something more significant discovered during the present stone roof’s construction.  Indeed, the choice of the lion’s head is possibly that of the ‘Lion of Judah’, meaning Jesus providing rich and valuable water, although this is a common motif on many drinking fountains of course!  Interesting, Cramshaw (1994) tells us that the site was in the 1980s the site of a well dressing, although what type is unclear and no other author has mentioned it as far as I am aware. Perhaps we shall never know the real origin of this delightful building.

References:

  1. Abram, William Alexander, History of Blackburn, Toulmin: Blackburn 1877.
  2. Billington, W.D., From Affetside to Yarrow, Ross Anderson: Bolton 1982.
  3. Crawshaw, J., “Hollinshead Hall Holy Well”, in Source new series Issue 2, Winter 1994.

Edited from – Holy & Healing Wells

© R.B. Parish, The Northern Antiquarian


Elkington’s Track, Burley Moor, West Yorkshire

Prehistoric Trackway:  OS Grid Reference – SE 13169 44111 to SE 13321 44172

Getting Here

Mr Elkington's newly uncovered prehistoric track
Mr Elkington’s newly uncovered prehistoric track

Get yourself to the Roms Law circle, by hook or by crook.  Then take the long almost straight footpath south, as if you’re heading to the very damaged Horncliffe Well (thanks to Yorkshire Water).  You’ll notice the fencing that runs parallel to the path eventually.  Nearly 400 yards along the parallel fenced line you reach the first decent-sized stream.  From here, walk upstream, keeping to its northern edges for another 300 yards—then walk 10-20 yards into the heather.  You’re damn close!

Archaeology & History

The site is named after Mr James Elkington who recently rediscovered this previously unmapped prehistoric trackway, close to where Burley Moor meets the western edge of Hawksworth Moor, on the greater Rombald’s complex.  And it’s a bloody good find if I might say so myself!  But, like so many sites covering the Rombald’s complex, it begs more questions than it answers.

2014 aerial view showing outline of trackway
2014 aerial view showing outline of trackway
2002 aerial view of trackway
2002 aerial view of trackway

The trackway is consistent in architectural design and dimensions with at least six of the eight prehistoric trackways that I’m aware of on these moors — none of which have ever been adequately mapped nor investigated by regional archaeologists (thankfully, there are folk like us around!).  This ninth trackway, upon initial investigation, may be the shortest of them all up here.

Section of large stones marking the track
Section of large stones marking the track
Overgrown section of track-edge
Overgrown section of track-edge

Elkington’s Track seems to begin its route about 10-20 yards north of the once large, fast-flowing stream of the Middle Beck—which in itself seems curious.  No trace of any trackway seems evident on the other side of this stream and there are no other prehistoric remains accounting for why it should begin or end here…

Walking along the track, it heads northeast for 80 yards, with low lines of raised parallel walling 4-5 yards apart defining the avenue, before it begins to gradually bend round in a more easterly direction.  Thirty yards along this more easterly alignment, in the southern walled section, lays an eroded stone (SE 13255 44165) that seems to have stood upright in the not-too-distant past.  It seems to mark an opening or gap in the walled trackway and a large scatter of small stones, akin to the denuded remains of a cairn is evident just below the track at this point.  The raised embankment of the trackway keeps heading east, towards the line of Hawksworth Moor boundary stones.

More long line of walled edges
More long line of walled edges
Looking NE up the track
Looking NE up the track

Upon initial investigation, the trackway was visible for a minimum of 185 yards (169.4m) in length, whereafter any immediate trace of it disappeared into the ancient peat.  However, aerial views of it on GoogleEarth indicate a faint extension of the track, but these are difficult to apprehend at ground-level.  There is every possibility that this trackway eventually meets up with one of the four other prehistoric trackways near the Great Skirtful of Stones giant tomb, or even the North Road running past Roms Law—but until this can be ascertained, the trackway must be defined on its own merits.  Further heather-burning on the moors at either end would obviously enable a great examination of the remains.

In the event that the southernmost point of this trackway does begin above the Middle Beck stream, as seems apparent, we may be looking at a ceremonial trackway and not just a ‘road’ as we define them in the modern parlance of homo-profanus culture.  Think of it as a small version of The Avenue trackway that runs from Stonehenge outwards, past the Heel Stone and eventually bending down to the River Avon. (Burl 2006)  Y’ just never know…..

References:

  1. Burl, Aubrey, A Brief History of Stonehenge, Constable: London 2006.
  2. Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  3. Raistrick, Arthur, Green Tracks on the Pennines, Dalesman: Clapham 1962.
  4. Wright, Geoffrey N., Roads and Trackways of the Yorkshire Dales, Moorland: 1985.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian