Five Wells has two chambers – the western facing chamber is battered about and only the two portal stones remain. Collapsed against each other the southern stone looks like it has been snapped in half, the rest of the chamber is either buried or has been smashed and removed. What is left is the gorgeous eastern chamber with a pair of 1.5 metre portal stones, flanking slabs about 2 metres in length with a smaller stone forming the back of the chamber which is as about a metre wide inside. I can’t imagine anybody resisting the temptation to sit inside the chamber and contemplate the meaning of life, which is probably why somebody has put a layer of gravel on the floor of the chamber – it must have got pretty churned up over the years. The whole thing would have been covered with a mound of earth and could well have had a kerb of stones, all of which was removed in the 19th century partly by antiquarian excavations and partly for building material although the chambers still stand on a small raised mound.
One thing you can’t miss of course are the views north across the Wye Valley and Chee Dale, luckily for me there was no sign of activity in the quarry and the place was beautifully peaceful with just a few cows grazing in the distance. I couldn’t help noticing cow pats covering the field between the stile and the site itself, so be aware that you may have to fight your way through bovine beasties to get here. Well worth it though.
Chris Collyer
This is a strange one, a carved stone in a wood on the posh outskirts of south west Sheffield, but there are a few clues to work from. First thing you notice as you approach the wood from the northeast is that you’re going uphill, if you carry on for another few miles you’re onto the moors with Ash Cabin Flat only 4 miles and Barbrook 5 miles from the stone. So it stands close to an existing prehistoric landscape, it’s just that the urbanisation of Sheffield has destroyed anything to the east – it’s a miracle that this stone survived. This hillside position is also close to the River Sheaf which reminded me of the stones that overlook the Wharf on Ilkley Moor. Also the general design is typically ‘Yorkshire’ with the gutter that runs around the edge of the rock being very similar to The Planets. The similarity with the rocks to the west ends with the condition of the stone however. The grooves are so deeply cut in places and the edges so sharp that it’s hard to believe that it’s the same age as the worn and eroded west Yorkshire rocks which leads me to one of three conclusions. First, that this wood is *very* old and has protected the stone from the worst of the elements, I would still expect more erosion though. Second is that the stone has been buried for a long time – certainly in October it had almost vanished under a layer of leaves. Thirdly is that the stone came from somewhere else where it maybe formed part of the inside a cairn and was moved here for some reason by those overenthusiastic 19th century antiquarians, a lack of other rocks in the wood might support this theory.
Whichever, it’s still a lovely example of a carved stone – I love it!
The better preserved of the two barrows (although it has a large crater in the top) this one stands close to the southwest entrance to the hillfort and has some gorgeous views to the north, south and west. It could be that it formed a chain of monuments stretching westwards along Rushup Edge including Lord’s Seat and Green Low.
As Stubob says Creswell Crags is a little lost world, as you drive in from the west the cliff faces and the lake make a welcome change from the surrounding area which I found uniformly run-down and depressing (apologies to anybody who lives locally) While you’re there you can take a tour of Robin Hood’s Cave, you get to wear a hard hat with miners lamp and are shown a short way into the cave by a knowledgeable guide who gives a potted history of the site and passes round various bones and flints to illustrate different occupation periods – most of these flints are modern replicas though. It’s not the most wildly exiting tour but our guide was enthusiastic and certainly knew her stuff, she was more than capable of answering any questions fired at her. The tour is £2.75 for adults and lasts around an hour and a quarter including walking time.
This is a pair of Bronze Age round barrows that overlook the sea to the south of Robin Hood’s Bay and not far from the Raven Hall Hotel. Did that carved stone come from here? These barrows seem to be set apart from the barrow cemeteries to the west on Brow Moor, Howdale Moor and Stony Marl Moor and are situated below the crest of a small hill on it’s eastern side with fine views across the bay – this view must have been important to the builders of the barrows. The largest barrow measures about 18 metres in diameter and 1.3 metres tall while the other barrow 30 metres to the east is smaller at 15 metres across and less than half a metre high – it has been badly damaged by ploughing. Both barrow mounds were constructed with earth and rubble and both would have had a surrounding ditch measuring about 3 metres wide, these ditches have now been filled and can no longer be seen. Close by there is a ditch that I thought may have been part of a dike system, on later investigation it turned out to be only Medieval.
As Fitz notes ‘it’s a bit posh’, there’s a sign on the door asking walkers to remove their boots before entering the hotel and I expected to be pitched out of the building by a pair of burly butlers but in fact the staff were courteous and helpful. As for the carving, the whole design has been quite lightly chipped out of the rock and the original pick marks can be seen. This would suggest that the rock has not been exposed to the elements for long which would fit with the reports of it being found within the protecting mound of a barrow or cairn, nobody seems to know which one but it’s supposed to have been from somewhere close by. I have to say I’m doubtful about Pebble’s other cup marked rocks here (although I wouldn’t put money on it), looking at the battlements many of the blocks of stone are heavily weathered particularly those that overlook the sea directly, some of which could almost be described as rotting away.
This barrow cemetery in the northeast corner of Broxa Forest is a little different to the average collection of Bronze Age bowl barrows. There are a few scattered around and mostly buried in the undergrowth, one worth looking at is Swarth Howe at SE970941 which would have had fine views across the valley of the East and West Syme. Now surrounded by trees and damaged it has a small 1 metre high raised mound in the middle with the rest of the low mound measuring about 16 metres across.
What I was really interested in this time were some monuments I had never seen before – Iron Age ‘square’ barrows. Dating from somewhere between 500BC and the coming of the Romans these square barrows are a bit of a rarity and many have been ploughed away but they seem to occur in a greater frequency in the area between the Humber and North Yorkshire than anywhere else in the country. Their design, as would be expected is a square or rectangular flat topped mound usually covering a burial in a pit, with flanking ditches, some also seem to have traces of a small bank outside the ditch and occasionally the burial is accompanied with rich grave goods such as dismantled carts or chariots.
Of the barrows in Broxa Forest, the four at SE967940, SE969936, SE971932 and SE966931 are very difficult to locate due to tree cover and large amounts of undergrowth, but the one at SE962942 is easy to find, quite well preserved, and survives to a height of about a metre and is about 10 metres across. Due to soil slipping into the 2 metre wide ditch it would be better described as ‘squarish’ rather than a true square and it has a couple of indentations in the top – the results of partial excavations in the past. Another barrow just to the east is about half the size and height and is quite heavily overgrown. These barrows seem to be a northwestern outpost of the Arras culture and there is some debate at the moment as to whether they were built by local tribes copying continental burial customs or by incomers from Europe who settled in the area.
An easy walk southwest along the track from the barrier at SE982975 then follow the line of trees that run southeast. A word of warning though, when I visited in summer after a dry spell the track along the edge of the forest was a real quagmire, no idea why it was so wet or churned up or what it would be like in winter. Also within the forest is said to be a carved rock with a cup and three concentric rings – I made an attempt to locate it but couldn’t find it (my GPS went haywire under the tree cover!)
Thieves Dikes are a series of earthworks believed to have been constructed during the middle Bronze Age or later. As with the nearby Dargate Dyke their purpose is unclear – it could be that they marked territorial boundaries or they could have had a defensive role, they could even have been used for cattle ranching. The best preserved of the Thieves Dikes survives within the eastern edge of Broxa Forest at SE972933 where a pair of banks up to 2 metres high enclose the ditch that now forms a track from a road junction southwest into the woods. Further to the southeast beyond the trees are more banks and ditches that also run southwest before swinging abruptly to the northwest – these however have been much damaged by ploughing.
Apart from the obviously large hole in the ground at Horcum there are also some barrows and dikes along the rim of the crater. Gallows Dike consists of a 3 metre wide and roughly 2 metre deep ditch with eroded 4 metre wide banks on either side that runs roughly north-south over a small raised section of land close to a kink in the A169 road on Saltergate Moor. There are 3 round barrows close by and it is possible that as well as being burial monuments they could also have served as territorial markers – they are probably slightly later in date than the bank and ditches. A word of warning, they are popular with sunbathing adders!
There are also several cross dykes running northwest to southeast further to the southwest beyond the ‘Hole’ and these also have round barrows nearby or associated with them. A much damaged series of banks and ditches known as Horcum Dikes also run north-south along the east side of the hollow.
Probably dating from the middle Bronze Age this dike to the north of Dalby Forest survives fairly well despite the whole area being part of a Forestry Commission plantation. The earthwork runs south from the crest of land in Crosscliff Wood before turning southwest towards Dargate Slack. For most of it’s course it consists of 3 parallel lines of ditches 2 metres deep and nearly 4 metres wide each with a pair of earth and stone banks also about 4 metres wide, with the whole structure measuring over 36 metres across – towards the southern end it is reduced to a single ditch with flanking banks. The easiest place to see the remains of the dikes is just west of an area set aside for car parking and picnicking where the banks are very low but the ditches are still over a metre deep.
A decent sized barrow next to a road that leads through Langdale Forest to the parking spot near Dargate Dyke. The barrow is unexcavated (in modern times anyway) and still stands over 2 metres tall but it’s difficult to gauge an exact height due to it being covered in tall plant growth As it is in a Forestry Commission plantation it is also difficult to figure out the barrows relation to the landscape – about half a mile to the north the land drops away sharply to Crosscliff Beck while Deepdale is to the east with possible views to Howden Hill
September 2003 The first thing I noticed when approaching the Nine Ladies was the pristine state of the turf and the tell-tale traces of the plastic netting beneath that peeps through in a couple of places. The neatness and tidiness of the grass give the circle a bit of an artificial modern air but I can’t really recall how the placed looked when I was last here a few years ago. Once the wild grasses and flowers have started seeding themselves in the new turf the place will look a lot more natural but it’s already a huge improvement judging from some of the previous photographs of the site. One thing to note though is that you’ll be lucky to get the place to yourself as it is popular with families, couples and walkers at weekends, but I’ll bet it’s a cracking place first thing in the morning or in winter. As for the stones themselves, there are of course 10 now, I think the one discovered in 1979 is the fallen slab to the east of the circle – there may originally have been more. The diameter of the circle is about 10 metres and there is a faint trace of an outer bank and what may have been a small cairn or earth mound near the centre and according to Jacquetta Hawkes there were entrances to the northeast and southwest. At least one of the stones (to the east) has some kind of (modern?) carving on it as does the King Stone which is now known not to have been an outlier but once formed part of a now destroyed cairn. For some reason I had remembered the King Stone as being larger than it is – it’s only a tiny little thing.
When there are people around it’s difficult to feel any kind of atmosphere at the circle and the traces of fires and bit’s of rubbish around the place don’t help, but when you get a couple of minutes of solitude then the place still has a little touch of magic about it. The small copse of trees block any views to the north and east, it could be that the eastern view towards the Derwent was obscured by a small rise in the land anyway and it’s difficult to tell whether the Wye valley to the north could have been seen from the circle.
This was a hard one to find, I walked right past it although it is just next to the track (to the east) and only found it on my second attempt. Stanton Moor South (T43) is one of those sites that it’s only really possible to see as you move round it due to the rich covering of heather, if you stand still and close one eye it just disappears into the undergrowth. Once you start picking through the greenery it does become a little clearer though, a bank about 15 metres in diameter and about half a metre high in places with a small gap for an entrance to the south. There are a few stones dotted around the bank but it’s hard to tell which may have stood and which were boulders used to pack the bank, there is also a slight trace of a cairn near the centre. The entrance that leads from the path through the west side of the bank into the circle is a modern intrusion but is useful for finding the site which like most of the others on this eastern side of the moor has fine views across the Derwent valley and to the hills beyond.
This ring cairn or ruined stone circle is easy enough to find as you walk north along the main path that leads to the Nine Ladies. About 230 metres south of the Nine Ladies look to you left (west) for a raised oval of heather about 20 metres away. Evidence of the bank is heavily covered with heather like most of the other sites on the moor but from the central cairn it’s form is clear and walking around it reveals the bank still stands nearly a metre high in places. It seemed to me to be better preserved to the west, which is also the most overgrown side. There are entrances to the north and south and in a couple of places on the eastern side the small boulders of the bank have been knocked down making them look a little like extra entrances – it’s worth rooting around at the south entrance for the inscribed stone that bears the Heathcote’s T56 identification for the site. My estimate for the diameter of the bank is about 25 metres, as to whether it was originally a ring cairn or stone circle is difficult to say, if it was a circle then it has suffered differently from the nearby Nine Ladies that managed to keep its uprights and (just about) loose its bank and central mound. Here the situation is reversed – it reminded me a little of a larger version of Barbrook II minus the uprights.
What a mess. The stones here are so strewn around that I wasn’t entirely sure I had found the remains of this ring cairn/stone circle at all Add to that the heavy undergrowth and the covering of birch trees and the site is almost impossible to work out – Stubob’s pictures taken early in the year give a much better idea of what’s left.
