Tag: tombs

Devil’s Apronful, Pendle Hill, Lancashire

megalithix

Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – SD 77907 39357

Also known as:

  1. Apronful of Stones

Getting Here

The much-denuded Devil's Apronful giant cairn
The much-denuded Devil’s Apronful giant cairn

Many ways to get here, but the easiest for those with cars to is park up on the southeast edge of the hill, at the various scruffy parking bits beside the road at the Nick of Pendle. The view from here is enough to get you going! Walk onto the great hill up to the rounded pap of Apronfull Hill (rather gives it away really!). It’s only a few hundred yards up – about 10 mins up the slope from the road, with awesome views all round once you get there. Tis the small guidance cairn you’re looking at just on the level. You’re there!

Archaeology & History

This would once have been a rather huge cairn/tomb — though when I first found the remains of this place in August 2006, there were no archaeological records describing it that I could find.  But there’s very little left of it.  The lads who did the quarrying further downhill (where you’ve probably parked your car) are likely to have been the culprits who nicked most of the rocks that once made this huge forgotten tomb. But as you potter about here, it becomes obvious that you’re standing on the much-denuded remains of just such a monument (very similar in size and structure to the more famous Little Skirtful and Great Skirtful of Stones on Burley Moor, or Black Hill round cairn near Skipton).  But the remains you can see beneath your feet still give a good idea as to how large it was.

Remnants of the cairn-spoil cover the ground where the monument once stood proud!
Remnants of the cairn-spoil cover the ground where the monument once stood proud!

You’ll see once you’re stood here that there are hundreds, maybe even several thousands of stones just on and below the ground, scattering a very well-defined roughly circular area measuring at least 21 yards (east-west) by 22 yards (north-south), right by the side of the path. The edges of this ransacked cairn are pretty well defined around the north and eastern sides. Near the centre of the old structure is a very notable ‘dip’ in the ground where it looks as if something has been dug away — though this could just as well be due to the presence of underground water, as indicated by the growth of Juncus grasses.  Without an excavation it’s obviously difficult to tell.

Folklore

Twas the following tale which first led my nose to explore this part of Pendle hill. It’s a tale we find at many of our upland tombs, though the record books said there was nowt here! (any myopic archaeologists out there who reckon that folklore has no relevance to their subject, educate one’s self!)

Looking from the Devil's Apronful towards Jeppe Knave's Grave
Looking from the Devil’s Apronful towards Jeppe Knave’s Grave

The Devil was having trouble with the folk at Clitheroe Castle (a few miles west) and wanted rid of it. So he picked up various large stones and put them in his apron then threw them towards the castle. Most of them missed, which made him angry and in a rage he accidentally dropped a great pile of rocks on the south side of Pendle Hill, creating the Devil’s Apronful on Apronfull Hill.

In another tale he was said to have stood at the Deer Stones a few hundred yards east of here and threw rocks from there. Perhaps a folk-remnant of where the Apronful stones once came from…? Perhaps not.

Jessica Lofthouse (1976) notes how this old spot was long known by local people as the Devil’s Apronful.

References:

  1. Lofthouse, Jessica, North-Country Folklore, Hale: London 1976.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Armshaw Lowe, Oxenhope, West Yorkshire

megalithix

Tumulus?:  OS Grid Reference – SE 04422 35130

Getting Here

Armshaw Lowe on 1852 map

Go along the B6141 from Denholme to Oxenhope, turning right just by the bend which drops into Oxenhope, and head along the small road to Upwood Park camping site. Just before here is the Grange Park Animal sanctuary.  Ask there to walk onto the field behind, where you’ll see a rise in the land, as you can see on the rather poor photo I took from the east-side.

Archaeology & History

Although ascribed on early OS-maps as a tumulus (and still shown as an antiquity on the modern ones), this site appears to be simply the end-point along a geological ridge, starting a few hundred yards east of here, consisting of an upsurge of rocks covered in earth and nothing more. A survey of the place done by Bellamy in 1970 (Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 42:6, 1970) seems to indicate the same. To those who want to test the theory, start by exploring it from Cullingworth Moor and walk along the ridge itself. It seems pretty clear.

Armshaw Lowe - looking west
Armshaw Lowe – the small mound in centre of photo

The “antiquarian” element to the site seems to originate in its positioning in the landscape. Armshaw Lowe is on the topmost point of the hills hereabouts, with 360-degree views all round, commanding excellent sights all round. But it’s perhaps the word ‘lowe’ that might be the important bit here, as in old english it can mean an old moot or meeting spot — which it may well have been for local tribes.  It is may be this element that gives Armshaw Lowe its lingering antiquarian status.

