This henge is now only visible as a crop mark. It shows up quite well on the Multimap 1:5000 aerial photgraph.
fitzcoraldo
This henge has a flat central, almost circular, area of 48ft in diameter which is surrounded by a ditch 9ft across with a single entrance in the SE. A continous 12ft wide bank surrounds the ditch giving the monument a total diameter of approximately 80-85ft.
This henge lies on the Muir of Ord golf-course where it has been utilised as a green.
The henge is roughly oval measuring 84x64 ft with a ditch averaging 18ft wide.
There are three entrance causeways, two in the NW & SE and one that may be a later addition.
It is likely that this stone was placed in the centre of the circle during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1866 Simpson described this stone and refers to it as laying a few feet outside of the circle. A plan from 1882 by Romily Allen placed the stone in the field next to the circle. The excavators of the circle commented that “It is unlikely the stone ever stood upright as it bore no trace of differential weathering” The Book of Moncreiffe published in 1929(1929 says that the stone was placed in the centre of the circle to make room for a tree.
Information from
The excavation of a henge, stone circles and metal working area at Moncreiffe, Perthshire
Margaret E C Stewart with contributions by Joanna Close-Brooks, H McKerrell,and Lisbeth M Thorns.
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquities of Scotland, 115 1985
Before the circle was moved to make way for the M90 it was excavated. Four phases of activity were recognized.
Phase 1 Was a class 1 henge monument containing a concentric ring of nine pits and a cremation lay outside the entrance.
Phase 2 A small burial cairn with kerb of of stones surrounded by a ring of standing stones. This monument was almost completely destroyed by later phases.
Phase 3 A ring of eight standing standing stones, graded in height from SW to NE; recumbent stones lay between the three tallest monoliths on the south-west arc. At the centre was a possible ring cairn which was accompanied by cremated burials in pits.
Phase 4 The centre of the monument was used as a metal working workshop for smelting iron and casting bronze.
Information from
The excavation of a henge, stone circles and metal working area at Moncreiffe, Perthshire
Margaret E C Stewart with contributions by Joanna Close-Brooks, H McKerrell,and Lisbeth M Thorns.
Proceedings of the Society of Antiquities of Scotland, 115 1985
There’s a beautiful photograph of the 18th century spoil heaps on Rudland Rigg linked below.
Bear in mind that some of these heaps are 20 metres across and you can see the difficulties that may arise when looking for burial mounds in this area.
viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk/search/reference.asp?index=25&main_query=&theme=ARCHAEOLOGY&period=&county=&district=&place_name=&imageUID=82666
EH report a stone called ‘The Auld Man’ NMR no. NZ70SE2. The Pastscape website states that this stone has been removed or destroyed and was located at NZ794013.
I wonder if it is possible that this stone themodernantiquarian.com/post/19565 is ‘The Auld Man’? Its location is NZ795015
This cave overlooks the Malham Tarn wetlands.
Excavations within the cave have revealed finds, including human remains, dating from the Mesolithic through to post Mediaval period.
“At Knipe Scar, I had the advantage of Mr Stuart’s great experience and careful judgment; and the results of our examination were sufficient to satisfy us, that at some remote period burnt matter had been deposited
within the innermost of the three concentric circles. Near the centre of the larger and more perfect of the two sets of circles adjoining each
other, about 18 inches below the surface, we found a rough flat-shaped stone 15 inches in width, and about 2 feet 6 inches in length. Under
this stone were evident traces of charcoal and burnt earth, but no bones. The deposit was not exactly in the centre, but rather towards the northwest side of the circle, a peculiarity which I noted in two other instances in which the deposit was found. The diameter of the outside circle is 63 feet, the second 21 feet, and the innermost of the three within which the flat stone covering the deposit was placed, is 7 feet. From the centre of this circle to the centre of the one adjoining, the distance is 96 feet. In the centre space of this other circle, about the same depth below the surface, we found a rude pavement of cobbles about 6 feet in length and 4 feet in width, and under this pavement a similar deposit of charcoal.”
STONE CIRCLES NEAR SHAP, WESTMORELAND. By THE REV. JAMES SIMPSON, VICAR OF SHAP.
