Backstone Circle, Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire

Stone Circle:  OS Grid Reference – SE 12605 46130

Getting Here

The ruins of Backstone Circle (photo, Richard Stroud)
The ruins of Backstone Circle (photo, Richard Stroud)

There are many routes to get here, but this is the one I usually take. From Cow & Calf Rocks, walk up the steep hillside onto the first moorland plain, taking the path right, diagonally, across to the NW as if you’re heading to the Map Stone.  From here, looking down at the stream valley below, follow the valley edge up, past the settlement, and then veer down to Backstone Beck and up on the other side till you meet with a footpath and also up in the heather ahead of you, notice the jumbled walling less than 100 yards away.  That’s where you need to be!

Archaeology & History

A singular short sentence in Robert Collyer and J.H. Turner’s Ilkley, Ancient and Modern (1885) started it all off, where they told:

“There was still a rude circle of rocks on the reach beyond White Wells fifty years ago, tumbled into such confusion that you had to look once, and again, before you saw what lay under your eyes.”

…..And thankfully this is still what we see today – and in just the area they mentioned.

I’m intrigued to find there’s so much said about this site on the Net and feel I should put my recent feelings about the place to print at last (and after being badgered to gerrit done by James Elkington!).  The information about its make-up and the mess it’s in, hasn’t changed since we rediscovered the place on June 3, 1989.  Here, amidst the tall grasses and reeds of Juncus effusus and J. conglomeratus, our jumble of megaliths hides within a breakdown of fallen walls, that are thought to have been part of some sheep-fold or a similar animal enclosure (mebbe for the annual sheep-shagging contests that are held, quietly, on these moors each year!).

The name ‘backstone’ itself come from the adjacent beck (slowly depleting as the years pulse by) and is mentioned in the 18th century parish registers.  A.H. Smith (1961) informs us that it was the “stream where bakestones were got”, and this was probably a tradition going way way back.  The baking stones from the beck may even have been used by the people living in the prehistoric settlements close to the circle.

Stones amidst the reeds
Stones amidst the reeds

In what looks today like a messy double-ring of stones, it’s likely there was originally just a single ring which has, subsequently, been knocked down and re-used for some form of sheep-fondling sessions—be it agricultural or otherwise!  But for the record at least: we have small inner ‘ring’ of four upright stones, re-worked in more recent centuries, between two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half feet tall.  Another stone is recumbent.  The outer ring is more conspicuous.  It consists of at least eight standing stones–seven of which are upright–between three and five feet tall, some of which have been re-worked in more recent times. There are several other stones either recumbent or partly covered by vegetation. The tallest of the stones is 4’11” tall. The outer circle has had at least one of the stones uprooted and used at the base of the dry-stone walling intruding the southwest side of the circle. What appears to be at least two original standing stones are embedded into earthworks on the other side of this wall, one of which was located through dowsing!

The best section of the ring can be seen on its eastern side, where an arc of upright stones between three and four feet high are still clearly in evidence, just inside a raised embankment like that found surrounding the Twelve Apostles stone circle less than a mile away.

A short while after finding the site, we contacted the Ilkley Head of Archaeology Studies, Gavin Edwards, about the circle and he subsequently included the site on one of the tourist-guides to the moors.

Alignments through this circle seem apparent in situ; and although such alignments are intriguing (to me anyhow), it’s the geometric relationship Backstone has with other circles on these moors that is rather notable. It’s position in the landscape plays an essential part in an isosceles triangle formation, 1180 yards [1.08km] from the Twelve Apostles stone circle which, as the centre point, is another 1180 yards from the Roms Law Circle.  Odd….

Immediately visible from our ruinous circle across the small valley to the slopes of Green Crag, the Ilkley Archaeology Group spent more than fifteen years excavating the remains of what was initially thought of as a Bronze Age village, but their work here has proved startling, pushing the date of human occupation here into the mesolithic period!  Local archaeologist Gavin Edwards opined that the Backstone circle would have been the religious site for the people who lived here.  I have to concur.  There are also more neolithic and Bronze Age walling, indicative of extended settlements and enclosures, less than 200 yards north of the Backstone Circle, structurally consistent with the remains across the valley at the excavated Green Crag Slack settlement.

Ten yards east of the circle is a small well which only runs following exceptional rainfall.  This was probably of some ritual importance to the people who practiced rites here.  Geological fault lines run not far away on three sides of the ring and an underground stream is present, quite close to the surface (as indicated by the presence of Juncus conglomeratus and J.effisus), encouraging the preponderance of regular electromagnetic variations: these in particular are likely to have some causative influence on the paranormal events described below….

Fortean History

Since rediscovering this site, a number of bizarre psychophysical anomalies have been experienced and described by more and more people — some of whom were previously very sceptical of such things.  Both day and night, no doubt when Moon and water speak their subtle electromagnetic accord, a gathering corpus of all-too-familiar events keep speaking of a most disturbing resident spirit

We begin on Wednesday, July 12, 1989, sometime around midnight, when an acquaintance and I were spending a few days here to record any possible electromagnetic anomalies at this disturbed ring of stones.  We weren’t to be disappointed, as something very untoward raised its peculiar head.

As I sat barely ten yards beyond the tumbled group of stones there suddenly appeared, from nowhere, a host of figures—a dozen at most—walking ever so slowly around the old site. I could discern no physical features other than their height and humanoid shape. It was just too dark to see any details about them—they were, effectively, silhouettes.  My acquaintance was terrified—although it was perhaps a minute or so before he even glanced at what I was pointing and exclaiming at, somewhat manically, stuttering and shaking my head in an attempt to make the things disappear back to my unconscious where they surely originated. Didn’t work though!

These were no psychic projections. I literally shook my head, closed my eyes and knocked my head against the walling; looked away, shook my head again, shouting at myself and looked back at the figures in front of us. It still didn’t do a damn thing! By now my friend was staring, aghast and scared shitless if the expression on his face was anything to go by.

“Wot a’ y’ seeing? Wot can y’ see?” I asked.

He murmured and mumbled something about some people he could see, walking round and round the old remains.

He was seeing exactly the same as what I could see. As the minutes passed by, this group of people, who were winding in and out of each and every stone and walking through the intrusive walling as it was not there, slowly but surely, ever so gradually, increased in speed. This was very slow and patient and went on for at least fifteen minutes — by which times they were barely visible as individual figures anymore. All we could see by now was a visual blur and a remarkable vortex that was created in the wake of their ‘dance’.

This spinning vortex of silhouettes seemed to get faster and faster until appearing to reach a sort of critical speed/energy state — and as this “critical state” occurred, what was by now a rapid spinning, energetic blur simply vanished right before our eyes!  It was as if someone, somewhere, had flicked a switch and they disappeared.  Yet, at the very same moment the blurred vortex vanished, several dead straight lines of orange-red appeared in their place.  These were as baffling as the dance we had just watched: very thin, wavering lines of what I can only describe as subtle light, bounced off several of the standing stones. These lines—perhaps four of them—did not originate from the circle but appeared to come from further afield. One in particular seemed to come from the direction of the great boulder known as the Idol Rock, 700 yards [650m] east and continued past our field of vision in the direction of the Swastika Stone.

