Doreen Valiente in her book ‘An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present’ reckons the name of Rudston is derived from the Old-Norse Hrodr-steinn meaning ‘the famous stone‘
stubob
This small barrow perhaps 13m in diameter lies just off the Tissington Trail near the Stonepit Plantation. Car Park at SK156548.
Thomas Bateman was here in 1845 and upon digging the mound found a crouched skeleton accompanied by a bronze dagger.
Marked on O.S maps as Crake Low this mound is suggested by Barnatt to be mining spoil, rather than the barrow described by Bateman in this area, in which he had found human bones.
This cairn measures around 22m in diameter and survives to a height of around 1m.
T. Bateman excavated here in the mid 1840’s finding a large cist central to the mound in which was a crouched skeleton. A smaller cist within the larger one was also uncovered containing a cremation. On top of these two features were two other skeletal burials, flints and an antler tine.
Pastscapes information:
A rock overhang circa 8 metres deep with a maximum of 2 metres headroom in Bunker’s Hill Wood, Beeley Moor. Discovered and partially excavated in 1957, more extensive excavation was undertaken in 1966. Artefacts recovered seem to comprise solely sherds of Bronze Age collared urns. No flint, stone or bone objects or remains were encountered, and no trace of a burial was identified in the area of the potsherds.
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”A 5,000-YEAR-OLD “excarnation platform”, where the bodies of prehistoric humans were left to rot and be picked clean by predators, has been found in the Peak District.”
In 1996 as the Long Rake quarrying on Longstone Moor was getting ever larger English Heritage were called in to excavate 2 barrows which, within weeks, were about to take a 150ft tumble onto the quarry floor below.
One of the barrows covered over an excarnation platform, only the 2nd to be identified in Britain. It was composed of a one to two feet high limestone semi-circular rubble wall which then enclosed a platform. An entrance with three standing stones was later closed using rubble and a Bronze Age burial placed within the platform itself.
Sad thing is nowt remains. The quarry got bigger and the thing disappeared.
Excavated by Carrington in 1849 the barrow was found to contain a contracted inhumation accompanied by several leaf shaped arrowheads and other unspecified flints. The mound also contained a secondary cremation.
For what is life? And what is life like? I do not know what Life is but Life is like yesterday at Minninglow where as I peered over the flank of the grassy kist-crowned hill I saw a circle of six unmapped Neolithic standing stones I had not realised were there. Gray in the vernal sun lay they, Dinantian limestone sarsens honed round by the howling hail of ages. Gray as the drystone dykes and ice-plucked slabs and quarry walls about me. Always curious about antique things I strode against the freezing wind to see them, and they raised their heads and skittered in alarm.
James R Warren.
Perditions Illusion. 2006.
(jamesrwarren.com/perdita1.pdf)
From J D Sainter’s “Scientific Rambles Round Macclesfield” 1878:
‘At a short distance south of Rock Hall, there may be observed on the opposite slope of Hen Cloud a block of gritstone, which upon approaching it, is found to be resting or balanced, in the first place, upon a short edge of rock and then upon two upright and pointed stone pillars about eighteen inches in height, which will constitute a dolmen. At a few yards south of this stone there appears to be the remains of a stone circle, 20 feet in diameter.‘
From J D Sainters “Scientific Rambles Round Macclesfield” 1878:
‘East of this sephulchral cell or monument, there stood six or eight upright stones or monoliths, from 8-10feet in height and six feet apart, which formed a circle 27 feet in diameter; and two other stones stood north by south within this circle, which may have been the remains of a cromlech or dolmen that had contained a burial by process of cremation, since the soil is reported black with charcoal ashes. Another stone stood six yards east from this circle, succeeded by one six yards beyond it......‘
“On the eminence above Matlock Church, called Riber Hill, are the remains of what has been supposed a Druidical altar, but which has more resemblance to a cromlech; it is called the Hirst Stones, and consists of four rude masses of gritstone, one of which, apparently the smallest, is placed on the others, and is computed to weigh about two tons, on the upper side of which is a circular hole, made for the reception of a pillar in modern times...”
T. Bateman “Vesitiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire.
“On the declivity of a hill on Ashover Common is a rocking stone, called by the people ‘Robin Hood’s Mark’ which measures 26 feet in circumference, and from its extraordinary position evidently not only appears to have been a work of art, but to have been placed with great ingenuity. About 200 yards to the north of this is a singularly-shaped rock, called the ‘Turning stone’, in height 9 feet, supposed by Mr Rooke to have been a rock idol...”
