Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Images
Scafell at its broodiest, and possibly harbouring soon to be rescued walkers too stoned to walk. amateurs.
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
White Moss east circle and Scafell.
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
White Moss east circle, Low Longrigg stone circles are up the hill in the background, try and head for the black dot between them.
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
The two circles of White Moss
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
A lovely little circle is White Moss east, it doesn't have the awe factor of Castlerigg or Swinside, but it has something few other sites have, if you know what it is, answers on a postcard to.........
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
The more western of the two circles, two cairns, one within one without.
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
This cairn looks like it might still have a lid on it's cist, it is in the circle, another cairn awaits just outside it.
Image credit: Chris Bickerton
View through the eastern circle to the western one, the sea faintly visible on the horizon through the gap in the hills.
View from the western circle.
Not very white Moss
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Hostile conditions... but then these are proper upland stone circles...
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
05/15
White Moss on a gloomy day.
Wonderful.......... in a dark, forbidding sort of way....
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
White Moss from Low Longrigg with Acre Hows on the left.
'S' shaped linear embankment-type structure just below White Moss.
'S' shaped linear embankment-type structure just below White Moss.
29/04/06 White Moss from the knoll, looking WNW. What would we do without knolls?
Image credit: The Eternal
29/04/06 White Moss N circle, E edge, looking N. Scafell behind.
Image credit: The Eternal
29/04/06 White Moss N circle, S edge, looking W. Whin Rigg – Illgill Head ridge in the background.
Image credit: The Eternal
29/04/06 White Moss N circle, S edge looking E. Harter Fell behind.
Image credit: The Eternal
29/04/06 White Moss from a different position in the W.
Image credit: The Eternal
29/04/06 White Moss N circle from the W.
Image credit: The Eternal
29/04/06 White Moss, from the S circle looking along the SE-NE axis.
Image credit: The Eternal
29/04/06 White Moss, from the SE edge of the S circle looking NE.
Image credit: The Eternal
29/04/06 White Moss, looking SW into the N circle of White Moss.
Image credit: The Eternal
Whit Moss and Brats Hill stone circles in their landscape, from the N. Viewed from the slopes of Slight Side, below Scafell.
Image credit: The Eternal
Lookin S through White Moss NE circle, with the SW circle in the background to the left.
Image credit: The Eternal
White Moss, inside the NE stone circle, looking to the SW stone circle.
Image credit: The Eternal
White Moss NE stone circle, looking NW to Illgill Head.
Image credit: The Eternal
Wall enclosure-type feature on the E side of White Moss stone circles, looking NW.
Image credit: The Eternal
Wall enclosure-type feature on the E side of White Moss stone circles, looking SW.
Image credit: The Eternal
White Moss circles from Brats Hill. Looking westwards to the shallow col between Whin Rigg (left) and Illgill Head (right).
Image credit: The Eternal
Crap scan – will replace when I can get a better one, but it gives a vague idea of the scale of the complex: White Moss (slightly below centre and right) and Brats Hill (to right of dark patch in centre – honest) from Low Longrigg
Image credit: Tim Clark
White Moss WSW circle from ENE circle
Image credit: Tim Clark
White Moss ENE circle from WSW circle
Image credit: Tim Clark
White Moss circles from Brats Hill circle
Image credit: Tim Clark
Shark's tooth stone, according to Mrs Ironman anyway...
The two circles of White Moss.
Central cairn in the most prominent of the two White Moss circles.
Articles
Set a little to the north-west of the wonderful Brat's Hill stone circle enclosing its myriad cairns, the paired stone circles upon White Moss would need to be very special indeed to sustain the drama – I think that's the correct word – and maintain the feeling of evocative abandon experienced by this wide-eyed traveller up here upon this wild moor. Fortunately, they are.... Oh yes! With bells on. In fact I have to admit these two are arguably my finest monuments in Lakeland for sheer atmospheric vibe, affecting me no end. In fact you could say to the nth degree. No, really. Although I was never any good at algebra or trigonometry at school, Thom might well have approved of the analogy. Perhaps, perhaps not.
