Durham County Council's Archaeology Department 3rd Annual Conference
Saturday 10 March 2007, 9:50am-4.30pm
Durham County Council's Archaeology Department will be holding its 3rd Annual Conference. The day will offer talks on recent archaeological discoveries, community excavations, recording and research... continues...
Three amber beads, two bronze rings, a bugle-shaped fitting and a fragment of a spearhead, found six inches below ground in a field near Sedgefield, County Durham, are thought to have been part of an ancient burial ceremony... continues...
" The 2006 Rock Art Meeting (RAM'06) is sheduled for
Sunday 4th of June 2006 in Wooler, Northumberland
You are most welcome to take part in this meeting. Bring camera's, childern, wellies, lunch packet, water and good weather! After coffees between 10.30 and 11... continues...
Rock Art project officer Tertia Barnett said: "It is
fascinating work and we are uncovering more all the time. Help from volunteers has been invaluable so far and we are looking to recruit more... continues...
Examples of rock art are to be recorded with '3D laser scanning' as part of the Northumberland and Durham rock art project. This is being funded and co-ordinated by the two county councils and English Heritage.
The project's main aim is to develop new and undamaging approaches to recording and conserving rock art... continues...
Expert Stan Beckinsall is stumped. One suspects a local will sheepishly admit they're the culprit, like after other recent similar stories? Have a look at the photos on the link...
Experts have uncovered evidence of Iron Age houses and pottery dating from around 100 BC at a major Tyneside development.
Residents at the Newcastle Great Park (NGP) development are learning about their Iron Age counterparts after the latest archaeological work on the site uncovered evidence of an ancient settlement... continues...
Don't know if this will turn out to be another misunderstanding (like this) but some strange carvings have been found near Wooler in Northumberland. Mr Beckinsall's on the case though:
BBC News site at http://news.bbc... continues...
Stan Beckinsall's rock art archive to be made public
from icNewcastle
The huge archive built up by Stan Beckensall in decades of investigating rock art is being donated to the Museum of Antiquities at Newcastle University... continues...
Northumbria National Park Authorities Community Archaeology website.
Includes a downloadable newsletter, News, Events and activities and volunteer oportunities.
This website is the celebration of rock carvings made by Neolithic and Early Bronze Age people in Northumberland in the north east of England, between 6000 and 3500 years ago. Over 1000 carved panels are known and most of them are still located in the countryside.
The website is also a celebration of the work of Stan Beckensall who has spent 40 years finding and recording this ancient rock art. For many years Beckensall shared his knowledge and recordings of Northumberland rock art through public talks, conference presentations, and richly illustrated publications. Now we have the World Wide Web!
It is our hope that the information and images presented in this website will encourage greater enjoyment of this cultural resource; inspire the creation of new knowledge and insights into Northumberland and British rock art; and set the basis for the effective management and conservation of this ancient resource for future generations.
Listen to Aubrey Manning's 'Unearthing Mysteries' programme on the tri-radial cairns of Northumbria.
About 20 have been found (some are at Lordenshaw. The three arms of the cairns are aligned in the same way; one pointing north and the others at 140 and 240 degrees (SE and SW). That means they could be pointers to the mid-summer and midwinter sunrise and sunset. It's thought that they're Bronze Age.
Searchable lists of prehistoric sites for both Durham and Northumberland. Not a lot of info, but good maps available, and ref numbers for each site, to let people send them requests for more detailed info. Includes a few potential sites that aren't on the SMR or the RSM. Nb: Durham and Northumberland only.
Yeavering, Ad Gefrin, Lordenshaws and the North Cheviots with original photographs and panoramas. Ths site is under development by BoC (Modern Antiquarian member) in collaboration with Paul Frodsham, archaeologist with the Northumberland National Park.
The standing stone at Yevering in Glendale is a large column of prophyry planted upright in a field at the northern base of the hill called Yevering Bell. It is usually spoken of as indicating a battle, but is in reality prehistoric, there being another, now prostrate, among the old forts and tumuli on the eastern end of the lower slope of that hill. By the common people it is called the "Druid's Lapfu'." A female Druid's apron string broke there, and the stone dropped out and remained in its present position. Another account is that one of the Druids, who are represented like the Pechs or Picts to have had very long arms, pitched it from the top of the Bell, and it sunk into the soil where it fell.
From the second volume of Denham Tracts printed by the Folklore Society in 1895.
"On some cup-incised stones, found in an ancient British burial-mound at Pitland Hills, near Birtley, North Tynedale." A paper by the Rev. G. Rome Hall, in Archaeologia Aeliana v12 (1887).
The previous article is on similar lines: "Recent explorations in ancient British barrows, containing cup-marked stones, near Birtley, North Tynedale."