Proceedings of The Society of Antiquities of Scotland.
Date Unknown
“There is a case to be made that Dunadd had a prehistory to match its eminence in the historic period, but that case, I accept, is a weak one. There are Neolithic and Bronze Age artefacts from the site, one of them (a Neolithic stone ball) of a specialised type well outside its usual distribution (RCAHMS 1988, 7). There are standing stones athe foot of Dunadd and there are rock carvings, apparently of prehistoric date, on the outcrop itself. Even the famous inauguration stone – a deep footprint carved into the living rock – is matched by a much fainter petroglyph of the same kind. Most probably both date from the Roman period, but similar carvings are known from prehistory, and the difference of preservation could be due to a difference of age. But far more important is the sheer concentration of major monuments in the surrounding area. The distribution of fortified sites visible from Dunadd is not so very different from the distributions of ceremonial enclosures, mortuary cairns and rock art, most of which could still have been identified in the first millennium AD”.
Altering the Earth
The Origins of Monuments in Britain and Continental Europe.
Society Of Antiquaries Of Scotland Edinburgh 1993
Monograph Series Number 8
Author: Richard Bradley
Writing in the nineteenth century, Robert Knox notes,
The Old Wife’s Neck stands on the High Moor westward of Ramsdale Hill. The seat of this, since my map first made it’s name known to our virtuosi, has been removed, and its chair-shaped destroyed.
His sketch, complete with chair, is here
themodernantiquarian.com/post/38979
“Virtuosi” lovely
Regarding Hobs picture of the stone outside the pub themodernantiquarian.com/post/31699.
Two large stones once stood outside the destroyed entrance to the henge and are shown on a drawing of the henge made in the 16th century by William Dugdale and were mentioned by Camden in his ‘Monumenta Brittania.
The fact that Hobs stone is now at the pub may be significant . The remains of the henge that we see today are not really an accurate representation of the original structure. Around 1820 a chap called William Bushby turned the henge in a tea garden. He raised the central platform by dumping 1000 cu metres of sand and gravel on it, much of which came from cutting away the inner bank of the henge, he also deepened the ditch. William Bushby also owned the pub.
“The Kirk has been used for social functions until comparatively recently. Well into the 19th century, the lord of the manor and his tenants congregated at the circle on Easter Monday afternoon. There they indulged in games of wrestling, dancing, hurling and leaping. Such pastimes were not without their dangers, and the last lord to attend broke his thigh during one of the games. Sober counsel prevailed, and the games were discontinued”
The Stone Circles of Cumbria
John Waterhouse
Pub. Phillmore & Co Ltd
1985
NMR Number: NY 60 NE 1
Remains of a Neolithic long cairn excavated by Canon Greenwell; the long cairn possibly comprises of two round or oval cairns which were later joined to form a single monument.
Source – Pastscape.english-heritage.org.uk
In his most excellent book The Stone Circles of Cumbria, John Waterhouse records the following
“Knipe Scar is an elevated area of limestone 5km north-west of Shap. Simpson, writing in the middle of the 19th century, reported the presence of 3 sets of concentric stone circles on or near Knipe Scar. One was found to contain charcoal and burnt earth. The exact locations of the circles were not given, and they appear no longer to exist”.
Waterhouse fails to record the Shapbeck Plantation circle in his book which makes me wonder if this could possibly be one of the lost circles.
As for the Knipe Moor circle Waterhouse places this comment in the postscript to his book.
“Also not included (in the book) is the circle of boulders on the limestone pavement of Knipe Scar near Shap. This site is a circular enclosure about 15m in diameter seemingly made by re-arranging some of the numerous blocks of limestone on the top of the hill. Although the site is labelled ‘stone circle’ on Ordnance Survey maps, it appears to be entirely different from the sort of sites described in this book”.
The Stone Circles of Cumbria
John Waterhouse
Pub. Phillimore & Co Ltd.
As a guide to the location of the circle it shows up quite well as an area of uncultivated ground on the multimap 1:5000 aerial image
Taken from an article entitled
The Stone Circles of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright
By Fred Coles, UOBR. MEM. Soc. ANTIQ. SCOT.
