stubob

Been meaning to come back up here with a camera since this section of the moor was burnt off 5 or 6 years ago.
Now after so long the heather has grown back and much of the cairn cemetery is well hidden in the thick new growth.
Still visible are the 2 larger burial cairns, but hidden are 3 smaller ones and 3 small rings of kerb stones, although we possibly came across one of these rings a few metres away to the SE of the most southerly of the larger cairns.

Located in the trees to the west of Robin Hoods Stride. A short walk along the vehicle track of approximately 80m, with the stones visible in trees immediately to the right of the track.
One of the larger stones in the ring has a well carved number 3 on it, perhaps suggesting there are several other hut circles in the area.
3 is worth noting as Rooke mentioned 3 circles in the area around Durwood (Dudwood to Barnatt)....so is this one of them?

This is a large quite impressive barrow around 45m in diameter and around 2m in height, with maybe traces of a wide ditch.
Just off the A515, although not visible from it, access is by way of one of two paths close to Boars Low, one being to the north and another to the east.

Bateman dug here in the 1840’s finding Bronze Age flints and pottery sherds.

This barrow is visible on the closest horizon when approaching Minninglow by way of the High Peak Trail from the NW. The roman road, The Street, passes within a few metres of the barrow.

Amongst the cairnfields and field systems of Birchen Edge is this low burial cairn with several remaining stones of a cist.
SK2846 7226 about 600m east-ish from the ring cairn of Birchen Edge South.

On private land belonging to the Chatsworth Estate, so it’s best to get permission.
This rock shelter is well hidden amongst the thick trees of the plantation and difficult to spot from the track.
SK2844 6903 gets you to the spot.

This cave can be tricky (and not the safest of things) to find amongst the old spoil heaps and mine shafts, the whole pasture is full of them. The cave is located on a local high spot near rocky ground on Carsington Pastures’ southern edge overlooking Carsington Water. The two entrances, one in a hollow the other on a small knoll directly above it, are both locked.

This rock shelter is about 220m NW of the footbridge at the bottom of Cales Dale as it joins Lathkill Dale. Tricky climb onto the ledge and shelter.

Excavated by TA Harris in 1928. Finds included Upper Palaeolithic flints plus some reindeer bones. Neolithic flints were also recovered and included a discoidal knife, a leaf-shaped arrowhead and flakes. A possible human burial of a Neolithic date was also found.

I visited Chee Tor a coupla years ago after I came across a reference to a stone circle there in the SMR/NMR records. I now note that Pastscape also mention the site as an uncertain stone circle Short arc of bank with four upright stones within it, possibly a Bronze Age embanked stone circle. So I thought I’d post some pictures...see what folk thought.

Chee Tor is a high spur of land overlooking the River Wye in the valley below. It’s a pretty spectacular location for a circle located as it is right on the edge of the near vertical slope into Chee Dale.

I’m not sure what to think....other parts of the tor are noted for their Romano-British settlement remains and it’s this that bugs me about the site...’taint a million miles away from them...although there’s nothing like this structure amongst them.
Spectacular area and worth a visit for the views of Chee Dale alone.

You’ll probably need a gps to find this cist unless you have a few hours to spare. There is a large rock nearby that sorta becomes visible when you’re on top of it and so is something to look for in the thick heather....I think it is part of the boundary bank the cist is built into.
Two sides of the cist are clearly visible and constructed of fairly large stones.
If you have a gps then SK28157 71021 should get you to within a few metres of it.

Separated by the Umberley Sick from Gibbet Moor this cairn stands on Brampton East Moor proper, although it is directly related to the Gibbet Moor settlement and lies several hundred metres from Gibbet Moor North.
The cairn is enormous (close in size to Wet Withens’ barrow) even though it was robbed in medieval times to build an adjoining animal pen.

The NMR reckons that there is at least 2 cairns possibly 3 with some visible kerbstones but so interfered with is it, it’s difficult to work out any of it out.

SK17230 65405.

Cales Dale as with Calling Low Dale is a tributary valley to Lathkil Dale with stunning limestone scenery where the two meet.
Cales Dale Upper Cave is well hidden on a high shelf on the western side of the valley and requires a steep tricky climb up from the path.
The cave was used in the Iron Age and later Romano period.

This rock shelter is located just over half a mile away from Bee Low in the secluded Calling Low Dale (previously Callenge Dale). Access is pretty straight forward once you have permission; although once at the entrance to the dale itself the going is rough with no path and plenty of ankle twisters.
The wall across the face of the shelter, built by a 1980’s visitor, lets you know you’ve found the right place.