Perhaps this doesn't exist any more, or maybe there were never any cup marks in the first place. But it would be nice if a holy well with a waterfall had some rock art complete with folklore. Mm just imagine it.
{The elder Celtic race responsible for the carvings at Pitland Hills} perhaps worshipped around the "Devil's Stone," by the Birtley Holy Well, on which great isolated rock appear several "cups," three of them being in a straight line, which can scarcely all have been formed by natural sub-aerial forces as geological 'pot-holes'.
A very curious legend associates the worn cups and hollows upon the weathered and channelled summit of this great detached rock with the footprints of a Satanic personage, who is said to have leapt towards the further bank of the North Tyne river, about a mile distant, above Lee Hall. Miscalculating the distance, it is averred that in his descent he touched the projecting rocks in the river-bed, which bear much larger hollows upon them in the form of indubitable water-worn 'pot-holes', about 2 feet in depth by 1 foot in diameter, and then fell into the deepest abyss, according to popular belief, in the whole course of the North Tyne, where he was drowned! Hence the name by which it is still called - "The Leap-Crag Pool."
Before dinner we walked up to a place called the Kettles, a curious glen among the mountains at the back of Wooler, the scene of a battle in lang-lang syne. There are traces of an encampment still to be seen.
There is a big stone, too, called the King's Chair, and here once upon a time a certain king - but who he was, or when it was, or where he lived, the deponent sayeth not - did sit and did watch his army fight another army in the valley below, but whose army the other army was, or why they fought, or who got the best of it, your depondent won't undertake to say.
There, too, is a large stone, much worn on all sides, like a huge grindstone, for hereon the soldiers of either side came to sharpen their swords when they were blunted and notched with hacking and hewing - at least so somebody says, but deponent voucheth not for the truth of the same, further than that there are well-worn stones on the spot indicated.
On our return we stopped in an adjacent-glen, at the Fairy's Well, commonly called the Pin Well, a small rough basin rudely fashioned from some half-dozen large granite stones, which contains bright clear water. The bottom is almost covered with crooked pins, in every state of preservation, from the new bright one of yesterday to the old rusted worn one of him or her now sleeping peacefully in the auld kirk-yard not far awa, and whose sons and daughters, or even grandchildren may be, have dropped in those later ones in their turn, to propitiate the good fairy of the spot: the belief, or kindly superstition of the place, being that if you utter a wish and drop into the well a crooked pin as an offering, the wish, by the aid of the fairy, will come to pass; and many a maid forlorn, and many a stout herd pining with hopeless love, have thrown a pin to the fairy and breathed the dearest wish of their hearts over that simple basin of crystal water in the dim twilight - half doubting, half hoping, the fulfilment of their wishes, in fear and trembling as the mist of the hills wreathed itself into fantastic and shadowy forms, and every stone, turf, or twig, assumed a fairy figure or shape to their superstitious and excited imaginations.
The practice is kept up, though the superstition, however, like all others, is dying out before the march of civilisation. Alas for the country that has no superstitions! And what superstition could stand before the apparition of a pork-pie hat or the march of crinoline?
I rather like Francis Francis's style. He must have needed a sense of humour with that name. From his 'By lake and river' of 1874. I haven't seen mention of the 'grindstone' before.
Resort to the Fairy Well is still a favourite pastime in holiday times with young people at Wooler. They express a secret wish and drop in a crooked pin. Hence it is also called the Pin and Wishing Well. The well is situated in a narrow hollow among the lower Cheviots which rise above the town, and is formed out of a natural spring of pure and very cool water originating among rocks at the base of a high platform, which has been occupied in the olden time by a British camp, now known as the Maiden Camp (the Maiden Castle of Wallis). From its connection with the camp, or in compliment to the spirit of the spring, its genuine name is said to be the "Maiden Well." It is drained into an open ditch and is at present too shallow to admit of children being dipped into it. Nor do I know that this has ever been practised here, but the old inhabitant who communicated some of this information was familiar with the formula incidental to such applications for healing purposes at sacred springs. The applicant having cried "Hey, how!" dipped in the weakly child, and before departure left a piece of bread and cheese as an offering.
[...] Mr. George Tate, in a notice of the Wooler Pin Well, mentions having heard that a procession was formed to visit the well on the morning of Mayday. This may have been so, but on inquiry I could not find any tradition of such a circumstance.
From v2 of the Folklore Society's publishing of the Denham Tracts (1895).
Maiden Camp must surely be The Kettles?
The Folklore Society's volume 2 of the Denham Tracts (1895) has a lengthy description of a legend connected with this site. The priory and fort were in a tight loop of the river and so protected on three sides by the water and steep slopes.