To be honest these “lines of energy” perturbed me more than the spinning figures which had just disappeared. Not only were these lines two-dimensional [a real screw-up that one!], I was at a loss to explain what these lines really were. The first thought was, of course, leys – but my idea of leys did not, and still does not accord with what I was seeing. Eventually the lines faded back to wherever they came, leaving both of us wondering what the hell we had just experienced.

Several minutes after talking over what had just happened, I stood up and walked into the circle. At this point, please remember it was July 12 and the night was so warm that neither of us had taken sleeping bags or a tent onto the high moors with us. As I got to the circle and took my first step inside, a tremendous shiver hit right through my body, almost like I was walking into a freezer. But I moved another step forward, unperturbed if truth be had by the probable chill wind that made me shiver. As I did so, the chill became more manifest and intense. As I took my third step forward the cold became biting and I collapsed onto my knees. [This is not like me, honest. Give me camping in the Scottish mountains in mid-February with average temperatures of -6 degrees and that’s my idea of a good night out!]

Shivering like hell, I stumbled upright and back onto my feet and virtually ran out of the circle. That, more than anything else that night, truly perturbed me.

The following morning another volunteer joined us. We told him about the events of the previous night and he thought whatever he thought; but he’d brought two thermometers with him and set them on two of the rocks: one of them about 25 yards outside the circle, the other on a stone in the circle.  The two of them had the same reading: 73° F.  We left them without checking for a good hour or so and then began to take readings. What transpired was bizarre to say the least: the one outside the circle was 62° F, the one in the circle was 72° F.  A further reading fifteen minutes later, close to sunset, showed the temperature variations had come a little closer: the inner reading was 70° F, and outer reading still 62° F. Readings were then taken every fifteen minutes and the respective readings closed in on each other until both were the same, exactly when the sun was touching the horizon to set, at 9.05pm.  But this was not the end of the anomaly. While the temperature outside the circle dropped naturally with nightfall, finally resting at 57-58° F, the inner circle reading continued falling at nearly twice the background rate!  Our final reading after 11pm showed a deviation of nearly 7 degrees between the respective thermometers!

If these elements seem in anyway somewhat unbelievable, what occurred next bends the parameters of reality still further!

No further anomalous Fortean events happened at the circle that night—for us at least. However, a friend in Leeds—the internationally renowned ritual magician and author, Phil Hine—was at home with some friends, chatting.

“On the night in question,” he came to write sometime later, “I was talking to another magickian. He returned from the toilet and informed me that there was an “entity” lurking in the stairwell… This was unusual, but not sufficiently unusual to cause undue concern, and so, picking up my thunderbolt, I went out to see what was what. In the stairwell we both agreed on seeing a black amorphous shape. Since my friend had first noticed this, I asked him if he would be prepared to “open his mind” to it, so that I could question it, using him as an interface [which was one of his particular talents] and a fairly accepted procedure for questioning strange entities. “The entity declared,” I have come from the ancient hills.” It also stated that it had been “awakened” only recently due to activity around a sacred site. It said that it had come to give me “power” with which I could do something, but was reticent about the exact nature of this. When I asked what it would do if I rejected this, it said that it would return “screaming to the hills.” When I asked it to identify itself it gave the name Azathoth—which could well have sprung from the mind of my friend, although he had no particular knowledge of the Cthulu mythos entities.”

Phil continued:

“At the time I found it difficult to credit that such a powerful entity would be hanging politely about in the stairwell waiting to be noticed. Being unable to obtain a direct answer to my questions, I told it to go forth, which it apparently did. I later had to perform an intense banishing ritual on my friend who was suffering from symptoms such as feeling cold, a tight pressure on the chest, personality displacement, and motor spasms… Unbeknownst to me at the time, two friends of mine who were members of the West Yorkshire Earth Mysteries Group had experienced a strange encounter at the then newly-uncovered Backstone Circle on Ilkley Moor… It seems strange, on reflection, that the appearance of the entity claiming to originate from a newly disturbed site seems to relate to their experience.” [Hine 1994, 1997]

Other bizarre experiences at the circle itself have been reported by growing numbers of people—a lot of them quite unpleasant. One lady, Katy from Calderdale, whose interest in megaliths rarely stretched into the obscurities of their folklore or weird tales, will “probably never go there again. It terrified me. I don’t know why, there was nothing to be scared of, but the place just felt awful.”

There have been at least a dozen people who have related the same words to me—and I can empathise. On February 14, 1990, Mick N. and I went to the site for the night with intent to do a bit of sympathetic ritual magick.  The night was cold and a slight fall of snow glittered across the moors as far as we could see, invoking quite healthy feelings about the forthcoming rite.  But as we turned off the path and approached the stones, it was as if we had walked through an invisible gate or door just yards before the circle itself, screaming quite powerfully with gnarled teeth that we were not wanted there that night!  It was overwhelming!  We both acted accordingly and spent the night elsewhere, cold and querying over its genius loci.  The potency of Azathoth seemed inherent in its silent voice.

This particular feeling, almost of malevolance, has been described by many people at Backstone.  It occurs both day and night and is akin to what Prof Thomas Lethbridge (1961) described as ‘ghouls’: place-memories so to speak, or spirits of place.  Most of the time there is no such feeling, of course.  But when conditions are right, these potent subjective consumations can be quite overwhelming at some spots.  They are reported worldwide in the aboriginal traditions of all races and are felt, obviously, even today by explorers, mountaineers and visitors to ancient haunted places like the Backstone Circle.

Strange lights have also been seen over and around here by a number of witnesses. On one occasion a ritual invocation of its spirit-nature brought forth a number of glowing red spheres of light.  These were about the size of footballs, appearing for a minute or two, floating in front and around us, then vanishing—only to reappear yards away around the edges of the damaged ring of stones. These were very obviously living things and were examining us with equal bewilderment.  Other light-phenomena that people have seen here and on this moor appear to relate to the phases of the Moon.

Although the site is quite ruinous, it is a worthwhile place to visit – just respect, and beware the Old Hag who sometimes comes forth from time to time….

…to be continued…

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul., “The Backstone Circle,” Earth 15, 1990.
  2. Bennett, Paul, “Archaeological and Geometrical Applications of the Lost Stone Circle of Ilkley Moor,” Earth 15, 1990.
  3. Bennett, Paul, Circles, Standing Stones and Legendary Rocks of West Yorkshire, Heart of Albion Press: Wymeswold 1994.
  4. Bennett, Paul, “The Strange Case of Backstone Circle,” Right Times 1, 1998.
  5. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  6. Bennett, Paul, The Twelve Apostles Stone Circle, TNA Publications 2017.
  7. Collyer, Robert & Turner, J. Horsfall, Ilkley: Ancient and Modern, William Walker: Otley 1885.
  8. Devereux, Paul, Places of Power, Blandford: London 1990.
  9. Gyrus T., “An Interview with Phil Hine,” Towards 2012 volume 4, 1998.
  10. Hine, Phil, “The Physics of Evocation,” Chaos International 1990.
  11. Roberts, Andy, Ghosts and Legends of Yorkshire, Jarrold: Norwich 1997.
  12. Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire – volume 4, Cambridge University Press 1961.