Proceedings of the Society of The Antiquities of Scotland, May, 1895.
Summary of Stone Circles
CIRCLES WHOLLY DESTROYED.
1. Near “Roman Camp,” Bombie, Kirkcudbright.
2. „ Boreland Mote, Parton.
3. ,, Kirkgunzeon Manse.
4. „ Glaisters, Kirkgunzeon.
5. „ Airdrie, Kirkbean.
6. In Kirkbean.
CIRCLES PARTIALLY DESTROYED.
1. S.E. of Little Balmae, Kirkcudbright,
2. W. of Balmae House, „
3. Drnmmore, „
4. Park, Tongland (with central stone), .
5. Balannan, „ .
6. Torrs, Kelton, . . . .
7. Torkirra, Kirkgunzeon,
8.’ High Auchenlarie, Anwoth,
CIRCLES APPARENTLY COMPLETE.
1. Glenqnicken Moor, Kirkmabreck (with central stone)
2. Hills, Lochrutton
3. Holm of Daltallochan, Carsphairn
4a. Cauldside, Anwoth
46. „ „
5a. Lairdmannach, Tongland (with central stone)
5ft. „ „
6. Near Lochrinnie Mote, Dairy (with holed stone)
This monument was excavated by Percival Turner and Deborah Walsh in 1990 prior to the destruction of the site by the extension of the Hardendale quarry.
The site was interpretted being a focus of ritual and burial during the Neolithic and Bronze Age which was constructed in four major phases.
“A third millenium monument consisted of two concentric circles of timber posts was demolished and the tops of post-pits sealed by substantial settings of boulders. This in turn was succeeded, in the Early Bronze Age, by a simple ring-cairn to which was later added a rectangular platform of boulders with a feature like a facade on one side of the ring-cairn”.
A Prehistoric ritual sequence at Oddendale near Shap.
P. Turnbull
TCWAAS vol XCVII
1997
This site on MAGIC is described as Knapperthaw Stone Circle.
Unfortunately the SMR summary is currently not available online.
In his book ‘Walks in Ancient Lakeland’, Robert Harris describes this site as “the remains of a cairn and a strange ringed enclosure”. He also describes a “large block inside the ring which has two cup marks carved into its flat upper surface”.
Walks in Ancient Lakeland
Robert Harris
Pub Sigma Leisure 2001
“Stone circles apart, Swaledale lacks obvious ceremonial monuments unless some elements are incorporated in the undated complex of maiden Castle, Grinton. The pear shaped earthwork partly cut into the slope cannot be defensive, the parallel stone walls leading up to its entrance begins immediately south of a large round barrow. The relationship is suggestive of some of the arrangements of some long barrows, long enclosures and posted avenues in eastern Yorkshire. The structures at Maiden Castle, including a roundhouse, suggest that this is not a single phase monument”.
The Archaeology of Yorkshire
The Neolithic & Bronze Ages
T.G. Manby, A. King & B.E. Vyner
YAS Occasional Paper No.3
2003
From English Heritages Website
Falkner’s Circle, Wiltshire. Report on Geophysical Surveys, 2002 and 2003
Martin, L
Number of: Pages 7 Figures 8
In March and May of 2002, geophysical surveys were conducted around a standing stone believed to be the last remnant of Falkner’s Circle, near Avebury, Wiltshire. Several discrete anomalies lying on an arc approximately 44m in diameter were identified and found to be either post medieval destruction pits or possible stone sockets when excavated in the summer of 2002. An extension to the survey area in 2003 has revealed further similar anomalies, although no obvious patterning was evident.
J & P.J. Cherry reported this site in 1987 in their publication ‘Prehistoric Habitation Sites on the Limestone Uplands of Eastern Cumbria‘
They describe the site as “A small kerbed cairn or circle, five metres in diameter, comprising twenty stones. In the centre a further six stones are visible”.
English Heritages SMR lists the following sites
Broomrigg A
NY54794671
Large irregular stone circle & associated double stone alignment.
