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This lovely little stone, tucked away in the corner of the gated burial ground is a bit of an unexpected delight. It's nice that the stone is still within the shadow of the yew tree. A lovely spot.
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The terrier and I recently spent a couple of days camping on the shores of Loch Tay.
I could see by the map that getting to this site was going to be a bit of a struggle but Tiompans lovely pictures and Stan Beckensall's description of the site in his lovely book Circles of Stone had this marked down as a must-see.
I parked up in a gap on the roadside at approx NN697422 and then passed through the field gate onto the steep hillside. The contours fall pretty close together here and the ground is pretty wet. It took the terrier and I a good bit of too'ing and fro'ing to pick our way through the chest-high bracken and shin-deep bogs to climb the steepest part of the hill. Eventually we reached the final stone wall, the slope eased off a little and the walking became a little easier.
As we worked our way up the slope I could see a group of people standing roughly where I had worked out that the carvings should be, just my luck I thought, having slogged up the hill to have my peace disturbed by a bunch of folk shooting rabbits or some such nonsense.
As I moved up the hill the figures began to take shape "that fella doesn't half look like George" I thought, "that other fella is the dead pop of Stan Beckensall, blimey there's Richard Bradley!" I began to think that perhaps the pot of expresso that I'd drunk before setting off was having some bizarre hallucinogenic effect. As I got closer I could see the bloke who looked like George squinting and smiling at me.
Basically what I'd stumbled upon was the tail-end of an excavation by Richard Bradley and his team with George, Stan with Paul Frodsham paying a visit. Here was me on my first visit to Perthshire, I pick an obscure upland site to visit and stumble across this jolly bunch.
As for the site itself, the excavations were coming to an end, Richard Bradley busied himself ensuring that the recording and back-filling was all going to plan. Stan kindly showed me around the site including some new carvings. I was fortunate enough to be able to lift the turf off some of the known carvings and basically drink the whole thing in.
From my point of view it was a real privilege to be able to sit down in the landscape and discuss archaeology and rock art with such lovely folk as George and Stan.
Beautiful rock art in a fantastic landscape shared with excellent company. Who could ask for more?
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In my mind I was already composing my letter to John Waterhouse, Aubrey Burl and the Cumberland and Westmorland Archaeological Society. The subject of letter? How I had rediscovered the lost stone circle of Rawthey Bridge.
The plan
Drive to Rawthey bridge
Search the Hillside
Find, describe and photograph the circle.
I arrived at the bridge mid afternoon on the eve of the summer solstice. There is a good parking spot a few yards south of the bridge and a gated footpath on the opposite side of the road.
I had two grid references for the circle, one placed the site on the hillside close to the bridge, and the second reference placed the circle on the top of the nearby hill called Bluecaster.
Unusually for me I decided to use a sort of semi-methodological approach to my search for any trace of the circle. Starting at the bridge I followed the footpath for about a mile, checking out any possible sites either side of the path. I then turned back on myself and headed north east and uphill to the top of Bluecaster and then finally back down to the bridge. This triangular search would cover the two grid refs I had for the site and much more besides.
Unfortunately I didn't find any trace of the circle. The hillside shows plenty of evidence of human activities mainly in the form of trackways and drilled rocks so fairly safe to say that good amounts of stone have been removed from this hillside to be used for building, road mending and also to feed the many lime kilns that operated in this area from Roman times to the eighteenth century.
So that was that, no circle, no glory but not a wasted day. The views of both the Howgill Fells and the limestone scars around Wild Boar Fell are spectacular.
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I have added a number of images of stones that I suspect may have originally have been used in the Shap Avenues. These images were taken over the summer solstice June 21-22nd 2007
The main piece of evidence I have to support my suspicion that these stones were once used in the avenues is that just as when Stu and I looked for these stones*, all of these boulders occur along the route of the avenues, the southern end of the village. Once you move to the northern end of the village there is a distinct lack of large granite boulders to be found.