That other great stone circle luminary, Aubrey Burl, cites the circles as being 'ruinous'. Maybe, but when you're used to tiny Welsh upland 'circles as I am, these are nothing less than 'substantial' in comparison. Mist swirls evocatively – evocatively as long as it doesn't head this way, that is – across and around the long summit crest of Illgill Head to the north, the far flank of which plunges precipitously, albeit unseen, to the depths of Wast Water. To the north-east Scafell Pike, England's highest mountain, is itself cloaked in a mantle of grey vapour. So what's new? Well, viewing it from inside an enigmatic stone circle, for starters. I swear if you was to look up 'evocative', or, say, 'ethereal' in the Oxford English Dictionary there would be an image of White Moss. Ok, ok, there isn't. But there bloody well should be.
Both circles have 'just' the single cairn, placed centrally. It is more than enough, but Burnmoor doesn't let the visitor off the emotional hook that easily. No, look further to the north-east and two more stone circles are visible upon Low Longrigg. Go on. You know you must. You have no choice in the matter.
themodernantiquarian.com/post/93174/fieldnotes/low_longrigg.html
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Reached here with Pie Eater, just after visiting Brats Hill. We're even more confused, due to the nearness of Brats Hill, plus the strange wall that looks like an enclosure. Also by the two circles. What went on here? Today all was peaceful, and had a nice feeling. But I've been here when the clouds are low on the fells, and a cold rain rakes across Burnmoor (one word, not two), and then the mystery of the place is all pervading, and a sense of doom pervades. Woooooo.
On the approach to the Brat's Hill complex the first circle you will probably see is one of the White Moss circles. We did just that, only to turn round and notice we'd completely missed the Brat's Hill circle itself. Of the two, the one nearest the path is in the best condition, and in terms of setting, you couldn't ask for more.
Sites within 20km of White Moss
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Brat’s Hill
photo 28 description 3 link 1 -
Low Longrigg
photo 17 description 2 link 1 -
Boat Howe
photo 11 description 3 -
Maiden Castle (Wastwater)
photo 3 description 2 -
Cairn to SW of Hardknott Castle
photo 2 forum 1 -
Seatallan
photo 4 description 1 -
Barnscar
photo 15 forum 1 description 3 link 1 -
Lead Pike
photo 1 forum 2 description 1 link 1 -
Sampson’s Bratfull
photo 13 forum 1 description 2 -
Stockdale Moor
photo 17 -
Whitrow Beck
photo 5 description 1 -
Mickleden Beck
photo 7 description 2 -
Monks Graves
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Town Bank
-
Glaramara Stone Axe Factories
photo 1 -
Glaramara (Northern) Stone Axe Factory
photo 3 description 1 -
Wrynose Pass Stone
photo 4 forum 1 description 1 -
Tongue How
photo 2 -
Langdale Axe Factory
photo 46 forum 5 description 8 link 2 -
Gretigate
photo 4 forum 1 description 1 -
Loft Crag
photo 4 description 1 -
Thorn Crag
photo 2 description 1 -
Great Langdale
photo 17 forum 1 description 3 -
Bleaberry Haws Cairn
photo 10 description 1 -
Harrison Stickle
photo 4 -
Bleaberry Haws Ringcairn
photo 7 -
Bleaberry Haws
photo 12 description 2 link 1 -
Torver High Common Dyke
photo 1 -
Bleaberry Haws Summit Cairn
photo 3 description 1 -
Tongue How
photo 10 description 2 -
Castle Howe, Little Langdale
photo 2 description 1 -
Tongue How
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Banniside
photo 14 description 1 -
Friar’s Well
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Friar Gill Tumulus
photo 3 description 1 -
Greycroft Stone Circle
photo 47 forum 2 description 14 link 2 -
Sunkenkirk
photo 134 forum 7 description 26 link 2 -
Buttermere
photo 4 description 1 -
Copt Howe
photo 62 forum 5 description 10 -
Ash House
photo 11 description 3 link 1 -
Druids Temple, Yewcroft
photo 9 description 2 -
Castle Crag, Borrowdale
photo 23 description 3 -
Floutern Cop
photo 13 description 3 -
Blakeley Raise
photo 54 forum 1 description 15 link 3 -
Elterwater Common
forum 1 description 1 -
White Borran
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Giant’s Grave
photo 17 description 3 -
Ehenside Tarn
photo 3 -
Black Combe
photo 9 description 3 -
Grasmere
photo 9 description 3 -
Hall Foss
description 1 -
Grasmoor
photo 3 description 1 -
Dunmail Raise
photo 6 description 6 link 1 -
Crummock
photo 26 forum 1 description 1 -
Annaside
description 1 -
Lamplugh
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Great Burney
photo 10 description 2 -
Kirkstones
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Ringlen Stones (destroyed?)