T. Bateman “Vesitiges of the Antiquities of Derbyshire.
“Nearly a quarter of a mile west of Row-tor is another assemblage of large rocks, forming a similar kind of hill, called Bradley-tor, after a former owner of the property on which they stand; on the upper part is a rocking stone 32 feet in circumference, and of orbicular shape, and raised above the ground by 2 stones having a passage between them. This conforms in every aspect to the Tolmens or rock idols described in Borlase’s ‘Antiquities of Cornwall’ in which part of England there are many examples of this form rocking-stones....”
T. Bateman “Vestiges of the Antiquities of Derbys”
The mound was excavated by T.Bateman in 1845. He found the primary burial of contracted inhumation and several later cremations.
The inhumation was accompanied by flint tools including a dagger and an axe.
In relation to the cremations pottery, a barbed arrowhead and quartz pebbles accompanied one.
The other appeared later and held unspecified Anglian artefacts.
“A cursus monument at Aston Upon Trent, orientated roughly southwest-northeast and located on the gravels of the trent valley, circa 1 kilometre northwest of the present course of the river.
The cursus appears to be a regular rectangle, the long sides parallel and circa 100 metres apart. The southwest terminal is straight, and meets both sides at right angles. The northeast terminal has not been recorded as a cropmark, but may well have lain in an area which has been quarried away. If so, the cursus would have originally been a little over 1.5 kilometres in length.
The cursus ditch was sectioned in the mid-1960s by D Reaney, though no finds were made. The recorded stratigraphy suggested an internal bank.
Further small-scale excavation occurred in 1986 at a point where the cursus ditch appeared to intersect with a ring ditch (SK 42 NW 59), towards the cursus’ south western end. The cursus ditch appeared to run into and cut the ring ditch, and was therefore later in date. The slightness of the ring ditch and the nature of its fill suggests that there is unlikely to have been a mound of any substantial nature in its interior. Finds were few, and none from primary contexts. They comprised a thumb nail scraper, another worked flint, and a few sherds of pottery, identifiable as Grimston and Beaker ware.
Adjacent to the ring ditch is another, not excavated, but also contained within the cursus. In 1995, an existing field drain alongside Acre Lane (in the area circa SK 42442968) was enlarged as part of work associated with construction of the Derby Southern Bypass.
The sides of the drain were recorded archaeologically. The western cursus ditch was not present, suggesting the existence of a gap or causeway. The eastern cursus ditch, though not visible on air photographs at this point, was located. Pollen samples were collected, and a fragment of waterlogged wood is to be used for radiocarbon dating.”
Info from English Heritage’s www.pastscape.org.uk
Two decorated stones were found at Ramsor Farm in the late 1990’s.
The first, a sandstone slab found while digging a drain, appears to have been broken off a larger stone and is marked with 5-7 cups.
The second found 30m away in the foundations of a wall consists of a cup mark and gutter surrounded by 4 rings and a group of two more similar rings. Badly worn this stone also looked to have been part of a larger design.
A gritstone slab with 12 cup marks and a curved line was dicovered here in 1996 by a farmer digging a well.
The site is around a mile away from other rock art finds in the area at Ball Cross and Calton Pastures.
The stone as with most of its neighbours is in the Sheffield museum at Weston Park.
When the cairn above Barbrook I was excavated and restored in the early 1980’s four carved stones were found.
a) rectangular slab with a cup and ring marking.
b) triangular slab with 4 cup marks along an edge.
c) single cup mark on small slab
d) slab with 2 cups on one side and one on the other.
All the stones are stored in the Weston Park museum in Sheffield.
Excavated between 1985-90 by M & K Dalton the cave revealed the burials of 2 infants accompanied by pottery, flint scrapers, animal bones and a small copper axe.
The stones were said to have been removed by the builder of Riber Castle, John Smedley, as they were an affront to his christian ways.
W. Storrs Fox excavated the cave in 1911, well sent a couple of local lads into the fissure, they recovered the bones of a subadult(?) and Bronze Age pottery.
Excavated in the 1950’s and 60’s the cave deposits held the remains of 2 adults and 4 children accompanied by flint flakes, Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery, a deer antler and animal bones.
The cave was excavated in the 1950’s by Emery and Mills. The finds included the disarticulated bones of what would have been 2 adults and 2 children along with an antler tine, animal bones, chert flakes and pottery from the Early Neolithic. Later Iron Age pottery was also recovered.
Excavated in the 1830’s and then in the 1920-30’s by Wilson the cave gave up a wide range of artefacts including Upper Palaeolithic flints, Bronze Age pottery, flints and a jet armlet; along with later Romano deposits and a Saxon hoard.
“There Riber’s mount recalls the Druid’s fame,
Altar, and idol-rite, and blood-fed flame ;
Mount stretches over moor, and there o’er all,
Faint as a setting cloud at daylight’s fall..”
John Allen, 19th Century.
