fitzcoraldo

I spent a cold frosty morning in Goathland watching the Plough Stots perform their annual sword dance around the village, with half a day to kill I decided to follow my nose south into the Tabular Hills.
The Tabular Hills occupy the southern end of the North York Moors, geologically they are formed of layers of Jurrassic limestone. In prehistory, as today, these hills were rich farmland and a marked contrast to the wide open heather expanse and thin soils of the northern moors.
I travelled from Goathland south along the Pickering road. Once past the menacing structure of the Fylingdales military base the road climbs up through Saltergate and past it’s famous pub where the peat fire that has burned continuously since 1759 trapping the malevolent spirit of a murdered excise man. From Slatergate the road runs around the edge of the Hole of Horcum, a huge natural bowl that legend tells us was created by either the Devil or Wade the Giant. A few miles along this road is the Dalby Forest drive. This is a toll road operated by the Forestry Commission and is very popular with hikers, bikers and all sorts of outdoor pursuit types. The road leads you into the Dalby Forest, a huge area of managed woodland, rich in archaeology. Being a good yorkshireman I only ever drive along this road in the wintertime when access is free.
A couple of miles along the road brings you to the Bridestones car park. The path to the stones is signposted. Once through the gate I recommend you take the left hand of the three paths, this will take along the edge of the woods and then slowly up to the moor top. As you climb from the valley floor you can see the Bridestones standing like sentinels, lining the ridge to the east of you. The moor here has a primeval vibe about it and seeing the stones looking down on you gives you some idea as to how the people who first named these stones may have felt, the mysteriousness of this place would not have been lost on our ancestors. The stones outcrop on either side of a narrow valley, the eastern stones have a monumental vibe around them, the rock overhangs of the western stones may have provided plenty of opportunity for shelter and perhaps a place to observe game moving along Dovedale Griff below.
If you in the area it is well worth having a look at the Bridestones. The walk from the car park will take you about 15 minutes. The gated track is quite steep in places and there are quite a few steps on the way to and from the stones.
If you are feeling energetic you could park at the Hole of Horcum and make a day of it taking in the Old Wife’s Way, Blakey Topping and its standing stones and the Bridestones.

I called into Sunhoney after visiting Midmar Kirk. The grey November morning and The Kirk had combined to leave me feeling a bit gloomy but this soon lifted as I approached Sunhoney.
Not too much to say about the circle that hasn’t already been said, although I would like to add my appreciation to the farmer for providing excellent access to this lovely ring.
Sunhoney will brighten your dreichest day.

I found Midmar to be a bit of an odd place. The circle is smaller than I expected. I didn’t hang around here too long. All in all I found the whole experience here a little un-nerving.
The mortuary in the hospital where I used to work was painted in exactly the same shade of blue as the Kirk.

I parked up at the cottages and walked through the wood that runs along the edge of the field.
Fortunately the crop in the field had just sprouted so I was able to carefully pick my way across to the circle.
This is a lovely ring, the choice of stone, the views through the leafless trees to Mither Tap and the two mighty outliers all combine to make this a special place.
If you’re up in Aberdeenshire you should definitely put Balgorkar on your list

I was up in Aberdeen for a couple of days on a course. My course was scheduled to finish at 4pm, sunset was at around 3.30pm. Fortunately a couple of my colleagues had flights to catch so we wrapped it all up at about 2.30pm. I dashed out of the building, jumped in the van and made a beeline for Tyrebagger, racing the sun.

The Path to the circle offers various views of the stones but cannot really prepare you for the sense of lovliness that flows over you as you step into this circle. I was fortunate enough to be there on a sunny November day. The sun was slowly sinking below Tyrebagger hill and I was able to sit in the circle and watch the shadows grow longer and longer.

I’ve visited the circle a number of times in the past whilst waiting to fly out of Aberdeen. Tyrebagger has become something of a touchstone from me. When flying out of Aberdeen I always try to take ‘a ringside seat’, which every now and then rewards me with a glimpse of the circle from the air. More often than the not the helicopter taxis onto the runway and heads straight out for the coast but every now and then it lingers momentarily over the airport allowing a quick view of the stones.

I visited Easter Aquhorthies on a still November evening. I had watched the sunset at Broomend and then drove in the twilight along the single track road from Inverurie.
I parked up in the carpark and walked along the track, the moon was quite high and was encircled by a huge ice halo. I could hear an owl screeching in the distance. It was one of those moments when you know something special was happening.
I sat in the circle and the place just seemed to wrap itself around me. I can’t tell you how long I stayed there but it was a real wrench to walk away from the place.
This was my first visit to the circle and to see it in the moonlight was an unforgetable experience. I’m in love with this circle

I called in at Tealing on my way up to Aberdeen. I was hoping to have a good nosey around the general area but unfortunately a number of factors conspired to ensure that I arrived at Tealing just as the sun was going down. There is a parking space opposite the farmyard and the earth house is just a small walk away.
What prompted me to visit the Tealing Earth House was the inclusion of two carved rocks in the fabric of the structure. The pair of carved rocks are lovely, the cup and ring carved rock is built into the wall of the structure, the cup marked rock is embedded into the turf that is enclosed within the arc of the structure. The inclusion of these stones couldn’t really be anything but a deliberate act, perhaps as a ‘nod to the ancestors’.

Earth Houses, Souterrains, Weems, Fogous, call ‘em what you like, these are strange structures. We are told that they are possibly defensive structures or storehouses. Personally speaking, I feel that these structures had to be used for more than the usual explanations. The design and care taken in their construction implies that their uses ran to more than Iron Age storerooms or bolt holes. The limited geographical distribution, throughout our islands, of these structures also may imply that they may have had a specific meaning to a specific community. Truth is no-one knows.
The inclusion of the carved stones in the fabric of the building is not unique to Tealing, there are carved stones in the walls of the nearby Mains of Ardestine Earth House and there is a cup marked stone in the Aberdeenshire Souterrain at Clush.
The reuse of carved stones has a long tradition in our islands and abroad, an unbroken lineage from the Neolithic to the present day.

Tealing is a lovely site. The short walk from the parking space involves a low stile, a muddy field path and a kissing gate so may not be suitable for all.

Please be aware. If you are in any sense hydrophobic stop reading this now and go and find another stone circle to visit.
My route to the Haws started in Torver, the footpath to the fells passed by my campsite and so was the most logical route to take. It is also the route given by Robert Harris in his book Walks in Ancient Lakeland.
The walled trackway from Torver winds its way up through beautiful gnarly woodland, the walls along the track are covered in thick green velvety moss giving them the appearance of having grown there. All around you is the sound of running water, unfortunately most of it is underfoot as the trackway and the Ash Gill Beck, which it follows, have joined forces. I wouldn’t recommend wearing wellies here as the track is lined with slate chippings and is very slippery.
I’m afraid when you leave the woodland things don’t improve much. The moor above the wood is waterlogged and I would recommend walking parallel to the trackway using the sheep tracks as they tend to follow the drier ground.
One thing that does lift the soul at this point is the view, the Old Man of Coniston and Dow Crag rise above you changing the whole landscape perspective from one of soft woodland to hard fell.
Your next obstacle is the Bull Haw Moss Beck, a  deep, fast flowing stream. At it’s shallowest point the beck is about three quarters of a metre deep and at its narrowest point about a meter and a half wide. Robert Harris mentions stepping stones, I couldn’t find them. The only thing for it was to jump. I threw my bag over and then grabbed the terrier and leapt across.
Once over the beck things start to improve. The ground is still marshy but gradually rises. You can see the long ridge of Blaeberry Haws rising to your left.
I left the path here and struck out to climb the hillside, aiming for the cairn on the top of the Haw.
Once at the cairn the whole landscape opened out in front of me. There were views back into central Cumbria to the north east and the Duddon estuary to the south but the dominant unescapable influence here is the Old Man and his partner Dow Crag.
The hilltop cairn is modern but may be overlying a more ancient structure and the base platform is seems to be composed of stones and is out of proportion with the narrow cairn.
From the cairn the circle is on the slightly lower ground to the south west.
Once at the circle you’ll notice the northern views are obscurred by the higher ground. I would suggest that although the Old Man is the dominant feature, the eye is drawn to the south and the silvery waters of the Duddo estuary. It’s also interesting that the other prehistoric structures, the robbed cairn, earthwork and ring cairn are not visible from the circle.
The circle itself is a beautiful tiny ring, just four paces across with the tallest of the seven stones no higher then my knee.
After spending a little time at the circle I walked back along the ridge to the north east and had a look at the robbed cairn. The cairn is composed of cobbles and has a hollow centre. In the centre are a number of large pieces of slate, Robert Harris suggests that this may the the remains of a cist.
The next feature you encounter, along the north eastern edge of the Haw, is a linear bank running NW-SE and curving slightly to respect the cairn.
After the earthwork is a large ring cairn. Unfortunately my photographic skills do not do this structure justice as it is a large (nineteen paces), well-defined feature with bits of stone poking through the banking.
I spent a good hour up on the ridge poking around these sites but the clouds began getting lower and lower so I decided it was time to go.
I returned by walking along to the old slate workings and then following the Ash Gill Beck back down the hillside. In hindsight I would suggest this is probably the route I should have taken when ascending the Haws as the gradient is a little less severe and the ground is a little drier.

All in all I would say that Bleaberry Haws is well worth the effort. The domineering effect of the Old Man really grounds you in the landscape, a landscape that, at first glance, seems wild and untamed and the monuments here seem remote and isolated. But take a closer look and you’ll see the hand of man on the fells. The Old Man of Coniston is riddled with mines and quarries. There is even evidence of prehistoric copper extraction here. So we are seeing a landscape that has previously been a place of massive industrial activity stretching back into prehistory.

In his excellent book, The Stone Circles of Cumbria, John Waterhouse suggests an alternative route to Bleaberry Haws
“The easiest approach to this tiny circle is from the quarry road.
Leave the quarry road at the point where it turns sharp left and cross a dry stone wall.”

Grasmere is another one of the recently discovered Cumbrian rock art panels. It was found by a lady called Liz Clay (cheers Kate).
The panel itself couldn’t be easier to visit as it’s in the middle of Grasmere village in the corner of Broadgate Park, right next to the NT carpark.
The panel itself is a glacially smoothed outcrop with dozens of cupmarks. There are definite similarities between this panel, in both the nature of the carvings and the location, and the panels in Patterdale and Crummock.
I’ve got a feeling that there maybe a lot more sites like this just waiting to be found.
I love this panel being in Grasmere, I was able to visit the panel and tip a nod to Wordsworth.
I only found out about the Constable exhibition in the Wordsworth Museum when I got home..damn! wordsworth.org.uk/Default.asp?Page=37

A wee while ago Kate Sharpe had told me that Gabriel Blamires had discovered a cup marked rock in the woods behind the National Trust Campsite. So with this in mind I decided to take a look.
I had it in my mind that this stone was going to be tucked away somewhere and difficult to find. So myself and the terrier trudged through the swampy wood that borders the southern edge of the campsite. Needless to say we found nowt.
On the afternoon, and after a good lunch at the Old Dungeon Ghyll bar, I decided to have a mooch up to Side Pike and take some snaps of the Langdale Pikes across the valley. I couldn’t believe it, I walked into the wood and there beside the path was the cup marked stone with a lovely shadow being cast across it by the afternoon sun.
The stone may not be its original location as the area has been forested, but owing to the size of the stone I suspect it is probably fairly close. The stone also looks as though it has been quarried, perhaps an edge was knocked of it during the forestry operations or perhaps a local waller has used the stone as a convient source of material for the nearby wall.

This is a great stone but its significance, as always, lies in it’s location.
The stone sits just above the head of the Great Langdale valley at the junction of a number of, possibly prehistoric, trackways. The footpath beside the stone heads south around Side Pike and connects with east- west trackway via the Wrynose Pass which in turn connects with the HardKnott Pass and the Duddon Valley both of which lead to the coast.
There are views into Mickleden and the route north to Keswick along Langstrath via the Stake Pass or branching off onto the Honister Pass and accessing the coast via Buttermere, Crummock and the River Cocker. Carved stones have also be recently discovered along this route.
All in all this is a beautiful site, if you consider that the Langdale Pikes may have been the prehistoric focus of Cumbria then this stone may enhance that view. The existence of these carvings may also add weight to the prehistoric origins of the carvings at Copt Howe.
Access to the site is very good for those on foot. However for wheeled access there are two gates to negotiate and the ground can be a little boggy.

Swarth Howe is a pretty easy place to visit. It is just off the A171 and has a carpark on the opposite side of the road.
Accessibility is a completely different issue, the barrow is lost in a pretty much continuous dense thicket of gorse. It is possible to pick a path through the gorse and only come away with minor scratches but to be honest with you it’s not really worth it. You’ll spend a good half hour stumbing around to be rewarded with a fairly non-descript mound. Definitely one for the enthusiast.
The stone row is a different matter.
As you walk up the gorse lined track from the A171 to the wireless station, you’ll find Swarth Howe on your right and the stone row on your left.
It is possible to find a gap in the gorse and make your way to the stones but I would advise that you walk a little further up the path to the gateposts and then backtrack along the edge of the woodland. This will bring you to the first of the stones. Once you’ve found the first stone just cut into the trees and you’ll find the OS pillar and beyond that the second stone.
One point you may not appreciate if you are approaching the site from the north along the A171 is, that at 264m the Swarth Howe site occupies the highest point on Northern Margin of the Lower Esk valley and can be seen from many points to the south of the Esk as well as from a decent radius of coastline. This place was deliberately chosen and in my opinion is well worth a visit even if just to appreciate the topographic aspects of the site.
I had planned a circular walk from the carpark at NZ843088 through Hutton Mulgrave Woods and then back along the path at Moorgate Farm checking out the cairnfield and standing stone at NZ825098 but unfortunately the path from the farm no longer seems to exist and with no one around to ask I had to back track through the woods.

I noticed this stone after I had staggered out the pub on the opposite side of the road to it.
I returned the next dayto make sure I hadn’t dreamt it.
The stone is approximately 2.5 metres tall and 1 metre across at its broadest point. The stone has been mounted into a recess on the corner of the road. The stone has ‘Langstane’ carved into it and is situated in Langstane Place.
What makes me think the stone may be prehistoric is that the base has been carved into a keel shape or a “rough beak” as Burl calls it. This is a common feature of the stones erected in Aberdeenshire Recumbent Stone Circles.
The stone isn’t featured in Canmore and I browsed through the local history sections of the nearby bookshops but could find no reference to the stone.

I discovered this cup marked stone yesterday.
As far as I’m aware this is probably the first carved stone to be found on this section of the North York Moors.

The walk to the Nan Stone from Scaling Dam is beautiful at this time of year.
If you start from the Scaling Dam car park and then follow the circular walk signs they will lead you into Quarry Lane. Alternatively you can access Quarry lane from the main A171. From Quarry Lane just follow the path and you will eventually come to the moor.
There’s lots to see here as the walk to the moor takes you along the edge of the Scaling nature reserve. If you love wild flowers then this is definitely a place to be. It’s times like this when I wish I knew the names of many more of our wildflowers. Also at this time of the year it is almost impossible to avoid stepping on small black frogs, they are less than 1cm long and are everywhere.
To get to the Nan Stone you should turn right and follow the earthwork when you get to the open moor. If you can’t see the earthwork to your right then you haven’t arrived yet, keep walking.
Once you have turned right and begun to follow the earthwork you will notice an upright standing stone. The Nan Stone is part of this boundary so keep walking. The earthwork turns off to your right but you must keep walking ahead to the top of a small hill, this is where you will find the next stone. This large stone is now leaning but the weathering on the top shows that it was once erect.
Keep walking along the same line and you will eventually come to a well-made keepers track. Cross the track and climb the small knoll. From the top of this knoll you should be looking out over a large marshy area of sedges, moss and a couple of dwarf trees. You should be able to see the stones slightly to your left on the rising ground on the opposite side.
The next bit is up to you. I bog-trotted across the sphagnum swang wearing just a pair of trainers. It was a blistering hot day and my feet soon dried. Sensible folk can pick their way around the swang and keep their feet relatively dry.
The stones are both standing and are about 1 metre tall. The squared stone is a modern boundary stone that was probably erected during the eighteenth century. The Nan Stone is its rather squat neighbour. The stone has a flat face with a + carved into it, there is also some very weathered carving close to the base of the stone and some cup-like depressions on the top of the stone which are probably solution cups caused by natural erosion processes.
There are two things about the Nan stone that I really like.
The first is the journey to the stone. The walk is not particularly long or challenging but it takes you along an old road lined with ancient hawthorns hanging with honeysuckle. You then walk through an area of wetlands which are rich in wildflowers, butterflies, birds and fly-infested sheep that refuse to give ground to you but will happily transfer half of their blue-arsed lodgers to your keeping.
You then walk onto the lovely moody open moor with it’s vast expanse of heather, bilberry and bracken . And then your final challenge is crossing a lush sphagnum bog.
The second thing that appeals to me is that this moor is rich in prehistoric remains and this stone may well have been used as a boundary marker way back in ..? who knows.
It is possible that when we walk this boundary we are walking along something that was established in prehistory and is still in active use today. My OS map has this boundary marked as Euro ER, Co Const CP & UA Bdy. I’m not too sure what all of that means but what I do know is that this ancient boundary still has meaning today
The Nan stone has been transformed from a stone that possibly legitimised the claims of one small group of prehistoric North Yorkshire people to a patch of moorland territory to a stone that helps define a European political constituancy. Onwards and upwards.
The Nan Stone is lovely, get yersels there.

Rich and I have had a hankering to get up to Gayles Moor for quite some time now. Trouble is the land is owned by the MOD and is used as a  live range.
After Rich obtained the telephone number of the range warden and then spent a fruitless week trying to contact him we sort of resigned ourselves to getting nowhere and arranged to go and check out some Cumbrian rock art.
I picked Rich up at Scotch Corner and suggested that as we were in the neighbourhood perhaps we have a mooch up to the ranges just on the off- chance that we could blag ourselves onto the moor.
To cut a long story short. The wardens initially didn’t want to let us onto the moor but Rich turned on the charm and dropped a couple of names, ten minutes later we were walking out onto the open moorland.
The weather was blistering and it was a good couple of miles from the warden buildings to the rock art sites but we kept our spirits up by looking at all the spent ordnance and burned out, blown up tanks that littered the roadside – well, not exactly littering the place but there were 3 of them and lots of bullet cases.
Beckensall and Laurie describe the area as “an open linear group of marked rocks extending east-west on an elevated terrace of gently sloping moorland, about 2000m long and 1000m wide. All rocks are above 350m OD”.
The site faces north by north west with views to the east of the Cleveland escarpment, to the west are the Pennine uplands and to the north the gently undulating plain of County Durham.
We spent a good day mooching around this area and were rewarded with some wonderful rock art panels. We both agreed that outside of, Northumbria, we had not encountered so many complex motifs in such a small area.
All in all I would definitely recommend a visit to Gayles Moor, the rock art is stunning and the landscape and views alone are worth the walk.

Note. The ranges are generally open to the public on Sunday afternoons and Mondays.
We got lucky with our visit but to avoid disappointment I would definitely advise you to contact the range wardens. This area is far too dangerous just to wander into.

Rich showed me this stone on the way up to Gayles Moor.
The stone is part of the cobbled pavement in front of the Bay Horse pub.
Apparently it was first noticed in 1994 whilst having a pint after a days rock art hunting in the area.

I was taken to this site by the wonderful Margaret Curtis following a visit to the nearby Bernera Bridge stones.
We got to the site by using the gate which is just a little way along from the lay-by and then walked down to the small river. There is an ancient and very dodgy weed-covered stone-causeway running across this river. Despite wearing two left wellingtons, Margaret bounded across it without a care. I, in my walking boots, gingerly picked my way across it to the other side whilst all the time telling Margaret that she was barking mad.
The rock art panels are on the shore of the small inlet, just past a fence that extends to the shore. They are covered in seaweed and may take a little finding. There is a ruined broch Dun Barraglom on the small promontary and a couple of ruined buildings.
As well as the cups there is a shallow carving that resembles a Pictish mirror carving’ or a ‘Proto-Pictish carving’ as Margaret calls it.
If you are visiting the Bernera Stones I would suggest that you also have a look at this site. If you are not willing to brave the causeway then you could walk around by the road and cross through the nearby fields (with permission of course).
If possible I would strongly recommend that you take Margaret Curtis with you.

The Cammon Stone is located in an area with some of the earliest evidence of human activity on the North Yorkshire Moors. It sits beside an upland trackway that runs from the Vale of Pickering in the south to the upper Esk Valley and The Vale of Cleveland in the north. The track was used as a drover’s road; Raymond Hayes wrote that it was being used as an important drove road in 1276 and was still being used for the same purpose as late as the 1930’s.
The stone sits in a depression beside the trackway and is leaning at an angle. I reckon that when the stone was upright it would have stood at about 6 feet high. Beside the stone is another large slab, a number of learned folk have speculated that this stone may also have once stood upright, if so they would have made a fine pair.
The stone itself is beautiful; the southern face has a deep water worn groove running from a small basin on the top of the stone, dividing the stone into two. I had walked to the stone from Farndale some four miles away and maybe the icy wind, fog and driving sleet had got to me but in my minds eye I saw the stone resembling a huge sleeping bat which could unfurl itself at any moment and fly away, a kind of prehistoric gargoyle… hypothermia may be a killer but it can also be fun in small doses!

Unfortunately on my last visit the views from the stone were extremely limited but if you find yourself at the stone on a good day there are some lovely views along the the isolated valley of Bransdale to the south west, Farndale to the south east and the moorland uplands to the north. The Barrows of the Three Howes also mark the horizon to the south.
Access to the stone involves a certain amount of effort; the rutted trackway beside the stone is wide and still used by as a keepers track. The shortest route to the stone is probably via one of the footpaths from the head of Farndale.

A mile to the north east of the stone are the nationally important flint sites of White Gill. Studies of the White Gill flint scatters have revealed evidence of early Mesolithic occupation, a number of flints showing affinities with the flint tools of Star Carr. This implies that the people of Star Carr may have used this route to access the uplands and establish summer camps.
A mile to the south of the Cammon stone is the flint site of Ouse Gill Head. The flint from this site indicated Mesolithic occupation continuing into the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
So what we have is a lovely ancient stone situated beside major routeway with evidence of use starting ten thousand years ago and continuing to the present day.

The Flat Howes are a pair of round barrows on Black Brow, Sleights Moor. The barrows are just a ten minute walk across open heather moorland from the High Bride Stones.
The Howes are pretty typical examples of large North York Moors monuments. The northern barrow is slightly more interesting as it still has quite a few kerb stones still in situ. They are worth a look but are nothing too remarkable, until you consider two things.

Firstly, the views.
The views are stunning, you can see for almost the full length of the Esk Valley, from the coast in the east to Kildale and the source of the Esk in the west. The view also takes in all of the prominent prehistoric coastal features from Street House to Brow Moor and beyond. The view from the barrows also looks back over the vast expanse of moorland as far as the distant Tabular Hills. I have no doubts that this site was very carefully chosen by the prehistoric peoples of this area.

The second thing to consider is, that the Flat Howes mark the beginning of a chain of large moorland barrows which run across a high ridge for eight to ten miles.
A number of archaeologists have suggested that this and other moorland barrow chains may have formed the boundaries of specific moorland territories and it’s worth noting that part of this chain still forms a political boundary.
The barrows in this particular chain are Flat Howes, the Pen Howes, Breckon Howe, Sil Howe, Flass Brow, Robbed Howe, the Foster Howes, Ann Howe, Louven Howe, Lilla Howe, and the High and Low Woof Howes.
The Great Frank Elgee observed “the line then continues along Maw Rigg to another large barrow group”. He also noted that “the line skilfully picks its way through some very wet moorland. It is noticeable that the groups do not occur in this area but come in on its outskirts, where drier strata form the surface on Sleights Moor and Allon Tops and on Thompson’s and Maw Riggs.”

In my view, this chain could be almost considered as one single huge landscape feature. Once you are aware of the alignment it becomes very obvious. Don’t take my word for it, the area is very accessible by road. Get yourself there and check it out

Timing is everything with the North York Moors. In the summer, sites can be chest deep in Bracken, in the winter knee deep in snow or surrounded by great bogs. Greenland Howe is one such site. The last time I was up on this moor it was extremely foggy and as the Howe is off the track I decided to check out so of the more accessible barrows in the area. Yesterday everything seemed just right, the snow had more or less melted away on my local hills and it was a cold, crisp morning. When I crossed the Esk Valley and drove up the Blue Bank from Sleights I was a little surprised to see the moor still covered in a layer of fairly deep snow. One thing I forgot to take into account was that Sleights Moor is nearly 300 metres above sea level and extremely exposed on all sides.
I accessed the moor from the A169, there is a bridle path onto the moor just opposite the Grosmont turn off. The path is fairly straight forward until just past the low scary power lines, when the path splits in two. You should take neither branch and head out across the open moor in a roughly easterly direction using the distant beacon on the top of Brow Moor as your guide. The barrow is situated on the edge of the moor on a ridge overlooking farmland and the lovely Littlebeck Valley.
The barrow itself is pretty wrecked, the mound has gone and just a few of the kerb stones remain, what should draw you too this monument is the absolutely beautiful and intact cist. Stanhope White described it as the finest example of a cist on the North York Moors, I don’t think he was far wrong. The cist itself is approximately six feet by two feet and about three feet deep, which is a good size for any British cist. There is also a possible outlying stone roughly north north east of the barrow.
The views from the barrow are beautiful, to the North you can see along the valley to the coast and Whitby to the east is the Biller Howe and Brow Moor, to the west is the higher ground of Sleights Moor with it’s chain of barrows silhouetted on the horizon and to the south is the ridge formed by the igneous intrusion, the Cleveland Dyke.
If you look to the south you can just make out the stone on the Flass Brow mound, using my handy Ray Seton “Astronomical Signficance Indicator”, a wonderful field tool, I discovered that, when viewed from the barrow, the Flass Brow mound was in line with the winter solstice sunset.
Greenland Howe is well worth a visit especially if you combine it with a visit to some of the other prehistoric monuments in the area. This area is extremely rich in prehistoric sites, from rock art to cross ridge dykes, barrows, cairn fields and standing stones. There seems to be a roughly east-west progression of monuments across the landscape following the River Esk from the coast with addition of chains of monuments running along the north-south ridges following the tributaries to the River Esk.

Highcliff Nab is a spectaular rock outcrop on the northern edge of the North York Moors escarpement. The Nab overlooks Guisborough with views to Middlesbrough in the west, and the coast and East Cleveland in the north and east. To the south of the Nab is the vast expanse of the North York Moors. The views from the Nab have been drawing visitors to the area since at least the time of Camden.
In 1995 reports of flints being found on the eroded edges of the Cleveland Way path led to a limited excavation of the Nab. The excavators found evidence of major Mesolithic activity on the cliff top. They also failed to find any significant domestic evidence and concluded that the Nab was probably a temporary occupation site associated with hunting.
The Nab is fairly easy to access. A wide forestry road runs from Hutton Village to the foot of the Nab via Bold Venture Gill. People with mobility difficulties may find the climb up to the Nab itself difficult.
As I’ve already mentioned, the views from the Nab are beautiful, especially on a clear day. What struck me was how well these views illustrate the occupancy of the higher ground during prehistoric times. Prehistoric sites such as Eston Nab, Upleatham and Mount Pleasant are all visible from the Nab. Bearing in mind that pollen analysis has shown that there was probably open woodland on the uplands but the lowlands would have been a dense canopy of woodland, these prehistoric sites would have appeared almost like islands in the ancient forests.
If you’re in the area I would definitely recommend a walk up to Highcliff Nab, it will only take up two hours of your day. If you want to get a feel for how the landscape area may have looked to the Mesolithic folk then it’s well worth the effort.

For added interest, the walk from Hutton Village takes you through a RIGS area, an area of special geological importance where you can see outcrops of ironstone, alum and jet formations.

With half a day to kill I decided to check out a few local sites. My first stop was Hanging Stone.
Probably the easiest way to access the stone is to walk up through the woods from Hutton Village.
The footpath is pretty good in most parts but there are some fairly swampy patches and a number of steep banks to climb.
Hanging stone is a natural outcrop at the most northerly point of a narrow 2km long ridge that runs roughly north-south from Hutton Moor.
The narrow horizontal outcrop jutts out of the hillside giving it an alter-like appearance. At first glance the rock appears to be man-made, this is due to the ‘building block-sized’ horizontal bedding of the outcrop.
What makes the ridge and Hanging Stone significant is that the people of the Bronze Age placed at least 4 barrows along this short, narrow ridge. To me this would imply that the shape, nature and views from the Hanging Stone would not have been lost on the Bronze Age and possibly earlier folk. In my wildest flights of fancy I can see the easily accessible flat top of the hanging stone being used as an excarnation platform or the base for a pyre, but like I say, a flight of fancy.

One point of interest is that there is a rock just behing the main outcrop which contains and almost perfectly circular, shallow 5 inch basin. The edges and sides of this basin are extremely smooth leading me to conclude that is is probably natural or has been carved by a skilled, post- prehistoric, mason.

The best way to access this cairn is to follow the keepers track from the Westerdale road NZ645084.
The cairn has been robbed of much of its stone but some of the basic structure remains including 2/3rds of the kerb.
In 1953 Paul Ashbee excavated a similar sized cairn 3km to the north on the other side of the Leven valley and found a rock cut pit surrounded by irregular boulders set in a rectangle “with lozenge shaped stelae at opposing corners.”

GPS stuff NZ 63685 08347

The first thing I should mention is that Thimbleby Moor and the surrounding area is heavily managed shooting land. It is not classed as access land under the new right to roam, it is classed as CROW access land with restrictions in place.
Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of this until I had returned from the moor, so if you are planning to visit the moor I suggest you contact Carter Jonas, Land Agent, Thimbleby Estates. This also applies if you want to visit the nearby Nine Stones.

I accessed the site via the footpath the leads from Oak Dale to Thimbleby. the path runs up from the dale through the woods. There’s a bit of an oppressive vibe about walking through the woods with lots of paths marked ‘no access’ and bird breeding areas fenced off with barbed wire. I guess this is neccessary when you have large groups of people roaming the estate blasting the birds with shotguns.
I accessed the moor via a small track and stile and followed the keepers road onto the moor proper.
The stone marked as stone No.6 in Chappell & Browns Prehistoric Rock Art in the North York Moors is beside this road.
The stone itself is beautiful, it’s one of those stones that the more you look and feel it, the more you see. Unfortunately the sun was lost behind clouds so photography was difficult.
There are other stones on the moor but they are currently beneath deep heather and to be honest with you the sound of lots of guns being fired nearby was somewhat off putting.
As I walked back into Oakdale I came across a large shooting party of 30 or so sportsmen and women all armed with shotguns and labradors. I stopped to chat to one of them who explained that today was the last day for shooting pheasants and that they would only shoot the cock birds. I left the dale to the sound of gabriel blowing his 12 bore horn for the cock birds of Oakdale.
I don’t think I’ll be going back to Thimbleby for a while.

Yesterday I went up to Fylingdales Moor with Rockrich with two things in mind.
To show Rich around the moor as he had not seen any North York Moors rock art.
To field test Graeme Chappell and Paul Browns recent book, Prehistoric Rock Art in the North York Moors.
It would have been quite simple to load up my GPS with the 188 x 10 figure grid references supplied in book and just follow my little yellow machine around the moor but I wanted to see if the book would work for someone who didn’t own a GPS and had very little knowledge of the site.
The authors have divided the moor up into 7 areas and a small map is provided for each area. I took photocopies of the maps from the book and decided I would only use these and the OS 1:25000 map to find my way around the moor. For a further test I loaded 8 grid references from the book so that I could test the accuracy of the references provided.

Without getting into a long-winded account of our day, We had about 6 hours daylight, and just leisurely strolling around, Rich and I managed to visit 6 of the 7 sites in the book finding many of the carved stones mentioned. The maps in the book work extremely well and the grid references were bag-on. I would recommend that if you are visiting the moor you should park at either the Beacon Howes car park at NZ969013 or the Jugger Howe car park at NZ945003.

You should also bear in mind that this moor is private land and is still recovering from the disastrous fire of 2003. You should try and always follow the footpaths where ever possible and keep any disturbance to a minimum. I would not recommend that you peel back any heather or soil from the rocks as many of the rocks suffered surface damage during the fire and are extremely delicate.

Graeme and Pauls book can be ordered here
tempus-publishing.com/bookdetails.php?isbn=0752433482

Graemes website
alkelda.f9.co.uk/

Written descriptions and photographs cannot fully prepare you for the Stoney Raise cairn, it is immense.
If you approach the cairn from the east you pass through a deserted settlement of undated stone-walled hut circles and Medieval houses. I assume that the stone used in the settlement was taken from the cairn, add to this the stone that was probably taken from the cairn to build the dry stone field boundary walls and you get some idea of how large this cairn was when it was originally built in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age.
This monument has been described as belonging to the Great Barrow Class, a class of monuments that includes the Great Barrows of the Yorkshire Wolds and Wessex, but this is the Pennine uplands, there are no rolling fields of chalk downland here. So why?
If you stand upon the cairn and look west you can see Wild Boar Fell and the eastern margins of Cumbria. If you look east you can see the Tabular hills on the margins of the North York Moors. East meets west at Stoney Raise cairn.
Paulus, Rich and I also discussed other possibilities. The nearby prehistoric settlements at Addlebrough are on the slopes of a huge natural monument. The settlements at Caperby had the Great Limestone Scar to mark their lands. Perhaps the people who inhabited the Greenber Edge settlement felt that they also needed to make a dramatic statement in the landscape to announce their presence.

All we had to go on when looking for this carved stone was a fairly vague description of a stone near the Dove stones. That said, if there’s a stone to be found you can trust Rockrich and Paulus to sniff it out.
This particular stone is nothing spectacular but if you are like us and actually enjoy tramping across a waterlogged limestone wilderness then this is the spot for you.

I have been curious about burnt mounds for quite a while now. Tim Laurie has identified dozens of them in the Yorkshire Dales and further afield.
Initially I was rather sceptical about these mounds as monuments but after reading Lauries work I felt a lot more secure about adding them to TMA as a distinct class of monuments. Lauries work has shown that the occurence of these mounds can be predicted. They mostly occur at a height of over 250m OD, they are always on the banks of streams and often just below the spring line. Many of the Irish burnt mounds are thought to have been places where food was prepared. Evidence from the Yorkshire mounds points more towards them being sweathouses or bathing places. There is a total absence of domestic debris, pottery or bone on the sites. Laurie has also discovered evidence for possible structures on top of the mounds, combining this evidence with ethnographic examples strengthens the sweatlodge theory.

Laurie identified the Haw Beck mounds as being quite large, so when I mentioned this to Rockrich and Paulus they were keen to see them too, especially as the sweathouse fits in with some of Paulus’s shamanic theories.
There are two sets of mounds at this site both are situated beside streams and both are pretty difficult to describe other than to say they are mounds on the ground. That said, I would urge you to have a look at them if you are in the area. Castle Dykes Henge is visible from this site.

I’ve been trying to get up to this henge for yonks. It seems like every time I planned a visit something would happen to prevent it. This time, not only did I get to visit the henge but I did it in the excellent company of Rockrich and Paulus.
We walked up to the site from the little car park at Thornton Rust checking out a couple of decent sized glacial erratics on the way.
The henge itself lies just off the lovely walled trackway running up onto Flout Moor and is accessible if you can negotiate a rutted, muddy track and a stile.
The monument is a Class I type henge with a single entrance in the east. It has been built on a ridge and fits in beautifully with the folds of the landscape. The henge is set back from any possible routeways along Wensleydale to Cumbria, Harding speculates that this small henge (80m in diameter) may have served a small community. He describes the location of the henge as a possible attempt “to seperate the monument from what could be perceived as social pollution”.
Whatever it’s original purpose, the henge has beautiful views to east along Wensleydale to the nearby Burton Moor settlement and into the Vale of Mobray with the far off North York Moors across the Vale in the distance. There are also good views to the north and the site of the Ox Close Circle and Caperby Moor.

All in all this is a cracking little henge set in a beautiful landscape

If you are arriving at this site by car, you will probably find parking a problem. The lanes are very narrow so don’t mistake a passing point for a parking space. There is a carpark at the pub in Loweswater village, this is for customers only. I guess it’s worth the price of a pint to park your car.
To reach the site walk along the lane from the village to the lake and cross over the small bridge. There is a footpath along the stream, it’s a bit muddy and pot holey and quite narrow in parts so may not be suitable for everyone. Once through the gate the path opens out into a large meadow and the carved outcrop is on your right, it’s a massive lump of rock and quite difficult to miss.
I visited on a wet, gloomy and extremely windy, autumn day and walking into the field was like opening a door into a howling gale. The wind being funnelled between the fells and along the lake straight at me. It was that bitterly cold kind of wind that makes your teeth hurt.

The rock outcrop is beautiful, it’s one of those places that makes you work a little bit for what you want. The carvings are all in the form of cupmarks but due to the nature of the rock and the lack of contrasting sunlight, they were not that obvious at first but once you get your eye in, you start to notice the buggers everywhere.
Once you’ve figured out the carvings just take a step back and look at the landscape, it’s breath taking. The high fells and lake frame this site beautifully.
It’s also worth having a look around the immediate area of the outcrop. There seems to be an enclosure of sorts running behing the outcrop and the modern stone wall. There are also two upright stones and a sunken trackway in front of the outcrop. A little further down the path towards the lake is a mound upon which a Peel once stood. I would imagine that the stones, trackway and enclosure may be contemporary with the Peel, but you never know.
Cumbrian rock art is a fairly rare commodity but this site has parallels with the carved panels at Beckstones in Patterdale.

Me and the dog trecked up here this morning to greet the mid-winter sun. Climbing up the muddy slope of Pattersons Bank in the dark was a bit of a challenge but the views from the top was well worth the effort. To the west the urban sprawl of the Tees valley, to the south east the beautiful midwinter dawn sky bathed Beacon Moor in a beautiful chimney red glow.

An interesting note.
The Upleatham Barrow has a cupmarked kerb. The nearest known barrow to contain cupmarked stones is at Airy Hill which is approximately 4kms away and roughly in line with the mid-winter sunrise. Project this (rough) line another 6kms past Airy Hill and you will find youself at the cup marked kerbstones below Freebrough Hill.
I must stress that this is a very rough alignment and most probably a coincidence.

I first saw photographs from this site back in 2003 on Graeme C’s wonderful website (link below). At the time the location of the site was a secret at the landowner’s request. When Rockrich posted his images a couple of weeks ago my interest was re-awakened, especially as the location of the carvings was now known.
There were a couple of small details, particularly about the cup and ring carving and the general location of the site that didn’t seem to fit in with the North Yorkshire tradition so I jumped at the chance when Rockrich kindly offered to show me around the site. Looking at the site with Rich has two advantages, the first reason being that Rich has an in-depth knowledge of West Yorkshire Rock Art tradition, the second reason being that Rich is a thoroughly nice chap.
We met up at a car park close to the site and headed off up the footpath to the distant plantation and location of the carvings.
As soon as we got into the plantation Rich pointed out a strange dolmen-like structure hidden away amongst the large rocks of the plantation. The ‘dolmen’ appears to have been constructed by jacking up a large stone to act as a capstone and then inserting an large stone into one side to act as a side wall. The wall on the other side and back of the ‘dolmen’ appears to be natural. A small dry stone wall has been coarsely constructed to fill in any gaps. It has to be remembered that the megalithic folly of the Druid’s Temple is only a couple of miles away. So almost probably not prehistoric but a nice diversion.
A little further down the track we came to the first of the carved stones. This is a large earth-fast rock, the surface of which has been carved with a number of deep grooves at least two of which enclose cups, plus a couple of cups with grooves leading out of them. There are a number of other motifs on this rock, a crudely carved roughly circular motif with a central cup and three radial grooves linked by an outer groove. Next to this motif is a ‘draughts board’ motif. On another section of the rock are a number of grooves and cups plus a roughly rectangular or ‘D’-shaped motif. This rock is amazing and worth the journey alone. Rich and I didn’t really see it in its full glory until the low winter sunlight lit it and the whole rock seemed to come to life. *I don’t want to get all arty here but looking at the carvings on this rock brings to mind 20th century artists such as Mondrian and Kandinsky*. It’s a giant of a piece of rock art.
The next carved rock we looked at was the another earth-fast boulder with a large cup and multiple ring motif. Rich had been told by a local fella that the central groove on the motif was aligned to the midwinter sunrise, guess what? It does!
This motif is a strange one. When I had looked at photos of this motif I had noticed that the carving was asymmetrical, Rich pointed out that this is due to at least two of the rings just petering out, very unusual. Another oddity about this carving is that the central groove on the motif doesn’t terminate at the central cup or on one of the radial grooves, this is highly unusual.
Rich and I gently brushed away some of the pine needles that covered this rock and discovered a couple more cups and grooves including one groove that makes a ninety degree turn to link up with a cup.
There are a number of other carved rocks that we looked at but I’ll not bore you with lengthy descriptions here apart from to say that they are extremely varied and very exciting. West Agra seems to be an extremely important and unusual site as regards the style and distribution of the carvings. I’m sure there are more carvings to be found here especially amongst the dozens of rocks that litter the plantation which are currently covered in a dense blanket of needles and soil.
As for the landscape, the carvings are all on a south facing slope just below the scarp edge of Masham Moor. The views to from the site have two main focuses. The two flat topped peaks to the west are the first. I’m not sure of the name of these peaks but suspect they may be Little and Great Whernside.
The second focus is east along the River Burn Valley towards Masham and Wensleydale.
One thing that does concern me about this site is the lack of any other known prehistoric sites in the vicinity. Rich pointed out that there was a Nineteenth century report of a stone circle at Fearby which is just a couple of miles along the valley but as far as I’m aware there have been no reports of evidence of prehistoric settlements in this area. I wonder if this is because no-one has really looked?

*This my my bid for a place in ‘Pseuds Corner‘

I went looking for a boundary stone called ‘The Long Stone’. I didn’t find the Long Stone but I did happen upon this lovely upright stone on the edge of a plantation. The stone is in an area that is completely stone-less and has as it’s neighbours are a couple of low NYM burial mounds.
The stone is easy to find. Park up at the cattle grid at NZ786138 and then follow the footpath into the plantation keeping to the right branch along the fence. Wellies are definitely recommended.

The NMR records “a boundary stone shown on an ordnance survey map may be of prehistoric origin. It was apparently used as a boundary marker from the early Medieval period onwards. The stone was located by Stanhope Whites survey”.
In my book Stanhope White was a giant of a fella, he worked with the Leakeys in East Africa.
After he retired he dedicated himself to traipsing the moors recording everything he found, including the many hundreds of standing stones, ancient and modern.
If Stanhope judged this stone as possibly prehistoric in origin, then that’s good enough for me.
There are actually two stones at Flass Brow both of which have been carved to some degree and both bear inscriptions. I think the larger of the two is Stanhope’s stone.
I should also add that the OS has this spot marked as a tumulus. If it is a mound it’s a low one but kinda fits in with the NYM tradition of placing boundary stones ontop of prehistoric mounds.

Robbed Howe is a large barrow situated quite close to a well made track that runs from the A169 to Louven Howe.
If you are approaching from the north west the path follows the line of the forestry. instead of going through the gate you should follow the fencing to your right and this will lead you to the barrow.
The SMR calls this monument a Bowl Barrow and gives it’s dimensions and 14m across and 0.5m high. The 14m is correct but the barrow with it’s heathery coat is more like 2-3m high.
There is a large stone on the NW edge of the barrow and if you have a poke about in the heather you’ll find a few more large stones. There is also a leaning boundary stone on the top of the barrow.
Robbed Howe is not particularly unusal in either it’s construction or appearance. What makes it significant is that it is part of a chain of moorland barrows that begin at Black Brow on Sleights Moor and then runs roughly south to the Woof Howes. This chain has been used as a parish boundary since written records began, it also forms part of the modern political boundary. It doesn’t take to a great deal of imagination to envisage this boundary stretching back into the Bronze Age when the Monuments were first constructed on the edges of existing tribal territories.

I guess I should begin my field notes with some explanation as to why I’ve added the source of the River Ure to TMA.
The River Ure rises in the Pennines and then heads east into Wensleydale, it then flows out of Wensleydale into the Vale of York. South of York the Ure is joined by the much smaller Ouse Gill Beck and the river’s name becomes the River Ouse, I’ve never figured that one out. The river then flows south east and merges with the Trent to form the mighty River Humber, which then flows out into the North Sea.
What is significant about the Ure, for we lovers of all things prehistoric, is its association with a number of nationally important prehistoric sites. The Ure flows through Wensleydale, a Yorkshire Dale that has been occupied since at least the Late Upper Palaeolithic period.
As the Ure flows through Yorkshire it is associated with at least 2 cursus, 7 henges, a stone row, numerous cairns, barrows, rock art sites, burned mounds and an assortment other prehistoric sites. It is quite possible that during the Neolithic period, the River Ure was one of the ‘lines of communication’ between the Wolds culture of East Yorkshire and the Neolithic peoples of Cumbria. Evidence for this communication can be seen in the large numbers of Group VI stone axe blades found in East Yorkshire. The greatest concentration of Group VI axe blades occurs around the Humber estuary. These axe blades all originated from the Great Langdale Axe production areas in Cumbria. reciprocally there has been a significant amount of flint, from the East Yorkshire coast, found on a number of Cumbrian sites. There are also various other correlations between the prehistoric monument types and pottery found in both East Yorkshire and Cumbria but I’ll not detail them here in this brief summary.
Jan Harding states that the name ‘Ure’ derives from the Celtic word Isura, meaning ‘Holy One’.
The source of the Ure captured my imagination mainly because of its location and proximity to the source of another great river that features in the prehistory of the North of England, the River Eden. The Ure and the Eden rise within two kilometers of each other on the western edge of the Pennines. At their closest point, the two rivers pass within less than four hundred metres of each other. This means that it is theoretically possible to travel from the North Sea to the Irish Sea only walking on dry land for less than four hundred paces. I’m not suggesting that this was actually the case, where the rivers are their closest they are mearly becks. All I’m saying is that it is theoretically possible that our ancestors may have used the course of these two great rivers as a guide, a navigable route, between the east and west coasts of Britain.

Field notes

“In November days,
When vapours rolling down the valleys made
A lonely scene more lonesome”

Influence of Natural Objects by William Wordsworth

I drove down to the site via Brough and Kirby Stephen and then along the Mallerstang Valley. I parked the car in a convenient lay-by and took the footpath to How Beck Bridge and then on up to Green Bridge. With the Howgill Fells forming one side of Mallerstang and the Pennines forming the other it is easy to see why Mallerstang probably receives more than its fair share of rain. On the day I went it was raining on and off all day, the becks were full to the brim, almost every rocky ledge on the fell had been transformed into a beautiful waterfall with the ground completely saturated. In other words, a typical upland Pennine scene. They say that the sheep around these parts have webbed feet.
I left the path at How Bridge and followed the beck upstream. Its rough walking on the fells and involves a fair bit of bog-trotting and beck jumping, the peat on the moor side had been cut at regular intervals, presumably to aid drainage, so it was possible to follow the tracks of the vehicle that performed the peat cutting for much of the journey.
There is very little wildlife to be seen on these upland fells, a few ravens and the odd small bird, I guess the ground is too waterlogged for rabbits, but it is far from a silent wilderness, there is the sound of running water everywhere. The hike to the summit is one of those frustrating walks that presents you with two false summits to breach before you reach the fell top.
The Ure finally disappears into a flat bog on the summit of Lunds Fell. I was hoping that the source of the river would be a discernable feature such as spring but this wasn’t the case, the beck just petered out into a featureless boggy plain.
I sat and had a cup of coffee at the modern cairn on top of the fell, to the north I could see the Pillar marking the source of the Eden . I was just about to set off walking to the pillar when a storm blew across from Wild Boar Fell and I found myself in cloud. Not being familiar with the area, and not wanting to blunder into a bog I decided that I would call it a day and return home. I would leave the Eden for another day. As I’ve said before, it’s always nice to have something to come back for.
All in all I guess the source of the Ure is definitely ‘one for the enthusiast’ but if you want to get the general vibe of the place you can drive along the Mallerstang valley and stop somewhere around SD778963 you’ll be straddling the county border, east meets west, watching the Eden flowing north into Cumbria and the Ure flowing south into Yorkshire.

Elva Plain is one of the most northerly of the Cumbrian circles , it is situated close to the River Derwent and therefore on a possible routeway from the Irish Sea into the central lakes via Lake Bassenthwaite, Derwent Water and the Borrowdale Valley. Another route could have been to skirt the Caldbeck Fells to Penrith, this route would have taken traveller past the recently recognised causeway enclosure of Aughertee Fell
On my visit I followed Sals directions. Once past the farmhouse I splodged through the gate into a large muddy swamp. There were half a dozen bullocks standing in the middle of the stone circle in the centre of the field. In the next field there was a large solitary bull, who on seeing me began to hurridly patrol the area around the stile. I was a little worried about the bullocks as they refused to budge from the centre of the field. If I had to run for it the stile was definitely not an option.
Bollocks! I had driven for two hours to reach this lovely circle, I wasn’t going to give up now. So began the Mexican standoff of Elva Plain ( cue -Ennio Morricone).
I decided that my best strategy to shift the bullocks was to confuse the crap out of them. I did a little jig to the left and the bullocks moved with me, a little jig to the right, a couple wobbly jumps with arms outstretched and then a staggered but determined march towards them, jeez I hope no-one was watching. It worked! the bullocks were freaked and moved off to the stile and the safe presence of papa bull who had stopped his patrolling to watch the freak in the field.
I was dead chuffed, I was stood in this beautiful stone circle under a beautiful Cumbrian sky with the mighty Skiddaw Massif looking down on me and I was king of the field, papa bull and his boys couldn’t touch me.
The circle is beautiful, it’s knocked about with a few gaps in it’s circumference but that means nothing when you drink in the views.
The magestic fells draw the eye here but if you turn and look to the top of Elva Hill you will notice a natural outcrop of rock. Is it too much to speculate that prior to the building of the circle this outcrop was the focus and the circle was erected lower down the hill in deference to this earlier site. Who knows?
Burl notes that The longest stone in the circle is at the western point and the shortest at the eastern point. Also there seems to be a little confusion as to the number of stones in the circle. Burl counts 15, Waterhouse counts 14 and Seton counts 13. This confusion is due to the different ways each surveyor counts the small group of 3 stones on the northern edge.

Parking – Parking is difficult in this area and I would advise that you don’t block any field entrances. If you park at the Setmurthy Common carpark NY164314 it’s only a walk of a few hundred metres to the farm entrance.

Every now and then I wake up in the morning with an overwhelming urge to head for Cumbria. Today was such a day. Today my overwhelming urge was not only to get to Cumbria but to see the Irish Sea.
I jumped in the car and drove down to the beach which is approximately 5 minutes from my house, that’s the North Sea sorted. right, here we go.... coast to coast.
Two and a half hours later I was on my way to Maryport, it was a rainy morning with low cloud and poor visibility and I was just outside Maryport before I got a glimpse of the Irish Sea. That’s all I needed, I stopped and turned the car around and decided to check out a few sites from my ever-growing list.
It was Waterhouse who put me on to Studfold. His description of the circle as one of the largest rings in Cumbria had me intrigued.
I got to Studfold via the A5086 from Cockermouth. The long road from Ullock has many reminders of West Cumbria’s former glories in the form of the remains of pits, open cast mines and quarries.
I parked the car in a small carpark a few yards west of the house marked ‘Studfold’ on the OS map. The circle is situated just below the brow of a small hill and the low stones of the circle are not visible from the road. Visiblity was poor when I visited but I was still able to see across the northern plain towards Cockermouth.
The circle is bisected by a stone wall, the eastern half is in a boggy pasture, the western in an even boggier field of sedges and boggy stuff. Apparently this side was once a plantation.
The stones are small and many are missing with only five visible on the eastern side, one visible in the dry stone wall and one visible in the western field. This said, there is still enough there to visualise the circle.
There is also a ruined cairn within the circle. The cairn is on the western side and initially appears to be pretty formless. On further examination you can see the stones of the cairn poking through the sedge with one large slab capping the cairn. Poking around the margins of the cairn reveals what could be a fairly narrow kerb.
All in all Studfold is definitely not a showcase circle, Burl classifies it as “Ruined but recognisable” I can’t argue with that.

I had a mooch about the circle last week to see if I could find the small ring to the north of the main circle. The ring is featured in Hob’s post of T.Blands 1850 sketch of the circle themodernantiquarian.com/post/38165 and was also recorded in John Waterhouses survey of the circle for his wonderful book ‘The Stone Circles of Cumbria’.
The ring is visible as a low mound with a few small stones barely poking through the soil. It’s a case of feeling for the stones rather than looking for them.
It’s interesting that both the nearby White Hag and Castlehowe Scar circles also have satellite features.

I have lots of daft notions about trying to identify significant prehistoric sites along the borders of Yorkshire and Cumbria. I can’t accept that the monuments and rock art just stop in a certain place and then re-start a few miles down the road.
I recently visited the circles of Rey Cross. Lune Head and Mudbeck they all exist in this megalithic ‘liminal zone’ and I was hoping that the circle at Sunbiggin Tarn would be more of the same.
The circle is quite easy to locate as long as you get yourself on the right road. Sunbiggin Tarn is signposted at Raisbeck.
Once you have past the tarn you will encounter a small hill to your right, park up on the verge and walk up the few dozen metres to the top of the hill then look north-north-east and you should see a few low stones in the long tussocky grass.
Once you reach the circle you’ll see at least 20 small low stones half buried in the grass surrounding a number of central stones. The diameter of the circle is approximately 5 metres. The stones are a mixture of shap granite and other stones including sandstone.
There are two possible outliers to the circle both 11 metres from the ring one to the north and the other to the south west.
My best guess is that this is a ring cairn, possibly a double ring cairn.
As stone monuments go this one is fairly small and insignificant but I think the location is the key element here. The circle overlooks the tarn and has beautiful views over to the majestic Howgill fells. To the west of the circle are the dramatic limestone scars of Knott and Great Asby which jutt out into the lovely Lune valley.

If your planning to visit Gamelands I would recommend adding this lovely little ring to your itinary.

The GPS stuff is
NY 68047 08376
Elev 282m

White Hag has been on my mind ever since my attempts to find it back in the winter of 2003.
So on a sweltering hot day, which was the total opposite to my last visit I, headed off up the path from the Orton to Shap road.
OK so here’s the route.
Once you climb the first hill and begin to head slightly downhill you’ll notice a line of grouse butts beside a small lake/large pond, this is marked as Black Dub on the OS map. Leave the path and head along this valley, which is the headwaters of the Lyvennet Beck. Once past the butts you’ll see the monument, head for this and then along the valley. Ahead of you and on the higher ground you’ll see a large glacial erratic, a huge megalithic plum sitting on the valley side. Head for this stone, the circle is about 200m past this stone and close to the corner of the dry stone wall.
This is a beautiful little circle composed of 11 granite boulders with a diameter of about 5 metres. 5 metres may be tiny but the stones used are all of a decent size and make the circle appear larger than it actually is.
The circle is far from the only feature, about 6m west there are four good sized stones set in a sort of rectangle.
About 6m to the south of circle is another large stone that could be an outlier to the circle.
Some 15m north of the circle is a small hillock with a curious half buried arrangement of small stones which could be natural but had the vibe of a cairn to me.
The views from the circle are absolutely crackin’. To the NNE, on a clear day, is a view right into the hugely magical valley of High Cup Nick in the far-off Pennines. To the south are marvellous vistas of the Howgill Fells with their lofty rounded peaks and deep valleys.

White Hag is a lovely circle and well worth the effort. Get yerself there!

I picked the hottest day of the year, so far, to wander up from Pooley Bridge to Swarth Fell. The path from the Cockpit splits a few dozen metres to the west of the circle and as long as you take the left hand fork you should be ok.

It’s a long slow slog to the top but worth it for the views alone. A GPS is useful to help you find the circle, I actually walked past it and had to track back along the valley of the Swarth Beck before I found the circle (despite having a gps in my bag!).

GPS Stuff: NY 45662 19205 – Altitude 551.07m.

The circle is a weird one. A semi circle of thin, flat, irregular flags defines 60% of a circle. The remaining 40% is pretty stone-free, it’s as if someone has moved the stones. The position of the stones is in an enclosed valley beneath Loadpot Hill at the head of the Swarth Beck. The only open view is of the plain beyond Penrith to the North there is however a low col that affords a view along the Greta Valley with Skiddaw and Blencathra in the distance.

All in all this is a very strange place, the circle may be associated with the Swarth Beck but this isn’t a satisfactory explanation as the beck simply drops down the fell to Lake Ullswater. I think a more probable explanation is that the circle is associated with the trackway known as High Street which visits many prehistoric sites on it’s meandering route from Penrith to Windemere.

As for vibes, I didn’t really enjoy the place, it took a lot of effort to get to the site and I thought I would be rewarded with the physical elation I often experience upon reaching a circle. None of that was present here and as I  sat eating my lunch I was attacked by a huge, persistant, homicidal horse fly who was intent on lunching on me. It was me or him!

All in all it is well worth the effort to visit this strange circle, it provides a physical challenge and your reward is an ever changing horizon with beautiful views of the upland fells and a wonderful panorama of Moor Divock.

I was up at this fella today. I got to it via the Rudland Rigg bridleway. There is no easy way to reach the cairn. The simplest way to do it is probably to use a gps. Alternatively you can do what I did and walk along the bridleway until you reach the fields marked on the map at about SE654945 and then strike out due east through the surreal bell pit moonscape of the rigg.
The cairn is very overgrown with heather and bilberries and the structure is difficult to see through the tumbled down cairn.
The cairn is fairly obviously a ring cairn with possible internal and external kerbs. There has been some structure built into one side of the cairn, probably a grouse butt, but this has long since tumbled down. There is one stone in this structure that has a very suspicious cup-like impression upon it but there are also a number of stones in the cairn that contain ‘natural cups’. The main beauty of Obtrusch is its location on the rigg edge overlooking Farndale and the valleys of the River Dove and it’s tributary the West Gill Beck.
The cairn looks north towards Horn Ridge with it’s cross ridge dyke and cairn on the very tip above Horn End Crag. In the background running north to south is Blakey ridge an ancient trackway.
Obtrusch is a good walk over some difficult ground, but if you like beaten-up ring cairns with beautiful views then this is one for you.
Oh yeh – I forgot to put my memory card in my camera so I’m afraid there’s no pictures – next time.

Spotted this fella on a high point of Glaisdale rigg.
Someone had left a golf ball covering a natural ‘cup’. Who am I to remove it?

Provisional notes

I noticed this stone as I was driving north from Glaisdale Rigg. I saw it from the road and thought that it may have been an old gatepost, a boundary stone or at best a moorland cross.
I’d never noticed this stone before nor can I remember ever reading anything about it but a stone of this size, over 2 metres, can’t have gone un-noticed and unrecorded.
There is a second stone 50 metres to the north.

This lovely knocked about barrow is a prominent horizon marker for this part of the moors.
It is approximately 34 metres in diameter and 3 metres high. There are possible traces of a kerb and ditch on the eastern quadrant.
Access to the barrow is via the steep and uneven path from the Egton road.
Look out for the lovely millstone/boundary stone on the path.

This is an example of a fairly typical moorland barrow. It is about 36 metres in diameter and is about 2 metres high.
It is one of a number of barrows and monuments that lays beside the route of the 40 mile Lyke Wake Walk running from Osmotherly to Ravenscar. To me this implies that this route is probably an an extremely ancient trackway.

Summer is usually not the best time to visit many of our North York Moors monuments, the heavy growth of heathers and bracken render many of our monuments all but invisible. This is not the case for the Blue Man I’ the Moss, summer is definitely the time to visit this lovely fella. The stone is situated in the middle of White Moor which is essentially one huge peat bog that stretches from Egton High Moor and Murk Mire Moor in the north to the Cropton forest in the south. A walk to the Blue Man usually means one thing – getting wet. The bogs up here are more or less continuous and will suck the boots from your feet.
Walking across the moor when it is dry is quite a strange experience. The peat is extremely spongey, and moves as you step on it, you know that the water table is lurking a few inches beneath the peat and it feels as if the peaty crust could give way at any time plunging you into the boggy mire beneath.
The Blue Man is a lovely stone and quite easy to find as he sits beside a well made path which is used for the Lyke Wake Walk.
There are two ways to get to the stone, either from the Wheeldale road or the Egton Bridge road. I would recommend the Egton road as it’s lined with Foxgloves at this time of year. The stone is about a mile along the path to the east.
To the north east of the stone is the large barrow Wheeldale Howe.
All in all the Blue Man is well worth a visit but if you go after a period of wet weather or late in year be prepared for a soaking.

I spotted this fella in some burned-off heather about 20 metres north of the Percy Rigg road.
The stone is just over 1 metre high and looks across Sleddale to Cod Hill and Guisborough Moor

For three years Jan & Gus the intrepid owners of the Rock Art in the British Landscape website groups.msn.com/RockArtintheBritishLandscape/home.msnw have been seeking permission from the landowners to visit this site only to be denied. This year the landowner finally relented and allowed us to visit the two lovely panels that are well concealed in the woodland and leaf mould of the North Plantation.
I would not advise venturing into the woods without permission as parts of the site are littered with the remains of clay pigeons so this is obviously a site favoured by shooters.
The rock art here is beautiful. There are two panels both of which appear to be on earthfast or outcropping rocks. The first panel we uncovered was a long outcrop running roughly north to south. The panel has numerous cups cups and rings and grooves, but what was most remarkable about this panel was that it appears that a section of the rock had been quarried away in antiquity and a new carving placed in the rectangular section left by the quarrying.
The new carving is beautiful and appears to be virtually unweathered and leaving the peck marks looking extremely fresh.
It makes you wonder whether the stone that was quarried was used in the nearby Fowberry Cairn.
It’s odd that the grooves on this panel mainly seem to follow the general north-south alignment of the outcrop whereas the new carving runs approximately east- west.
Graeme C made an interesting observation, the shape of this outcrop seems to come to a point, if you follow this point you will see a the summit of a distant hill, the bearing of this hill is exactly due south.
The second panel is a little smaller but is what I would describe as a busy panel with no real orientation – this panel contains and ‘owl face’ or occulus. The rest of the cups and rings are just doing their own thing. A thing of beauty all the same.
Don’t forget, if you want to see this site – book early and be prepared to be knocked-back.