Sometimes known as SM1 (Stanton Moor 1?) or just plain “61” by the Heathcotes, Rooke recorded two entrances to the north-north-east and south-south-west but I couldn’t figure them out, there were certainly traces of an earth and rubble bank, along with much disturbance in the centre as well as several scattered smallish boulders, one of which could have well have been a standing stone. A rough estimate of the diameter would be 8-10 metres although it could well have been larger. The position of the site is interesting despite the destruction and flora intrusions, at this point the land is already beginning to drop away to the northeast towards Stanton Woodhouse and the River Derwent just beyond.
Probably best visited in winter.
A strange looking boulder resembling a giant golf flag that greets you as the land drops away on the southwest of the moor down towards the road from Birchover to Stanton-in-Peak. One side is hideously disfigured by modern graffiti, foot holes and iron handles and the weathering around the narrow base makes it look like it could topple over at any time. Although there seems to be little evidence of ancient activity around the stone, the early inhabitants of the moor would certainly been aware of the boulder and Fitz’s description of it as a mini Sphinx is quite apt, imagine the stone as a mute guardian of the moor, forever gazing blindly out towards Doll Tor whilst protecting the circles and cairns behind.
Somehow this stone seemed smaller than I remembered it from the last time I saw it about 4 years ago, I was thinking that the battered wall and the greenery encompassed the entire size of the boulder so I was somewhat disappointed when I realised it’s actual size. Being a shortarse and on my own I had doubts that I’d be able to climb it although I really wanted to check out the views of the surrounding countryside and the large cups on top but the decision was soon made for me anyway. Making sure everything was packed in my bag so as not to drop anything on the way up I realised I had left my GPS standing on the roof of my car acquiring a fix, needless to say I beat a hasty retreat to recover the offending article. Technology? –Pah!
A nice sized boulder perched in a commanding position on the east side of the moor. From here there are views southwest and northeast along the moor edges while straight ahead to the northwest the land immediately drops away slightly before rising up to the gently rounded plateau where the modern track (which based on the proximity of the many monuments must have been where the prehistoric track lay) winds down towards the Nine Ladies. I can quite believe this formed a meeting point for people in the distant past to view the circles and cairns in front of them, it still does today, there were several walkers resting around the stone when I got there.
Wow, seriously impressive. As you approach from the west it’s hard to judge the scale of the hill until you start to pass by on the south side of it. If you then take the turn north and follow the old road as far as it goes you get a whole other perspective on Mam Tor as you stand facing the crumbling eastern face with its alternate bands of sandstone and shale and distant birds of prey hovering over the summit. Turning round 180 degrees gives and entirely different view down the Hope Valley, on the right hand side lies Castleton and the intrusive tower of the cement works beyond but to the left is an interesting line of hills, one of which, Win Hill stands like a tiny pyramid on the horizon 4 miles away. Coming from Lincolnshire I’m not used to landscapes like these and I wonder if early settlers had the same reaction when travelling west up the valley, Mam Tor stands like a giant full stop that marks the end of the journey. Stood at the foot of it looking east I was strangely reminded of standing at the west end of the Stonehenge Cursus near to the destroyed long barrow looking in the same direction down the faint parallel banks into the distance – this place is like the Cursus landscape written large in nature.
I’ve never been that convinced by Sacred Hill theories in the past but this one certainly does it for me, I didn’t have time to attempt the climb up to the top or see the hillfort or barrows but definitely a place to revisit soon.
Edit:
A couple of weeks later I went back and climbed Mam Tor – well worth it but a bit exhausting – the views are spectactular.
Ooo, I like these! A line of three round cairns that are worth investigating while looking at the Wheeldale Stones. To the north of Collier Gill (no relation) and the west of a Julian Park and a Randy Mere, they can be seen from the road but are best approached from the track that leads southwest from NZ797012. The track is blocked to vehicles by a steel post but it’s an easy enough walk to the mounds. They are aligned roughly southwest-northeast and follow the contours of the moor, the middle one is slightly offset to the south and to the west and is also quite a bit smaller than the other two. The north and south mounds look to be about the same size, the one to the north perhaps being a little larger, both have flattened tops when viewed from the side and on closer inspection this turns out to be the result of robbing or excavation, the northern one in particular has a large volcano like crater in it’s top. Although scheduled as round cairns they seemed to me to be more earth than stone or rubble, looking round the base of one of the mounds however did reveal a small cut-away area that showed a couple of stone slabs placed at right angles to each other. Although they could be part of the mound they may have been placed here recently for some unknown purpose (probably something to do with shooting, no doubt).
Just to the northeast of Breckon Howe and a little lower down the northeast slope of Sleight’s Moor are a pair of barrows which can best be seen from the cattle grid on the road that links the A169 via the Bridestones to Grosmont. Parking by the side of the A169 would be a bit risky, it’s a very busy road. The barrows look to be heavily overgrown with heather and I didn’t walk up to them but it would have been fairly easy to follow the line of the fence leading southwest to reach them. I’m not sure whether the name Pen Howe applies to one or both of the barrows.
I took a wrong turn when heading to the High Bridestones and spotted this barrow to the right of the road. I recognised it immediately as one I had visited and photographed some 10 years ago while on the way to Whitby but had since forgotten where it was – it was nice to put a name to it at last. The barrow is easy enough to get to, park just to the west of the cattle grid on the open road that leads from the A169 to Goathland and follow the line of the fence north before cutting across to the barrow. The barrow itself stands on the highest point of this part of the moor with a spot height of 297 metres and the land slopes away gently on all sides. It is about 2-3 metres tall but the top has been badly bashed about/excavated/pillaged and it now has a boundary stone on top. There are also several medium sized boulders scattered around that could have formed part of the barrow, a couple near the bottom looked like they may have been part of a kerb, I had a look for cup marks on them but couldn’t spot anything. On the other hand they could just be the result of field clearance.
As Arthur Atkinson would say, “How queer!”
I have to agree with Moth on these stones, the ones with the holes just don’t look old at all – they almost look like modern stones cut to look like old stones. The flat faces are just too flat for my liking as well and the stones don’t seem to be eroded to any great extent, in an exposed place like this they should be weathered stumps surely, and look more like mini Devil’s Arrows, but they just don’t. The rectangular holes are just too perfect, although of course they could have been cut much later.
The stone at the south, which is a tall slender thing could be older than the others but I’m still not convinced. I did like the third stone from the south though, a large flat thin slab that stands face-on to the road and does have a megalithic air about it but again an almost complete lack of weathering on the top and sides says ‘modern’ to my eyes. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed visiting these stones, Murk Mire Moor is a great place and all the stones have a lovely view down to the sea, I just don’t think they are more than a couple of hundred years old at most. I’d love to be proved wrong though ! (And I probably will be)
As for the holes? My guess is they could have been for placing lamps in, or for hanging lamps from either side.
