shipley

Hawksworth Spring (02), Hawksworth, West Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone: OS Grid Reference – SE 15774 41191

You can take the same directions to get here is you follow the route for the Hawksworth Spring (01) carving, or take this alternative route. Take the standard road from Guiseley along Hawksworth Road. When you reach the first row of old houses in the village, a couple of hundred yards on you reach the village school and, shortly after the footpath is sign-posted. Walk left (downhill) through the field for half-a-mile until you reach the woods. 100 yards into the into the trees, walk to your right and follow the line of walling straight for 400 yards, then veering right up the slope and it then slowly bends round, keeping to the wallside all along. It then starts heading back downhill. As it does so, 10 yards from the wall into the woods you’ll see the broken triangular rock of the Hawksworth Spring (01) carving. Walk another 10 yards where the large holly bushes are and you’ll see the large sloping stone in front of you.

Archaeology & History

This carving is similar in nature to its companion 10 yards away, inasmuch as each of them possess two small arcs of cup-marks almost in the same format, very close together, one above the other near the top of the stone. It’s possible that the mythic nature/function of this particular element of arcs is the same on each stone—although fuck knows what it might be!

Below this double arc (only one of which is clearly visible in the photos) we see a scatter of other cup-marks—perhaps six, perhaps seven—one of which appears to have a very faint incomplete ring round it. When Liz Sykes and I visited the place, the light of day and the shadows across the rock didn’t help to convince us one way or the other, so we await news from other visitors who get better light conditions to tell us whether our hopeful eyes were deceiving us or not. There are a number of other marks on its surface, but these are much more recent and very obviously cut, or rather scratched, by metal artifacts with no bearing on the prehistoric design.

References:

Boughey, K.J.S. and Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock of the West Riding (Supplement), Shipley 2018.

Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to Liz Sykes for her renowned cleaning skills!

Hawksworth Spring (01), Hawksworth, West Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone: OS Grid Reference – SE 15767 41195

Getting Here

Through Baildon town centre, take the road onto Baildon Moor, but instead of turning left up to Baildon Hill, keep straight on the Hawksworth road and 100 yards along you’ll see a car-park is on the right-hand side, just before you start going downhill. From here, walk down the road a couple of hundred yards until you see the footpath (keep your eyes peeled!) turning right towards The Whitehouse, and from there take the footpath dead straight down to the woods below. Cross the stream, turn right, then immediately left uphill by the wall-side. Shortly before reaching the top you’ll see a large triangular sloping slab of rock with a tree at its top. That’s it! Alternatively you can come via Hawksworth village by following the directions to the Hawksworth Spring (02) carving, which is just 10 yards east of this one. Easy!

Archaeology & History

This minimalist design is best seen from above the adjacent rock which, in times gone by, was attached to this very same stone. The main aspect of the carving are the two short rows of three cups, running almost alongside each other, in a likeness which my compatriot Liz Sykes said “was like some animal footprints.” It’s not a bad description to be honest (this same motif is found on a companion petroglyph just a few yards to the east: the Hawksworth Spring [2] stone). If you follow the direction of the “animal tracks” to the western end of the stone, you’ll see another isolated cup with a faint incomplete ring around it. You can just make it out on the photo to the right. Another single cup-mark seems apparent two-thirds the way down the stone.

References:

Hedges, John (ed.), The Carved Rocks on Rombalds Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.

Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to Liz Sykes for her renowned cleaning skills!

Brackendale Mills, Thackley, Bradford, West Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone (missing): OS Grid Reference – SE 1687 3868

Archaeology & History

This carving was originally located somewhere close to the old disused Brackenhall Mills on the edge of Thackley, just before you drop down to Thackley tunnel. It was uprooted sometime in the 1950s and taken several miles away to the Cartwright Hall Museum at Manningham, Bradford, where it sat outdoors behind some fencing for many a-year, accompanied by the large fossil of an ancient tree.

I first saw it there when I lived close by in 1981, in the days before I had such a thing as a camera. Hence I only have this scruffy old sketch of the design, which I did without adding any notes to help remind me which carving it was! So this sketch has sat, all-but-forgotten, on a scrap of paper since then, until I recently sussed out which carving it was!

