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Butternab Camp, Crosland HillAncient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork (Destroyed)
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From huddersfield1.co.uk CROSLAND MOOR. The earthwork which the Ordnance Survey marks here is now almost obliterated. There remain only a slight depression and a mound of a half oval shape. In Watson's day the remains were much more imposing. He describes "a couple of remains at a very small distance from each other on Crosland Moor, in the parish of Huddersfield; one of these is seventy-seven yards by sixty-four; but the greatest part of it, when I saw it, in 1759, was inclosed with a wall, and intended to be ploughed up. The other ninety-eight yards by eighty-seven. The vallum of this last was six yards and about one foot wide. The smaller has the appearance of a square angle, and the larger was rounded off a little at the corners. In the larger of them was found when it was ploughed up, three ancient mill-stones, each one foot in diameter, and eleven hollow places, two or three yards long apiece, and three quarters deep, or thereabouts." He goes on to say that the people called them Stot-folds, but could not explain the meaning of the term, and Watson suggests that it is the same word exactly as the Saxon for stables. The depressions would then, he suggests, represent huts. He insists that this is not a military work, and is obviously right on this point; but it is guess-work, and bad guess-work too, when he connects this work with Castle Hill, Almondbury, seeing in it a farm belonging to the garrison. This suggestion is quite baseless. Castle Hill, if it was one of the usual type of hill forts, that it, only used as a place of refuge in times of stress, never had a "garrison" in the strict sense of the term until Norman days, and it is no argument that Castle Hill is to-day visible from Crosland Moor. http://www.huddersfield1.co.uk/huddersfield/tolson/early_man/earthworks_ctor.htm |
Posted by Kozmik_Ken14th June 2004ce |
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Shown on both the 1843 and 1854 OS maps of Huddersfield is feature named as a 'Camp' at Crosland Hill, on the fields between Butternab Woods and what is now Johnson's Quarry. The fields there have been built on now, but I remember them before they were developed (used to play footy on them as a teenager), but I don't remember any identifiable earthworks at the time. According to the map it was an oval enclosure (maybe 100 yards long by 50 wide). I'd be bold as to hazard a guess that it was an Iron Age camp (although it could equally be as late as Saxon), as it would have had a good view of Castle Hill Hillfort. As Castle Hill was abandoned around 400BC, I'd suggest a date before this. But as houses now stand on the spot and no excavation was done, I guess we'll never know. Delves Wood Road runs up the side of where it once stood and Woodleigh Grove would probably be smack, bang in the middle of it. Shame I didn't realise it was there before they built on the spot! |
Posted by Kozmik_Ken 18th February 2004ce Edited 14th June 2004ce |
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