Broomrigg B1
NY54844659
Small stone circle
Broomrigg C
NY54824645
Small stone circle
Broomrigg D
NY54964657
Small stone circle
Broomrigg G
NY54804685
Standing stone
Broomrigg I
NY54784654
Standing stone (fallen)
I suspect that the Wilson Scar circle has now been destroyed. I recently found this brief reference to it.
“Wilson Scar (NY549182) excavated c.1943, in advance of quarrying”.
There is a reference to the following reports:
Dr J.E. Spence, ‘A Stone Circle in Shap Rural Parish’, CW2 XXXV 69
G. De G. Seiveking, ‘Excavation of a Stone Circle at Wilson Scar, Shap North 1952’ CW2 lxxxiv, 31.
The Mighty Burl categorises the circle as a ‘4’ meaning ‘destroyed or unrecognisable’ and also mentions the prodigious chronicler of circles, Barnatt (1989).
V.E. Turner reported this circle in the 1986 Transactions of the Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society (vol LXXXVI) as a previously unrecorded circle.
A few notes from his notes
He describes 3 concentric rings of stones with the tallest stones in the eastern partof the outer ring.
Twenty eight stones survive inthe outermost ring, diameter 20.5m.
Eighteen stones form the second ring & seven are visible in the innermost ring.
Within the outermost ring is a cairn of stones.
There is possible evidence of cobbling.
In his 1771 book “Rural Economy of Yorkshire” Arthur Young describes Hambleton Street.
“You are obliged to cross the moors they call Black Hambleton, over which the road runs in narrow hollows that admit a south country chaise (Cart) with some difficulty, that I reckon this part of the journey made a hazard of my neck. The going down into Cleveland is beyond all description, terrible, you go through such steep, rough, narrow, rock precipices, that I would sincerely advise you to go a hundred miles to escape it”.
“At 1314ft is a really ancient boulder set up the east side of the rigg road the Cammon Stone from the Celtic ‘cam’ meaning bank stone. On its leaning side is a Hebrew inscription HALLELUJAH. Was the source of much controversy. it was thought to be Phoenician but can be compared to the Hebrew lettering on the Bransdale Mill inscription. It is most likely the work of Rev. W. Strickland a 19th century vicar of Ingleby”.
Old Roads & Pannierways in North Yorkshire
Raymond H. Hayes
NYMNP 1988
In a paper for Archaeologica Scotia (Volume 4 1857) entitled “An Account of certain Bronze Instruments, supposed to be Druidical Remains, found beneath a large Rock on the South Side of the Top of Roseberry in Cleveland” G. S. Faber the Rector of Long-Newton wrote a description of Roseberry Topping and the bronze hoard found there. His paper is a lovely piece of antiquarian writing and very much of its time. Below is his description of the origins of the name Roseberry and its association with the nearby River Leven.
“A favourite line of Antiquarian study, which I once pursued with no small measure of deep interest, has long induced me to believe that Roseberry was in old times a high place of the Celtic Druids, whose theology, originally brought out of Asia, was the same in substance as that, of the Hindoos, the Persians, the Indo-Scythians, the Babylonians, and the Egyptians; or indeed, as I may rather say, the same as primeval paganism in every part of the world. Agreeably to such an origination, the name of Roseberry, or Rhos-Barit is the very same as that of the mountain in Armenia, where the ark, astronomically
venerated by the pagan world as the lunar ship or the navicular crescent, was thought to have come to land : for, according to Nicholas, of Damascus, it still, in his days, bore the name of Mount Saris, or the Mount of the Ship; a name which is precisely equivalent to that of our Celtic :Rhos-Bari The ship Baris, when personified, was sidereally the goddess of the Moon; which, under the character of the Universal Mother, and the Mother,of the World, was thought to have once floated over a boundless expanse, of water, having received into her womb Osiris, or Bacchus, or Siva, or Hu, or by what-ever name might be designated the Universal Father analogically venerated as the god of the Sun; and accordingly, under this identical name of Baris, the lunar ship-goddess, as we learn from Strabo, had atemple in Armenia, at Mount Abus, near the road which led to Ecbatana
I take it that the name of Rhos-Bari or Mount Baris, or the Hill of the Lunar Ship, was brought originally by the Celts out of Asia: and, as in all their local imitations or appropriations of the primeval Ararat, the Pagans ordinarily associated a sacred river or lake of the Moon with the sacred mountain of the Moon, we have, near our Yorkshire Rhos-Bari, the river Leven, or the river of the Moon; a name equally borne by a once consecrated lake and river in Scotland.