In the Neolithic it was used as a burial site and two cists were constructed within it, one containing human bones, arrowheads and a Peterborough ware bowl. Colonel Harris who excavated here in 1936-39 also found other burials placed outside the cists.

At the shelter amongst the crags and trees the place has a ‘lost world’ feel to it, some what aided by the fact that no one comes here anymore. Although the dale is a tributary to one of the most popular walking dales, Lathkil, in the Peak.

The rock shelter/cave is located in a low (3m) broken limestone scarp, some 300m in length, overlooking Bonsall Moor and the hill of Blake Low to the south.
Known by CAPRA as DS01 the scarp and shelter are overgrown and difficult to spot from any distance and other smaller shelters can be misleading.
In Rodney Castleden’s ‘Neolithic Britain: New Stone Age Sites of England, Scotland and Wales‘ he mentions that large rocks in front of the shelter were placed there to form an enclosed platform in front of the opening...not sure whether I got this bit or not...it’s rocky ground and looked natural to me.
A number of flint tools have been recovered from the area in and around the shelter. Being such a small hole I’m guessing the place was used as a hunting shelter, rather than for habitation, somewhere to make tools outta the wind and rain

Gratton Moor lies between Minninglow and Arbor Low above the dry valleys of Long and Gratton Dale.
What first drew me to this place was its position in relation to the Neolithic monuments around here and a ploughed field and mole hills on the eastern side of the moor. I wasn’t here to see the two Bronze Age barrows... I was here for flint. And when I got to the fields that’s what I got...there were waste flakes of chert and flint along with scrapers, blades and the odd arrowhead lying on the surface.
Checking the NMR and SMR I found that the moor had been walked years before by a local bloke from Elton, who had filled boxes with his finds, and that a number of Neolithic occupation sites were noted on the moor at SK199599, SK202603 and SK191605

There’s plenty historical to see on the way to Carder Low from Hartington village; medieval earthworks at Moat Hall, a Norman Motte at Bank Top Farm and Romano field systems on the slopes of Carder Low itself.
The barrow/cairn, about 19m across and 1m high, is however a bit of a disappointment although the views across the upper Dove valley into Staffordshire are excellent.

This is a top spot accessible from Wetton Mill (around a mile away) and the northern Manifold caves.Located on Ecton Hill which was mined for copper in the Bronze Age, several green stained bone and stone tools having been recovered from the area.
Mining took off in the 1700’s and the hill is full of reminders from this busy period in its history.
Although there are no paths to the cave, it is pretty easy to find below a limestone crag
Excellent views out across Archford Moor and to the hills of Wetton and Narrowdale in the east.

Access is only possible after mid to late summer when the Manifold River dries up and runs underground. Always wondered what the folk back in the day made of this....unless they had it figured already.
Follow river-bed round to the back of Beeston Tor Farm and there are two entrances, 10ft, above the river bed....one is very obvious, about 6ft up in the cliff wall (a blind tube of around 100ft) to the right of this (about 30ft) is a fissure looking opening into St Bertrams itself.
It’s worth taking a torch as the tunnel at the back of the cave leads into quite accessible tubes and chambers if you don’t mind crawling now and again.

Cheshire Wood Cave is located on a high crag at the top of the woods, about 15ft below the ridge line. Access is pretty tricky from below although if you have a head for heights approaching the cave from above is easier and was possibly the original way of entry.
The mouth of the cave is large and impressive with a further crawl in the back of chamber.
Getting a good photo of the cave was almost impossible such is the steepness of the slope below the cave mouth.

Kinda deep down I was hoping to find another Raven Tor Triple Cairn, the mention of these cairns on Stanton Moor as being a triple cairn was too good to resist. I knew they were gonna be covered in heather but was hopeful non the less.
On the ground the cairns are a mish mash of decent sized kerbstones and small sections of well preserved walling but in all it’s a very confusing and overgrown site.

The barrow is a pretty prominent feature above a rocky outcrop. Up close however the barrow stands in rough ground is disturbed by a lime kiln, hence the name, and all its debris.
Situated on a local high spot the barrow has good views all round...well not quite...the insanely massive Ballidon quarry interferes a little with the southern horizon.