Further south down the road where it passes by the side of the woods on Pickering Moor there are some more stones, a set of three, one of which forms a gatepost and a little further along is another pair in some long grass behind the fence, probably all just old fence posts but pretty none the less.
A megalithic mess indeed, it really does look like somebody let a bomb off in the middle of this one. Burl says it could have been a pair of four-posters, but three of the stones on the eastern arrangement are not so much fallen as strewn and look to me as if they’ve been moved making an interpretation difficult – they gave me the impression of having been dumped here during field clearance. They also seem to have a different appearance to the standing stone next to them, it is sandy coloured, smoothish but fractured while the more solid looking prostrate slabs seem a darker colour and are heavily pitted. Perhaps the eroded surface is evidence that they fell a very long time ago though, rather than being toppled recently. A smaller stone stands just to the east.
To the west are the stones of the second setting, for some reason I didn’t go over to look at them, sadly the site doesn’t really inspire you to spend a lot of time here – I’ll investigate the other stones another day.
Just down the road from the High Bridestones this is a line of stones running north-south across the hillside. The Low Bridestones are marked on the 1:25000 an 1:50000 OS Maps and are even scheduled monuments but there seems to be very little information about them, they appear to form a rough alignment but could be the remains of a field system or something else entirely. How many Bridestones? Difficult to tell, they are partly buried in high grasses and as you approach them 6-8 stones stand clear of the vegetation with the tallest standing about a metre high, but as you root round several more smaller stones are lurking in the grass to extend the alignment to about 20-30 metres in length, the total number of stones is probably between a dozen and 15 in all.
I’d only planned a quick visit to Long Meg this time but ended up staying far too long. The circle is a real grower and every visit seems to turn up something I haven’t noticed before, perhaps it’s the way that it’s difficult to see the whole circle at any one time, the gentle slope and the trees near to the track always seem to obscure some of the stones. The small size of the field makes trying to get a wider perspective of the site impossible too. Two things struck me this time, the first was the sheer size of some of the stones, they seems much larger than I’d remembered them. The other thing was that Long Meg is offset from the entrance stones, again I’d not really noticed that before. Burl suggests the stone was here before the circle based on the fact that the flat face with the carvings is 20 degrees off from the perpendicular of the axis through the centre of the circle. My own feeling, not based on any evidence, is that it may be the other way round, the circle was already here when an existing expanse of carvings were quarried out of bedrock (or even a boulder like Copt Howe) and brought to the site as Long Meg, some of the carving seem to run off the edge of the stone and the whole design looks like it should be rotated 90 degrees. The carvings themselves which are on just one side seem to be arranged in 3 groups. Those at the bottom consist of a spiral, an unfinished spiral or set of rings and above that a semi-circle of rings. The middle section is clearer and has a prominent set of concentric circles and a spiral below and to the right as well as some other fainter rings and grooves. The mid-upper section is faint but has a spiral and worn or shallow rings – there are also quite a few straight and curved grooves that may form an unrecognised design but natural marks over the whole of the surface add to the confusion. There don’t appear to be any marks on the top section of the rock.
Stan Beckensall mentions other marks on some of the stones in the circle but he’s not quite clear where they are. He talks about stones to the west of the road and as the road passes through both sides of the circle this could be either side. From his illustrations I think he means the side closest to the farmhouse with the marked stones being numbers 5, 6 and 7 counting west from the road, I can’t be sure as I couldn’t see any definite marks on any of them.
I would suggest a different parking spot to Ironman. When I got to the site there were already a few cars parked opposite the gate and talking to a climber later he said that space could often be packed during busy times. About 300-400 metres further northwest along the road there is room for several cars next to a track and footpath that lead south to Great Langdale Beck, from here it’s an easy walk back up the road to the gate. Once I’d actually got to the huge boulder I was a little disappointed that the carvings weren’t more clear, it was about 5.30pm so the sun was behind the flat east facing side with the carvings and there was no shadow to add definition to the marks. With a plan of the site it is possible to trace the position of the rings, grooves and cups and the layout slowly unfolds before your eyes, Ironman’s map theory seems particularly appealing – this valley would have made an easy route for the movement of axes. While chatting to the climber he said he was aware of the carvings but didn’t know much about them, when I showed him the plan he proved remarkably adept at finding the various parts of the carvings – better than I was.
For anybody planning a visit, morning up until midday might be the best time to see the carvings, but the site is in a beautiful location and would be worth a visit at any time of the day.
A welcome evening return to Castlerigg this time, a sunny summer evening brings out the tourists though, there were kids clambering over the stones, a frisby throwing competition in the middle and even a group of elderly couples with a fully laden picnic table at the site. Not too much of a problem for me though as I was here this time to look at the carvings on the stones particularly the elusive spiral – second attempt, second failure. I managed to find the other 4 known marks, 2 of them are very faint and none are spectacular. There are several other stones that *may* have carvings that have yet to be recognised but the geology of the rock makes imagining cups, rings and grooves on their surface too tempting.
Working from Fitzcoraldo’s plan of the circle, Stone 1 has the spiral on the inward facing side (facing towards the setting sun), Stone 2 has a faint wide ring, I thought I could see a central cup too but Stan doesn’t mention it. Stone 3 has a lozenge or hatching pattern but there are natural marks in the rock right next to it, while Stone 4 has a quite deep but difficult to spot partial ring and a cup at it’s top edge. Stone 5 is the easiest to see and is a clear narrowly cut lozenge.
A lovely little site but a real jumble of stones. One stone struck me particularly, the large block to the right of the carvings is much bigger than the rest and wouldn’t look out of place as part of Long Meg’s circle, but it’s the low rounded carved stone that obviously stands out. The mix of a spiral on one side that partly interlinks with the concentric circles on the other side really intrigues me – as usual trying to find an explanation is guesswork but it’s tempting to suggest some kind of sun/moon symbolism in the carving. Alternatively, the layout is suggestive of a representation of the positions of the circle at Long Meg and the large ditched enclosure just to the northwest – the two structures intersect along one edge. The stones look like they have been moved but if this stone was facing into the cairn was it meant as some kind of map or reminder for the spirit of the person whose remains were found is the central cist?
A easy site to find but not an easy place for parking. Leaving the village of Glassonby a road leads northwest past the gate into the field with the stones but it’s difficult to park without blocking the gate. 200-300 metres further on there is a sharp left bend in the road where there is some room on the right hand side, but it’s still a bit awkward. Carry on another couple of hundred metres and just as you get to the bridge over Hazelrigg Beck there is room on the left for 2 or three cars next to a footpath, from here walk (carefully, it’s quite busy) back up the road to the gate. Once in the field the ring of stones is easy to spot ahead and to your right.
When I got there it was heavily overgrown with grasses and various stinging plants and didn’t look anything like most of the other pictures on this page but it was still easy to trace the oval of 29 small stones, the size is roughly 16 metres by 14 metres. I’d really come to look at the carved rock which again was easy to locate but the carvings on the inward facing side of the stone were just about impossible to see. With a bit of imagination and with Stan’s drawing I could just about kid myself I could see them and slight indentations can be felt in the rock, but it was a bit of a disappointment. There was once another carved stone on the southern edge of the cairn but this has since disappeared.
A two for the price of one fieldnote. My first attempt at Blakey Topping was on the 6th July when I parked at the carpark that overlooks the Hole of Horcum, and walked east along the Old Wife’s Way. A little way down the track the hill starts to become visible and as you continue its strange shape becomes clearer, my first though was that it resembled the hill in Close Encounters and I was tickled when I got home and read that Julian had the same impression. From this western angle Blakey Topping is less a ‘tit’ hill and more a giant nipple. I decided not to continue on to the stones at the base this time as it seemed just too much of a walk and decided to approach the hill from the opposite side on another occasion, which turned out to be a week later.
This time I drove along the same forest track that leads past Howden Hill and parked next to Dargate Dyke – there is a charge for driving through this part of Dalby Forest, an unreasonable 4 quid. From here Blakey is about 2 miles to the northwest but I had thrown my old bike into the back of the car and was prepared for a leisurely peddle to the hill and stones – not so. First of all I took the wrong track due to having to rely on my map reading skills as the tree cover was playing havoc with my GPS. Twenty minutes and one detached chain later I managed to find my way back to where I had parked the car... Setting off again on the right track this time the land immediately drops down nearly 100 metres in a distance of only 500 metres which was pretty hairy on an old bike with iffy brakes, but safely at the bottom I turned left and continued west to Grain Beck where I was greeted by a couple of barking dogs from the house at the southeast end of Thompson’s Rigg. The dogs were quickly pacified and I continued onto the flattish plain of Thompson’s Rigg. From here the still distant Blakey appears a completely different shape to the western approach. The flat top and steep sides are replaced with a conical form that seems to almost exactly mirror Howden Hill when seen from the same direction – the southeast, which I found rather peculiar.
Compare these pictures of Blakey-
themodernantiquarian.com/image.php?image_id=16192
and Howden –
themodernantiquarian.com/image.php?image_id=16158
Again like Howden the effect diminishes as you move round to the southwest where the stones are and it become just another hill (a very pretty one nevertheless). All the way along the track I had been careful to re-close all the gates I had been through but as I reached the fence and gate that the stone setting stood behind I found the gate wide open, and just beyond it close to the stones were some young cows. Wanting to avoid the beasties I took a right turn and went along the edge of the fence and had to content myself by viewing the stones from over it so I can’t really say if they form part of a circle or an alignment as the scheduling report suggests. If I had had the presence of mind I would have stormed the gate and closed it before the cows could come through it, which only occurred to me as I made my way back. Turning round I started back to the gate only to find the cows had already come through to meet a walker who was heading north along the fence, he didn’t seem at all bothered by them but there was no way I was going past them – maybe next time...
I’m not at all sure if I agree with Julian’s sacred hill theories, and his choice of hills that he feels might have been of significance to prehistoric man seems rather arbitrary at times. It seems to me that pretty much any hill could have been seen as special to the local inhabitants, as could any river, lake, valley or any other landscape feature, but in the spirit of investigation and with an open(ish) mind I decided to pay a visit to Blakey Topping and Howden Hill.
Howden is easily reached from the village of East Ayton by a road travelling north through the picturesque Forge Valley and Scarwell Woods which line the edges of the River Derwent. Due to the number and size of the hills in this area Howden doesn’t come into view until you round the corner just before the bridge at Langdale End when suddenly *bang* it’s right there in yer face. The effect was the same as when I visited Avebury last year after not having been there for several years and I had forgotten the way that Silbury suddenly leaps out at you as you head west past Waden Hill. Perhaps the old man is on to something after all.
I didn’t attempt to climb the hill as I had already read Porkbeasts notes plus I was short of time as usual – anyway it looked one hell of a climb. The conical effect is only seen from the south/southeast as once you move round to the west the spine becomes apparent which diminishes the visual impact. It’s still a beautiful hill though and as Julian says it is set in a faerie landscape. Whether I think it was a ‘sacred’ hill or not, well the jury is still out on that one I’m afraid – maybe I needed to climb it for a full appreciation.
I really like this little barrow cemetery. After driving through the pretty town of Alford a series of twisty roads lead you out into the wilds of east Lincolnshire, you can’t go much further before you fall into the sea at Chapel St Leonards. This isolated rural position gives the dozen ploughed closely set barrows a lovely peaceful atmosphere – few cars ever pass by on the nearby road and the quiet is only occasionally broken if the wind changes direction and carries the sound of the seaside fairground over from the coast. In the past when I have visited the site it has always been deserted, this time it was home to a herd of young cows. As soon as they saw me walking up the track they stopped their chewing and came over to the fence that surrounds the barrows, I didn’t go any closer as the fence is only flimsy. Funnily enough the presence of the cows allowed me to get the only half decent pictures I’ve ever taken of the site, none of the low mounds are over a metre high and are usually overgrown but the cows added some kind of scale to the photos – thanks chaps!
Finds from the site include a whetstone and a dagger. C14 dates the cemetery to around 1750BC.
I have to admit my main reason for visiting Flag Fen was to reacquaint myself with the timbers I had last seen on a cold windswept beach near Hunstanton 4 years ago. At the time I had dragged along the girlfriend of the time and her 2 kids to watch a ring of wooden posts and a central trunk very slowly emerge from the water – I don’t think they were ever conned by the promise of ‘a day at the seaside’ again after that.
For some reason I’d left it a long time before going to see the remains of the circle in their wooden tanks, perhaps I needed to put some distance between them being there on the beach and being here at Flag Fen. Francis Pryor’s book had reawoken my memories and brought back the feelings of that day – I’m not going to go into the rights and wrongs of the subject, I think the issues were well covered in the Forum posts of the time.
Walking into the large open fronted barn was a strange experience. The central timber is placed at the end and it was almost like walking into some kind of hallowed hall with the trunk forming an alter as its focal point. The smaller split timbers that made up the continuous circle were laid out under the water, some were in with the trunk while others were in a separate tank. The view of the timbers was difficult due to the layer of green pond slime that seemed to be growing on the top of the water in one tank, I presume there is a reason why the water is not changed regularly. I was almost tempted to put my had below the water to touch the posts, but didn’t, partly because I wouldn’t want to cause any damage to the 4050 year old wood and partly because it just didn’t seem right – disrespectful somehow.
I spent quite a while in the barn and there was nobody else around. While I was there something whizzed silently above my head, I looked up to see a young swallow on the wooden beams of the barn being fed by it’s parent before the adult flew off again to gather more insects for the youngster. I was struck by the whole ‘life, death, rebirth’ thing, the timbers had grown, been felled, shaped, moved to a sacred place near the coast, erected and become the centre of ceremony, abandoned, covered in rising water and then peat, been forgotten about, uncovered by the sea and returned to the land of the living, become again the centre of attention, been dug up and brought here awaiting the next part of their journey. The swallow had been born in Britain, grown up then flown to Africa, overwintered there and then returned to Britain to raise it’s own offspring who would repeat the cycle. Somehow I felt that seeing the timbers again had completed the cycle for me too in some way that I can’t explain. A sad but quite moving experience.
I’d never got round to visiting Flag Fen but after reading Francis Pryor’s Seahenge book my appetite was well and truly whetted. As it was Fathers Day I had parental visiting obligations to attend to before heading off towards Peterborough and having made a late start as usual, it was 3pm before I got there. I was worried about navigating around the southeastern side of the city after I had left the A1 but luckily Flag Fen is well signposted on the Peterborough ring-roads and it’s easy enough to follow the signs out through an industrial estate and then out into the low lying fens to the site itself. When I got there I was rather surprised to see only 6 cars in the car-park – not that I was complaining, I think most of them belonged to the staff who were very helpful and informative giving me a potted history of the site. Just outside the centre I noticed a container of umbrella’s for the use of visitors on wet days – I thought that was a nice touch.
First stop was the Preservation Hall, lots of displays and information on the way in and ‘atmospheric’ music playing unobtrusively inside. Many people might not get excited at what seems like a random jumble of old timbers on display inside the building but it’s not everyday you get to see the remains of a bronze age trackway still in situ. Thanks to the info boards it’s possible to work out the individual lines of posts that formed the 1 kilometre link between the dry raised areas of Fengate and Northey between 3300 and 2900 years ago.
Next stop were the reconstructed Bronze Age round houses. I was surprised at the amount of room inside while at the same time still being cosy – I want one! The interior was laid out as they believed these dwelling may have looked, with carved wooden beds, weaving frames, tables as well as a hearth etc but there was no sign of any reproduction bronze tools – probably thought to be a bit too ‘portable’ to leave on display.
Next up was the Holme-next-the-Sea timbers housed in their own barn – I’ll cover those in the Seahenge section.
By now I was getting short of time (Flag Fen closes at 5pm) so I only had time for a quick look at the rather fine Iron Age round house and like the others it was well furnished inside with suitable tables, beds, benches, wooden and pottery bowls and frame for the preparation of animal skins. A quick look at the excavated section of Roman road and then onto the museum. It’s only small but has a decent display of the various finds from the site including part of what is believed to be the earliest wheel so far found in Britain. I tried to get a photo but it was on a revolving ‘thingy’ and in the low light the picture came out blurred. My favourite displays though were the bronze swords, daggers and spear heads – the ones shown on the front cover of the ‘Seahenge’ book, for those that have it.
Time to go before the staff shut the gates and there were still parts of the site I hadn’t looked at or had had to rush, the web site recommends a couple of hours to look at everything, I would suggest much longer. Nice place, nice day out.
I’d visited the southern part of Dane’s Dyke in the past on the way north either to the seaside or to Rudston but had never given it the examination it deserved. This day I planned to visit the various sections of the bank and ditch after having a look at Starr Carr. In the end I didn’t get to the Mesolithic settlement site and it had gone 4pm by the time I reached the carpark at the RSPB nature reserve of Bempton Cliffs which is fairly well signposted and makes an excellent start for a visit to the earthwork which is about a mile further east along the coast. After spending about half an hour watching the thousands of puffins, guillemots and gannets the weather took a turn for the worse and huge black clouds charged in from the west. There was no way I would make it to the dyke before it started raining so while watching everybody else dashing back to their cars I set up my camera and happily snapped away at clouds speeding over the cliffs and out to sea. Then it started raining – and I mean *raining*. I packed the camera away and started what seemed a very long walk along the cliffs in the pouring rain. Everything got soaked, the rain went right through my coat, the long wet grass left my trousers with water running down the inside and I had my own personal lake inside my boots. Strangely though it hardly bothered me, the cliff edge was deserted, just me, the birds and the elements, which is what it must have been like here for thousands of years – I have to say I really enjoyed that walk.
Eventually I got to the northern terminal of the earthwork which is best described with words like ‘huge’ and ‘looming’. There was still some evidence of the ditch on the western side but both bank and ditch finished just short of the cliffs, I’m not sure if it was designed that way to allow a narrow easily defended entrance to the enclosed area or whether the gap had been created in more recent times. Trying to get some photographs was a nightmare in the rain but I a snapped a few pictures showing the bank disappearing into the distance then made my way back to the car along the field edge this time, scouring the soil for flints but as usual found nothing.
Next stop was the central section of the earthwork where it is cut through by the B1229. Parking was only possible on the grass verge and the view to the north was limited by the trees that partially cover the bank – the view to the south was much better.
Following the road it takes a turn south at Flamborough village and doubles back west as the B1255 where there is a sharp left signposted turn as the road dips through a small wood. As you drive down the track the bank is just to your left all the way down to a carpark where the dyke ends and a gully runs down to the sea.
As it was getting late I only had time for a quick look round and as the area was covered with trees it was difficult to figure out just were the earthwork ended and the natural features began, I’m guessing they were extended and built up by the original builders anyway. At least it had stopped raining and I managed to get some photos of the bank under the gloom of the trees before setting off home. The next day I went to work in wet footwear – my coat took about three days to dry out...
This site consists of a pair of bowl barrows that stand at the edge of a farmers field on the other side of the road from a row of expensive houses in this tiny Lincolnshire village. At the beginning of the 20th century they were recorded as part of a small four barrow cemetery which was later partially excavated in the 1930’s when a small amount of Middle Bronze Age pottery fragments were found – since then the other two barrows have been lost either to the plough or the modern houses. Further finds suggest that the mounds were reused from the medieval period onwards as archery butts, beacon fires or village meeting places and their continued use is reflected in the barrows names – the west barrow is known as Folk Moot, the eastern as Butt Mound. I rather like this continuity of use although I can’t imagine they are much used nowadays as both are overgrown with grasses and a rather lethal patch of nettles. Folk Moot is the larger of the two, and stands around 2 metres tall and nearly 20 metres across at it’s widest point (the northern side has been ploughed away) while Butt Mound is about a metre high and 10-12 metres wide – it too has been plough damaged on the northern side.
Folk Moot is at TF054430. Butt Mound is at TF055430.
I have to say I’m with Kammer on this one.
The stones just don’t look old enough and they are *very* square. Having said that, Burl must have looked at more stones than just about any living person and I’m presuming he has visited the site so what’s going on here?
Looking at their alignment they seem to be pointing roughly in the direction of the Roman town/camp of Durobrivae which I’m sure would have been visible from here – are they Roman? The stones are also scheduled monuments although I can’t find any information about their scheduling.
I found it fairly easy to get to the slip road that the stones stand next to but I was lucky in that it was a late Sunday afternoon and the roads were very quiet – I parked too far up the road though and after scrambling through the bushes walked in the wrong direction. One thing I did notice was the large amount of litter along the edge of the field, mainly empty beer bottles, cans and tubes of glue – obviously a popular place with the local yoof. The piles of broken windscreen glass in the carpark didn’t fill me with confidence either...
I thought these two stones might be hidden away behind the church, overgrown and forgotten, but no. The glacial erratics stand outside the main entrance to the churchyard with the grass neatly trimmed from around them and I got the impression that the inhabitants of the pretty village of Anwick are rather proud of them. The larger stone (nearest the church) is about a metre high while the smaller stone is about half that – it’s hard to tell whether they were part of the same rock as the folk tale suggests or not, although the larger stone looks like it could have had a large chunk knocked off of it near ground level. It’s also difficult to know whether this was their original position, but why move the stones to stand outside a churchyard?
Interestingly the churchyard appears to be roughly circular (I didn’t have time to fully check it out) and it is said that before the original stone was moved and broken (if it was ever moved) that a Dr Oliver ‘attested that it was of druidic origin’
A local curiosity, or the subject of pagan idolatry – who knows…
Lovely little village though.
This has to be one of my favourite carvings on the moor despite the fact that it is close to a fair bit of passing human traffic and noise and has been the subject of vandalism in the form quarrying, as well as peoples names and even modern celtic patterns chipped out of the rock. The motifs though amaze me – I think this is only the second time I’ve visited, the first time I managed to completely miss a large section of the carvings and there may be more here that I haven’t yet recognised. The largest motif consists of a deep central cup with double joined arcs and extending grooves, one of which has a peculiar kink in it as it curves away to the west before turning sharply to the north. Just to the east of the pattern a deep groove runs northwest-southeast. On either side of it are about half a dozen cups, 3 rings and several unfinished rings or grooves. To the west is the second motif that seems to have been damaged by quarrying, again it has an almost central cup, this time with a ring that a doesn’t quite meet and a pair of grooves extending from either side that curve in and also do not quite meet. Through the middle of these 2 elements is a half circle groove which also has an uncut centre – why were these 3 elements left with uncut centres? Between the 2 main motifs, 5 cups and a small groove form a triangle – Stan Beckensall shows a further motif to the south but I couldn’t find it.
In my last fieldnote for this site I mentioned that normal maps are of no use on the moor and the GPS reigns supreme. At the time and with the maps I had this was largely true although the comment now seems rather ignorant and cringeworthy. Yes, a GPS will take you close to the stones but it is no replacement for a decent map – I would definitely recommend a visit to magic.gov.uk to get some printouts at 1:5000 or 1:10000 which accurately show the many tracks over the moor as well as the locations of most of the stones and other scheduled monuments.
I’m still not convinced about this site, but I thought I’d give it another look. Just to the northwest of a track that runs along the west of Backstone Beck and jumbled in amongst drystone walling I counted 9 upright slender slabs that looked more like the kind of thing you buy from a garden centre to create a stone circle in your garden. Having just got hold of a copy of Paul Bennett’s “Circles, Standing Stones and Legendary Rocks of West Yorkshire” he seems pretty sure that it is in fact a double circle with embankment but points out that the overgrown nature of the site and the walling make an accurate determination of it difficult – well I won’t argue with that! He also mentions the isosceles triangle formed by Backstone, The Twelve Apostles and The Grubstones as well as proposing an alignment between The Swastika Stone, Backstone and the Idol Stone (which I haven’t had chance to check out yet), the remains of a possible stone maze and a fallen monolith – I’ll be having a root around for those next time.
If you follow the track that leads west from the Haystack rock and then swing round to the south you pass the partly reconstructed Backstone Beck Enclosure. Between the arc of drystone walling and the path, and northwest of the hut are 3 carved rocks nestling in the heather and almost in a northwest line.. The last time I was here I completely failed to find them, even though I must have walked within a couple of feet of one of them – this time as I approached from the south and had a better idea where they were I had more luck. Stone 1 is at SE12824619 and measures 180x130cm with around 45 cups, a couple of unfinished rings or arcs and several grooves – it lies just to the east of the path. Stone 2 is a little further southeast at SE12844617, it has about a dozen cups, 2 of which are quite deep, and measures 170x130cm. Stone 3 is the one I really wanted to find and when I located it a little further south at SE12834615 I couldn’t help letting out a Marc Riley stylee “Oh Yeessshh”. The stone is known as the Second Idol Stone and it’s easy to see why – a 130x80cm low stone with 24 cups and 5 deep grooves. Nine of the cups are zoned within a groove at the northeastern end and a further 6 run in a line between the edge of that groove and another that runs nearly the entire length of the stone. This rock is very similar to the Idol Stone 500 metres to the southeast – I wonder if they were carved by the same person?
You can’t miss this large rock as it stands next to a main track and is 5.5 metres long, 3 metres wide and stands nearly 2 meters tall. It can also be seen from some distance from many points around the area and is useful as a navigation aid on the northeastern part of the moor. I had visited this rock before and noticed a few cups and a worn ring but other than that had not given it much consideration, this time I gave it a closer look as I had read that it had many more cups and it turned out to be a revelation. I counted at least 60 cups and there could well be more as the southern face is heavily eroded and it is difficult to tell what’s man made and what’s natural. Some of the cups form a line along the ridge that separates the north and south faces and there are 5 rings along the top and I counted a further 4 on the north face. There is also a cup with a gutter and penanular that has been carved along a natural crack almost giving it the appearance of a human form or an ankh as well as a line of deep cups that follow a fold in the rock and whose purpose must surely be just decorative?
Just to the west is a small rock with 3 cups on a vertical surface that faces the Haystack.
SE12964639 I was a bit disappointed with this stone – with such an evocative name as The Planets and with a dozen cups and 9 rings as well as linking grooves it promised to be interesting rock. In reality, in turned out to be badly worn with the rings and grooves shallow and difficult to make out, although it didn’t help that it was a dull day. It measures about 180x160cm and stands on a small outcrop of rock north of the track that leads past the Haystack rock and just before the land drops away towards the Cow and Calf rocks and carpark 500 metres to the northeast. There are also a few rocks close by that have possible cups – they could just be natural though.
I visited this circle after Sunkenkirk so unfortunately it could only be an anticlimax for me and it didn’t help that it was late teatime and a cold wind was starting to get up. The outer stones are all fallen and scattered and the central setting just seems too perfect, as somebody else notes it almost feels like a fake and the steady stream of visitors somehow add to that feeling – you don’t get the sense of isolation you get at other sites. You do see some funny things at some stone circles though – while I was here a couple of blokes pulled up in a car, got out, and started putting on fencing gear including the masks. I though I was going to get to see some fancy sword-play in the circle but instead they changed back, got in the car and drove off again. Odd.
What an amazing place Sunkenkirk is, and the walk up to it just adds to the sense of pilgrimage to the site. I had stopped close to Cragg Hall and contemplated driving over the rough track to the circle but I spoke to a couple of families with small kids who were walking past to ask their advice. Luckily for me they knew the area well and as they were walking up to the circle themselves to take the children on an Easter Egg hunt they let me tag along, which was nice as the track is unfenced for the most part and wild untamed beasts are allowed to roam freely (ok, so they were placid cows who completely ignored us, but they were bigger than me and had more legs. To misquote Orwell – ‘two legs good, four legs faster’). The stones can be seen from a fair distance but it’s not until you get up to the gate that leads into their field that you really appreciate the circle, Burl calls it one of the finest stone circles in western Europe and of all the circles I’ve seen, I’m not going to argue with that. He also claims 55 stones remaining but I was so caught up with wandering round them that I forgot to count and to be honest I don’t think it really matters. The location, the layout, the size, the views and the walk up to the circle are everything – this was my first visit, I just know it will be the first of many. Absolutely fantastic.
These stone baffle me. Yes, they stand in the foreground of Black Combe which conjures up such terms as ‘ominous’ and ‘looming’, but I’m not sure they have anything to do with it. That mass of rock lurks to the north and the smaller hill that contain the Lacra circles is just to the east, and at first I thought the two stones may be pointing in that direction but now I’m not sure of that either. A report from the late 18th century suggests that they originally stood as part of a burial mound which has now gone but if they are in their original position and orientation then the axis of alignment is roughly southwest-northeast, either pointing out to sea or in the direction of the valley of Whitcham Beck – were they indicating a safe route between the hills or were they just grave markers? If the direction of the narrow edges of the stones is taken into consideration, then its northwest-southeast marking the lowland plain between the sea and the hills – another possible trackway or route? Then there’s the angled tops of the stones – are they meant to be looked along to some celestial phenomenon, or were they meant to channel something down to the tumulus?
As for the figures, the tallest stone to the NE is 3 metres tall while the other is about 2.5 metres high and they stand around 4.5 apart. There are said to be cup marks on the stones including Julian’s pubic triangle (!) but err… I forgot to look for them.
This is a strange place. As I drove down the A595 the sight of the Sellafield in the distance was enough to make me nervous and I was unsure if I even wanted to visit the circle at all. I drove down towards Seascale and turned off onto the wide and deserted road that leads up the entrance on the southeast side of the works and got close to the main gates while looking for somewhere to park. There are signs warning of no parking on the verges and I got the impression that the road was designed to handle a lot of traffic – but there wasn’t any. Then the penny dropped – part of the purpose of the road was to allow a rapid evacuation of the site in an emergency…
I eventually found a lay-by or passing place on a small road that leads north to Seascale Hall and left my car there, unsure if it would have been towed away while I was at the circle. Walking down the road had me constantly looking over my shoulder – maybe it is just my imagination but this place seems to have a real sense of paranoia about it. You’re conscious of the air you breathe, I found myself sticking a finger in the air to see which way the wind was blowing. Getting onto the public footpath that leads west to the coast gave a little relief – if challenged I could at least wave my map and claim access rights to the path. However once I reached a deserted farm house (why was it deserted?) the path followed around the side of the field that holds the circle and it was necessary to climb the barbed wire fence and walk over the crop which luckily was only a set-aside rough grass (I hope). As for the circle itself it consists of 10 chunky boulders which Burl says average 130cm in height and it has some pleasant views of the sea to the west, but to be honest I had no intention of staying here to investigate any longer than I had to – I took my photos, scribbled some notes and left. I’m probably doing the circle a big disservice but the whole place just gave me the creeps and it’s not somewhere I’ll come back to in a hurry. Sorry Greycroft.
This is a nice little circle on a small plateau with the hill of Blakeley Raise behind it to the southeast. The books say 11 stones, the pictures show 11 stones, but in my notes I’ve got 12 stones (?!) – must have been some kind of cosmic vibe thing going on…
I managed to solve the mystery of the ‘Hounds of Blakeley’ though. As I arrived at the site I noticed a number of cars had congregated over on Low Cock How and there was a loud sound of barking and excited dogs. After a while the dogs were lined up and released – I thought they were just going to race to the bottom of the hill or something but as they disappeared out of sight in a dip in the land for a few seconds I suddenly realised they were probably heading in my direction. And so they were. Now, I’m usually wary of 4-legged beasts, especially when it’s a pack of 20 large dogs which would normally have me diving for cover, but I had no time to move to safety. Sure enough the dogs hurtled across the road and shot straight past the circle (completely ignoring me) and belted up the side of Blakeley Raise, I don’t know how fast they were running but they were over the hill in a couple of minutes at most. I estimated it would have taken me at least a knackering quarter of an hour to do the same climb. About 20 minutes later while I was eating a sarnie I noticed the dogs running down the north side of Flat Fell and back to Low Cock How. After some research I found I had been watching ‘hound trailing’ a 200 year old Cumbrian tradition involving dogs following an aniseed trail over about 7 miles of fells and hills and I have to admit it was a pretty damn awesome sight.