The Deities, worshipped on Rhos-Bari and on the banks of the holy Leven, were Hu, and Ceridwen, and Crierwy: the first described as the Sun, and yet represented as having escaped in a wonderful ship from an universal deluge; the second adored as the Moon, and yet mysteriously celebrated as a ship which conveyed the god Hu in safety over the waters, when beneath them a prior world was inundated; the third viewed as the daughter or the allegorical re-appearance of the second, and thus identical with the lunar ship of the dead in the river of the fabled Hades”.
From Aubrey Burls “Carnac to Callanish”
‘A line of stones extends from Sewborrens over the Riggs Farm to Newbiggin’. Taylor, 1886.
Raymond Hayes surveyed this site in 1947 following a large fire on the moor.
He recorded the stone row, located the socket of a fifth stone in the stone row and observed that the row lead to a low eroded cairn 65m to the north east.
Also at this time 1000’s of flints were collected from the area by Hayes and his colleagues and amateur flint collectors.
To pad-out Rhiannon’s post
“A number of circles used formerly to be called “Law Stones,” probably because law courts were accustomed to be held near them.
The suggestion receives some support from the case of the Standingstones of Rayne, a circle at which, in 1349, a court was held to settle a dispute between the Bishop of Aberdeen and William of St Michael concerning the ownership of certain lands in the neighbourhood”.
Source
Folklore of the Aberdeen Stone Circles and Standing Stones by James Ritchie
Proceedings of The Society of Antiquities of Scotland. Vol LX.20
May 10 1926
In a paper written for The Proceedings of the Antiquarian Society by James Mackintosh in the 1880’s entitled “Notice of cup-marked stones & curing well on the estate of Garth, Fortingall, Perthshire. Mackintosh catalogues a number of cup marked stones in an area bounded by the “hamlet of Drumcharry to the west, to the Keltney Burn on the east (2 miles), the river Lyon on the south, and about 2 miles north from where the Keltney Burn joins the Lyon.
The first rock he describes is in the bed of the Lyon a few yards west from the lime kiln belonging to the farm of Tynadalloch. This rock had five well defined cups.
The second rock was in the village of Drumcharry and is described as a large boulder 7 feet long with a large cup of 4 inches in diameter near to it’s west end.
The next stone a part of “a pavement in front of a barn door” in the village which appears to be a fragment of a larger stone. The rock has 3 well-executed cups on the top.
The next stone he describes is above the farmhouse of Balnacraig on a slope east of the “Pictish fort or Casteil-na-Feinne”. There were several boulders, one of which had a cupmark 3 ½ inches in diameter.
Farther east in the glen of the Keltney Burn, 500 yards above the farmhouse of Wester Litigan and the same distance from the old castle of Garth “one of the strongholds of the Wolf of Badenoch, there is a harp shaped boulder” this boulder is 8 x 7 x 4 feet with 5 cup marks upon it, he also found fragments from the stone and putting them together reassembled another 5 cups.
On a rock on the top of a “sithean or fairy knowe” 600 yards due north of the ruin of Garth Castle he found 5 cup marks one of which was surrounded by a grooved ring 6 inches in diameter.
500 yards south east from the farm house of West Litigan he found a water worn boulder 3 feet by 3 feet which had one cup mark upon it.
Between the farm-houses of Upper Blarish and Balnacroick he found a rock 8 x 4 x3 feet which had a vein of quartz running through it and 5 cup marks “lying across the weather worn grooves of the rock”.
He mentions a number of cup-marked rocks on stone which were to be used as road stone and then describes a stone noticed by Dr Macmillan on “the island at Keltney Mill. Mackintosh describes visiting this stone with a fella called Duncan Haggart. The stone had 12 cups including two connected pairs. Mr Haggart informs Mackintosh that three of the cups were made by him as a boy.
He then goes on to give a description of the nearby spring called “Fuaran n’ Gruarach or Fuaran n’ Druibh Chased being Well of the Measles or well of the Hooping-cough” where it was the custom to carry the water from the well and place it in a cavity “and the give the patients as much as they could take, the water being administered with a spoon made from the horn of a living cow, called a ‘beoadharc’, or living horn”.
This row was only discovered last year.
Check out the report here -
ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/past/past47.html#Dartmoor
In Burl’s 1991 Yorkshire Archaeological Journal paper on the Arrows, he speculates on the fate of the fourth stone
“Exactly what happened to that stone is not certain but it is probable that in the early 17th century it was dragged to St. Helena, Boroughbridge, for the foundation of a bridge over the River Tutt”.
In the same paper Burl states that “the Devil’s Arrows possesses the features of a classical stone row:
1. it leads uphill from water;
2. it has a blocking or terminal stone at it’s lower end;
3. the stones of the row are graded in height with the tallest at the head of the gradient near a stretch of level ground;
4 The row has an apparent alignment on the most southerly midsummer rising moon”.
The circle was reported in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 1969.
A 15ft circle consisting of ten stones which protrude a few inches above the turf.
On excavation a fragemented urn, remains of a cremation and one fragment of flint were discovered.
“On your left, between the track and the top of Hart Heugh, lies a multi-period landscape with enclosures, enclosed hut circles, cairns, trackways, stone alignments, and a prize recent find by a local surveying group, a previously unrecorded stone circle.
Some of the monuments are not easy to see in the long grass but are worth the effort for those who are interested.
The circle has thirteen stones, none more than 0.75 metres above the ground, is on average twenty eight metres in diameter and contains a trapezoidal structure whose date and purpose is unknown.
From the western edge of the circle, fifty metres to the west south west and seventy metres to the south west, are two tri-radial cairns”.
Ancient Landscapes – a field guide to the archaeology of the North-east Cheviots
Malcom Aylett
Stone Martin Publishing 2000
The grid reference for the Triradial cairn is NT968261
“68 is a slab near the vallay floor, and, rare for this area, has four concentric circles that cut across the ‘grain’ of the rock, and this adds to the valley’s ‘special’ position in the landscape. From here rises one of the main streams that drain north, and the land opens out dramatically across the whole moor.”
Prehistoric Rock Art of County Durham, Swaledale & Wensleydale.
S. Beckensall & T. Laurie
County Durham Books 1998
The name Yockenthwaite is of Norse-Irish origin and means the ‘clearing of Eogan’.
“Domesday Book has Difgelibi ‘Dufgalls Place’, according to Morris a norse name from Old Irish Dubhgall meaning ‘black foreigner’ and used in Ireland of Norwegian raiders who terrified coast dwellers”.
Yorkshire Placenames.
Peter Wright
Dalesman Publishing 2001
“A NEOLITHIC ‘CAUSEWAYED ENCLOSURE’ ON GREEN HOW, CUMBRIA
Under low, slanting sunlight on the evening of 16 June 2000, routine reconnaissance by the English Heritage Aerial Survey team discovered what appears to be the first Neolithic causewayed enclosure to be recognised in northern England. Causewayed enclosures were built in the late Stone Age between about 3,700 BC and 3,400 BC, probably to serve as arenas for periodic communal gatherings; they are among the oldest and rarest field monuments known in the British Isles. In view of the potential importance of the monument, an analytical field survey was undertaken by English Heritage’s Landscape Investigation Team in the wake of the discovery.
The enclosure lies on Green How, a prominent hill on Aughertree Fell, near Uldale. The hill commands panoramic views, with a particularly impressive prospect north-westwards to the Solway Plain and the Solway Firth. Although just taking in the highest point of the hill, the enclosure ‘tips’ across the contours on the slope facing towards the low-lying ground, a characteristic recognised as typical of other causewayed enclosures throughout Europe. Assuming that it occupied a clearing in the forest that probably would have covered the area at that date, the monument would have been clearly visible for some considerable distance across the Solway Plain.
The enclosure survives as well preserved low earthworks, with a single circuit describing an elongated oval 0.6 hectares (1.5 acres) in extent. The characteristic causeways – short gaps – at irregular intervals around both the bank and ditch are immediately apparent: on the aerial photograph, six or seven main segments can be seen in the circuit of the bank. Field survey reveals slight traces of further partial interruptions: this is thought to reflect the remarkable construction technique revealed by excavation at other sites, whereby parts of the monument were demolished or remodelled at intervals throughout its use, as though the monument was always regarded as a ‘work in progress’. Despite the lack of firm dating evidence, the form of the enclosure and the slight, degraded appearance of the remains strongly suggest that it can be interpreted with confidence as a Neolithic causewayed enclosure.
In the British Isles, Neolithic causewayed enclosures have a distribution concentrated in southern England, with not a single site positively identified north of the valley of the River Trent, although isolated examples have been identified in Northern Ireland, Anglesey and the Isle of Man. The majority of the sixty-nine certain and probable examples previously known were discovered as cropmarks through aerial reconnaissance, and only fifteen survive to any appreciable degree as earthworks (click to find out about our book on causewayed enclosures throughout the British Isles: The Creation of Monuments, published 2001). In the north of England a handful of sites have been tentatively claimed to be earlier Neolithic enclosures, but none bear close comparison with the site on Green How, which is strikingly similar to examples long known on the chalk downland of southern England.
Aughertree Fell is open to the public, but the causewayed enclosure lies nearly a kilometre from the nearest road.
To get details of the full report, click here. For more information, contact Pete Horne or Alastair Oswald in English Heritage’s York Office on 01904 601901; e-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]”
From EH’s website
In Burls from “Carnac to Callanish” he mentions a row at Lowther Woodhouse that supposedly led to a cairn near Yanwath Wood and adds ‘but this is hearsay without confirmation’.
These two stones are 750m from Yanwath Woodhouse and are 300m from Yanwath wood.
Is this the row that Burl had heard of?
sdb2.eng-h.gov.uk/visitdetails.asp?visit=979
EH’s geophysical survey & confirmation of the site of the henge
To add to Moey’s observations.
Here the ring is situated at the confluence of two streams, is overlooked by the summit some 0.5kms to the north-west of Tathey Crags, and the greater eminence of Hedgehope Hill to the west-south-west, these two hills framing The Cheviot which lies due west of the circle. Threestoneburn again sees the occurrence of four elements in direct conjunction.
The long cairn on Dod Hill, lying roughly 1km to the east of the Threestoneburn circle, is of some interest in itself and may have added to the importance of the general location. The cairn is in a prominent location as seen from the main route to the circle, and has been constructed to lie across the contours with it’s broad terminal aligned on the summit of Dod Hill. It is visible on the horizon for part of the journey to the stone circle. This suggests that it may have been deliberately focused upon the hill top, possibly producing a link between the symbolism of the topography with the remains of the ancestors.
Peter Topping
Different Realities: the Neolithic in the Northumberland Cheviots.
Oxbow Monograph 86
Oxbow Books 1997
According to Burl,
The circle-stone on the western side of the entrance and the portal beyond it were in direct line both with the tall outlying pillar rising behind them and with the midwinter setting sun beyond it. The three stones created a neat sightline for the observe.
The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland & Brittany
Yale Books.
“Knox was perhaps the first to recognise the stone triangle. He records one from Ramsdale Hill Top, two miles west-south-west of Robin Hood’s Bay made of stones 4-6 feet high; also three small stones near a small barrow at Dry Heads, Harwod Dale. Another near Stoup Brow forms an acute triangle, the tallest stone known as the Grey Horse Stone being not more than 5 feet high”.
Frank Elgee
Early Man in N.E. Yorkshire
1930
Elgee thought that this site “guards a burial”.
Whellan considers it “the remains of a Druidical temple on Stoadfast Hill”.
Daftness nivver builds owght wo’th leaving up.
Traditional