The stone itself was akin to a very large portable rock, with a simplistic design consisting of at least nine cup-marks cut into one of the rounded faces. One account of the stone suggested there may have been a possible incomplete ring around one of the cups. When I went back to see the stone about 20 years ago, it had gone. So I called into the adjacent museum to inquire what had become of it. The curator (or whoever it was) that I spoke with told me that the stone had been put into a box and placed in the cellars, but refused to let me see it. I asked to make an appointment to see the stone and he refused that too. It has not been seen since. Does anyone know what’s become of it?

References:

Keighley, J.J., “The Prehistoric Period,” in Faull & Moorhouse’s, West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Survey to AD 1500 (WYMCC: Wakefield 1981).
Yorkshire Observer, January 17, 1953

Scout Willie’s Well, Idle, Bradford, West Yorkshire

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Healing Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference –SE 1672 3866

Archaeology & History

Along the footpath below the family graveyard at Thackley, the great genealogist and industrial historian J.H. Turner (1878) told that, “at the right hand side of the wood, at the bottom, is Scout Willie’s Well, formerly noted for its medicinal properties” – though whatever curative aspects it possessed have long since been forgotten. It was also known as the Sweet Willie Well. I perused the woodlands here searching for the well in my younger days but could find no trace of it; nor is anything shown on the early OS-maps of the area.

References:

Turner, J. Horsfall, Idle Upper Chapel Registers and Graveyard Inscriptions, Bingley 1878.

Market Cross, Baildon, Shipley, West Yorkshire

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Cross: OS Grid reference – SE 15475 39743

Archaeology & History

Located next to the old stocks by the main roundabout right in the middle of the town is this tall market cross, nearly ten feet high and well known to the local people. It has been described by several local historians, although its recognition as a “market cross” is slightly contentious as it seems there are no written records to indicate that a market ever existed here. The great Baildon historian, W. Paley Baildon (1912) was unable to find any info about such a market, commenting simply that “most villages…had crosses in medieval times, many of which still exist; so that the presence of a cross at Baildon is (not necessarily) evidence of a market.”

His description of its form is as valid then as it is to this day:

Old sketch, c.1900

Old photo of the cross c.1900

“The cross, as we see it to-day, is not an interesting object. The square platform of two stages, with its well worn stones, looks as though it might be medieval, and part of the original work. In the centre of this is a large square block of stone, from which rises a tall cylindrical shaft.

The base is square, with chamfered corners, and a plain roll moulding at the upper edge; the cap is a plain square block, without any attempt at ornament.”

One of Bradford’s industrial historians, William Cudworth (1876) thought that the present cross replaced an earlier one, and that this one was erected by a member of the wealthy Butler family a few centuries ago. Mr Baildon wasn’t quite as sure as Mr Cudworth. Nevertheless they both agreed that this edifice replaced an earlier one. Baildon said:

“My own view is that there was probably a cross here in medieval times; that it was destroyed, either after the Reformation (as so many were), or by the Puritan soldiery during the Civil War; that the steps and perhaps the base remained; and that in the eighteenth century, when the Butlers were one of the leading families in the place, one of them may have erected a new shaft on the old site.”

In much earlier days it was said to have been surrounded by a grove of trees and a brook ran by its side. Villagers would gather here as it was “a favourite gossiping resort.” At the beginning of the 20th century, an old gas light surmounted this old relic.

References:

Baildon, W. Paley, Baildon and the Baildons – volume 1, St. Catherine’s Press: Adelphi 1912.
Cudworth, William, Round about Bradford, Thomas Brear: Bradford 1876.
la Page, John, The Story of Baildon, William Byles: Bradford 1951.

Dowley Gap, Bingley, West Yorkshire

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Cist (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SE 1196 3824

Archaeology & History

The remains of a prehistoric tomb existed near the foot-bridge on the south-side of the canal at Dowley Gap, but was destroyed during the building of the sewage works there in 1951. It was reported by a Mr Duncanson to Bradford’s Cartwright Hall archaeology group, who told how they accidentally uncovered it during construction work. He told that “stone cist (was) about 3½ feet long and 1½ feet deep and was found on rising ground at the western end of the works where the storm water tanks are now situated.”

We obviously don’t know the age of the cist, but such grave monuments are most commonly Bronze Age. The existence of the Crosley Wood Iron Age enclosure 4-500 yards NNW and the prehistoric circle 800 yards east are the nearest other known early period monuments.

References:

Jackson, Sidney, “Stone Cist at Bingley,” in Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 3:6, 1958.

