The largest of the rocking stones at Rowtor Rocks.
Image credit: Thomas Bateman
stubob
“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.
Detail of the three cup and ring carvings at Rowtor Rocks.
Image credit: After DAJ
One of the two carved stones, noted by Hugo Reads, found lying near the barrow.
The stones, now lost, are thought perhaps to have been part of a cist.
Image credit: After Hugo Reads
Detail of the tricky to find third carving.
Image credit: After DAJ
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.
The ‘serpent’ carving to the left and its lower neighbour.
Image credit: After DAJ
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.
05/03. View from Bamford North across the Ashop Valley and Ladybower. The location of the kerb/stone circle at Crook Hill marked.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the 15th Century the cave was known as Tursthous which translated means ‘giants house’.
The fissure cave on the tumbled limestone rocks of Hob’s House, on the northern side of Fin Cop, was once said to be the home of the giant Hulac Warren (sometimes Hector Warren) or Hob.
On a bend in the river, closer to Demons Dale, stands the Warren Stone. Which is said to be the petrified remains of the giant who was turned to stone for the attempted rape of a shepherdess. During the attack she either fell or threw herself to her death. Where her body landed a spring of pure water formed.
In an old local rhyme suggesting witchcraft in the area, Hob is portrayed as a fiddler:
The piper of Shacklow,
The fiddler of Fin,
The old woman of Demons Dale,
Calls them all in.
Lots of pics of this quoit and others.
“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!”
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.
Local legend has it that Cromwell’s Parliamentarian troops set up a cannon on the barrow and fired on the town of Ashbourne a little more than a mile away.
Several of the cannon balls are displayed at St Oswald’s church in the town.
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.
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.
The hill, previously known as Howback Hill, is said to be named after a sheep rustler who was too tall to be hanged.