Chris Collyer

Visited in September 2007 and Ministry of Works sign had been removed so can’t be used as a waymarker to find the cairn and nearby Wet Withens. The cairn itself has been bashed about and it’s difficult to figure out what it was meant to be. There is a suggestion that it may originally have been a pair of cairns that were either joined in antiquity or by more recent excavation/quarrying while another idea is that it could have been a long cairn. It measures about 28 metres by 18 metres.

This barrow stands just over the fence next to a slip road off the A171. This slip road makes an ideal parking place for exploring the southwestern end of Brow Moor/Stony Marl Moor. The barrow itself is small low mound that sits on a high point of land and is very similar in size to the two Jugger Howes barrows that stand 300 metres south east on the other side of the head of Burn Howe Dale. This position is interesting as all three barrows seem to mark the limit of the valley, in Lincolnshire similar locations were often the site of long barrows.

As previously mentioned parking here isn’t easy. There’s a passing place just to the east of the village at SK201800, if you park carefully you can avoid blocking it. From here a footpath heads north then cuts northeast across a couple of fields then onto the moor where it starts to get a bit steep but by the time you get close to the stones the track has levelled off giving views across the moor to the north. It’s the views to the south and east that impress though – due south on the other side of the valley the low saucer shaped hill of Abney Low looks like a squashed Silbury while Higger Tor stands out on the horizon to the east with Eyam Moor to the southeast.
The site itself isn’t in a great state of preservation with just a single standing stone and a further fallen stone visible. This smaller one seems to be set into the inner edge of the bank while the larger one looks to be set further into the interior, it could just be that the bank is more eroded here – there’s certainly a lot of erosion around the base of the stone. English Heritage give the measurements of this stone as 75cm high with the bank having an internal diameter of about 8 metres and a width of between 1.5 and 2 metres.

Not the easiest site to get to but I really liked this one. I parked at the same layby at SK281751 that gives access to Barbrook I and II, but took the track that leads east uphill to the ruined building of Ramsley Lodge. From here a decent track leads north then you need to cut across to the northeast towards the ring cairn. A word of warning though, parts of the moor are very marshy and I had to backtrack a couple of times to find a safer route. The site sits on a slightly raised area above this wet ground with views across it to the west towards Big Moor while just to the east the land slopes down to the stream that stands at the bottom of Hewetts Bank. The ring of rubble stones looked pretty well defined to my eyes, particularly to the south. On the way back I took a route towards the other entrance to the moor at SK283757 but this also proved quite waterlogged in places too.

The two smaller stones are easy enough to spot when approached from the track but the large square boulder on the rise of the hill really draws the eye. If my map reading is correct then the alignment passes northnorthwest just below, and following the line of, Birchen Edge, across the top of Gardom’s Edge, shaves the western edge of Swine Sty and onto White Edge. Whether this alignment was deliberate, part of a field boundary, or just a coincidence and the two small stones formed part of some other structure seems open to question but the alignment theory seems wholly believable on site when standing behind the smaller stones.

This is a bugger to find even with a gps. Approached from the direction of the 4 poster it’s impossible to see this cist until you fall into it as it is beneath the level of the heather, approached from the north however the large boulder becomes evident from a few metres away. This boulder looks like it may be earthfast while the other stones look pretty rough and ready, this is no elegant slab lines tomb but it does have a charm of it’s own, Stu mentions 2 sides of the cist being visible but I could only see the stones of the eastern side, any others must have been buried under the heather.

A lovely little site set on a gentle northeast slope that leads down to Umberley Brook, there’s a real sense of seclusion and isolation about these stones probably enhanced by the trek across the moor to reach them. All three are just over half a metre tall, about a couple of metres apart and with the axis of presumed square being northnortheast – southsouthwest, assuming of course there was ever a fourth stone.

Fairly easy to find and a short walk across the heather from the track that runs along the western edge of the moor. In Stu’s photo from 2002 the area looks to have been recently burnt off and as of summer 2008 the area to the west hasn’t fully regenerated although the stones themselves are starting to become engulfed in heather and rush and the smaller stones that may have formed part of a kerb are already covered.
The suggestion that the natural stone to the west could have been a prominent feature seems very plausible as it sticks out like a sore thumb, looking like some kind of megalithic sun lounger.
Some nice views to the northwest round to the northeast. OS Ref SK28146973

It’s a bit difficult to fathom this one out. There are several sets of 2 or more stones at the grid ref and slightly southwest that could form part of the arc of a ring cairn and the ground is uneven enough to suggest a low bank in places but nothing definite to my eyes. It’s good to read in Idwal’s post that even the archaeologists can’t agree on some of the sites of the moor.

I had a root round for this one but there’s not much to see (assuming that the site is accurately marked on the OS 1:25000 map) There does seem to be a semi-circular feature to the west of the fence that it evident by the growth of heather more than anything else and a slight change in the vegetation to the north and south where the track beside the fence passes through the cairn. Might be worth a look for the bank in winter.

English Heritage seem particularly undecided on the date of this one, saying probably post-Roman through to possibly as late as 7th century but on the other hand maybe Iron Age or even Bronze Age. So could be anything really.
I wonder if there is a clue in where the northeastern end of the earthwork leads to. As I was driving north away from the site I noticed some strange bumps and small hills to the east just after the two roads join and assumed they were quarry spoil heaps. Checking the maps and internet later I found out these are a natural feature known as Canyards Hills and that Natural England calls them “the most impressive example of ‘tumbled ground’ in England and Wales” Is it significant that Bar Dyke leads to, or from these hills?

I wasn’t expecting much from this site but was pleasantly surprised. Set on a gently northeast facing slope framed by Ewden Beck to the north and one of its tributaries to the east English Heritage record this as being a ring cairn rather than a stone circle. It’s difficult to tell exactly what it is as it’s quite overgrown and rooting around in the bracken and heather turns up many half buried small stones that formed part of a bank which the Morgans reckon is about 2-3 metres wide, the whole circle having a diameter of about 20 metres. There are 4 or 5 largish boulders that could be said to be standing together with a few slab like fallen stones, the rest of the larger stones are towards the northern, northeastern and southeastern edges of the ring while those to the west seem to be mainly packing material from the bank. I’m sure there are many more stones that I missed. The northern entrance seems well defined but I couldn’t quite decide which stones formed the southern entrance although what could be a fallen slab outlier could provide a clue.
The site has some decent views from the northwest round to the southeast but it’s the Salter Hills to the east that really draw the eye. There’s also a few interestingly named places close by – Stone Moor, Bolsterstone, Midhopestones and the wonderfully quaint Wigtwizzle.