The story begins: "Under a grassy swell, which a stranger may know by its being surrounded with a wooden railing, on the outside of Brinkburn Priory, tradition affirms there is a subterraneous passage, of which the entrance remains as yet a secret, leading to an apartment to which access is in like manner denied;[...] it is asserted that a hunter who had in some way offended one of the priors was along with his hounds, by the aid of enchantment, condemned to perpetual slumber in that mysterious abode."
To try and summarise the rest, it seems that only once has anyone seen this underground mysteriousness. It was a shepherd and his dog - he noticed a door in the ground and walked down a dark flight of steps. Pushing through a door at the bottom there was a brightly lit room, and inside a sleeping hunter and another man, and lots of snoozing hounds. On a table were a horn and a sword, but when the shepherd picked these up, everyone started waking up. He ran to the rapidly closing door (a bit like Indiana Jones) and just made it outside, with 'a terrible voice assailing his ears pouring maledictions on him for his temerity.' His dog wasn't quite so lucky and got nipped in half by the door slamming shut. Nasty.
The themes are a bit like the story connected with Sewingshield Crags - and various other places.
Further on in the Tracts Denham mentions that "Mr. Wilson says the fairies lie buried at Brinkburn. This mortality, unheard of elsewhere, must have been attributable to the potency of the bells." The Bell Pool is a deep part of the river below, and you can read how the bells from the priory were variously accidentally lost or deliberately placed in that pool, and how 'young swimmers of the neighbourhood' still dive for them.
[Originally in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle newspaper?] A. Scorer writes, "There is a cavern on Bewick Moor called the 'Cateran's Hole,' which has not been fully explored, although tradition mentions an adventurer proceeding so far that he heard supernatural visitants dancing round the Hurlstone."
John Slobbs, London, says, "I suppose this will be a version of a story I heard in the far north many years ago. It was of a cavern, somewhere, and nobody knew where it went to, or where it ended. An adventurous wight made up his mind to solve the difficulty and win renown in his own rustic circle.
He therefore took seven years' meat and seven years' candles, or seven days' meat and seven days' candles - I cannot say which exactly, but either will do - and started on his journey. And as happens in all such cases, he travelled and travelled and travelled. And he travelled until he had only one-half of his meat and one half of his candles left. Then he began to consider that if he travelled much further, and did not reach the end of his journey, or an opening to get out of some way, he would neither have meat nor candles to serve him on his road back, and consequently must die there and never more be heard of.
And so it happened that whilst he was studying what to do, and quite at a loss to know whether to return or proceed, he heard a voice saying -
'Jee woah agyen
Turn back the stannin' styen.'
And he took it as a warning, and returned to his home and kindred." The writer's impression was that the cavern he had heard of was on Greenside Hill, near Glanton.
J. Swinhoe, writing on the same subject, relates: "It was always believed that there was a subterraneous passage clear all the way from Cateran's Hole, on Bewick Moor, to Hell's Hole (more frequently called Hen's Hole), a wild ravine at the foot of Cheviot Hill, and that in the olden, troublous times of Border warfare it was frequently used both for purposes of offence and defence, for concealment of person and property, and as the means of transporting rieving bands of hostile borderers from the one locality to the other.
An adventurer, our wight, made up his mind to test the truth of its existence, and took provisions and candles - whether for seven years or seven days, I cannot exactly tell either - but he travelled on and on until the consumption of half his stock suggested the necessity of returning; and just when he was wondering where he might be, and what he should do, he plainly heard overhead the voice of a ploughman, saying to his horses:
"Hup aboot and gee agyeen,
Roond aboot the Whirlstyen." "
He states that an acquaintance recently explored the cavern on Bewick Moor, and it ended in something less than forty yards; in no simple obstruction, but solid rock.
There was a different tradition about the termini of this supposed underground passage in Horsley's time. He says that "at Hebburn," which is near Chillingham, and by the crags under which lie Hebburn Wood, behind which stretch wastes of peaty moor, connected with the moorlands that stretch to Bewick, "is a hole called Heytherrie Hole, which people imagine to be an entrance into a subterraneous passage, continued as far as Dunsdale on the west (north rather) side of Cheviot Hill, where there is another hole of the same kind called Dunsdale Hole." *
*Materials for a History of Northumberland.
It is told of "Eelin's Hole," which lies far up among the rocks on the east side of the Henhole Ravine, that a piper having once entered it to explore it, his music continued to be heard for half-way across the interval betweixt it and Cateran's Hole, on Bewick Moor. Like other pipers in a similar predicament, his tune terminated in --
"I doubt, I doubt I'll ne'er win out."
Inspired by Hob's photos of this strange place, I found this in the Folklore Society's reprint of the Denham Tracts (vol. 2), 1895.