*see my weblog; The Shap Avenues or Caught by the Bullocks
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The Harberwain Stone is named on the Cumbria County Council's historic sites website as a 'Standing Monument'. The stone is a beautiful egg-shaped Shap granite erratic.
Access to the stone is the same as access to the Iron Hill circles. Finding the stone is easy, it is situated just off the slope of Haberwain Rigg 30m east of the Iron Hill circle.
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The grassy limestone meadows are lovely at this time of year. There are dozens of wheatears making themselves busy amongst the limestone outcrops, there are banded snails and delicate little cranesbills to be seen in the grykes of the limestone pavements.
To access White Hag from the north I would recommend that you park up at Oddendale and follow the Coast to Coast footpath. The route is well marked. Leave the path at the Wicker Street limestone pavement and head south east for 30-40 metres aiming for the field wall. You can't miss it.
A word to the wise. The horseflies (cleggs) seems to be a bit thick on the ground this year and I'm told the tick population is currently booming, so splash on your favoured repellant and check the places where the sun don't shine when you get home.
A further word of advice
If you ever encounter anything like this
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/59885/images/white_hag.html
Don't touch it as there is a remote chance that it could explode.
Many of our upland areas were used as training grounds during WWI & WWII. After the war most of the ordnance was removed but the odd mortar and shell are still laying around. Most of these items are practice rounds but some of them aren't so harmless and may contain high explosive or phosphorus.
If you find anything like this, make a note of the location and report it to the police. A photograph may help to remove the patronising grin of the duty sargeant.
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The cairn and hut circle are just a couple of examples of the many structures that can be seen in this area. Our ancestors obviously found these high limestone plains an attractive place to live.
Access to this site is via the Coast to Coast footpath from either Oddendale or Orton.
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This burial mound with its modern cairn and ruined bield is situated on one of the high points of moor. It is certainly visible from the Oddendale circle.
There is a stone situated between the two rings of the Oddendale circle. When viewed from the centre of the circle the stone lines up with this mound.
Access. stoney, hilly and at times muddy. Close to the Coast to Coast path with a slight detour.
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This pair of barrows are just south of the trackway that runs across the moor linking the Lockwood to Castleton road with the Danby road. Locally the track is known as the old tank road. The trackway is a public right of way with vehicular rights. I wouldn't recommend driving along the track, about half way along the road sinks into a bog.
Probably the best way to access the barrows is to park on the Castleton road and walk east for a quarter mile or so to the barrows. This pair of barrows are pretty unremarkable but a walk to them is worthwhile if only to illustrate the intervisibility of many of the moorland barrow groups. If you look west you can see the Black Howes on High Moor, the Three Howes on Three Howes Rigg, look east and the Siss Cross and Robin Hoods Butts barrows are prominent horizon markers.
Another thing to notice is, as you walk along the path you can see the summit of Freebrough Hill poking up over Moorsholm Rigg. When you reach the barrows Freebrough is in full view. However these barrows are not aligned on Freebrough. Looking north across the barrows the alignment runs past Freebrough and points to the coastal barrow cemetery of Warsett Hill.
I not convinced that this alignment was in the mind of the mound builders. I think that this pair of barrows should be seen as part of the wider chain of barrows that occupy the prominent ridges of the moors. A chain of burial monuments that in many cases still define parish and political boundaries and fringe the major ancient trackways across the moors, possibly defining the boundaries of Bronze Age estates.
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I awoke to a lovely sunny morning so once I'd packed the kids off to school I pulled out the maps and turned my mind to the moors.
As I was pulling my boots on the terrier was sitting expectantly by the front door staring at his lead. Sadly I had to leave him behind. I was heading to Battersby Moor, the moor is open access land but dogs are not allowed.
I parked up at Ingleby Greenhow next to the lovely church and headed out across the fields to Bank Foot Farm. There is a hint of the imminent arrival of spring in the fields. The hedgerows are begining to bud and you can spot the lovely yellow flowers of lesser celandine and the occasional daffodil poking through the grassy banks.