This ruined barrow with its equally ruined cist lies about 100m from the Roystone Grange Trail. Although the NMR reckons the barrow is largely undisturbed apart from in the NW.
Named after the stone shed that stands nearby which was once used as an explosives store the barrow has good views out over the Roystone Valley.
Battered but possibly the most interesting of the half dozen or so barrows along the valleys eastern edge.

This is a nice spot...on a steep sided hillside south of Ashbourne overlooking the river Henmoor. Fine views out over Ashbourne to the hills of Bunster and Thorpe Cloud at the mouth of Dove Dale.

The O.S map marks the mound as a tumulus, although John Barnatt notes it as only a possible example in his ‘Barrow Corpus’. There are no recorded excavations.

I’ve dropped one of my remaining three bollocks....and so in all probability this stone should maybe removed from the website...As it is more than likely a rubbing post.
The Dodds, A.E & E.M, even mention it as such in their book “Peakland Roads and Tracks”.

So even though the entry for the larger Bradstone on Pastscape.org did mention two stones (one smaller than the other) at roughly this location, it would seem they referred instead to the, ‘known missing’, standing stone further to the east.

Sorry.

Standing 60m north of the Bank Top oval barrow is a Bronze Age round barrow, again, like its older neighbour the mound is not that impressive. Some 12m in diameter and below 1m in height a drystone wall cuts across this barrow too.

The Bank Top Neolithic oval barrow is located below the crest of a local high point and orientated east-west. A little over 13m in length and maybe 5m wide the barrow is very low although gains in height towards its western end, which is helped by the fact that its eastern end is down slope.
Just over Haven Hill from Wigber Low which lies to the west.
No recorded excavations and with a drystone wall built over it not very photogenic.

Not as impressive as the Holyhead Mountain Hut Group, but getting to see them isn’t a problem, as they are visible from the roadside.

John Barnatt and others have never been able to decide, without excavation, whether this ditched square mound is a barrow, a modified barrow or as its name suggests a gallows site.
Square barrows are not unknown in the Peak several examples are to be found on Harland Edge in the Beeley Moor area and also on Stanton Moor.

Visible from the roadside on Manystones Lane.

Around 20x19m in diameter this barrow has been robbed of most of its stone, leaving only the rim and a central hollow with a surviving stone of a cist. (One of half a dozen barrows in the area with an exposed cist).
Gallows Low Lane access is pretty straightforward, the track to the Roystone Grange Trail passes right by the barrow; and it is worth a look when in the Minninglow area.

No recorded excavations.

Situated on a shelf of land just below, and to the south of Harland Edge proper, this slightly ovoid/ovid? cairn enjoys far reaching views to the south down the Wye Valley. Completely covered in heather the mound stands to a little over 1.5m, kerbstones detectable under foot in the NW and SE sectors of the cairn’s rim.
On the whole disappointing and perhaps not worth the effort of crossing the very wet moorland.

No known records of any excavations.

A small square cairn standing on the opposite end (SE) of Harland Edge to Hob Hurst’s House square barrow and to the south of the similarly shaped Rod Knoll.
Situated on a local high spot the isolated cairn, 3x3m, stands on stoney ground in an area where there are remains of medieval lead boles, and so can be tricky to find.

Standing a little over 1m in height this stone isn’t as impressive as the majority of others found on Anglesey, but is easy to find standing by the A5 near the showground.

Blackstones Low stands at 295m above sea level, in a scrub landscape, on the geological border between the carboniferous and dolomotised limestones.

Well preserved the barrow enjoys, making allowances for the hideous Ballidon Quarry, some wonderous views over an ancient and historic landscape that includes Minninglow, the Roystone Valley, Black Rocks and the Longcliffe Crags; the location of Rains Cave.

Located on Open Access land the barrow is relatively easy to find although a parking spot close to the site is difficult. Although the barrow could quite easily be included in a trip to the Roystone Valley.

Local rumour has it that after 7 years of slumber the Middle Peak Quarry is about to be reworked and even better..... extended. Unfortuantely the stone and, to a much lesser extent, the narrow road that passes it by are likely to be amongst the casualities. An alternative road/route already exists and well the stone.....is just a stone to a lot of folk living in Wirksworth, that is if they know it’s there at all.

So along with the extensions to the quarries around Stanton and the recently approved plans to rework and extend the rakes on Longstone Edge it would appear that the Peak is all out to invert itself....

John Barnatt seems to have binned his theory of the moor being divided, by the Bar Brook, into separate working and ritual areas after his survey of a few years ago.
The location of the Barbrook V ring cairn on the SW limits of the field system always caused me a bit of doubt over whether this was the case.....Barnatt andAinsworth’s survey of the moor a few years ago turned up 5-6 barrows, which were previously thought to be large clearance cairns.
Details of whether the opposite took place and field systems were laid out on the eastern side aren’t so forthcoming....

I wouldn’t go balls out and say this was a place not to be missed like....but it’s all part of the Hope Valleys bigger picture.

The circular enclosure is more visible from the road. Up close and personal the enclosure walls can still be made out by following the encompassing moss covered rocks, but other possible structures within the enclosure can make for a confusing time of it.

Dated to the Bronze or Iron Age the enclosure is suggested to have been either for holding livestock (a similar purpose has been suggested for The Holmes a few km’s away to the SW), or a small farmstead. The confusion of walls within the enclosure interpreted as the foundations of small buildings.

Crikey Me!

What’s happened to the Bull Ring...? This is still Dove Holes ain’t it?
All nicely mown, no motorbike tracks and totally devoid of any rubbish. Even a little information board has appeared on the path between the henge and the oval barrow.
Looks as if the village is finally taking a bit of pride in the Bull Ring and what is one of Northern Britains best upstanding henges.

It’s always been a worthy place to visit and in its present state perhaps more so. Even a typical wet October day in the High Peak didn’t put a damper on the experience.

This is a top spot. Maybe not right up there in the list of Anglesey’s ‘must-see’ monuments... but hey... with the kids in tow, the dunes at Aberffraw Bay looked pretty good and the cairn a bonus.

There’s not much left. The rim of the cairn and a handful of decent sized kerbstones. Perched on a small spur on the west side of the bay, above the point where the River Ffraw joins the sea.With views over to Snowdon and the mountains along the coast towards the Llyn Peninsular it’s a top spot.

In the CADW guide for Anglesey the cairn gets a brief mention for the Mesolithic material it covered.

I’ve got a similar photo to Moth’s of this stone. It looks a decent enough sized stone from the roadside, perhaps 4ft or so in height. Compare it though to some of Anglesey’s other stones and it’s a bit of a dwarf. I’m afraid to say because of this, there wasn’t any real motivation on my part to find a way through the hedge.

Bryn Celli Ddu just gets better and better with each return visit, although the small restored mound can look a little odd from certain angles....

Opposite the chambers entrance on the outer edge of the ditch are a number of small kerbstones. Excavation revealed them to be the remains of a stone and timber enclosure that contain the burial of an ox (see Rhiannon’s Folklore entry below).

All that’s left of this cairn is a large earthfast boulder, split down the centre, that the farmers and stone robbers couldn’t cart off.
Wish I’d ‘a known that before I set off looking for Bedd Branwen.
Read all about it in the museum at Llangefni on the way home.

Sadly the henge only survives as a cropmark now-a-days... Once some 80m in diameter the earthwork had entrances to the NW and SE.

All is not lost though the Round Hill barrow that sat within the centre of the henge is still going strong, a huge thing... over 30m in diameter and a little over 3m in height.

Neither henge nor barrow have been excavated.

This is a lovely looking stone. So its unacknowledged position under a large conifer by the side of the path in York Museum’s Gardens seems a little odd.

I e-mailed the museum later in the week to find out something about the stone, and was informed that it was one of two stones discovered on the moors around Whitby and given to the Yorkshire Philosophical Society by Canon Raines in 1895. It’s partner is now lost.

“Severn Trent’s contribution to the long-standing tradition of Derbyshire hill top monuments”….

That’s what it says on the info board….and that’s what keeps going over and over through your mind when you look at Carsington Water’s Stones Island.....On it are without doubt, the crappiest collection, of the most ugly looking manufactured stones ever assembled together in a sorta circle (?) fashion...

Shame when you consider the Bronze Age barrow that, until quite recently, went unnoticed/unacknowledged by the waters edge on the northern side of Stones Island was gonna be the centrepiece….

A causeway linking the 40m between the reservoirs shoreline and the 28m diameter mound was soon forgotten when later Anglo-Saxon burials were also found…fearing possible hoards of metal detector carrying folk…
The idea was scrapped in favour of today’s visual delight.

There’s been a half-hearted attempt to make something of the barrow of late….
An archway in the style of a Bronze Age roundhouse over the path to the barrow and a model showing the stratigraphy….which is pretty useless without a board explaining what it’s all about.

All that aside the Hognaston barrow is still worth a visit….even if it’s only for the “you’ve flooded a valley and I’m still here…….Bring it on” factor.

Brund Low is a corkin’ barrow, around 40m in diameter and possibly 1.8m in height.

One of a handful of barrows situated around the Upper Manifold Valley. Although Brund Low doesn’t occupy any of the local high ground like its neighbours. Instead it appears to mirror the almost ‘barrow-shaped’ lump of Sheen Hill, coupla hundred yards away to the NE.

Excavated by Carrington 1851 and Sheldon 1894.
A small cairn within the mound was found to be covering a small pit containing a human cremation. Flint scrapers, human bone and bronze artefacts were also recovered.
Carrington also found 2 small stones each with a single cup mark. (Stored: Sheffield’s Weston Park Museum.)

Almost completely lost to several centuries of the plough, the barrow’s dimensions are pretty tricky to calculate.
Ah well. T’aint too bad as the barrow’s isolated location along with the great views from up here to a number of other Bronze Age burials in the vicinity more than make up for its unexciting proportions.

Excavated by Bateman snr and Mitchell in 1825.
They uncovered a human burial within a rock cut grave, and some evidence for later re-use.
Excavation info: J.Barnatt’s & J. Collis’ “Barrow Corpus”

The barrow is on private land.

Quite low, no more than 75cm in height, the tree covered barrow is roughly 19 x 16m in diameter.

On the whole this mound is typical of the barrows that have survived on the enclosed farmland of the White Peak.
Surprisingly(?) both Batemans dug this mound, William first in the 1820’s followed by son Thomas 20yrs later. A large number of finds were recorded. Consisting of an inhumation in a rock cut grave, a bronze dagger and a handful of quartz pebbles.

Elsewhere within the mound a polished stone axe, stone battleaxe, flint and bone tools along with sherds of Beaker pottery were found.
Further evidence revealed a re-use of the barrow in Romano-Britsh and Anglo-Saxon era.

The knoll is one of the ‘woodlands for the millenium schemes’ and so seems to be an excuse to pile a few millstones together and throw a meaningful poetic plaque at them. The view however is superb with barrows on horizons near and far in every direction.
Access is from the Mount Pleasant Farm side of the knoll.

Excavation info:
J.Barnatt’s “Barrow Corpus”

As with many of the barrows in this area of the Peak, Larks Low has been somewhat rattled by the plough.

Today the barrow measures approx. 12 x 9m in diameter, and stands to a height of 50-75cm. A rock cut grave covered by a limestone slab held several cremations and a inhumation.
Animal bones, a small burial urn, quartz pebbles and a bronze pin/point were also recovered.

A nice enough little barrow tucked away in a very quiet corner of the Peak, 800m walk through the dry (most of the year) wooded limestone valley of Rusden.

Finds from:
J.Barnatt’s & J. Collis’ “Barrow Corpus”

Almost ploughed out. Only the slightest mound remains here, in diameter it’s maybe 17m or so...tricky to say.

The location of the barrow and its views over to Aleck Low, Minninglow and Kenslow Knoll are still impressive even if the barrow is not.

Thomas Bateman excavated here a coupla times in the 1840’s, his old fella, William, had already given the barrow a seeing to 20yrs earlier.

The barrow turned up a number of flint tools (?) and waste flakes…Three burials from the Romano-British period were also found in the barrow….
(info on finds: J.Barnatt’s & J. Collis’ “Barrow Corpus”)

My local barrow.

In diameter the barrow’s maybe 20m and approx. 1.75m in height. It survives in tact; never excavated. On the western side of the mound a shallow ditch remains, highlighted today by the remains of the recent snow.

Rising up outta Matlock Dale opposite the limestone cliffs of High Tor, Masson is one of the Peak’s great hills sitting on the south-eastern edge of the White Peak, it’s also one of the last before reaching the plains that stretch northwards from Chesterfield.

The views from up here are excellent. The flood plains of the Trent are to the south with Shardlow’s power stations marking the location of the henge complexes and cursus that once stood there. Stanton Moor, Longstone Edge, Froggat Edge and the hills of the Dark Peak beyond, are to the north.

Minninglow hill, and its beech trees are visible from most of the Peak’s high ground….and from many of the White Peak’s barrows. From here it’s three quarters of a mile away to the west.

Masson’s barrow however is one of only a small handful of burial mounds to have a proper two way thing going on with Minning Low.

The concrete slab on top the barrow is for the base of a trig point, Masson;s summit only being 100yds to the east.