Follow Browfoot Lane from Staveley which bends left around the area called High Knott (on top of which can be seen Williamson's monument). The road splits into two bridle paths; left to The Heights right toward High Hugill (also known as High Borrans). Follow the right path until it almost disappears and turns left onto a more disinct path. Ahead of you there is a grazing field and High Hugill is the field to its left from where you are standing. A quick hop over the wall is all that's required to access the site. Whoever owns the field has erected a new sheep pen in one corner of the field. The site itself seems to be regularly shaped stone foundations in a dip lower than the rest of the area. The field adjacent to the East contains a spring which may have been the ancient water source for the farming community that was. Pictures to follow.
In his book Prehistoric Rock Art in Cumbria, Stan Beckensall describes the site as "a very interesting one, seldom visited as far as I know, although it lies just off a public right of way."
Unfortunately, it would appear that the site will probably remain seldom visited, as access to the adjacent field (from which a gate led to the site) is blocked by a (brand-new?) barbed-wire fence and padlocked field-gate. As there was no stock in either field, I might have been tempted to continue had the field-gate not been padlocked, but as it was I took the hint and just went for a walk instead.
The site can be viewed from another adjacent field to the north (technically off the right of way), but unfortunately it was too misty for decent photography.
"At High Hugill, near Windermere, in Westmoreland, the site of the settlement consists of an enclosure, two sides of which are angular and two rounded. It was encompassed by the foundations of a wall or rampart, which has been, in places, 14ft in width. The foundations were apparently formed by stones set on edge, the spaces in between which was probably filled in with smaller stones. Within this enclosure are sundry ill-defined lines of division walls, courts, and hut-dwellings, one or two of which are circular, and measure about 7ft and 13ft in diameter." Remains of the Prehistoric Age in England, Bertram Windle 1909.
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