An excerpt from:
FROM JOHN O’ GROAT’S TO LAND’S END OR 1372 MILES ON FOOT by Robert Naylor and John Naylor 1916.
“One of the poets has described them:
The heavy rocks of giant size
That o’er the land in circles rise.
Of which tradition may not tell,
Fit circles for the Wizard spell;
Seen far amidst the scowling storm
Seem each a tall and phantom form,
As hurrying vapours o’er them flee
Frowning in grim security,
While like a dread voice from the past
Around them moans the autumnal blast!”
In A.E & E.M Dodds’ excellent book ‘Peakland Roads and Trackways’ they mention the stone as marking a change in direction along the Saxon track called the Old Portway.
The Kings Chair outcrop on the NE horizon pointing where to head next.
I’ve read elsewhere that the small cross may have been an attempt to christianise an ancient pagan stone...Although on the other hand the cross may indicate the stone’s close proximity to the parish boundary and was included in the Rogationtide perambulations as elsewhere in the Peak.
A slab bearing 24 cup marks was found in a stile nearby and was speculated to have been broken off a larger panel.
Another sandstone boulder with a single cup mark was found in one of the surrounding walls.
Both in Stoke-on-Trent’s museum.
The barrows central pit postman mentions is the result of stone robbing which is also responsible for the hollows on the southern side. Although not fully excavated the finds from the barrow included a rock cut grave, which contained the remains of human bones. More human bones were found elsewhere within the mound along with flint tools, horse bones and teeth and a number of antler tines.
Info: J.Barnatt, B.Marsden.
The Murder Stone: a standing stone 150m north west of Cornfield Farm.
“...stone erected on a ridge above the brook at Handley Fold. The stone is a triangular natural slab of local gritstone. It is earthfast and stands on the crest of the ridge affording good visibility in all directions except the north east where the view is obscured by higher ground. The stone measures 1.22m at its widest point and 0.44m deep. It stands 1.14m high.
NMR(1995).
” A monstrous parcel of gigantic rocks, seemingly pil’d one a top of another as in the wars of the gods”
William Stukeley.
Further to Rhiannon’s notes below the name Gib Hill refers to the local story of the barrow once being a gibbet site, although the name ‘gib’ is an olde english word for mound.
On the other hand the name Bunkers Hill, a name given to a number of features here in the Peak that includes hills, a plantation and a rock shelter, comes from the famous victory or is it defeat never too sure which and we did loose in the end, for the British in the American war of independence at Bunkers Hill.
A Neolithic cursus monument visible as the cropmark traces of two parallel ditches circa 40 metres apart and running roughly south-south-west to east-north-east.
The site was first trenched in 1967, and further survey and excavation has occurred since the late 1980s. The cursus has been traced for a distance of at least 1560 metres, lying near the edge of the flood-plain of the Trent. Excavations in 1994-5 in advance of work on a bypass recovered Peterborough Ware sherds close to the bottom of the southern cursus ditch.
Charred organic remains were also present, from which radiocarbon dates are to be sought. The excavations also uncovered a causeway between 10.5 and 19 metres in length through the northern ditch. Within this casueway were a cluster of short linear features and a post hole, all presumably evidence for controlling access into the monument.
Another break in the northern ditch was shown to have been created to accommodate the course of a stream, which still runs through it. The 1994-5 excavations also confirmed that the 1969 excavations had in fact found a series of natural features which were mistakenly interpreted as representing the cursus ditches.
Information from: www.pastscape.org.uk
Named after St Peter’s in Rome; the domed top of the outcrop similar in shape to that of the church there.
A handaxe was discovered in the scree close-by and was perhaps associated with a barrow that is speculated to have been located in this area.
It was also the location of the Peak’s last gibbeting in 1815.
Measuring 16x16m and below 0.5m in height the barrow is dated to the Bronze Age.
Excavated in 1825 by William Bateman and in 1844 by son Thomas. Traces of burnt bone from a cremation were found along with later Anglian additions.
The barrow measures 16x12m by 0.5m high, dated to the Bronze age,it is topped by the socketed base of a medieval cross.
Thomas Bateman excavated in 1846 discovering a central cist and the disturbed remains of three adult and two infant burials accompanied by burnt bones, pot
shards, flint tools, and parts of a shale bracelet and a necklace delicately made from jet and ivory.
Both the cist and the barrows kerb both noted by Bareman have been removed at some point.
Sited above a gritstone outcrop this is a circular cairn about 13x13m and 1.75m in height.
Although disturbed there are no records of any excavations.
23m by 20m and standing some 2m high and dated to the Bronze Age.
Excavated by Thomas Bateman in 1849 whose finds included a limestone cist containing a crouched skeleton interred with a
flint implement. On the cist’s capstone was a smaller limestone cist which contained a collared urn containing a cremation burial along with a flint tool and a pot shard.
Bateman discovered a further 3 more similar burials within the barrow itself. A 5th burial consisited of a skeleton which had been
skeleton which had been either burned/defleshed, the long bones being laid parallel to one another whilst still fresh.
Other cremated human remains were found within the barrow including one in an urn.
Explored between 1958-1963.
Finds included three pieces of worked flint, sherds of a Bronze Age collared urn, some sherds described as earlier in date, two worked antler fragments in association with some animal bones, a range of faunal remains including bear, reindeer, hare and cat, and a bone point of possible Upper Palaeolithic date.
There are 4 supposed/possible/probable/likely barrows on Daisy Bank; at SK2060 5649, SK2060 5650, SK2057 5648 and SK2065 5670.
T. Bateman excavated some of the barrow, more than likely heading straight for the primary burial, in 1857. He discovered a crouched burial on a bed of clay within a rock-cut grave, also found in the grave was a bone tool, several flints and an early bronze age decorated drinking vessel.
Further to danieljackson’s fieldnotes [removed]:-
The three stones referred to... while not modern... aren’t prehistoric either unfortunately. The single stone in the photograph [removed] is a Medieval boundary marker known as the Moat Stone, while the pair of stones are more than likely old gateposts, there are wall foundation stones along this alignment which can be found after a bit of poking around. Again. that’s not to say the stones are modern..... Gateham Grange, within very casual spitting distance of the stones, was part of the important Anglo-Saxon manor of Alstonefield, and the area was farmed at least from the 11th Century onwards.
Major Hayman Rooke suggested that the name of Rootor came about in reference to the outcrops rocking stones, of which there once were reputedly 8 or 9.
The word ‘roo’ being an old Peak(/English?) word for something that moves “to and fro”.
The village of Birchover was also once known by the same name, Rowtor/Rootor.
Charles Knight in his book Old England (1845) wrote of Le Mont de la Ville as being:
“....a copy in miniature of such vast works as those of Stonehenge and Avebury....”
No mistake.....the passage grave is an excellent looking structure and it still is....errr....just that it’s not actually on Jersey anymore.
Knight continues:
“This singular monument, which was found buried under the earth, was removed some fifty years ago [in 1785] by General Conway [to make way for his parade ground] to his seat near Henley, the stones being placed in his garden according to the original plan.”
It’s still there today in a private garden.
William Camden (1551-1623) was one of the very first antiquarians, and a leading member of the Society of Antiquaries, established around 1588. In his book of 1586 ‘Britannia’, written in Latin and translated and published a number of times the first in 1610, Camden describes man made and natural wonders.
“Near that bleak and dreary region, between Penrith and Kendal, called Shapfells, was, some thirty years ago, another remarkable Druidical monument; but upon the inclosure of the parish of Shap the stones were blown up by gunpowder, and were converted into rude fences.” (see photos above).
Ossum’s Crag appears mainly to have been an occupational site, although human bone was recovered during excavation.
Flint and chert artefacts including blades and scrapers from the both the Mesolithic and Neolithic, prehistoric pottery, hearths and animal bones ranging from bison to vole.
Don Bramwell in his 1954 book ‘Archaeology in the Peak District’ suggested that a small raised ridge in the caves floor was used by flint knappers as an anvil stone.
Nan Tor when excavated contained a wide array of prehistoric material including various parts of the human skeleton, Neolithic pottery, flint tools and arrowheads from the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age, bone tools, animal bones, pendants and again later finds up until the Medieval period.
Excavated by Thomas and Moore in 1962 the cave contained a disarticulated Neolithic burial along with a leaf-shaped arrowhead, a microlith, a thumb scraper and animal bones. The cave also contained later Romano-British artefacts.
Of the two barrows on Chelmorton Low the SW barrow, at 24x21m diameter and some 1.7m in height, is the largest. Its partner 20m away (NE), being 18x17m and 1m high.
SW: Was first dug in the early 1780’s, revealing a cist in the north-eastern edge of the mound,and containing the remains of perhaps five burials. Later excavations located a 20m diameter ring of limestone kerbing.
NE: Has been excavated by a number of people, amongst them T. Bateman in 1846 who recovered a number of flint artefacts and evidence of a cremation. Again work in the 1960’s uncovered kerbstones, this time set out in a polygon shape
Thomas Bateman made the steep climb up Narrowdale Hill in 1846.
Heading straight for the centre of the barrow he soon found the primary burial, a cremation contained within a rock cut grave along with an urn and flint. The capstone that covered the grave had a later cremation, also in an urn, placed on top.
A small cist of limestone slabs, holding a still later cremation, was also unearthed close to the barrows surface in the SE. This burial too contained worked pieces of flint and antler.