I've been trying to get up to this henge for yonks. It seems like every time I planned a visit something would happen to prevent it. This time, not only did I get to visit the henge but I did it in the excellent company of Rockrich and Paulus.
We walked up to the site from the little car park at Thornton Rust checking out a couple of decent sized glacial erratics on the way.
The henge itself lies just off the lovely walled trackway running up onto Flout Moor and is accessible if you can negotiate a rutted, muddy track and a stile.
The monument is a Class I type henge with a single entrance in the east. It has been built on a ridge and fits in beautifully with the folds of the landscape. The henge is set back from any possible routeways along Wensleydale to Cumbria, Harding speculates that this small henge (80m in diameter) may have served a small community. He describes the location of the henge as a possible attempt "to seperate the monument from what could be perceived as social pollution".
Whatever it's original purpose, the henge has beautiful views to east along Wensleydale to the nearby Burton Moor settlement and into the Vale of Mobray with the far off North York Moors across the Vale in the distance. There are also good views to the north and the site of the Ox Close Circle and Caperby Moor.
All in all this is a cracking little henge set in a beautiful landscape
"On Aysgarth Moor, now enclosed, may be seen the remains of a circular encampment, supposed to be Danish" Wellin's History and Topography of York and the North Riding 1851.
Castle Dykes is a slightly oval henge with the unusual aspect of having an extenal ditch. It is 75m wide and has an external bank that is 9m wide and 1.2m high. The ditch is 9m wide and 1m deep. The only entrance was on the east side side.
Log in |
Register
England
0 discussions
Show map (inline Google Map)
Add an image 
Posted by fitzcoraldo
Top of page