AcknowledgementsMany thanks to Richard Stroud for his photo of Backstone at winter time; to James Elkington for saying, “Come on Paul – get yer finger out!” + his photos too…

Links:

  1. Backstone Circle on The Megalithic Portal

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Blackheath Circle, Todmorden, West Yorkshire

Ring Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – SD 9433 2543

Also Known as:

  1. Frying Pan Circle
  2. Roman Barrow

Getting Here

Aerial image showing faint outline of Blackheath circle

From Todmorden, take the road to Hebden Bridge (A646) less than half-mile outta town and just as road goes uphill, watch for the left turn up to Cross Stone.  This is one helluva superb steep, winding road if you aint been up it before (which, somehow, I used to be able to cycle up without a break!).  As you reach the hamlet of Cross Stone, bear uphill again (left) until you reach the top-end of the golf course, where you’ll see a footpath on your left that runs alongside the course.  Walk on this until it reaches a stile.  Walk up the wallside and onto the course itself – and there, in front of you, in the middle of the damn golf course, you’ll see the very denuded remains of a once fine prehistoric monument (it’s situation, quite frankly, is a disgrace – and any pagans or historians who feel similarly should complain to Calderdale Council about the lack of preservation here; as the more of us who do, the more they’ll have to pay attention and perhaps do something about it).

Archaeology & History

Very little can be seen of this once important site thanks to the important golf course built right on top of this once sacred site.  Thankfully we have an extensive description of the place that was done by J. Lawson Russell (1906) from which this profile account — and every other account for that matter! — draws heavily upon.  It was included in Aubrey Burl’s magnum opus (2000) as a stone circle, but this isn’t strictly correct and is more accurately a cairn circle or ring cairn monument.

Blackheath Circle’s shallow semicircular bank
Blackheath circle, looking SE

It was thought in times past to have been a monument built by the Romans (hence the earlier title of ‘Roman Barrow’), but its origins were much earlier than those scruffy incomers! Its other local folk name, the “Frying Pan Circle” is, like its namesake at Morley, an etymological curiosity relating to the flat ground left in the wake of its shape: flat, circular, with raised edges surrounding it, not unlike a frying pan.

It was accurately described for the first time by Robert Law (1897), who later broadened his account of the site a year later in a paper he wrote for the Yorkshire Geological Society (1899) after an excavation here.  Mr Law and others explored the centre of the ring where they believed it most probable to find remains of some form or another — and they weren’t to be disappointed!  The following is taken directly from his lengthy article:

“On Thursday, July 7th of this year (1898), a very interesting and important archaeological discovery was made on a portion of land known as Higher Cross Stone Farm, belonging to Mr. Sutcliffe, of Todmorden.  In a field on this farm, called Black Heath, a ring circle, made of earth, has long been known to exist, and has gone by the name of the “Frying Pan.”  No history or tradition exists as to the origin of this circle, and various speculations have from time to time been indulged in by the residents.  Some have called it a Roman Camp, others a fairy circle, others a circus ring, made to break in horses; but the excavations prove it to be a burial place of prehistoric times.  Mr. Tattersall Wilkinson, of Burnley, a well-known archaeologist of considerable experience on ring circles, along with the writer of this article, came to the conclusion, on hearing of this circle, that it probably contained human remains, and an excavating party was organised to meet on the spot on the day above mentioned. This party met at the appointed time, and the plan of operations was to find the centre of the circle, by means of a tape, then to dig a circular trench about three feet from the centre, in which space it was thought the remains would lie.  The ring was nearly a perfect circle.  It was raised conspicuously above the ground. The rim of raised earth was about three feet wide, and the diameter of the whole circle was thirty yards.  After the digging had been going on for a short time, burnt soil and charcoal were met with, and the top of an urn was exposed to view.  The diggers then went to work with the greatest possible care, and very soon a beautiful urn was laid bare exactly in the centre of the ring.  The urn was embedded in charcoal and calcined bones. It was ten inches high and nine inches at the top, tapering to about three inches wide at the bottom. There was a rim or collar in the upper part of the um about three inches deep, which stood out about one inch in relief from the lower part of it. The collar was ornamented, probably by a pointed stick, with the herring-bone pattern. The outer part of the um was plain. In clearing away the debris from the urn another one was discovered, different in pattern and less in size, but in a very perfect state of preservation.

“About two feet from this, on the opposite side of the central urn, another um was discovered and laid bare, by carefully digging round it with a trowel.  This urn was also in a good state of preservation, and about the size of the second one, but differently ornamented.  These smaller urns were the same shape as the larger central one, but the ornamentations were not so fine, and they were made of inferior clay.  On the south side of the circle, about two feet from the centre, another urn was discovered, but it appeared to be insufficiently baked when manufactured, and had decomposed and crumbled into dust.  From the inside of this urn a large quantity of calcined human bones and charcoal was dug up, but the bones were very fragmentary, and the sex of the person to whom the bones belonged could not be determined.  Several portions of cranium, rib bones, and lower and upper leg bones were found among the debris.

“Within a few inches of this urn two small (so called) incense cups were found.  One of them was very perfect and in an excellent state of preservation and was beautifully ornamented all over. These cups were about three inches in height and three and a half inches in diameter, but tapered a little at the bottom.  Indications of three other urns were observed, but they were so much decomposed that little or nothing could be made of them.  The others seemed to be arranged about the large central urn and about two feet apart.  When the earth had been cleared away from the three perfect urns, and before they had been removed, several photographs were taken of them in situ.  One of the smaller urns leaned a little to the south.  Several pieces of flint and chert were dug out of the excavation.  The urns and incense cups being removed were put into baskets and conveyed to Todmorden, where they were re-photographed and placed in the Free Library for their safe keeping.

“On July 13th, six days after the “find,” the urns were opened at the Co-operative Hall, Todmorden, before a very large gathering of scientific ladies and gentlemen drawn from the surrounding districts.  Mr Tattersall Wilkinson, Dr. Crump of Burnley, and the author were entrusted with the opening of the urns.

“The largest one, which was of superior make to the other, was the first to be operated  upon. The work was tedious and was done in the most careful way possible.  Each operator commenced to pick out by means of a small pocket knife the substances deposited in the urns, and the material was closely examined as it fell out on the table.  For the first half-hour or so nothing particular was found.  The contents which had been so far dug out were portions of broken urns of a similar pattern to the urn that was being examined, but were not portions of it and must have been placed there as filling-in material.  Along with these urn fragments there was some dark brown sand, which appeared to have been burnt, quantities of bituminous soil, small fragments of bones, and bits of charcoal.  As the examining party dug deeper into the urn human bones became more numerous and in larger fragments and of a more determinable character, and this went on until the urn had been half emptied.  The rest of the contents of the urn then showed signs of being almost entirely calcined bones, and bone after bone was picked out, examined, and laid on the table.  Among these bones were fragments of various sizes: of cranium, portions of scapula, pelvic bones, femur, tibia and other bones of the legs.  Besides these there were fragments of ribs and perfect toe bones.

“Presently a small cup was laid bare inside the urn, and a few pokes with the knife so far emptied it of its contents that an ancient relic could be seen which differed from any that had yet been found. A moment later a piece of metal was picked out of the cup resembling a spear head.  It was about 2½ inches long and 1¼ inches wide at one end, and tapered to a point at the other.  It was thin and flat and sharp at the sides and point.  It contained a rivet at the two extremities and another one about half way up one side. A bronze pin was also found about the same time as this piece of metal, and on careful examination the metal and the pin were made out to be a bronze brooch, the pin having probably been detached in extracting it from the bones in the cup.  Besides this brooch about a dozen beads of a necklace were found, which were chiefly of a rounded shape and about half an inch in diameter. Some of the beads seem to have been made of jet, and some of bone, and were more or less rudely carved.  A bone pin was next brought to light.  It was almost two inches in length and the eighth of an inch in diameter at one end, tapering towards a point at the other.  It was cylindrical in form and slightly curved.  The fact of all these ornaments having been carefully placed in the cup and buried with the urn point to the cup having been used as a utensil in which to preserve what was considered of great value.  Several human teeth were also found in this cup.

“The opening of the two inferior urns proved that they contained nothing more than the sweepings up of the funeral pile which probably took place after the calcined bones had been placed in the more important urn.

“Since this discovery was made a beautifully-formed flint arrowhead of the leaf-shaped pattern has been found in the same hole from which the urns were dug. There have also been two or three more urns discovered within the same circle, but their contents have not yet been disclosed.”

Early 1899 photo of the Blackheath urns
Blackheath urns on display, c.1911

They had to wait a few more years before a more complete account described the contents of the “two or three more urns” at Blackheath’s circle.  That duty fell to Mr J. Lawson Russell (1906), who, after further excavations, wrote the most detailed and complete account of the place.

Following the successful discoveries in 1898, Messrs. Russell, Law, Wilkinson and others made a “further systematic examination of the whole circle”, which was then subsequently wrote up in Ling Roth’s Prehistoric Halifax.  The following is a detailed account of that second dig:

“The first step in the systematic examination was the breaking up of the circle into quadrants. This we did by running deep trenches north, east, south and west.  The turf was then removed and these quadrants dealt with seriatim. The diameter of the circle was as nearly as possible 100ft (30.5m), i.e. measuring from ridge to ridge, but the slight mound which marked the circumference sloped gently further into the general level of the field.  Eight or nine deep furrows ran through the circle, from north to south, cutting the vallum up into segments and ploughing the enclosed area with their parallels. The method we followed was to trench till we came to soil which had never been disturbed. Generally about two spade grafts brought us to stiff glacial (?) clay. When we came upon an urn its position was carefully observed with reference to the centre and noted on a plan ; the earth was removed by trenching round the um, which was photographed in situ when sufficiently defined. The urns were not deeply placed, some of them being only six inches from the surface, none deeper than from 18in to 2ft (46 cm to 61 cm), and all of them without exception were set in the ground upright on their bases, not inverted.  There was in the centre an urn, and this was surrounded at a radius of 2ft by a ring of deposits; two having urns, the others either having no urn at all or showing signs only of disintegrated pottery. At a distance of about 10 ft. from the centre another series of deposits was radially arranged, but all to the east side of the north to south centre line. It will be seen that, if we leave out of account the urn found in the vallum in the north-west quadrant, all the urns and deposits save one have been placed to the east of the north to south centre line.

“An extensive floor of charcoal, sometimes an inch to two inches in thickness, was defined to the north of the centre, and two deep pits were located about 16ft (4-9 m) from the centre, one in the north-east and one in the south-east quadrant. Close to that deep spot in the south-east quadrant we found a curiously baked surface which we attempted to photograph.  A group of urns, one of which was a fine covered specimen, lay in line going due east from the centre ; and this group had placed all round it flat stones of no great size, set on edge, as if to protect the urns or mark them off from others.

“In the northern half of the circle and lying largely in the NE quadrant, was a considerable area showing a closely beaten, hard baked red floor, with pieces of charcoal speckled amongst the general red.  Somewhat similar areas occurred at the west and at the east sides of the circle, that at the west being most marked, the whole floor in that quarter looking like disintegrated pottery closely trodden together.

“Lying NW by W, from the centre, we found in the vallum a large stone with an urn set right in its middle. Other stones lay near, as if they might have been set round this urn in kist fashion. All about this spot the ground seemed to be made up of shivers of sand stone and pounded sand. Over-lying this sand for a considerable area going northwards was a thick layer of charcoal.  Curious cairns of stone had been placed just inside the vallum, and these, we soon discovered, accurately marked the cardinal points — N, E, S and W., the most curious of these cairns being that which lay exactly south. The stones here were in the form of a semi-circle, having an armchair -like arrangement in its middle, the back of the chair looking due south, i.e., by the sun at mid-day.  In the turf over-lying this strange assemblage of stones a portion of the base of an urn was found, and there was abundance of charcoal at the westerly horn of the semi-circle. Many of the stones in the other cairns lay in groups of three pointing in one direction. Some of the groups looked as if they had been upright at one time and thrown down. At the western point the stones lay in an imbricated fashion, inclined at an angle of about 45°, placed in two rows, about 2½ft (76 cm) apart, five in one row, four in the other. A large flat stone lay near, and by it one which probably was the fifth of the second row. Between these rows of stones, and all around them, lay great quantities of what looked like partly baked clay or disintegrated pottery.  In the southwest quadrant lay an incomplete ring of stones, which possibly marked an interment.  This incompleteness is interesting and may have had some significance t Other large stones were found set into the vallum at more or less regular intervals. Some of these are still in situ, the further examination of the vallum having had to be abandoned. Close by all these stones charcoal was found, and the upper surface of one, at least, that in the SE quadrant, SE of centre, was blackened as if by fire.

“In removing the stones forming the four cairns I examined all of them for signs of markings, but none was seen except one deeply scored line drawn across the large flat stone in the cairn at the eastern point. This line may have been grooved into the stone by the over-passing plough, but I am rather of opinion that it was purposely graved there. What was the purpose of these cairns and large stones in the vallum? The fact of one large um having been found as already stated, on a stone in the vallum, while part of another urn was found near the southern cairn, suggests a probable explanation for some of these arrangements of stones. They may have been rude kists enclosing urns, or at least they may be regarded as stone-marked interments. The presence of charcoal close beside these stones may point to the performance of funeral rites.”

J.L. Russell’s 1906 ground-plan

Mr Russell then went into considerable details describing the urns, flints, carved bones and other objects recovered from the site (those who would like further info, find a copy of H.L. Roth’s Yorkshire Coiners for the full account).  It was his opinion that the site was used primarily as a place for the dead.  There was no evidence here of domestic activity or settlement of any kind.  And particularly intriguing were the four cairns placed inside the circle: each one at the cardinal points north, south, east and west. This would indicate a ritual evocation of the airts, or spirits of the four directions, with obvious correlates in relation to spirits in the land of the dead.  This was very obviously an important sacred site to the people who built this… Oh such a pity it’s now in the state it is…

One other point of intrigue here is: according to the archaeological records there are no other prehistoric sites nearby, nor any settlement remains that could account for the existence of this once important ritual site.  That doesn’t make sense…

Folklore

Old lore told that this site was once the abode of the fairy folk.   The old game of Knurr and Spell used to be played here; which is a game played with a wooden ball (the knurr) which is released by a spring from a small brass cup at the end of a tongue of steel (the spell). When the player touches the spring, the ball flies in the air and is struck with a bat.  In J.L.Russell’s (1906) account of the excavations here, he reported finding several very old balls in the circle, indicating that Knurr and Spell or variants of this game had been played here for many centuries.

Even weirder was the UFO encounter here. In 1982, the landowner’s wife reported seeing an earthlight right next to the spot, as she looked from her bedroom window.  The next thing she knew, she was laid outside prostrate on the ground right next to this ancient monument.

…to be continued…

References:

  1. Abraham, John Harris, Hidden Prehistory around the North West, Kindle 2012.
  2. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  3. Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
  4. Fishwick, Henry, “Discovery of Ancient British Barrow in Todmorden,” in The Reliquary, New Series volume 9, 1903.
  5. Holden, Joshua, A Short History of Todmorden, Manchester University Press 1912.
  6. Law, Robert, “Evidences of Prehistoric Man on the Moorlands in and around the Parish of Halifax, in Halifax Naturalist, volume 2, April 1897.
  7. Law, Robert, “The Discovery of Cinerary Urns at Todmorden,” in Halifax Naturalist, volume 3, August 1898.
  8. Law, Robert, “On Recent Prehistoric Finds in the Neighbourhood of Todmorden,” in Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological & Polytechnic Society, volume 13, 1899.
  9. Roth, H. Ling, The Yorkshire Coiners, 1767-1783; and Notes on Old and Prehistoric Halifax, F.King: Halifax 1906.
  10. Russell, J. Lawson, “The Blackheath Barrow,” in Ling Roth’s Yorkshire Coiners (Halifax 1906).
  11. Watson, Geoffrey G., Early Man in the Halifax District, Halifax Scientific Society: Halifax 1952.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Twelve Apostles, Burley Moor, West Yorkshire

Stone Circle:  OS Grid Reference – SE 12610 45062

Also Known as:

  1. Druidical Dial Circle
  2. Twelve Apostles of Ilkley Moor

Getting Here

Twelve Apostles (photo by James Elkington)

There are many ways of reaching the Apostles, but I’ll stick to describing the two commonest routes for those of you who wanna find it.  The first is the route out of Ilkley.  Get to the White Wells (white building nestled on t’ edge of t’ moors) – ask a local if you don’t know where it is.  From here follow the path up past the Wells, up the stepped-cliffs, and once on top where there’s a crossing of paths, keep straight forward onto the moors for about a mile.  Once you’re on the very top of the moors, keep your eyes peeled to the left of the footpath and you’ll see it!  From the other, southern-side of the moor, start from Dick Hudson’s pub, cross the road and go up the footpath onto the moor.  Now, just keep walking for a mile or so, until the circle appears on the right-hand side of the footpath right near the very top of the route.

The other route is easier if you’re unfit.  Go up the old Roman Road which crosses the moors and when you get to the two radio masts on the top, take the footpath east.  Walk straight on for about a mile until the path veers to the right (southeast).  This is Ashlar Chair.  From here, take the left-hand path and walk on for a few hundred yards till you hit the main footpath.  Double-back on y’self (right) and the Apostles are about 100 yards away.

Archaeology & History

Apostles on 1851 map

First highlighted on the 1851 Ordnance Survey map as a “Circle of Stones” close to “The Stone called Lanshaw Lad”, the Twelve Apostles stone circle is one of the highest of all ancient monuments upon Rombald’s Moor, 1264 feet above sea level.  Only a small prehistoric enclosure (recently discovered) and the defamed giant cairn at the very top of the moors, known in previous centuries as ‘Nixon’s Station’—described in 1885 as being a hundred-and-seventy-five yards in circumference, then in 1900 as a hundred-and-fifty-yards—are higher.  It is by no means a spectacular stone circle. Certainly in comparison to places like Castlerigg, Avebury, Callanish or the Argyll stones, it fades into insignificance!

In earlier times the circle possessed such names as the ‘Druid’s Chair’ and the ‘Druidical Dial Circle’—the first of which implying it to have been a place of ritual inauguration, and the latter a folk remnant of it being a site where the solar and lunar year would be recorded. Indeed, as early as 1850, antiquarian and rambler James Wardell described this site as “the astronomical circle,” after local folklore about the site being used as such. Today, such ‘folklore’ has entered into being academically acceptable in many quarters; though the significance of such alignments is still hotly debated.

Earliest plan of the Apostles (J.N.M. Colls 1846)

What greets us today would have been, several thousand years ago, planned and prepared sometime before the stones were erected close to the crossing of the two most important trackways crossing these moors, marking “an event of some importance.” These trackways face the four cardinal points, or airts, and one of them is believed by archaeologists to have been a major prehistoric trade-route that crossed the mid-Pennines.  Around 1800 BC – the academics guess – the ring of stones took form.

The all-but-forgotten Black Beck Well (SE 1276 4494), two hundred yards south of the Twelve Apostles, was an important water-hole for our prehistoric traders and travellers and may well have had some function relative to this megalithic ring. Certainly, the well was being used by traders late into the 19th century.

According to archaeologist Arthur Raistrick, the Twelve Apostles originally consisted of at least twenty upright stones with a solitary monolith at its centre. It was this central stone which, not unsurprisingly, gave it the tradition of being a druidical dial circle. This is probably not without foundation as the centre-stone may well have acted as some sort of shadow-marker, or simply the point from where solar, lunar and perhaps stellar observations were made. When Raistrick first came here though, he reported that only three of the stones were standing. A few years later when Cowling described the site, he said that all of the stones “are now overthrown.” This is, sadly, something we have to constantly deal with. In Raistrick’s further description of the Apostles, he wrote:

“The circles of stones is erected on a bank of earth and small stones, as nearly circular as can be measured, and fifty-two feet (15.9m) in diameter, centre to centre of bank. The bank is about four feet wide and in places about two feet above the surrounding ground level.”

