Chris Collyer

I only found 2 of these cairns (known as Three Pow Raise) as I it was starting to get late and I had a long walk back to the car. The one in the picture is about 2 metres across and half a metre deep and is at NY48282186

I really liked the Cockpit, it was the main reason why I visited Moor Divock and was definitely well worth it. As you walk over the moor from the southeast the small stones of this 30 metre wide circle can be seen from a fair distance on a slightly raised plateau of land. How many stones? I read somewhere that there are 75, I tried counting them but got distracted by the sun as it began to descend between a gap in the stones to the west – are the stones missing here or was this an entrance? There is another possible entrance to the northeast.
The Cockpit is supposed to consist of a pair of concentric rings, in most parts it appears as a single ring of stones although there is a nice double run on the northwestern side. In my notes I had written ‘very nice’ and on a warm, still, spring evening it certainly was.

This is a beauty, a large barrow about 20 metres wide, still over a metres high and containing a open stone slab lined cist. This grave is a metre long and about half a metre wide and deep. James Dyer says it was found to contain a contracted skeleton.
As with other sites on the moor, there are still many of the original stones and small boulders scattered around.

This cairn is badly damaged but still has 1 medium sized stone and 2 smaller stones standing with several other boulders scattered around. The raised area of earth and rock would suggest that it was originally about 6 metres wide with the main area of stones being about 3 metres across.

Indeed a nice little circle of stones. There are 10 or 11 stones, the tallest around half a metre high, that form the 4 metre diameter circle of this ring cairn with many smaller cobbles still scattered around about and in the centre, which has been cleared down about a half metre. Popular with sheep.

As usual I find myself agreeing with Ironman, I had expected the stone to be taller. In Jacquetta Hawkes guide to British Archaeology the Cop Stone looks huge but standing next to it, it is still a respectable 120cm tall. Between it and Moor Divock South are a pair of standing stones about 2 metres apart and the tallest being about a metre high. If they form part of alignment then it is northwest-southeast and points roughly in the direction of The Cockpit

Looking at the OS Map, I was expecting Moor Divock to be a wild and untamed place but it turned out to be fairly flat and easy walking country covered with mainly grasses and patches of low heather and dead bracken. The track up from Pooley Bridge looked to be a bit on the steep side so I opted for the road from Helton and parked on the wide verge near The Cop, from here a track leads northwest past several cairns as the view steadily opens out with Heughscar Hill to your right and the looming hills of Barton Fell to your left. Certainly a nice place for an early evening stroll.

Probably the most famous carved rock on the moor, the Swastika Stone is generally considered to be later than the other carvings here and to date from the Iron Age. If you plan to visit the site it is well worth parking at the bottom of Heber’s Ghyll and walking up through the woods – this is a picturesque route that snakes up the steep hillside and criss-crosses Black Beck via several wooden footbridges. Once you get to the top a gate leads through a wall and onto the moor. Turn right and you should soon see the iron railings that surround the rock a few hundred metres ahead. Once you get there don’t overlook the actual carving – the one nearest to you is a Victorian copy, the original is just beyond it and is now very faint. Like several other sites on the moor there are some fantastic views across Wharfdale, especially to the northwest along the river valley.

This flat carved stone sits on the edge of a small outcrop of rock above Hardwick Holes and close to the main track that leads east-west across the northern part of Rombalds Moor before the land drops away to Addingham Moorside and the River Wharf valley beyond. The carvings on this slab consist of over 30 cups, some of which have rings with two of them having multiple rings. There are also several grooves, one encloses a pair of cups.
It looks like someone has recently scoured part of the main carving making it difficult to see, as well as possibly damaging it.

This carving is situated on the east side of Snowdon Carr just before a fieldwall. A low flattish boulder has around 18 cup marks with 11 of them linked with grooves to a central ‘stem’ resembling a leaf or a tree, hence the stones name, with other interlinking grooves around parts of the design.
Although this is quite a long rock, the carving are confined to the eastern end (there are a couple of simple cups on the western end), This could have be due to the view looking in this direction over the Washburn valley with the river curving away to the left and right, and the hill of Norwood Edge straight ahead. This ancient view has been altered in modern times with Swinsty Reservoir now to the left with Menwith Hill’s golfballs beyond it, and a large radio mast on top of Norwood Edge.
GPS Ref – SE17980, 51167

On the northern side of Snowdon Carr and a couple of hundred metres from the rocky edge of Snowdon Crags is this strange carving that can be said to resemble a skull although it reminded me more of Munch’s ‘The Scream’. It consists of an upside down triangle of cup marks with a smaller cup close to the middle. These three larger cups are surrounded by interlinking rings with form the shape of the face, the top 2 cups forming the eyes, the bottom one the mouth and the middle one a nose.
There are several other cup marked rocks close by in a damaged cairn field, one has four deep cups, while another has a large basin – I’m not sure if this is a natural feature or man made
GPS Ref SE17796, 51239

This is an area of rough heather covered moorland northeast of Ilkley and northwest of Otley. It has several carved rocks (about 2 dozen), but due to the undergrowth and lack of tracks they can be difficult to find. One particular carving somewhere near SE167506 consists of a human figure with an arch over its head, which could be interpreted as either a shaman, a hunter with a bow, or some kind of deity. Unfortunately due to some over inquisitive sheep I was unable to find the carving.
If you venture onto the moor, it is worth taking the one track that does exist that leads from a gate north of the carpark on Askwith Moor Road, to a triangulation point at Shooting House Hill where there is a spectacular 360 degree view of this whole area between the Wharf and the Washburn.

There’s no missing this landmark stone as it can be seen from a great distance across the moor standing above a wall that runs south, up from Intake Beck, past Silver Wells Cottage before bearing to the west and continuing to Silver Wells itself. Probably the easiest way to get to it is to walk up Keighley Road until a track leads off to the west and almost directly to the stone.
For such a prominent rock it has only a few possible cup marks, as do 2 of the large rocks next to it that make up part of the wall. It is possible that as the large flat side of this stone faces to the north across Ilkley and does not face the sun as the Badger stone does, that it was not deemed suitable for use as a carving surface by the inhabitants of the moor.
Some interesting sightlines include the Badger Stone,(east-south-east), Willy Hall’s Wood (east) and Weary Hill (north-east)..

This one is a bit of a mystery. Julian mentions it, as do several other sources but they give no details, while Burl ignores it and I have never seen any pictures of it or any solid information about it. While I was at the Badger Stone chatting to a knowledgeable local I asked him about this site – his opinion was that it is a fake, the stones having been placed there recently by persons unknown and as this particular area was formerly mined for rock there would have been plenty of stones lying about for them to choose from. The situation is also confused by the remains of some kind of (recent?) settlement building that seems to cut right through the circle, as well as the whole site being very overgrown.

This site is fairly easy to find if you follow the course of Backstone Beck after it crosses a track leading south-west from the Cow and Calf, the settlement is on the east of the beck.
It consists of 2 possible hut circles at the south end that have been somewhat restored and part of a curved low rubble wall that has also been restored (Ilkley Archaeology Group 1982-87). A suggested date for the earliest use of the site is around 3000BC, with the hut circles dated much later at somewhere between 800 and 500BC
There are also said to be 3 carved rocks within the enclosure but as I was short of time that day I didn’t have the time to find them.

Not sure what the name of this one might be, or even if it has a name. To get to it follow the track north from the Badger Stone a short distance until you reach an east-west track that crosses it. Turn right and walk for a short distance looking to your right for a stone partly topped with white lichen.
Because of the light it was hard to make out the carvings, but they seem to consist of a cup with four or five concentric rings. Coming from the right hand side of this motif there appeared to be several wavy lines, making the whole pattern look like a medieval drawing of a comet.
My GPS reading was SE11147,46138