Quite a tall stone, has some pretty old-looking graffitti "FS".
.o0O0o.
|
Posted by pebblesfromheaven
2nd March 2003ce
|
There is very little to see on this site now, but Dyer includes it in Discovering Prehistoric England, Ann Woodward covers it in her book, and Julian flags it as standing next to a presumed Neolithic trackway in his Gypsey Race map, so I’ll include it as well although it is probably for anoraks only.
If you stand at the bend in the road with the field boundary in front of you the long barrow is hard to make out in the field to the right and there are the low remains of a bowl barrow between it and the road which confuses things. To the left of the boundary there are a couple of low round barrows recorded by Canon Greenwell but unexcavated.
The long barrow is around 50 metres long and 13 metres wide oriented east-west and badly ploughed down. The north and south flanking ditches are completely filled. The barrow has been excavated twice – by Greenwell in 1865 and Manby in 1958 and between them they found 3 burials, a collection of bones and remains of cremations, sherds from pots and flint fragments. The mortuary structure was trapezoidal with a concave wooden palisade at the east end, the whole thing being covered with an earth and chalk mound before being fired – creating a crematoria with temperatures estimated to have reached nearly 1200 centigrade. Radiocarbon tests from the site suggest a date of around 3000BC.
Info-
English Heritage
Ann Woodward - British Barrows
Dyer - Discovering Prehistoric England
|
Posted by Chris Collyer
27th February 2003ce
|
Sharp(e) Howe itself is a nice barrow in a reasonably well preserved state despite its flanking of trees. When I visited in September 2002 there was a large piece of agricultural equipment left next to it, in Feb 2003 it had become the storage place for bails of straw – it seems to me the barrow is lucky to have survived at all. Canon Greenwell writing in 1890 says that the barrow originally had a ‘conical form’, the top 6 feet having been removed ‘many years ago, but within living memory’.
I’m not sure about the state of the other mounds in this group although one at TA 051770 is still stands around a foot tall.
|
Posted by Chris Collyer
26th February 2003ce
|
|
It looks like this must have one been major fortifications, there seems to be remains of another dyke to the left of the obvious one
|
Posted by moggymiaow
16th February 2003ce
|
|
As I was short of time I only had the chance to look at three of these barrows but what corkers they are. An ancient east-west trackway across the top of Towthorpe Wold forms the modern boundary between Humberside and North Yorkshire and is the site of a narrow plantation of young conifers and 5 bowl barrows. The 3 I looked at were all large and well preserved – the largest near the B1248 is between 35-40 metres wide and 3 metres high. The next 2 are around 20 metres wide and a still respectable 2 metres tall. This is another site that I will have to return to and spend more time investigating – parking is easy on the verge just before the county boundary sign.
|
Posted by Chris Collyer
11th February 2003ce
|
|
The name Wharram Percy is most often associated with the DMV of the same name, but a short distance to the south-west is a collection of at least a dozen round barrows. Most of these, especially the barrows on the plateau of land between Toisland Farm and Wharram Percy farm, have been ploughed away but one survives as a slight bump next to a field boundary that leads north from SE837633. Others are marked on the OS Map running in a roughly east-west line to the north of the crest of Birdsall Brow but as this is private land (?) and someone was shooting game nearby I was reluctant to venture further to investigate. I did however get a picture of what is marked as a barrow as SE835637 although I’m not sure if the raised land it stands on is natural or man-made. There are some spectacular views from the crest of the Brow to the north – those Bronze Age people certainly knew how to site their cemeteries – and the whole area could do with some further investigation.
|
Posted by Chris Collyer
11th February 2003ce
|
You can stand at Hanging Grimston and look around you at three and a half thousand years of prehistoric history. There’s the long barrow, the earth works, the round barrows and finally the Roman road. Add to this the probable ancient trackway under the road and you could go back even further.
The long barrow is badly ploughed, standing less than a metre high and doesn’t look like it will last too many more years, many of the round barrows are hard to make out as well although one to the north of the group is still in good condition. What still remains however are the stunning views to the west as the land drops away dramatically down Open Dale and out to the Derwent valley. These views must have been all-important to the people who farmed the area over this vast timespan.
|
Posted by Chris Collyer
9th February 2003ce
|
Not much to see at this site anymore, most of the barrows are long gone – indeed while I was there a tractor was doing it’s business in the fields. There are two reasonably well preserved bowl barrows behind some farm buildings though, one is around 40m in diameter and about a metre and a half high and stands on the highest point of Acklam Wold. Close by, the other barrow is about half the size and height and now has a triangulation pillar on top of it.
The site is probably one for barrow anoraks only but there are some fantastic views just a little further on. Following the road to Acklam the land drops away to reveal Leavening Brow to the northwest and views to the Derwent in the west.
|
Posted by Chris Collyer
9th February 2003ce
|
|
There are many dykes and defensive earthworks in this area, see the individual images for their map references as it covers a fairly large area.
|
Posted by moggymiaow
26th January 2003ce
|
|
Unfortunately the forestry commission saw fit to plant on top of the dykes themseleve, but they are still very easy to identfy . Judging by the amount of tumulii in the area, I would expect that there were originally much more fotifications than currently remain.
|
Posted by moggymiaow
26th January 2003ce
|
|
Log in |
Register
Previous 10 | Showing 291-300 of 378 fieldnotes. Most recent first | Next 10 
Top of page