Check it out for yourselves and see what y’ think. I went up here to see an old burial mound, but found only a decent geological feature atop of local hills. But me ‘n’ the archaeologists might be wrong…

References:

  1. Gomme, G.L., Primitive Folk-Moots; or Open-Air Assemblies in Britain, Sampson Low: London 1880.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Brotton Howe, Brotton, Cleveland, North Yorkshire

megalithix

Cairn (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NZ 6950 1886

Archaeology & History

Frank Elgee’s 1930 plan

Another old site that has sadly succumbed to that bollox called ‘progress’! It’s in the North Yorkshire region some halfwits have taken to calling Cleveland — but which a lotta local folk still correctly call Yorkshire.  But that aside…

In an article by local students William Hornsby and Richard Stanton written in 1917, we find that this was just one of at least seven hillocks presumed to be barrows here — but all the others had gone even in their day.  When Crawford (1980) came to survey the site in the late 1970s, he told that,

“this large barrow is now only visible as a low swell in an arable field… (but) the profile of the barrow is retained in the hedgeline that bisects it from north to south, but the whole of its eastern half has been obliteratd by the Brotton-Kilton road.”

Elgee’s 1930 photo of one of the carvings
E.T. Cowling’s drawing of one of the carvings

When Hornsby and Stanton checked the place out it measured 54 feet in diameter and had an extensive covering of small stones, like a large cairn, with a single grave at the centre, aligned north-south; and a tree-trunk coffin on the southwestern side.  Of the stones which filled the central grave, eight of them were found to have cup-markings on them; whilst 16 stones covering the tree-trunk grave also possessed cup-markings. Roughly equidistant between the two burials was another stone found to be resting face-down on the original ground-level, and covered with 20 cups and 5 cup-and-rings!  Awesome stuff!

G.M. Crawford’s (1980) description of the site was as follows:

“Howe Hill was excavated by Hornsby and Stanton in 1914; they discovered that the mound was made up with a clay floor, overlain by ‘a cairn 30 feet long and 3 feet high’ of diorite cobbles, capped by a layer of earth. Cut into the clay floor were two graves: the first was oriented north-south and measured 2m long by 0.9m wide at the old land surface and was 0.7m deep. The grave was filled with ‘medium sized stones’ with a ‘thin dark layer,’ thought to be an inhumation burial, on the floor; 8 of the stones bore cup-marks. The second grave, oriented northeast-southwest, was 2.5m long by 0.9m wide at the old ground surface, reducing to 1.8m long by 0.5m wide at its bottom, 1.3m below. This grave, which was filled with stones, also contained a tree-trunk coffin or oak, measuring 1.5m long… At the head (northeast) were found the unburnt skull fragments of a man laid on its right side. Unaccompanied cremations had been placed at both ends of the coffin. 16 cup-marked stones were among the infill of the grave.”

This was obviously a site of considerable importance and it’s a huge pity (if not a disgrace) that today no trace of the site remains.

References:

  1. Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  2. Crawford, G.M., Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Cleveland, Cleveland County Council 1990.
  3. Elgee, Frank, Early Man in North-east Yorkshire, John Bellows: Gloucester 1930.
  4. Hornsby, William & Stanton, Richard, “British Barrows near Brotton,” in Yorkshire Archaeology Journal, 24, 1917.
  5. Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the North Riding of Yorkshire, Cambridge University Press 1928.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Ardlamey, Gigha, Argyll

megalithix

Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – NR 63091 48258

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 38524

Archaeology & History

A decent-sized cairn, around 50 feet across (even though much of the stone has been nicked) and about 3 feet high, with a singular large cist near its centre. When the Scottish Royal Commission lads checked the place out in 1967, at least four of the kerb stones were still in situ (on its north, west and southwest sides) – the tallest being its northern stone, more than 6 feet high. The northern stone also had a peculiar deposit of white quartz and pebbles laid at the base, placed there quite deliberately – unlike the others which rested on a level of sand and gravel.

The Scottish Royal Commission (1971) also reported the former existence of two cists not far from here, “uncovered by the plough during the 19th century on the farm of Ardlamey”: one at NR 637 484, and the other at NR 635 484.

References:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Argyll – Volume 1: Kintyre, Glasgow 1971.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Burwains, Foulridge, Lancashire

megalithix

Cairn (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – SD 888 421

Archaeology & History

Burwains on the 1848 map

The place-name burwain is an early Old English word meaning “a cairn or tumulus”.  It has variants such as borrans, borwen and borwans.  In the developing survey by Parsons & Styles (2000), other linguistic examples are given, all of which point to the same thing, i.e., a prehistoric burial of one form or another.  Also, in 19th century northern English dialect, Wright (1898) told that borrans is “a cairn, a heap of loose stones”—which is what used to exist hereby.

The fact that there is a place-name telling of its existence implies that it was a cairn of some size, but sadly all remains of it have long since gone.  All that we’ve got left is the name of Burwains house on the early Ordnance Survey maps.  Built on a hilltop rise, which is a common construction spot for such sites up and down the country, it’s possible that the cairn was destroyed when the Foulridge Lower Reservoir was built in 1793, with the mass of stone used in its construction (the reservoir also kept the name of Burwains lake for sometime).

References:

  1. Clayton, John A., Valley of the Drawn Sword, Barrowford Press 2006.
  2. Parsons, D.N. & Styles, T., Vocabulary of English Place-Names – volume 2, EPNS: Nottingham 2000.
  3. Smith, A.H., English Place-Name Elements – volume 1, Cambridge University Press 1954.
  4. Wright, Joseph, English Dialect Dictionary – volume 1, Henry Frowde: London 1898.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian