Chris Collyer

It’s been a while since I visited the Pancake Rock, perched precariously on the edge of Green Crag Slack, and I had forgotten how steep the climb up the hillside from below the stone was – but what a reward – some outstanding views across Wharfedale. The last time I was here I climbed onto the rock to look at the cup marks, this time I was a little wary as a chap had been killed a few days before in this area in a rockfall. I didn’t fancy ending my days careering down a hillside on the back of 100 tons of rock surfboard.
Mindyou, it would have been a great way to go.....

A few days after a wrote the preceding fieldnotes I returned to Bradup after a space of 3 or 4 years. The boulders I had seen before were still there but this time the heather had been burned back, I knew these stone were not the circle, and that only one stone remained within an earth embankment. However the area of the field where Paul Kenyon said that the stone stood has recently been completely ploughed – there is no stone left. All I could find was a patch of roughly circular soil that was a slightly lighter colour than the surrounding land, and a pile of boulders at the field edge. These all showed deep gouge marks from the bucket of some kind of earth mover. Whether one of these stones is from the circle or not, I don’t know, but it looks like the sad end to yet another monument.
I hope I’m wrong.

The grid reference given here is only a rough guide as it is several years since I visited the stone and I don’t remember where I heard about it, it certainly isn’t marked on the OS map. Use the map to find the road that runs south of The Chevin (I think the road is also known as The Chevin). Park in the pub west of the Chevin Lodge Hotel and follow a footpath behind the pub and head south. Pass through a gate and turn left then continue south alongside a drystone wall. At some point further along you will see the six foot high highly weathered Bull Stone on the other side of this wall.

I never managed to find the elusive Bradup circle. At the time I visited it a few years ago the area where I thought it was was covered with a thick carpet of heather. Rooting around in this heather I uncovered several large boulders, some of the 12 remainig stones that my guide book told me remained of an original 18 – aha! I had found it.
Unfortunately these stone were not part of the circle, I had made the same mistake that Paul Kenyon first made when he visited, but at least he found the correct location of the site and the one remaining stone. Check his website for more information.

As Julian says this must have been an important place once – the name, the views, the Roman road and both the Beacon and Argham cursus aligned on it. Sadly this fact doesn’t seem to be recognised by the farmer who owns the land as he/she is steadily ploughing away the summit of the beacon.

After the disappointment of Rudston Beacon, Southside Mount is a real joy. Although badly ploughed over the years it is still an instantly recognisable barrow. It would be an ideal place to while away some time on a sunny summers day – there are some great views – however when I visited it, it was grey and raining and the trudge across the field (mind the pea crop!) certainly christened my new pair of baseball boots. Despite being soaked in rain and covered with mud I returned to the car with a broad smile and glad heart. Southside Mount – what a place :-)

Perhaps not the quickest or easiest way to get to Kell Well, but certainly the most picturesque, is to follow the trackway along the top of Trent Bank from Julian’s Bower. Immediately on you left will be the west bank of Countess Close. Continue walking for around fifteen minutes until you get to the signpost for Walcott. A short distance further on you will see the land on your right drop away sharply beyond a wire fence, the well is now directly below you. Climb the fence and clamber down the bank carefully – in damp weather you are liable to be pitched headlong into the spring – as I nearly was today ;-)

On my first visit here I failed dismally to find any of the barrows, second time round I got hold of the OS map beforehand and it still took me a while to find them!

Take the road from Pocklington to Millington then continue until it splits into two (both roads join the A166 a mile or so further on). This triangle of land contains 3 remaining barrows of an original 18 of the Callis Wold group, 2 are badly ploughed down, but the northern one with it’s nearby mystery earthworks is well preserved. Continue on to the A166 and turn left, there are several further barrows beside the road, but take care – car drivers and motorcyclists treat this road like a racetrack…

This must once have been an important part of the Gypsey Race landscape, but plough damage means there is now nothing to be seen at ground level – just how do you plough out an entire henge?
Anyway, while you are at Rudston, take a look for yourself. Follow the road north out of Rudston village towards Burton Fleming, the field where the henge stood is on the right, a short distance after the second right turn.

A pair of long barrows whoes position and size seems to mirror the nearby Giant’s Hills on the other side of the A1028.
The best way to get here is to take the turning from the main road and drive to the tiny hamlet of Claxby. Take a left turn and follow the winding road until you reach a trackway leading up a hill, just before a farm house.
The grid reference I have given is for the barrow that stands half way along this track, the second barrow is some distance to the south-east across the field.

To the south-east of Ulceby and on the west of the Roman road now known as the A1028 are the remains of one of the Giant’s Hills long barrows. Parking is difficult, but there is a small opening into a farmers field in a gap in the hedgerow that may take a few drive pasts to find. From here the barrow is a short walk down the hillside, and an excellent place to pass a peaceful hour or so.

It was excavated by a C. W. Phillips between 1933 and 1934, who found a large wooden enclosure which contained a small platform of chalk blocks. Laid out on these blocks were the remains of 7 adults and a child – interestingly there was a line of 8 posts across the north-west end of the barrow – were they linked to the number of burials?
In the same way that many southern barrows have large blocking stones at their entrances, this barrow had a façade of huge split timbers arranged in a crescent at its south-east, it has even been suggested that these may have been carved or painted. From this frontage, two lines of posts ran almost the entire length of the barrow and parts of it seem to have been divided up with a hurdling fence.
To the south there was another barrow that has now sadly been destroyed by ploughing.

From the A16, take the turning to Haugham then bear right along the road to Tathwell. In a field to the right is a linear round barrow cemetery along a hillside ridge, six stand close together with one further away to the North-east. Travel a little further down the road to get an excellent view of them along the horizon.
As far as I’m aware, these barrows have never been excavated but I recieved an email from a guy who had a conversation with an old man who had lived nearby. The old farmer described that as a young man he witnessed his father being involved in digs to find out what was in the mounds saying that they found no objects but that they revealed that a lot of burning had taken place on every mound and presumed they were used as beacons.

Little is known about this long barrow although it is one of the best preserved in the area, probably due to its position within Beacon Plantation spinney and the fact that it stands next to a main road. Constructed as a trapezoid mound that originally measured around 78 metres by 19 metres which has been truncated at the southern end. This end still stands to a height of 2 metres and it is probable that it is actually a later round barrow that was built into the long barrow – it is also believed to have been used as a medieval beacon – hence the name.
Unlike many other barrows in the area, it traverses the contours of the landscape, but is similarly oriented in a southeast to northwest direction standing below the crest of a high ridge that overlooks the valley of Great Eau

An easy barrow to find, Beacon Plantation is right next to the A16 between Walmgate and White Pit. – parking is now easy as there a new layby just to the west.

There is no access to this badly dug into barrow, but it can be seen across the fields on the left of the A16 from Partney to the circle at Ulceby cross. It is some distance away though and is difficult to spot if there is a crop in the field!

Ash Hill stands on private land on the Swinhope estate behind some industrial buildings. On my one and ony visit I think I met the original ‘Farmer Palmer’, the conversation went something like this-

Farmer “You can’t come in here it’s private land”
Me “OK, but would it be possible just to have a quick look at the long barrow?”
Farmer “There’s no long barrow here”
Me “Err, but it’s marked on the map”
Farmer “There’s no long barrow here”
Me (shows him the map) “Look, it’s marked on the map”
Farmer (after a short silence) “You can’t come in here it’s private land”

I quite possibly thanked him warmly for his kind assistance. Or maybe I didn’t....

In terms of sheer size Mayburgh Henge is an awesome monument.
However, whereas the nearby King Arthurs Round Table is next to the main road through Eamont Bridge and at the centre of the daily hubub, Mayburgh stands just metres away from the motorway yet is alone and abandoned. This is a real shame as it is a mind-boggling construction, containing an estimated 5 million cobblestones in a bank that stands nearly 6 metres high. At it’s centre is a single standing stone, one of an original four, there were also four others inside the entrance to East that looks across to the round table.

I don’t know when it was, or who it was, but at some point in time some idiot decided to build a road through the edge of this monument.
There were originally two entrances, only the one to the South East remains leading in through the banks, across a raised walkway over the ditch into the central enclosure.
This can only be some kind of gathering place- we can only wonder what went on here. Interestingly the entrance to Mayburgh Henge can easily bee seen from the centre of circle – how and why were these two monuments linked?

This is marked on the OS map as ‘Long Cairn’.

The ‘cairn’ part I might argue with, but ‘long’, well there’s no disputing that one. It is hard to judge the size of the mound as it extends and tails off into the trees, the eastern end looks a little too truncated and its base appears to have been cut into.
If you’re visiting the nearby falconry centre, give it a look and see what you think.

This circle is said to consist of seven stones and be the kerb of a wrecked stone cairn. I couldn’t verify this as it stands on forestry commision land and the entrance is blocked by a large set of locked gates with signs warning of prosecution and general unpleasantries to any trespassers.
It wasn’t until I got home and rechecked the map that I noticed a public right of way passing through the plantation, just a little furthur along the road.
Damn....

If you are taking a walk from the Hurlers to the Cheesewring, take a right turn about half way and investigate this barrow.
While the other two sites will probably be swarming with visitors, it seems no-one ever comes here which is a shame (or a good thing, depending on your point of view), as this is where the Rillaton cup- a corrugated gold beaker- was found. The cup was discovered in 1818 when the stone grave to the east of the barrow was opened, along with a skeleton and bronze dagger.
There is also a rather large hole in the top of the mound, probably caused by treasure hunters looking for more burial ‘goodies‘

One of the four cursus (cursii?) that cross the Rudston area, the southern end of Beacon cursus is just about visible as a crop mark next to the Roman road (Woldgate) that runs from Kilham to Bridlington. The same road passes over Beacon mound, a short distance to the west.
While there is not much to see on the ground, the views are interesting, the sea lies to the east, there are extensive views to the south, and the church tower to the north at Rudston now blocks the view of the monolith.
It’s worth taking some time here to stand an the start (or is it end) of the cursus and ponder just what the ancients were doing here, its obviously an important area. Just what ceremonies were taking place here? What WERE they thinking?

Edit:
I visited again in Autumn 2003 to see if the end of the cursus was any more visible in the freshly harvested field – it wasn’t. There is a very slight raised bank that can only really be seen by walking backwards and forwards but totally vanishes on photographs. There is however a good aerial shot in Anne Woodward’s book ‘British Barrows, a matter of Life and Death’ ISBN 0 7524 1468 2

I had real problems finding this strange monument, I drove up and down the main road before finding the tiny side road that twists and turns up the hillside. Then took the wrong track and spent a long time crawling over the steep slopes in less than favourable weather. It occured to me that if I slipped and tumbled down the hill I might not be found for days!
I had just about given up on finding the stones and headed back across the crest of the hill only to find myself walking straight through the middle of the circle – I really must learn to map-read better :)

Wow – you can see why they built this little beauty here. The stones are perched on the hillside overlooking the quaint Manorbier bay and on a sunny summer day this is an excellent place to lay back on top of the cap-stone, chill out and take in the views. If you need directions, ask the chap who takes the cash at the car-park.

Not a lot to see at this one, the stones are in the middle of a field, I can’t remember the reason why I couldn’t get over the fence that surrounds the area – maybe it was barbed or electrified or something. Nice area though.

Visited this place one evening, nobody around, no sound but the distant bleating of lambs on a far hillside.
Absolute magic.

This one is on private land in the Plas Newydd country Park. I paid to get in but couldn’t get close enough to the stones to get a decent picture. On the way out I realised I could have got a better view from the free car-park. Oh well, we live and learn. A longer lens woulda been useful though...

As Julian points out, this is a difficult one to find even with an OS map, but if you are in the area it’s well worth searching out. A nice little dolmen that looks like somebody just left in in a field and forgot about it, the only thing that spoils the ‘out in the middle of nowhere’ ambience is a nearby boarding kennel. Just down the road is Caer Leb a Romano-Celtic (?) setlement.

On Rombalds moor normal OS grid refs make little sense -this is GPS territory! My recording is SE1282146763. Without GPS the easiest way to get to the Hanging Stones carvings is to head out of the carpark, walk past the Cow and Calf rocks, take a right turn and follow the track to the old quarry. Clamber around on flat outcrops of rock and you should come across this strange series of cups, rings, lines, a 3 armed spiral and the main central feature. This consists of a central cup, concentric rings, with possible cups, ans a strange squigly outline. Is it some kind of map?
Just to mess the place up, some idiot has carved a celtic knotwork pattern into the rock just a few feet away. OK, so they’ve done a nice job, but this ain’t the place for it...