Holy Well, Baildon, West Yorkshire

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Holy Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SE 1609 3961

Archaeology & History

This site is all but unknown to the great majority of folk in Baildon, and even some of the local historians have let it slip from their investigative tendrils. According to the primary Baildon historian, W.Paley Baildon, it was first known as the ‘Halliwell Holy Well’. In his magnum opus (1913-26) of the township he relates that,

“The 1852 Ordnance map marks Halliway Banks Wood to the south of Langley Lane, with a well just below it, and a footpath from Holden Lane to the well. Halliway, I think, is a corruption of Halliwell, the ‘holy well,’ with the special footpath leading to it and nowhere else. Haliwell Bank occurs in (the Baildon Court Rolls of) 1490, when it formed part of the property held by William Tong of Nicolas Fitz William.”

This etymology is echoed by the great place-name authority A.H. Smith (1954). It also caught the attention of archaeologist Andrea Smith (1982), in her investigation of twenty-five holy wells in the West Yorkshire region.

“Many wells,” she wrote, “are recorded simply as ‘Holy Well,’ or the various forms ‘Halliwell,’ ‘Helliwell’ and ‘Hollowell.’ It is possible that in these instances the identity of the patron saint or guardian of the well has been forgotten, which may be the case with the site at Collingham, now known as Hollowell.”

The well itself can no longer be seen. When I looked for the site in 1982, I found that to the right of where the 1852 map showed it, was a waterworks lid covering the old holy waters, just in the trees atop of the field beneath a great sycamore with a number of small stones roughly encircling the site: perhaps the only possible relics of the century before when the waters would have been used. A stone trough was situated at the bottom of Holden Lane, fed by the waters from the Halliwell and from here the course of the stream meandered down the side of Slaughter Lane, now known as Kirklands Road. The land around Halliwell became known as Kirkfield, or field of worship.

A local resident told how during autumn and winter, the left side of the field gets extremely boggy – the region were the old stream ran from the old well, along which dowsers have found aquastats abound. Now however, houses have been built where the waterworks-lid used to be and is likely to be in someone’s backyard, all but forgotten.

Folklore

According to local lore, the site of this most ancient of holy wells was found in the warmest place in the Baildon district. Whilst its geographical position doesn’t necessarily suggest this (although it did face south, into the sun), this lore may reflect some healing aspect of the well that has long since been forgotten.

Perhaps relevant to Andrea Smith’s comment about there being ‘guardians’ at holy wells is found in folklore relating to nearby Holden Lane: locals in the last century also referred to it as Boggart Lane, so called after the Boggart which was seen there in the form of a spectral hound that was said to possess large glowing red eyes and was a sign of ill omen. Modern sightings of the spectral hound, which appeared along the road which led to the old well, are unknown.

References:

Baildon, W. Paley, Baildon and the Baildons (parts 1-15), St. Catherines: Adelphi 1913-26.
Smith, A.H., English Place-Name Elements – volume 1, Cambridge University Press 1954.
Smith, Andrea, ‘Holy Wells Around Leeds, Bradford & Pontefract,’ in Wakefield Historical Journal 9, 1982.

Sweet Willy Well, Wrose, Shipley, West Yorkshire

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Healing Well: OS Grid Reference – SE 16561 36440

Also Known as:

Lin Well
Silver Stream
Sugar Stream

Getting Here

Whether you’re coming here from Wrose or Eccleshill, go along Wrose Road and turn down Livingstone Road at the traffic lights. Down here, when the road splits, head to your right until you meet with those stupid road-block marks (where you can only get one car through). Just here, walk down the slope and path on your right, and before you hit the bottom of the slope, walk down the small valley for about 20 yards until you see the small stream appear from beneath some overgrown man-made stone lintels. That’s it!

Archaeology & History

When I was a kid I used to play down this tiny valley when the waters here still had small fish swimming away (we used to call them ‘tiddlers’). The fish seem to have gone, but there are still waterboatmen on the surface, indicating that we still have fresh water here – and on my most recent visit, I cautiously tasted the waters and found them OK (the prevalence of broken bottles and beer cans from locals doesn’t inspire you to drink here though).

Initially located on the local boundary line between Eccleshill and Wrose, the waters used to be found running into a trough about 100 yards further up the small valley, but this has been lost and housing now covers its original site. You can see how the stream has cut the valley further upstream, but now it bubbles up from beneath the rocks shown in the photo. Bradford historian Robert Allen (1927) described the site in his survey as originally being between North Spring and South Spring Wood.

Although the name Sweet Willy Well remains a mystery, one of its other titles — the Lin Well — relates to the presence of linnets that used to be found in great numbers here. The ‘Sugar Stream’ name is one we knew it as locally as children, due to the once sweet taste of the waters. It is likely to have had medicinal properties, but these have been forgotten. No archaeological survey has ever been done of this site.

References:

Allen, Robert C. (ed.), The History Of Bolton In Bradford-Dale; with Notes on Bradford, Eccleshill, Idle, Undercliffe, Feather Bros: Bradford 1927.

Northcliffe Woods, Shipley, West Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone: OS Grid Reference – SE 13642 36608

Getting Here

Shipley FieldsCR518 — Cup-and-ring stone at Northcliffe

Takes a bit of finding this one, and isn’t that impressive, so is probably only of value to the real enthusiasts. From Shipley, head up to Northcliffe and take the walk into the woods. Walk along the valley bottom, past the old train line at the bottom of the valley, and keep going for a few hundred yards until you meet with the small pond or damn on your left. Somehow cross over the stream and walk up the overgrown hill right above the pond. You’ll notice a single rock, on the right-hand side of the tiny stream running down the slope you’re walking up, just on the top of the ridge near the tree-line about 20 yard or so before the golf course. That’s it!

Archaeology & History

NorthcliffCR dr — Drawing of the Northcliff carving

This little-know cup-and-ring stone, seemingly in isolation just over the northern edge of the golf-course about 20 yards into the woods at the top of the ridge, cannot be contextualized with any adjacent monuments as the area has been badly damaged by the industrialists, as usual, with both quarrying and the golf course – much like the damage done at Pennythorn Hill, above Baildon.

This rock has what seems to be at least five cup-markings: two quite prominent, the others smaller and more faded. Earlier surveys by the likes of Sidney Jackson (1962) saw another two cups on the stone, but these seem to be natural. A curious large ring runs around the cup near the top of the stone, but this is pretty faint nowadays. One of the cups along the edge of the stone also looks like it may have had an arc carved around the top of it, but this needs exploring at different times of day and in different lighting conditions to verify or deny this.

References:

Jackson, Sidney, “Cup-Marked Rock, Northcliff Wood,” in Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 7:6, 1962.

Bowling Green Stone, Shipley, West Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – SE 14505 37525

Also Known as:

Carving no.8 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

Shipley Bowling Green07 — Carved stone beside the path

From Shipley town centre open market, take the Kirkgate road up to Saltaire, past the old town hall. On the other side of the road take the little path into the Bowling Club, in the trees (if you hit the church you’ve gone too far). Once standing in front of the bowling green itself, you need to walk along the left-side path. Two-thirds of the way down, now laid in the ivy-covered area below the old quarry face, you’ll find what you’re looking for.

Archaeology & History

I remember first seeking out this carving when I was still at school and wondering how the hell it got here – and believed it to be a fallen standing stone at the time! It seems that the stone was cut and readied for use as a gatepost instead, at some time long ago.

Shipley Bowling Green09 — Close-up showing cups & lines

The curious cup-marked stone has travelled about a bit, somehow. Formerly at the edge of a field in the grounds of Bradford Grammar School 3 miles away (at SE 1523 3583), the fella was then built into the wall of the now-demolished Shipley Old Hall, before reaching its present resting place at the edge of the bowling green. Consisting of around 16 cup-markings with carved lines seeming to link them here and there, it was first mentioned by the late great Sydney Jackson (1955) in an early edition of the Bradford Archaeology Journal. The carving was recently included in the Boughey & Vickerman (2003) survey, where they described it as,

“Medium-sized fairly smooth grit rock with coarse line down top, probably natural, evidence of quarrying on edge. Sixteen or seventeen cups, one with a groove out has a deeper cut within it and twelve of the others are linked in pairs by short grooves. This has been interpreted as feathering for quarrying, but the grooves are across the line of likely split, rather than along it.”

And for those of you who live nearby: if you check this out, see if you can locate an earthfast boulder near here which I recall having a cluster of distinct cup-marks running on top of the rock along one side. I couldn’t find it when I looked a short while ago, it’s not in the archaeology survey lists, and it remains lost—in the heart of Shipley no less!

References:

Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Wakefield 2003.
Jackson, Sydney, “Cup-Marked Boulder, Shipley Old Hall,” in Bradford Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 1:10, 1955.