The Knar

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tiompan T
tiompan Apr 2, 2008 14:11:38
Replying to Stoneshifter

Stoneshifter wrote:
It's got a low bank, rectangular-shaped, with what may be an outside ditch. It's got upright stones - a little like teeth - with a well defined gateway, or entrance - I call it a wicket - and corners. Half of it is missing, so there are just three sides remaining, and it is oriented toward the northernmost rising position of the moon. Perhaps four hundred yards away, across the South Tyne, are three cairns, two of which were excavated in 193?. In one was found the Kirkhaugh gold ornament ('Kirkhaugh' and 'gold' are all that Google needs to find a picture of it). Nobody on this board has either visited or seen this site. I have several pictures but there is no site listed now. Someone did claim to have visited but I think it must have been in a dream, or something. The rectangular enclosure - and I am happy to be corrected on its correct nomenclature - is within what remains of a very large double circle, with a diameter of, perhaps, 70-80m. There is a slightly similar enclosure known at Castle Rigg, maybe fifty miles away. This site is not far - say ten miles, as the crow flies - from Long Meg and her daughters. Nearby is an old drystone house that I describe as 'Viking' - it's called Oldwall.
Thanks , it's just that "Long Mortuary Enclosures " to my mind are a figment of Atkinson's fevered mind , he being the one who coined the term The sad thing is , there is no evidence at any of them of excarnation . Being pit defined would also make recognition difficult . Do you have rough dimensions and a grid ref ? It would be good to check the declination .

S Stoneshifter
Stoneshifter Apr 2, 2008 15:29:21
Replying to tiompan

Yes, the English Heritage man wanted the map reference - which is NY 7010 4878 . It's perhaps six metres wide and about fifteen or twenty long - then I suppose there might have been another five to ten metres lengthening it. I don't mind what it's called as long as it becomes looked after. There are similar things in France I've seen pictures of and one that sticks in my mind that was filled with smaller stones. My measurements of its declination are lost in ancient notebooks - I fairly recently had a bonfire of them on the Quayside - but it's certainly to the northnortheast. As I said it has a distinct doorway, marked by taller upright stones, and if you sight from one side of the doorway over a cornerstone and then up the hillside then a small four-poster stone circle is indicated. (Nobody's been to that one either despite it being on both (a) the roadside and (b) the SMR. It is the outlier to whatever the stone monument is. The three known burial cairns - I suspect there will be more about - overlook the Kirkhaugh site. The bed of the burn which, together with the Tyne, encloses the stones has the peculiarity of being limestone sills and, at the height of summer, disappears upstream of the site only to re-emerge downstream. This must have seemed quite miraculous in ancient times and is surely one of the reason that spot was selected. There is a huge collection of stones in the upper field and these must have comprised other monuments and perhaps another circle. I haven't found any Rock Art at the site but plenty of evidence of chiseled edges of stones.