Battersby Moor is situated on the northern edge of the North York Moors escarpment. There are easier ways to access it than walking from Ingleby but the only way you can really experience how the crags dominate the fertile farm land below is to walk up from the base.
Once at Bank Foot you have two choices. You can turn right and walk up to the moors along the Ingleby incline, an old railway incline which was used to send tubs of ironstone down from the moors. The tubs were then tipped into wagons and the stone was sent to blast furnaces of Middlesbrough.
Alternatively you can walk through the farm and follow the old track that runs up the side of Ingleby Bank. The track is steep but gets you there in half the time. There is a public footpath that runs up the bank through the conifer plantation, this is the shortest route but is currently closed due to forestry operations.
Once on the moor you should take the left hand path walking past a pair of posts with a chain slung across them. Before you strike out across the moor you should walk to the edge of the crags and drink in the view. The whole northern edge of the North York Moors Escarpment in laid out before you along with the beautiful fertile Vale of Cleveland.
The walk to the Cross Ridge Dyke is fairly easy going, the paths are well made keepers tracks and eventually join the long distance path of the Cleveland Way. There are lots of stone outcrops on the surrounding moor giving plenty of opportunities for cup mark hunting. I found a few very weathered cup marks on these stones but cannot really say whether they are natural erosion features or genuine cup marks. In The North York Moors, An Introduction, Stanhope White described a rock cut basin at NZ6100069, I was unable to find this stone.
The Cross Ridge Dyke is not a huge feature, if your visiting the area the thing to look out for is the standing stone on the crest of the dyke. The dyke itself runs SE-NW for approximately 200m. It runs from a marshy area in the south east, across the ridge and the modern path and then heads down the bank where it is lost in a jumble of modern ditches. The bank itself is composed of earth and stones with a ditch on the southern side. There are a couple of large stones on top of the bank which may indicate that this dyke was once lined with stones in a similar manner to the Bridestones at Commondale http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/5506. Blaise Vyner has this to say about the monument
"The area defined may lie to the north, where a damaged barrow lies some 300m distant; there are no other monuments in the vicinity. This earthwork is not typical of the group, since, although it runs across a well-defined ridge, no trace of a second earthwork is seen and it is not clear what area may originally have been marked off. It may be the rising ground to the north, beyond the visible burial mound, was thought a sufficient boundary."
The brides of place: cross-ridge boundaries reviewed.
Moorland Monuments. CBA Research Report 101 1995.
The dyke is well worth a visit, the site affords some lovely views across the Vale of Cleveland, the northern moorland escarpment and Basedale. The moor is essentially a heather moor but there are also marshy areas, sphagnum bogs and mixed woodlands on the flanks. Apart from the initial climb the walking is along level paths and you will be accompanied by the calls of the grouse and the shrill cries of golden plovers and snipe.
If you are looking for a lazy way to access the moor you can drive up on the Kildale to Basedale road which will take you to within a couple of hundred meters to this monument.
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I spent a cold frosty morning in Goathland watching the Plough Stots perform their annual sword dance around the village, with half a day to kill I decided to follow my nose south into the Tabular Hills.
The Tabular Hills occupy the southern end of the North York Moors, geologically they are formed of layers of Jurrassic limestone. In prehistory, as today, these hills were rich farmland and a marked contrast to the wide open heather expanse and thin soils of the northern moors.
I travelled from Goathland south along the Pickering road. Once past the menacing structure of the Fylingdales military base the road climbs up through Saltergate and past it's famous pub where the peat fire that has burned continuously since 1759 trapping the malevolent spirit of a murdered excise man. From Slatergate the road runs around the edge of the Hole of Horcum, a huge natural bowl that legend tells us was created by either the Devil or Wade the Giant. A few miles along this road is the Dalby Forest drive. This is a toll road operated by the Forestry Commission and is very popular with hikers, bikers and all sorts of outdoor pursuit types. The road leads you into the Dalby Forest, a huge area of managed woodland, rich in archaeology. Being a good yorkshireman I only ever drive along this road in the wintertime when access is free.
A couple of miles along the road brings you to the Bridestones car park. The path to the stones is signposted. Once through the gate I recommend you take the left hand of the three paths, this will take along the edge of the woods and then slowly up to the moor top. As you climb from the valley floor you can see the Bridestones standing like sentinels, lining the ridge to the east of you. The moor here has a primeval vibe about it and seeing the stones looking down on you gives you some idea as to how the people who first named these stones may have felt, the mysteriousness of this place would not have been lost on our ancestors. The stones outcrop on either side of a narrow valley, the eastern stones have a monumental vibe around them, the rock overhangs of the western stones may have provided plenty of opportunity for shelter and perhaps a place to observe game moving along Dovedale Griff below.
If you in the area it is well worth having a look at the Bridestones. The walk from the car park will take you about 15 minutes. The gated track is quite steep in places and there are quite a few steps on the way to and from the stones.
If you are feeling energetic you could park at the Hole of Horcum and make a day of it taking in the Old Wife's Way, Blakey Topping and its standing stones and the Bridestones.
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I called into Sunhoney after visiting Midmar Kirk. The grey November morning and The Kirk had combined to leave me feeling a bit gloomy but this soon lifted as I approached Sunhoney.
Not too much to say about the circle that hasn't already been said, although I would like to add my appreciation to the farmer for providing excellent access to this lovely ring.
Sunhoney will brighten your dreichest day.
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I found Midmar to be a bit of an odd place. The circle is smaller than I expected. I didn't hang around here too long. All in all I found the whole experience here a little un-nerving.
The mortuary in the hospital where I used to work was painted in exactly the same shade of blue as the Kirk.
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I parked up at the cottages and walked through the wood that runs along the edge of the field.
Fortunately the crop in the field had just sprouted so I was able to carefully pick my way across to the circle.
This is a lovely ring, the choice of stone, the views through the leafless trees to Mither Tap and the two mighty outliers all combine to make this a special place.
If you're up in Aberdeenshire you should definitely put Balgorkar on your list
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I was up in Aberdeen for a couple of days on a course. My course was scheduled to finish at 4pm, sunset was at around 3.30pm. Fortunately a couple of my colleagues had flights to catch so we wrapped it all up at about 2.30pm. I dashed out of the building, jumped in the van and made a beeline for Tyrebagger, racing the sun.
The Path to the circle offers various views of the stones but cannot really prepare you for the sense of lovliness that flows over you as you step into this circle. I was fortunate enough to be there on a sunny November day. The sun was slowly sinking below Tyrebagger hill and I was able to sit in the circle and watch the shadows grow longer and longer.
I've visited the circle a number of times in the past whilst waiting to fly out of Aberdeen. Tyrebagger has become something of a touchstone from me. When flying out of Aberdeen I always try to take 'a ringside seat', which every now and then rewards me with a glimpse of the circle from the air. More often than the not the helicopter taxis onto the runway and heads straight out for the coast but every now and then it lingers momentarily over the airport allowing a quick view of the stones.
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I visited Easter Aquhorthies on a still November evening. I had watched the sunset at Broomend and then drove in the twilight along the single track road from Inverurie.
I parked up in the carpark and walked along the track, the moon was quite high and was encircled by a huge ice halo. I could hear an owl screeching in the distance. It was one of those moments when you know something special was happening.
I sat in the circle and the place just seemed to wrap itself around me. I can't tell you how long I stayed there but it was a real wrench to walk away from the place.
This was my first visit to the circle and to see it in the moonlight was an unforgetable experience. I'm in love with this circle
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I called in at Tealing on my way up to Aberdeen. I was hoping to have a good nosey around the general area but unfortunately a number of factors conspired to ensure that I arrived at Tealing just as the sun was going down. There is a parking space opposite the farmyard and the earth house is just a small walk away.
What prompted me to visit the Tealing Earth House was the inclusion of two carved rocks in the fabric of the structure. The pair of carved rocks are lovely, the cup and ring carved rock is built into the wall of the structure, the cup marked rock is embedded into the turf that is enclosed within the arc of the structure. The inclusion of these stones couldn't really be anything but a deliberate act, perhaps as a 'nod to the ancestors'.
Earth Houses, Souterrains, Weems, Fogous, call 'em what you like, these are strange structures. We are told that they are possibly defensive structures or storehouses. Personally speaking, I feel that these structures had to be used for more than the usual explanations. The design and care taken in their construction implies that their uses ran to more than Iron Age storerooms or bolt holes. The limited geographical distribution, throughout our islands, of these structures also may imply that they may have had a specific meaning to a specific community. Truth is no-one knows.
The inclusion of the carved stones in the fabric of the building is not unique to Tealing, there are carved stones in the walls of the nearby Mains of Ardestine Earth House and there is a cup marked stone in the Aberdeenshire Souterrain at Clush.
The reuse of carved stones has a long tradition in our islands and abroad, an unbroken lineage from the Neolithic to the present day.
Tealing is a lovely site. The short walk from the parking space involves a low stile, a muddy field path and a kissing gate so may not be suitable for all.
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Please be aware. If you are in any sense hydrophobic stop reading this now and go and find another stone circle to visit.
My route to the Haws started in Torver, the footpath to the fells passed by my campsite and so was the most logical route to take. It is also the route given by Robert Harris in his book Walks in Ancient Lakeland.
The walled trackway from Torver winds its way up through beautiful gnarly woodland, the walls along the track are covered in thick green velvety moss giving them the appearance of having grown there. All around you is the sound of running water, unfortunately most of it is underfoot as the trackway and the Ash Gill Beck, which it follows, have joined forces. I wouldn't recommend wearing wellies here as the track is lined with slate chippings and is very slippery.
I'm afraid when you leave the woodland things don't improve much. The moor above the wood is waterlogged and I would recommend walking parallel to the trackway using the sheep tracks as they tend to follow the drier ground.
One thing that does lift the soul at this point is the view, the Old Man of Coniston and Dow Crag rise above you changing the whole landscape perspective from one of soft woodland to hard fell.
Your next obstacle is the Bull Haw Moss Beck, a deep, fast flowing stream. At it's shallowest point the beck is about three quarters of a metre deep and at its narrowest point about a meter and a half wide. Robert Harris mentions stepping stones, I couldn't find them. The only thing for it was to jump. I threw my bag over and then grabbed the terrier and leapt across.
Once over the beck things start to improve. The ground is still marshy but gradually rises. You can see the long ridge of Blaeberry Haws rising to your left.
I left the path here and struck out to climb the hillside, aiming for the cairn on the top of the Haw.
Once at the cairn the whole landscape opened out in front of me. There were views back into central Cumbria to the north east and the Duddon estuary to the south but the dominant unescapable influence here is the Old Man and his partner Dow Crag.
The hilltop cairn is modern but may be overlying a more ancient structure and the base platform is seems to be composed of stones and is out of proportion with the narrow cairn.
From the cairn the circle is on the slightly lower ground to the south west.
Once at the circle you'll notice the northern views are obscurred by the higher ground. I would suggest that although the Old Man is the dominant feature, the eye is drawn to the south and the silvery waters of the Duddo estuary. It's also interesting that the other prehistoric structures, the robbed cairn, earthwork and ring cairn are not visible from the circle.
The circle itself is a beautiful tiny ring, just four paces across with the tallest of the seven stones no higher then my knee.
After spending a little time at the circle I walked back along the ridge to the north east and had a look at the robbed cairn. The cairn is composed of cobbles and has a hollow centre. In the centre are a number of large pieces of slate, Robert Harris suggests that this may the the remains of a cist.
The next feature you encounter, along the north eastern edge of the Haw, is a linear bank running NW-SE and curving slightly to respect the cairn.
After the earthwork is a large ring cairn. Unfortunately my photographic skills do not do this structure justice as it is a large (nineteen paces), well-defined feature with bits of stone poking through the banking.
I spent a good hour up on the ridge poking around these sites but the clouds began getting lower and lower so I decided it was time to go.
I returned by walking along to the old slate workings and then following the Ash Gill Beck back down the hillside. In hindsight I would suggest this is probably the route I should have taken when ascending the Haws as the gradient is a little less severe and the ground is a little drier.
All in all I would say that Bleaberry Haws is well worth the effort. The domineering effect of the Old Man really grounds you in the landscape, a landscape that, at first glance, seems wild and untamed and the monuments here seem remote and isolated. But take a closer look and you'll see the hand of man on the fells. The Old Man of Coniston is riddled with mines and quarries. There is even evidence of prehistoric copper extraction here. So we are seeing a landscape that has previously been a place of massive industrial activity stretching back into prehistory.
In his excellent book, The Stone Circles of Cumbria, John Waterhouse suggests an alternative route to Bleaberry Haws
"The easiest approach to this tiny circle is from the quarry road.
Leave the quarry road at the point where it turns sharp left and cross a dry stone wall."
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Grasmere is another one of the recently discovered Cumbrian rock art panels. It was found by a lady called Liz Clay (cheers Kate).
The panel itself couldn't be easier to visit as it's in the middle of Grasmere village in the corner of Broadgate Park, right next to the NT carpark.
The panel itself is a glacially smoothed outcrop with dozens of cupmarks. There are definite similarities between this panel, in both the nature of the carvings and the location, and the panels in Patterdale and Crummock.
I've got a feeling that there maybe a lot more sites like this just waiting to be found.
I love this panel being in Grasmere, I was able to visit the panel and tip a nod to Wordsworth.
I only found out about the Constable exhibition in the Wordsworth Museum when I got home..damn! http://www.wordsworth.org.uk/Default.asp?Page=37
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A wee while ago Kate Sharpe had told me that Gabriel Blamires had discovered a cup marked rock in the woods behind the National Trust Campsite. So with this in mind I decided to take a look.
I had it in my mind that this stone was going to be tucked away somewhere and difficult to find. So myself and the terrier trudged through the swampy wood that borders the southern edge of the campsite. Needless to say we found nowt.
On the afternoon, and after a good lunch at the Old Dungeon Ghyll bar, I decided to have a mooch up to Side Pike and take some snaps of the Langdale Pikes across the valley. I couldn't believe it, I walked into the wood and there beside the path was the cup marked stone with a lovely shadow being cast across it by the afternoon sun.
The stone may not be its original location as the area has been forested, but owing to the size of the stone I suspect it is probably fairly close. The stone also looks as though it has been quarried, perhaps an edge was knocked of it during the forestry operations or perhaps a local waller has used the stone as a convient source of material for the nearby wall.
This is a great stone but its significance, as always, lies in it's location.
The stone sits just above the head of the Great Langdale valley at the junction of a number of, possibly prehistoric, trackways. The footpath beside the stone heads south around Side Pike and connects with east- west trackway via the Wrynose Pass which in turn connects with the HardKnott Pass and the Duddon Valley both of which lead to the coast.
There are views into Mickleden and the route north to Keswick along Langstrath via the Stake Pass or branching off onto the Honister Pass and accessing the coast via Buttermere, Crummock and the River Cocker. Carved stones have also be recently discovered along this route.
All in all this is a beautiful site, if you consider that the Langdale Pikes may have been the prehistoric focus of Cumbria then this stone may enhance that view. The existence of these carvings may also add weight to the prehistoric origins of the carvings at Copt Howe.
Access to the site is very good for those on foot. However for wheeled access there are two gates to negotiate and the ground can be a little boggy.
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