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Castle Hill, Newton

Round Barrow(s)

Folklore

Ah, you will say, but isn't this a castle motte? Well it is, but as the scheduled monument record allows, the mound was dug into in the 1840s, and it's thought that it was built onto a handy mound that already existed, a barrow.
Mr. W. Beamont, in a paper read before the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society, on the "Fee of Makerfield," etc., in March, 1873, says, - "On the west side of this rivulet" (the Golbourne brook), "where the red rock rises above it, there is scooped out a rude alcove or cave, which the country people assign to Robin Hood [...]". The stream near Newton has been blocked by an earthen embankment, and the "Castle Hill" now overlooks a beautiful artificial lake, with three branches. Robin Hood's cave, alas! had to be sacrificed; four or five feet of water now placidly flows over the site of its former entrance.

[...] The writer further informs us that the "Castle Hill is said to be haunted by a white lady, who flits and glides, but never walks. She is sometimes seen at midnight, but is never heard to speak.

The Rev. Mr. Sibson adds -- "There is a tradition that Alfred the Great was buried here, with a crown of gold, in a silver coffin."
From On some ancient battlefields in Lancashire by Charles Hardwick (1882).
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
17th September 2013ce

Comments (1)

They should have kept the cave though. thesweetcheat Posted by thesweetcheat
17th September 2013ce
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