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Fieldnotes
| Torrisholme Barrow was the old Law Hill of the Lancaster area, superceded by them building a whopping great big castle on the omphalos South of the Lune. But this was the original burial place of the ancestors. Old maps show a Low Lane running north from Torrisholme and to the West of the Barrow and ending up at Treason Fields, where the rail line now runs. The natural mound has an ancient groove running around the Eastern edge right round to the north and then up the hill driving South. As this part is ascended Warton Crag can be seen to the North and Black Combe rises to the West. Sometime between 1844 and 1919 the Morecambe Corporation built a Sanitorium here and traces of the foundations can be found in a the woods that block the path here. Climbing up through the woods eventually brings you to the end of another old path, called Barrow Lane. The houses have encroached right up onto the hill but the paths are still here in parts, running behing the gardens of the quiet suburban semis. Continuing South brings you to a groove running up from the West, where the houses are, and this groove runs up to the top of the hill and the tumulus. By this stage the whole of Morecambe Bay is beginning to be visible and following the groove brings you over the crest of the hill looking East and you get quite a psychological thwack through the front of yer face to the back, like, with the sight that greets you (the unmistakable crest of Ingleborough in the distance, which dominates the Lune Valley). Hurray! It is really worth getting up here on a good clear day and making this route, rather than just going straight to the top of the mound over the stile from Hexham lane at the South, and taking in the view (360 degrees of it, which includes the missing-pixel-like power statement at Heysham, whoops). Also a very unusual perspective is got of the Llancaster omphalos (where they built the castle and priory) and the ur-temple mound (now quarried) upon which stands bigus dickus of one Mr Williamson (thank you kind sir). But hey. If you want a bit of the reverse - seeing the barrow from a distance - a good place to go is Williamson's park and the barrow is the first rise of land to the right of Lancaster. But it is Torrisholme Barrow which would have been the Law Hill of more ancient origin, calling in the authority of the sacred hills that surround it. |
Posted by kingrolo20th December 2001ce Edited 15th April 2020ce
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Comments (1) |
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I love this place I live in Torrisholme myself. I fell in love with the place when I was a young child, were used to camp there and if we'd have know it was an ancient burial place we would have been a bit more scared and it can be kind of eerie in the total darkness! I remember finding some black & white tiles in the woods where you say, and other bits of rubble, I always wondered what this place looked like when the sanatorium was there and also beyond that time.. If anyone has any old pictures i'd love to see them. |
Posted by stonio 19th July 2010ce |
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