Lancashire 18
Image by IronMan

Hi Ironman,

I've been watching your work with interest, it seem we have the same taste in sites, "spooky" :^))

I was planning to put the illustration for th e'pikestones on myself, but you beat me to it.

Any idea when the pikestones got their name ?

Talking about other features, have you been to the 'witches covern' on Chorley Nab ?
This is quarried out hollow with carving of faces, cross, letters and an urn. I have photographs, but I'm not sure if this is the sort of thing to go on this super site?

Also at the Heapey end of the Nab, there is a wood called Temple Wood that had a Barrow in it ?

Cheers

(The Talking Hill!)

I grew up within sight of your soft hill. I've climbed in that tower an uncounted number of times. I missed the Festival, though, in the Chinese Gardens - and have never been to even one Good Friday ceremony.

All of the Pennine dales and hills are rich with undiscovered megalithic remains. Anglezarke Moor has never really been looked at systematically. I've found some significant stone monuments in the upper end of the Smithills Country Park, out of Lancashire and into Greater Manchester.

It's taking the archaeology community some time to come to terms with this. Their current response is 'the stuff can't be there because no one's found it previously'. These sites are accurately represented on this site and I welcome any further research (other than etymosophosy).

The easiest to find - and the easiest to recognise on the ground - is the Counting Hill stone row. (http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/browse.php?site_id=3589) Walk down the track from Winter Hill (it's well defined) until you get to the rocks. After you've found that one you'll want to find the two big ones, at Brown Stones and Burnt Edge.

There's a Rivington stone with a face - that's 'gone missing' - and an unlisted Celtic Head, at Doffcocker. There was a festival in Moss Bank Park, in the very early '70's. As there were only about fifteen people there not many remember it - headlined by a band called 'Spyrogyra'. Whatever happened to them ?

~