Local news report from 1976

Cowling’s measurements told it to be fifty-eight feet across. Sadly, traces of the raised embankment that once enclosed the entire circle can now only be seen in the undergrowth on the south-side of the ring.  When the heather is low you can make out an arc of raised rubble about 12 inches high and no more than a yard across, running for some 20 yards along the edge of the circle.  In the 1960s all of the standing stones in this circle had been knocked over and were left ruinous in deep heather.  The local authority council and regional archaeologist of Ilkley and district were (and still are) negligent of their duties to look after the ancient monument on these moors.  Thankfully a group of local heathens took it upon themselves to stand the stones back upright and restore the circle to roughly how it looks today.  Local pagans and amateurs have looked after the Apostles, restoring it when vandalized, from the ’70s onwards.  In all honesty — and the same still applies to this day — if we’d have waited for the local archaeologists to get off their arses to restore the Twelve Apostles, it would have been destroyed long ago.

In more recent times, the site has been ascribed as “a circular ceremonial monument”, which I think is appropriate, although no burial or ritual remains have ever been found here. As we shall see however, this description is most fitting when put into context with the wider landscape.

Twelve Apostles in winter snow (photo by Richard Stroud)

Visitors to the Twelve Apostles should be aware (if they weren’t already) that the circle they see today bears little resemblance to the place when it was first constructed around four thousand years ago. The scattered woodland which covered most of these now-barren moorland heights have long since gone and the stones have been moved and overthrown so many times that it would be very difficult indeed to gain an accurate picture of what the circle originally looked like. But this should not deter our investigations.

We should also be very cautious in making assumptions about the nature of pre-christian events that occurred here. Although modern pagans frequent this place at set times of the year, their activities have little, if any bearing, on the rites of our ancestors (despite what some of them might tell you!). However, scattered historical accounts do tell us about the activities of more obscure events hereabouts.

Looking to the north

At the nearby Roms Law or Grubstones Circle (SE 1363 4473), records tell us how local people gathered on Rogation Day (a pre-christian agricultural ritual festivity, closely related to Beltane). A central stone—now moved into the huge Great Skirtful of Stones tomb a few hundred yards east—stood at its centre and an orator spoke to the people from here, ending with the words, “This is Rumbles Law!” Although we have no records of such actions at Twelve Apostles, the central stone which once stood here may have been a focus for such orations. The tribal leader and tribal shaman would have enacted this in ancient days. However, we do know from folklore records that the fabled Pendle witches and the lesser-known witches of Fewston (in the beautiful Washburn Valley a few miles to the north) met together on top of these hills, and the Twelve Apostles is a good contender as one of their likely assembly points.

Any verifiable history of Twelve Apostles is, as we can see, somewhat scarce, although in recent years observations from the site itself at select times of the year (solstices, equinoxes, etc.) have brought us a greater wealth of information.

As every good geomancer knows, literal knowledge about a place in the landscape is limited: how we look at such ritual sites determines, to a very great degree, how much we receive. If we look at the site as an astronomer, we will see the place through astroarchaeological eyes; if we look at it as an architect, mathematical formulae will overlay the complex; or if we see it as a New Ager, angels and auras will appear. With this in mind it is imperative we look at such places with a non-ethnocentric perspective. No easy thing.

Curious Alignments

Although dispossessed of its original spirit, it does not distract us from perceiving some elements of what appears to be one original function of the site. Its position in the landscape was obviously of grand geomantic importance and, having watched the motion of both sun and moon from this quiet ring of stones (the lunar standstills are recorded here), one is impressed, if not by its feeling, certainly by its siting relative to other arcane monuments. Those who know the Twelve Apostles and have visited it on a fine clear day will know what I mean. The view is considerable, peering far into the uplands of the Yorkshire Dales, looking upon a great panoramic circle nearly eighty miles across. I remember seeing this for the first time as a child and was entranced by it.  So why had they placed this circle where they had…?

Looking at the Twelve Apostles on a large-scale Ordnance Survey map (6-inch to the mile, or 1:10,000)—as most linear-thinkers do nowadays—we see a remarkable geometric image unfold before our eyes. Running straight eastwards 1180 yards away (1.08km) we reach the Grubstones circle. From the Apostles again, go straight north for another 1180 yards (1.08km) and you reach the ruins of the Backstone Circle (SE 1261 4613). Between these three circles we find a perfect isosceles triangle. But this isn’t the end of it: the longer axis connecting Grubstones to Backstone is some nineteen-hundred yards long (1.731km) and at the mid-point along this line, the now-recumbent Lanshaw Lass boundary stone once stood. Intriguingly, if we stand at Twelve Apostles for the Beltane sunrise (May day), we would see its golden orb rising on the far-eastern horizon right above our Lanshaw Lass.

This all may, of course, be coincidental. Our megalithic ancestors surely knew nothing of isosceles triangles and such stuff…

Full moonset at Major Lunar Standstill from 12 Apostles

Other astronomical alignments are perhaps not as contentious. In 1989 when the moon rose at its maximum northern point on the horizon (which occurs every 18.6 years and is known as the Major Lunar Standstill), it was photographed setting on the north-western horizon behind the old cairn which once stood just 130 yards away to the northwest, behind which stands the old boundary stone of Lanshaw Lad (this cairn was recently destroyed by some stupid halfwits from Ilkley).  This alignment, if transposed onto a map and extended further, eventually reaches a quite remarkable ancient carving known as the Swastika Stone (SE 0956 4695) more than two miles away.

This alignment may again be coincidental as there are so many prehistoric sites upon these moors. Indeed, it seems that it would be hard not to find alignments up here! And although not all stone circles have astronomical systems encoded within them, studies show that many of them do.

The Summer Solstice Alignment

One very curious and probable alignment at the Apostles is the midsummer sunrise. It is celebrated every summer here by local folk who have been visiting the place, in recent years at least, for the last thirty years, despite the contorted attempts by the Church to suppress its natural celebration. In recent years the number of people visiting Twelve Apostles at midsummer has steadily increased; so much so that people are now scattering the moors in their hundreds to other sites. For many years I ambled my way up to this old ring of stones and waited for the sun to rise at summer solstice. After a few years the question of “Where exactly does it rise?” on this longest of days intrigued my teenage mind, but I had to wait a few more years until the morning air was clear enough to see the distant skyline…

Then, on the morning of the summer solstice in the mid-1980s, whilst the people around me were drumming, cheering, chanting and silencing themselves as the giant fireball rose once more from its daily horizon, I stood gazing, not at the sun, but at the very land beneath where it rose on that longest of days. And what I saw stunned me!

More than thirty-five miles (53km) northeast from the Twelve Apostles, the faint etching of a great white horse scarred the distant landscape exactly beneath where the sun rose on this longest of days. I must admit, I was metaphorically kicked in the neurological bollocks by this! If my eyesight wasn’t truly impaired by a night of no sleep, the far distant solar indicator I could see was the White Horse of Kilburn (SE 5142 8129)…

…And white horses, as is known in folklore, are potent symbols of the sun.

The real screwball with this sunrise indicator lies in the fact that Kilburn’s white horse was etched into the hillside only in the middle of the 19th century! It was cut into the slopes by a local man called Thomas Taylor. He had visited the magnificent prehistoric white horse at Uffington in Oxfordshire, plus others in the Vale of the White Horse, and was so impressed by them that he decided to make one in his own back yard, so to speak. After considerable effort and with the help of more than thirty local men, the steep slopes northwest of Kilburn had its own Epona: 314 feet long and 278 feet high. Said by one writer to be “visible for twenty miles” and another that it “could be seen up to seventy miles away”—figures that need drastically revising!

Despite the revelation that the midsummer sunrise from Twelve Apostles aligns with the White Horse of Kilburn, it was obvious that no arcane relationship—and hence no authentic mythic virtue—was possible here. The fact that some four thousand years separate the construction of both monuments precludes any valid connection between them.

This aside, I asked a research of friend, Graeme Chappell, to run through the possible astroarchaeology from Apostles to Kilburn in order to ascertain the validity, or otherwise, of this seemingly incredulous alignment. Lo and behold, in 1857 (when the Kilburn horse was completed), the “sun would have risen when it was over the white horse, but only just.” So I began putting this long distance alignment down to nothing more than a wonderful visual coincidence—until Graeme pointed out a much more curious astronomical folk remnant…

Around 1700 BCE, close to the time when Twelve Apostles was built, observers standing at the circle would watch the midsummer sunrise exactly over White Mare Crag. This wouldn’t seem that curious were it not for the folklore of these distant crags, themselves deeply symbolic of the sun.

The renowned Victorian antiquarian and folklorist, Edmund Bogg, wrote extensively about the curious legends that abound in and around the Kilburn area—several of which surround the great cliffs of the White Mare (locally known as Wisson Cliff in times past). Tradition tells that a white horse was once visible in the hillside here. Bogg told that it received its name from this horse, whose shape was visible in the shape of the huge rocky crags. At the bottom of the cliffs the faerie folk were said to live. Also here is Gormire Lake—bottomless according to folklore and apparently the abode of a sunken village, though history records (and geology) make this unlikely, so we must seek elsewhere for an explanation to such a tale. The waters of this lake fall into a small crevice at its edge and, so legend tells, these then flow uphill until eventually re-emerging at a well at Cold Kirkby village a mile to the east in the direction of the setting sun. These tales in themselves are intriguing relics of shamanism whose nature lies beyond the scope of this enquiry.

One folktale tells of a local ‘witch’ who was chased over the local moorland (by who or what isn’t remembered). She eventually reached the edge of White Mare Crag cliffs where she carried on running and jumped, landing in the waters of Gormire Lake beneath where it was thought she would drown. But, following the flow of water underground, the tale tells how she eventually re-appeared nine miles away out of an old (unnamed) well. An equally curious piece of lore tells of a goose that was dropped into the same crevice the witch went into after it had apparently dried-up, only to emerge, without any feathers, twelve miles away to the east at Kirkbymoorside.

But one tale in particular appears, to me at least, to have considerable relevance to our midsummer sunrise from the Twelve Apostles…

A long time ago an abbot from Rievaulx Abbey was in possession of a pure white horse, said to be as quick and nimble as any horse in the region. The abbot met up with a local landowner, Sir Harry Scriven, who also owned a horse of great repute – this time jet black, called Nightwind – and he challenged him to a race across Hambleton Moors (just above White Mare Crags). Sir Harry accepted, but the abbot insisted they swapped horses so that he could ride Nightwind and Harry was on the white steed. They took off, racing fast over the high moors until they reached the edge of White Mare Crags but, instead of stopping, the abbot continued galloping with Sir Harry following until they each plunged over the edge of the high cliffs. Legend tells that as Sir Harry fell to his inevitable death, the white horse which he rode dissolved into thin air and, as he looked across at his own horse Nightwind, looked at the abbot who turned into the devil. As Cooper points out, “the winged horse is the sun…as is also the white horse,” and as the horse in this legend “dissolved into thin air” as it went west over the Crags, could this be an old symbolic tale of the setting sun dissolving as it sets over the far horizon to the west? The black horse which remains, Nightwind: is this not the dark night which naturally follows?

We might never know, but it certainly makes sense of the tale. Especially when seen in relation to the summer solstice alignment from the Apostles. And if there was any possible commemoration of this line from White Mare Crags, the dark horse, Nightwind, would be the triumphant one, as the alignment into the far southwest from here to Twelve Apostles records the shortest night of the year: the winter solstice. Intriguing stuff!

But this primary midsummer alignment from Twelve Apostles gets even more curious…

Although books and magazine articles detailing ‘leys’ are numerous, they are, on the whole, full of lines that exist simply in the mind of their creators. Knowing these non-existent ‘old bent tracks’ — as us Yorkshire folk have come to call them! — are ammunition for trivialising the subject, precision is extremely important. It is obvious in this alignment however, that we are looking plain and simply at an astronomical line—not a ley. But, in good old fashioned ley-hunter style, I decided to get out the Ordnance Survey maps—2½-inch-to- the-mile scale—and check the cartographic nature of the line for myself. It took some doing! But its outcome threw up yet more bizarre finds, bending the parameters of Jungian synchronicity, never mind geodelic science!

As the illustration here shows, the line passes an old stone in the village of Askwith. A little further on we pass what Eric Cowling called ‘The Old Man of Snowden’—a squat standing stone close to the crossroads which appears to have been destroyed. Here too is the Grey Stone: an ancient boundary marker scared with intricate cup-and-ring designs. Although we pass one or two other fascinating spots where good folklore and history can be had—such as the moot points of Sword Point and Jack Hill—things don’t really start getting too interesting until we pass Nidd Church. (SE 3013 6081) “In the churchyard,” wrote Arthur Mee, “is the shaft of a cross about 600 years old, but it is said that the story of the village goes back twice as far, and that a great church council met over 1000 years ago.” This is more than likely, for just beyond is a place called Temple Yarmer where, as Harry Speight reminded us, once stood “an immense menhir or standing monolith.” Folklore told it to have been part of a now lost stone circle.

A little further on we pass by a few old boundary stones (SE 3160 6219; SE 3568 6578), but these will have nothing to do with our midsummer alignment. Not until we pass by the gigantic Devil’s Arrows at Boroughbridge (SE 3912 6650) do things begin getting a little bizarre. Although just three huge monoliths remains today, we know that least five of them were standing in the 15th century. It is very probable that more standing stones were in the original complex and our solar line may have crossed part of it. More certain are we of the midsummer’s day horse-festival that has been held here for many centuries. Known as the Barnaby Fair, recent years have seen the event almost vanish into history. But the motif of horses and midsummer here is intriguing. Nearby, at Kirkby Hill – over which our solar line crosses – is a spot known as the Fairy Hill and where, at midsummer, the little-people were wont to play in the early hours.

Continuing further and getting ever-closer to the White Horse which stands out from the Apostles, we reach the North Yorkshire village of Sessay. Here once lived a great one-eyed giant, said by folklore to be one helluva nasty dood – but this is just the Church demonising something it refused to try understanding. (In the neighbouring towns and villages of Topcliffe, Dalton and Pilmoor are other giant legends. It would be interesting to find the archaic roots of this geographical cluster.)

Next we reach the village of Kilburn itself. And here, every midsummer as far back as records can go, we have another horse festival. The activities here have truly heathen origins, comprising in parts to a great feast over the midsummer days. During this a procession itself is made by the villagers to the White Horse. We also have the figure of an androgynous ‘Lady Mayoress’ who runs through the streets receiving kisses from other ladies.

The final point on our journey along this midsummer line is the White Horse itself, whose visibility from Twelve Apostles started this journey in the first place.

The truly curious ingredients in this line is the coincidence (?) of midsummer fairs and horses as we travel along it.  One wonders if there’s some sort of Cosmic Joker sat behind it all, rubbing its hands gleefully, waiting for the crazy speculators or New-Age dreamers to proclaim a Divine Rule or something similar.  Stranger things have happened…

…Like the midwinter alignment from Twelve Apostles…

From our humble stone circle we trek out, south-east this time, first passing the Black Beck Well [SE 1276 4495] and then an ancient boundary stone [SE 1357 4430], before reaching Odda’s Hill.  Slightly past here and below Hawksworth Hall is the Alder’s Well [SE 1671 4168] where a ceremonial procession used to be performed starting at the Hall—but I have been unable to establish what time of year this occurred. But, just a little further on, our midwinter line comes to the Hawk Stone [SE 1792 4099] where, “legend tells that a man on horseback leapt from the top of the Hawk Stone and landed safely at Low Hall, Yeadon, 2500 yards east.”

A man on horseback, jumping over cliffs on a midwinter solstice line… Doesn’t that ring a bell somewhere…? What’s the hell’s going on here…?

There is a modern piece of folklore about the Apostles which has been written purely to see if others should simply repeat it without ascertaining its veracity.  We find it in Andy Roberts’ book (1992) and the folklore and legends of Yorkshire.  But his tale for the Twelve Apostles is without foundation.  He wrote how,

“legend says it is impossible to count the stones correctly at the first attempt.” Adding, “From here the Wild Hunt, dead souls led by the devil, were said to fly out across the moortops in search of victims, and fairies have also been witnessed” here.

None of this is true! Andy told me he’d deliberately invented a few tales in his book for the fun of it — and that bit is one such invention!

Strange Lights

If our flying horses and solstice sunrises verge on the borderline of possibility, to many people the same cannot be said of the strange lights which have, from time to time, been seen around Twelve Apostles.  Reports of ‘UFOs’ as they are generally known, should more accurately be described as ‘earthlights,’ or ELs.  These are consciousness-sensitive light-forms which are known to interact with humans who come into close contact with them. The modern myth of them as spaceships is the latest in a long line of historic perspectives.  In earlier times, people who saw these ELs transposed the thought of airships onto them. Before that, people saw the huge glowing eyes of phantom dogs and other entities emerge from them.  Earlier still they were known as faerie-lights. Around the same periods they were devil-lights or witches on broomsticks.  Some people saw them as gods, to which the lights accordingly responded.  Religious folk have watched Jesus, the Virgin and angels emerge from these lights when they’ve got too close. But it must also be said that a great number of people who see such ELs see nothing but that: anomalous light-forms floating or darting about curiously, seemingly with a mind of their own.

One of these ELs certainly perplexed three members of the Royal Observer Corps in the summer of 1976 during exercises on the moors. Heading towards the Twelve Apostles they suddenly noticed a brilliant white sphere of light, seemingly hovering right above the stone circle at a low level. It made no manoeuvres other than, eventually, shooting straight upwards into the sky at remarkable speed and out of sight, without making a sound!

In July 1990, two witnesses who spent the night at the Backstone circle (a site with a considerable pedigree of supernatural events) watched another brilliant white ball of light about a mile away, low down on the horizon, move quickly and silently from the west until reaching Twelve Apostles, where it stood motionless for some time. It then backtracked rapidly at tremendous speed, before returning to the circle, executing a 180° turn without stopping or slowing down. It then flew back west and rapidly out of sight. Within seconds of this, the witnesses allege a military jet flew right over the moors following the trajectory of the object.

On a couple of occasions I’ve seen what geologists call ‘earthquake lights’ emerge from the ground immediately around Twelve Apostles at the dead of night, lighting the sky up for a considerable distance around the circle.

And that imaginative writer Nicholas Size (1934) reportedly watched the ghostly vision of a grand ritual procession from here.

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, ‘Stone Circles of West Yorkshire,’ Earth 1, 1986.
  2. Bennett, Paul, ‘The Megalithic Faults of Rombald’s Moor and District,’ Earth 14, 1989.
  3. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  4. Bennett, Paul, The Twelve Apostles Stone Circle, TNA Publications 2017.
  5. Bogg, Edmund, Richmondshire and the Vale of Mowbray, James Miles: Leeds 1906.
  6. Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
  7. Collyer, Robert & Turner, J. Horsfall, Ilkley: Ancient and Modern, William Walker: Otley 1885.
  8. Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way: A Prehistory of Mid-Wharfedale, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  9. Devereux, Paul, Places of Power, Blandford: London 1990.
  10. Devereux, Paul, Shamanism and the Mystery Lines, Quantum: London 1992.
  11. Hedges, John (ed.), The Carved Rocks of Rombald’s Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
  12. Keighley, J.J., ‘The Prehistoric Period,’ in Faull & Moorhouse’s West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Guide to AD 1500, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
  13. Pennick, Nigel & Devereux, Paul, Lines on the Landscape: Leys and other Linear Enigmas, Hale: London 1989.
  14. Raistrick, Arthur, ‘The Bronze Age in West Yorkshire,’ in YAJ 1929.
  15. Roberts, Andy, Ghosts and Legends of Yorkshire, Jarrold: Sheffield 1992.
  16. Size, Nicholas, The Haunted Moor, William Walker: Otley 1936.
  17. Speight, Harry, Nidderdale and the Garden of the Nidd, Elliott Stock: London 1894.
  18. Speight, Harry, Upper Wharfedale, Elliott Stock: London 1900.
  19. Walsh, Roger, The Spirit of Shamanism, London 1989.
  20. Wardell, John, Historical Notes on Ilkley, Rumbald’s Moor, Baildon Common, etc., Leeds 1869.

Links:

  1. Twelve Apostles on The Megalithic Portal

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian