“Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in deserted places,
Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor,
Hills of sheep, and the howes of the silent vanished races,
And winds, austere and pure.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
1850-1894
From Songs of Travel
Blagged from an Aberdeenshire Council pamphlet “The Stone Circle.”
In a paper published in the journal Antiquity (June 1939) entitled “Stone and Earth Circles in Dorset”, Stuart & CM Piggott had this to say about The Valley of the Stones.
“This is a most interesting, roughly D-shaped enclosure made of small closely-set stones, and it seems likely that it is to be associated with the surrounding lynchet system, and to have been a cattle enclosure of Iron Age or later date.”
“Also in this shire (Mernis) are to be seen two large and remarkable Monuments of Antiquity, at a place called Auchinoctie, five miles from Aberdeen. One of these, is two Circles of Stones, the outward Circle consisting of thirteen great ones (besides two that are fallen, and the broad-stone towards the south,) about three yards high above-ground, and between seven and eight paces distant from the another; the Diameter of which is twenty four large paces. The inward Circle is about three paces distant from the other, and the stones thereof three foot high above-ground.
Towards the East from this Monument, at twenty six paces is a large stone, fast in the ground and level with it, wherein is a cavity, partially natural and partially artificial, which (supposing this is a temple) may be imagined to have served for washing the Priests, the Sacrifices, and other things that were esteemed sacred among the Heathens.
The other Monument (which is full as large, than that already described, and distant from it about a bow-shot) consists of three circles, having the same common centre. The stones of the greatest Circle are about three yards above-ground, and those of the two lesser Circles three foot; the inner-most Circle being three paces diameter, and the stones standing close together. One of the stones of the largest Circle on the east side of the Monument, hath upon the top of it (which is narrow, and longer one way than the other) a hollowness about three inches deep, in the bottom whereof, is cut out a trough one inch deep and two inches broad (with another one crossing it) that runs along the whole length of the cavity, and down by the side of the stone a good way: so that what-ever liquor is poured into the cavity upon the top of the stone, doth presently run down the side of it by this trough; and it should seem that upon this stone they poured forth their Libamina or liquid sacrifices. There is also another stone in the same circle, and upon the same side of the Monument (standing nearest to the broad stone on edge, which looks towards the south) with a cavity in the upper end, cut after the fashion of the cavity in the top of the other stone already described, and a natural fissure, by which all the Liquor pouted into the cavity, runs out of it to the ground.”
Camden’s Britannia 1586
Translation and edition of 1722 by Gibson.
“A little before Loder joins the Emot, it paffes by a large round entrenchement, with a plain piece of ground in the middle, and a paffage into it on either fide: the form of which is this:
themodernantiquarian.com/post/54181
It goes by the name of King Arthur’s Round Table: and it is poffible enough; it might be a jufting-place. However, that it was never defign’d for a place of frenth, appears from the trenches being on the infide. Near this is another great Fort of Stones, heap’d-up in the form of a horfe-fhoe, and open towards it; call’d by fome King Arthur’s Caftle, and by others Mayburgh or Maybrough. ”
Taken from
Britannia
By William Camden
1586
“I’ve sat on Rosebury with many a bard
Whose harp-strings, once so musical, are mute
On earth for ever : we full well did suit
Each other, in congenial regard
For the loved landscape here unfurled to view.
Yonder towers Guisboro’s fine old ruined Arch,
Memento of the Past – our onward march
Mark’d by yon blast furnaces ; churches not a few,
Towns, farmsteads, rivers, fields of every hue -
As grass and corn, and fallow – and o’er all
The watchet ocean ; prospects that ne’er shall pall
Upon one’s taste : the picture is ever new.
We may roam far and wide before we see
A finer sight than here from Rosebury.”
George Tweddle
published 1870
Rare Footage of Yorkshire Rock Art Pioneers at the Wainstones.
youtube.com/watch?v=ZQEEeSstkZc
In his 1967 paper for The Society of Scottish Antiquities entitled ‘The Cup and Ring Marks and Similar Sculptures of Scotland: A Survey of the Southern Counties Part II’. Ronald W. B. Morris noted;
“On standing stone (8 1/2 feet high, 4 1/2 feet wide), built in to roadside fence, over 80 cups, up to 4in in diam, 3/4in deep, some run together as rough dumbells.”
In his 1843 book, The Wonders of the World, in Nature, Art, and Mind, Robert Sears quotes “the celebrated female writer” Mrs Radcliffe . This is what Mrs Radcliffe had to say about Castlerigg.
“Whether our judgement was influenced by the authority of a Druids choice, or that the place itself commanded the opinion, we thought this situation the most severely grand of any hitherto passed. There is, perhaps, not a single object in the scene that interrupts the solemn tone of feeling impressed by its general character of profound solitude, greatness and awful wildness. Castle-Rigg is the centre point of three valleys that dart immediately under it form the eye, an whose mountains for part of an amphitheatre, which is completed by those of Borrowdale on the west, and by the precipices of Skiddaw and Saddleback, close on the north. The hue which pervades all these mountains is that of dark heath or rock; they are thrown into every form and direction that fancy would suggest, and are at that distance which allows all their grandeur to prevail.”
“Severely grand” I’ll take a large portion of that please.
At Rudston and Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire, are supposed examples of maenhirs. Near the latter place there are four standing in a row, which are called by the country people the Devil’s Bolts; but, from their relative position, it is not unlikely that they are the remains of a large circle.
Source: An Archaeological Index to the Remains of Antiquity of the Celtic, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon Periods, by John Yonge Ackerman F.S.A., 1847
The following letter from a person who signs himself ‘DRUID’ appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine 1844:
Druidical Temple near Shap
NOTWITHSTANDING the alleged increase of good taste at the present day, I find the intention of the projectors of the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway to carry their line through and destroy, a most interesting remnant of antiquity, the remains of a Druidical Temple situated in a field the property of the Earl of Lonsdale, on the road from Kendal to Shap, and about 2 miles from the latter place. I am surprised the noble Earl should permit such barbarity, with such influence as he possess over the company.
The accompanying Sketch of this curious monument, which will probably be in a short time no longer in existence, may be interesting to your leaders. It consists of 13 stones of Shap granite, the largest of which is 7 or 8 feet high, placed in a circle about forty feet in diameter.
Yours, &c. DRUID.
In a book published in 1833 with the longwinded title of ‘The Worship of the Serpent Traced Throughout the World, and its Traditions referred to the Events in Paradise’ John Bathurst Deane described the Shap Avenues as “The longest dracontium in Britain, and the only one that in extent could compete with Carnac”. He then goes on to give the following description of the avenues.
The temple of Shap begins at about half a mile south of the village”...“crossing the road near Shap in two rows. The greatest width of the avenue ...measures eighty-eight feet. At this extremity it is bounded by a curved line of six stones placed at irregular intervals: but they appear never to have been erected. Near Shap the two rows converge to a width of fifty-nine feet, and again separating, but not so much as to destroy the appearance of parallelism, proceed in a northerly direction, in which course they may be traced at intervals for a mile and a half…tradition states it once extended to Moor Dovey (? Divock), a distance of seven miles from Shap!…About a mile to the N.E. of Shap is a circle composed of large stones, in tolerable preservation.
Source: The Worship of the Serpent Traced Throughout the World, and its Traditions referred to the Events in Paradise,John Bathurst Deane, 1833.
On-line copy available at Google Books.
In Iter Lancastrense: A Poem written in 1636 by the Rev Richard James the following lines appear:
Whilst theirs through all ye world were no lesse free
Of passadge then ye race of Wallisee,
Ore broken moores, deepe mosses, lake and fenne,
Now worcks of Giants deemd, not arte of men.
On theis their stages stood their forts and tombs;
They were not onely strrets but halydoms:
In his 1845 notes to the manuscript, the Rev Thomas Corser wrote:
Dr Holme informs me that at Shap in Westmoreland there are, or were, two rows of large upright stones placed at regular distances, running parallel with the turnpike road for nearly three quarters of a mile, called there Shap Race, and in a work he cannot at present recollect, Shap Giants. The remains of the Ancient Britons at Stonehenge are also called the Stnehenge Giants. It is possible that Shap Race might obtain its name from being supposed (locally) to have been a British Cursus.
Source: Iter Lancastrense; A Poem, Written AD 1636 by the Rev Richard James B.D.
Edited with notes and an introductory memoir by the Rev Thomas Corser M.A.
Printed for the Chetam Society, 1845
Online version available at Google Books.
“The embanked stone circle (Raistrick 1929b SC2) is sited within the field system on Oxclose. A second circular enclosure is located immediately east of SC2, in the next prehistoric field, but in this instance the field bank is tangential to the western perimeter of the enclosure.”
From
Researching the Prehistory of Wensleydale, Swaledale and Teesdale
T.C. Laurie
In
The Archaeology of Yorkshire – An assessment at the beginning of the 21st century
YAS Occasional Paper No.3
2003
A couple of minutes of daft footage of the mound and stone row.
youtube.com/watch?v=cCsE7Z7e_tw
A dodgy video clip of Greenland Howe
youtube.com/watch?v=HzFKhbrIe8M
“A lonely stone
Afloat in the stone heavings of emptiness
Keeps telling her tale. Foxes killed her.
You take the coins out of the hollow in the top of it.
Put your own in. Foxes killed her here.
Why just here? Why not five yards that way?
A squared column, planted by careful labour.
Sun cannot ease it, though the moors grow warm.
Foxes killed her, and her milk spilled.
Or they did not. And it did not. Maybe
Farmers brought their milk this far, and cottegers
From the top of Luddenden valley left cash
In the stones crown, probably in vinegar,
And the farmers left their change. Relic of The Plague.
Churn-milk jamb. And Joan did not come trudging
Through the long swoon of moorland
With her sodden feet, nipped face.
Neither snow nor foxes made her lie down
While they did whatever they wanted.
The negative of the skylines is blank.
Only a word wrenched. Then the pain came,
And her mouth opened.
And now all of us,
Even this stone, have to be memorials
Of her futile stumblings and screams
And awful death”.
Churn-Milk Joan
Ted Hughes
From
Remains of Elmet
1979
From the forum May 2005
the Old Wifes well is lovely and is one of those wells that has a very strong case for having prehistoric origins. The name alone qualifies it as all of the other sites on the NYM that have the Old Wifes name tagged on them have prehistoric associations. Couple this to the fact that the well sits on the edge of a large Mesolithic occupation site which also showed evidence of continued occupation throughout the Neolithic and early Bronze Age where this would have been the only nearby source of water. Add to that the fact that the well is situated beside the route of Wades Causeway the ‘Roman road’ (aka The Old Wifes Way) which has recently be a source of some speculation as to whether parts of the causeway pre date the roman road, one eminent archaeo has gone so far as to suggest that the section of the causeway that runs across Wheeldale may in fact be a Neolithic linear monument.
This site was excavated by George Eogan
“The structure consisted of an alignment 235 yards long and having originally at least ninety-one uprights and a circle 16 feet in diameter that originally had eight orthostats.”
The circle and the alignment failed to produce any finds. Eogan suggested an early Bronze Age date for the site.
from
The Excavation of a Stone Alignment and Circle at Cholwichtown, Lee Moor, Devonshire, England.
George Eogan
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society
1964
The Great Clare find of 1854 – Mooghaun
“The find, the largest known in western Europe of associated gold ornaments of the Bronze Age, was made in 1854 during the construction of the Limerick to Ennis railway. Apparently objects were in a structure, such as a small chamber or cist, but it is not possible to ascertain the total content as a number were dispersed after discovery and most of these we melted down”
The Later Bronze Age in Ireland in the light of new research
G. Eogan
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society
1964
This cairn was originally investigated by Erskine Beveridge in the early 20th century.
The cairn was re-excavated in 1996-7 due to the threat of tidal scouring.
“The excavation revealed evidence of disturbed Neolithic and Beaker funery deposits within the two compartments of the chamber”.
The excavators confirmed that “the architecture of the burial chamber of the cairn is of the distinctive ‘Clyde’ type defined by Henshall”.
Information from
Excavations at Geirisclett chambered cairn, North Uist, Western Isles
Dunwell et al
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland
Volume 133 (2003)
“This fine stone from Dean was outside the church when I first saw it, it has since been moved into the church porch. It is a substantial sandstone boulder with freshly picked motifs on one surface. Central is a cup and two complete concentric rings, and a third that remains gapped.”
Prehistoric Rock Art in Cumbria
Stan Beckensall
Tempus 2002
“The village of Adel is termed Adhill in the Liber Regis, which probably gives the true etymology, The Hill of Ada, the first Saxon colonist of the place.
On the slope of the hill, a little north of the village, are the remains of a Roman camp, where a number of ancient monuments, three altars (one inscribed “To the Goddess Brigantia”), several urns, statues, coins &c have been found.”
The Annals of Yorkshire
John Mayhall
1874
In his book Early Man in North East Yorkshire Frank Elgee reported a triangle of fallen stones.
“The stones form a right-angled triangle, one side of which is about 30 yards long, the other two about 24 yards. The stones are from 5-7 feet long with broad bases.”
Site: Attermire Cave, North Yorkshire
Excavation: W.B. Dawkins, 1870s; T. Lord, 1921-26
Curation: Leeds City Museum; T.C. Lord
Finds: Flint artefacts, Neolithic (Peterborough ware) pottery, IA & RB artefacts, animal bones
Bridestones
Scorched-looking, unhewn – a hill-top chapel.
Actually a crown of outcrop rock -
Earth’s heart bone laid bare.
Crowding, congregation of skies.
Tense congregation of hills.
You do nothing casual here.
The wedding stones
Are electrified with wispers.
And marriage is nailed down
By this slender necked, heavy headed
Black exclamaition mark
of rock.
And you go
With the wreath of weather
The wreath of horizons
The wreath of constellations
Over your shoulders.
And from now on
The sun
Can always touch you
With the shadow of this finger.
From now on
The moon can always lift your skull
On to this perch, to clean it.
Ted Hughes
Remains of Elmet
1979
Although Tombo has posted part of this quote from Hutchinson I think it is worth posting the whole quote as it also mentions a second monument.
“A mile to the north of the village of Eggleston, above a little brook, stands an ancient monument, called Standing Stones, represented in the cut. It has consisted of an uniform circle of rough stones, with an inward trench, and in the centre a cairn;much of the materials have been taken away to repair the roads. At a small distance, and close by the brook, is a large tumulus, crossed from the east to the west by a row of stones. The adjacent ground, forming an inclining plain, was probably the field of battle, and the monuments mark the place of interment of some distinguished chieftains. There is no circumstance in history, which we can, with any certainty, fix here. The monuments are of distant antiquity.”
The History & Antiquities of the County Palantine of Durham
Volume 3
Hutchinson
1785
“At Rudston, a village upon the Wolds, about five miles west of Bridlington, stands a obelisk worthy the attention of the antiquary. It is a single natural stone, of the same quality and shape, but of superior magnitude to the celebrated pillars near Boroughbridge. The entire height is not known but the elevation above ground is twenty nine feet, and it has been traced to a depth of twelve below without reaching foundation.
It stands in the church yard, on the north side of the church, and has some fissures on the top, which Mr Boswell of Thorpe Hall ordered to be covered with lead to prevent further injuries from the weather. The cause of its erection can not be ascertained, though it is generally agreed to have given its name to the town.”
The History & Antiquities of Scarborough
Thomas Hinderwell
1811
“Whitaker says, could Brimham be transported to Salisbury Plain, Stonehenge itself would be reduced to a poor and pygmy minature”.
Yorkshire
Miscellaneous Remarks
The Gentleman’s Magazine Library Compendium 1731 – 1868
Swart, adj. Black Looking.
Swarth, Swa’th, n. The outer skin, rind ; The quality and quantity of grass upon the land.
Source
Yorkshire Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs.
R. Blakeborough
1911
“East and west of the OS pillar are the two standing stones that Anderson believed to be the survivors of a row between the two barrows. Both are blocks of Jurassic sandstone, 1m high, their upper edges weathered and fissured by deep irregular pits. These must also be the pair of ‘Druid Stones’ marked by Robert Knox west of Swarth Howe (Knox 1821; 1855).”
A 19th century antiquary:the excavations and collection of Samuel Anderson
by Terry Manby
in
Moorland Monuments
CBA Research Report 101
1995
“A line of large stones on Dunsley Moor is said to have run between the Swart Howe and another barrow. Two of the stones are further stated to have been carved in a style similar to that of a stone, now lost, found within the Howe which contained a burial of the urn period. Knox describes four stones about 3 feet high at this site, which formed an oblong.”
Early Man in North-East Yorkshire
Frank Elgee
1930
Swarth Howe
“There has been a line of large stones pointing from one barrow to the other, only two of which remain to remind the antiquary that the ‘Modern Goths’ have been pilfering Antiquity of its relics.”
From
Minutes of opening Ancient British Tumuli in the neighbourhood of Whitby in the County of York by Samuel Anderson 1852-1853
“Between this town (Penzance) and St. Burien, a town midway between it and the Land’s End, stands a circle of great stones, not unlike those at Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, with one bigger than the rest in the middle. They stand about twelve feet asunder, but have no inscription; neither does tradition offer to leave any part of their history upon record, as whether it was a trophy or a monument of burial, or an altar for worship, or what else; so that all that can be learned of them is that here they are. The parish where they stand is called Boscawone, from whence the ancient and honourable family of Boscawen derive their names.”
From London to Land’s End
Daniel Defoe
1888 edition
gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/lndle10.txt
“... They saw, adventurously impelled,
And older eyes than theirs beheld,
This block--and yon, whose church-like frame
Gives to this savage Pass its name.
Aspiring Road! that lov’st to hide
Thy daring in a vapoury bourn,
Not seldom may the hour return
When thou shalt be my guide:...”
Taken from the Poem The Pass of Kirkstone
By William Wordsworth
1817
” VIEW FROM THE TOP OF BLACK COMB
THIS Height a ministering Angel might select:
For from the summit of BLACK COMB (dread name
Derived from clouds and storms!) the amplest range
Of unobstructed prospect may be seen
That British ground commands:--low dusky tracts,
Where Trent is nursed, far southward! Cambrian hills
To the south-west, a multitudinous show;
And, in a line of eye-sight linked with these,
The hoary peaks of Scotland that give birth
To Tiviot’s stream, to Annan, Tweed, and Clyde:--
Crowding the quarter whence the sun comes forth
Gigantic mountains rough with crags; beneath,
Right at the imperial station’s western base
Main ocean, breaking audibly, and stretched
Far into silent regions blue and pale;--
And visibly engirding Mona’s Isle
That, as we left the plain, before our sight
Stood like a lofty mount, uplifting slowly
(Above the convex of the watery globe)
Into clear view the cultured fields that streak
Her habitable shores, but now appears
A dwindled object, and submits to lie
At the spectator’s feet.--Yon azure ridge,
Is it a perishable cloud? Or there
Do we behold the line of Erin’s coast?
Land sometimes by the roving shepherdswain
(Like the bright confines of another world)
Not doubtfully perceived.--Look homeward now!
In depth, in height, in circuit, how serene
The spectacle, how pure!--Of Nature’s works,
In earth, and air, and earth-embracing sea,
A revelation infinite it seems;
Display august of man’s inheritance,
Of Britain’s calm felicity and power!”
William Wordsworth
1813.
“Here is a dear, a true industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse.
Stain’d with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited:
Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights,
Balk’d in their own blood did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon’s plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the Earl of Fife, and eldest son
To beaten Douglas; and the Earl of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith:
And is not this an honourable spoil?
A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not? ”
Henry IV part 1
William Shakespeare
“Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor th’ all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear no slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan.
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee and come to dust”
Cymbeline
Act IV
William Shakespeare
1608
Fred R Coles reported that the Kirk yard was once the site of a stone circle and that the only remaining evidence of this was two stones embedded in the south wall of the kirk yard. The stones were nine feet long and two feet wide.
Source
Report on stone circles in Aberdeenshire (Inverurie, eastern parishes and Insch districts)
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquities of Scotland
1902
“Ounsbery or Rosebery Topping mounteth up in a mighty height and maketh a goodly shew afarre of, serving unto sailers for a marke of direction, and to the neighbour inhabitants for a prognostication. For so often as the head thereof hath his cloudy cap on, lightly [often] there followeth raine, whereupon they have a Proverbiall Rhime, when Rosebery topping weares a cap, let Cliveland then beware a clap. Neere unto the top of it out of an huge rocke there floweth a spring of water medicinable for diseased eies, and from hence there is a most goodly and pleasant prospect downe into the vallies below lying a great away about, to the hils full of grasse, greene meddowes, delightsome pastures, fruitfull corne fields, riverets stored with fish, the river Tees mouth full of rodes and harbours, the ground plaine and open without danger of inundation, and into the sea with ships therein under saile.”
Britannia
William Camden
1607
“Not farre beneath there standeth by Ure a little towne called Burrowbridge, of the bridge that is made over the river: which is now built very high and faire of stone worke, but in King Edward the Second his time it seemeth to have beene of wood. For wee read that when the Nobles of England disquieted this king and troubled the state, Humfrey Bohun Earle of Hereford in his going over it was at a chinke thereof thrust through the body about his groine by a souldiour lying close under the bridge. Neere unto this bridge Westward wee saw in three divers little fields foure huge stones of pyramidall forme, but very rudely wrought, set as it were in a streight and direct line. The two Pyramides in the middest, whereof the one was lately pulled downe by some that hoped, though in vaine, to finde treasure, did almost touch one another. The uttermore stand not far off, yet almost in equall distance from these on both sides. Of these I have nothing else to say but that I am of opinion with some that they were monuments of victorie erected by the Romans hard by the high street that went this way. For I willingly overpasse the fables of the common people, who call them the Devills Bolts, which they shot at ancient cities and therewith overthrew them. Yet will not I passe over this, that very many, and those learned men, thinke they are not made of naturall stone in deed, but compounded of pure sand, lime, vitriol (whereof also they say there bee certaine small graines within), and some unctuous matter. Of such a kinde there were Rome cisterns, so firmely compact of very strong lime and sand, as Pliny writeth, that they seemed to be naturall stones.”
Britannia
William Camden
1607
“Here the river Eimet , flowing out of a great Lake and for a good space dividing this shire from Cumberland, receiveth the river Loder into it, nere unto the spring head whereof, hard by Shape, in times past Hepe, a little monastery built by Thomas the sonne of Gospatrick, sonne of Orms, there is a well or fountaine which after the manner of Euripus ebbeth and floweth many times in a day; also there be huge stones in forme of Pyramides, some 9 foote high and foureteene foot thicke, ranged directly as it were in a rowe for a mile in length, with equall distance almost betweene, which may seeme to have bin pitched and erected for to continue the memoriall of some act there atchieved, but what the same was, by injurie of time it is quite forgotten.”
Britannia
William Camden
1607
“After that Eden hath now given Eimot enterteinment, hee turneth his course Northward by both the Salkelds, watering as hee goes obscure small villages and fortresses. Amongst which at the lesse Salkeld there bee erected in manner of a circle seventie seaven stones, every one tenne foote high, and a speciall one by it selfe before them at the very entrance, rising fifteene foote in height. This stone the common people thereby dwelling name Long Megge, like as the rest her daughters. And within that ring or circle are heapes of stones, under which, they say, lie covered the bodies of men slaine. And verily, there is reason to thinke that this was a monument of some victory there atchieved, for no man would deem that they were erected in vaine.”
Britannia
William Camden
1607
This earthwork runs for about 200m and cuts off a tongue of moorland. The promontary defined by the dyke contains the Herd Howe round barrow as well as a smaller barrow, Robin Hood’s Butts. Also within this promontary are the foundations of a pair of round houses that may be Iron Age in date.
Information from
The brides of place: cross-ridge boundaries reviewed
by Blaise Vyner
In Moorland Monuments
CBA Research Report 101
Published by CBA
1995
This from CANMORE
On the shore 40m and 50m NNW of Dun Barraglom (NB13SE 5), on sloping rock faces just below high water mark, are two groups of cupmarks. The S group has 37 cups up to 9cm diameter and 2cm deep. The N group has 35 cups up to 9.5cm diameter and 2.5cm deep, also a shallow cupped feature closely resembling a Pictish mirror symbol 27cm long.
M R Ponting and G R Curtis 1987.
Regarding Hobs comments on the origins of the name, Eel Hill.
I recently read in Gearoid O Crualaoichs wonderful book, The Book of the Cailleach, that the eel is “an emblematically liminal creature in Irish tradition – part fish, part animal, believed to undergo reincarnation and , on occasion, to speak.”
I also discovered this little gem which discusses Iormungand, the world sea serpent also known as the Coiling Eel, daughter of Loki and Angrbod.
” In these myths, we see a hint of the idea of the serpent as a symbol of the mother goddess; a role that Iormungand also performs. A link between the goddess and the serpent can be traced well back into the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. Significantly, images of the snake goddess from this period are often accompanied by coils, zig-zags, and meanders; all symbols of water.”
Source
shadowlight.gydja.com/iormungand.html
If we stretched the point we could also tie Iormungands symbols into the carvings on the hill and the nearby underground stream.
Then again, Eel Hill just simply be a corruption of a previous name just as the OS have corrupted the name of the nearby gill from Osmonds Gill to Osmiril Gill.
“Of Atlas mount let poets antique sing,
Whose summit bare supports the bending sky.
Of Roseberry’s rude rock I deign to write...”
Thomas Pearson 1780
Quoted in Stephen J Sherlocks excellent paper, The Archaeology of Roseberry Topping
Moorland Monuments
Studies in the archaeology of North-East Yorkshire in honour of Raymond Hayes and Don Spratt
CBA Research Report 101
1995
“A presumptive old trackway goes above the northern bank of Haweswater Beck in the Lake District, to a prehistoric henge called Tow Top Kirk. There was never any Christian kirk here. If one asks locally for an explanaition of the name, the answer: ‘Probably they had some sort of religious ceremonies here in prehistoric times’ “.
Brigantia – A Mysteriography
Guy Ragland Phillips
Routledge & Kegan Paul
1976
“One other local site should be mentioned in this context, the “miniature” stone circle at NY59281334, adjacent to the entrance to Oddendale hamlet. Although it seems to have existed beyond local memory the monument is unconvincing, the stones not earthfast. It was probably made in the spirit of waggishness, perhaps in imitation of the true Oddendale stone circle, within the fairly recent past. See Cumbria Sites and Monuments record, number 1575.”
A Prehistoric ritual sequence at Oddendale, near Shap
P. Turnbull.
TCWAAS vol XCVII 1997
In the 1933 book, The Archaeology of Yorkshire, F & HW Elgee quote a book by Waley called, The History of Askrigg, which states that a skeleton in a cist was found at Stoney Raise Cairn.
“Today the interior [of the Muir of Ord] has been levelled for one of the greens on a golf course… As the players engage in the ritual of depositing a chalky white ball into a hole carefully positioned inside the henge, one wonders if they sense faint mocking laughter somewhere on the green”.
Aubrey Burl
Prehistoric Henges
Shire Books
“The siting of the pin in the middle of the sacred area has a certain resonance, although archaeologically one would always prefer to see such sites undisturbed a rare case of a “hole in one” being less than desirable!”
Scottish Golf Environment Group
sgeg.org.uk/cm_cultheritage.html