Blessed is t’ bride ‘at t’ sun shines on,
An’ blessed is t’ deead ‘at t’ rain rains on.
Traditional
fitzcoraldo
Prompted by the discovery of Bronze Age timbers in the side of Staithes Beck in 2001 Tees Archeaology have produced a new booklet on the prehistory of Staithes.
An A5 envelope, stamped, self addressed and sent to Tees Archaeology, Sir William Gray House,Clarence Road, Hartlepool. TS24 8BT will get you a free copy.
“On Thimbleby Moor, on the edge of the forestry plantation at 471953 are stones called “Nine Stones”; some are within the plantation, the rest outside and in addition there are other boulders which have been thrown up in forestry work; the core of old stones may well have been parts of a circle.”
From Stanhope White’s Standing Stones of the North York Moors.
“Of all the ancient trackways running roughly north and south across the high moors, the most notable and for long the dominant road in the area wads Hambleton Street.
It is still largely in it’s original condition, of a major trade artery of prehistoric times. Crossing the Tees at Yarm it climbs on to the moor-top at Scarth Nick, skirts Osmotherly, and then follows the western escarpent of the Hambleton Hills over Black Hambleton, southwards to Boltby Bank Top and Sutton Bank Top. Here it forks. One branch descended via Oldstead to Coxwold, Crayke and York. The other and probably more ancient branch, swung eastwards approximatly along the line of the modern road A170 as far as Tom Smith’s Cross and then by ‘Ampleforth High Street’ to Oswaldkirk Bank Top, Stonegrave, Hovingham and Malton. Thence ancient travellers could follow it south again over the Wolds and across the Humber to Brough and so over the Lincolnshire Wolds”.
A History of Helmsley Reviaulx and District.
Helmsley & Area Group of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society
Stonegate Press 1963
“To the north of this enclosure lies another enclosure of similar size and shape but with a very wide ditch and an east entrance. It sits on the very edge of the terrace overlooking the Eden and surrounds a large pond. This site is now heavily ploughed and there is no trace on the ground of the ditch which Stukely observed in 1725. He described the site as ‘a large spring intrenched about with a vallum and fosse, of a pretty great circumference, but no depth’. The juxtaposition of the enclosure and pond is not coincidental; similar enclosures of prehistoric and roman date are known to be sited near tarns and other water sources elsewher in Cumbria, although a concentric arrangement is rare. Several ditches fan out from the entrance area; immediately to the south a double ditched trackway funnels out into the valley and seems to underlie a number of ditches running at right angles to it”.
Source – “new evidence of ritual monuments at Long Meg and her Daughters, Cumbria”.
by Grahame Soffe & Tom Clare
Antiquity 62
1988
NY 5665 3724
“The east half of the ditch circuit of a small sub-rectangular enclosure is revealed as a crop mark; it surrounds a single earth-fast stone. Only one other similar stone occurs in the immediate neighbourhood, just to the north east in the cleared wood, and there may be parallel here with other enclosed stones such as the Menhir de Guerande in France.
Source – “new evidence of ritual monuments at Long Meg and her Daughters, Cumbria”.
by Grahame Soffe & Tom Clare
Antiquity 62
1988
NY 5730 3715
This is an egg shaped enclosure, bounded by a thin ditch containing several possible pits.
Source – “new evidence of ritual monuments at Long Meg and her Daughters, Cumbria”.
by Grahame Soffe & Tom Clare
Antiquity 62
1988
In reply to Rhiannon’s observation on the name of Boosbeck.
Alec Wright says that the name is Old English and means “the stream by the cowshed”.
This is what Elgee has to say about the Long Barrow.
“There can be little doubt that this is Greenwell’s Barrow CCXXVII which he describes as being on the moorland above Kepwick village and in the parish of Over Stilton.
I examined it in 1927 and found that it’s longer axis ran south-east and north-west, in this respect tallying with Greenwells account. It is just over 100 feet in length with a width of 30 feet at the east and 25 feet at the west end. It is 4 feet high at it’s highest point, which is 40 feet from the east end. The west end is slightly lower”.
Early Man in NE Yorkshire
1930
Elgee reckons that the name Drake is derived from the Old Norse “draukr” – a spectre.
On the 1926 Duncombe Park estate map it is called “Odin’s Grave”.
The stone stands at the intersection of the parishes of Rosedale West, Farndale East & Westerdale.
It is considered to date to the Bronze Age & roughly contemporary with Flat Howe round barrow.
The letters TD are carved on the west face & are thought to stand for Thomas Duncombe and have been left in the 18th century as an estate marker.
Details from EH’s SMR extract
A Summary fro the NMR Monument Report
“An undated earthwork occupying the end of a spur, thus forming a roughly oval enclosure about 3/4 of an acre in extent. A shallow ditch crosses the neck of the spur and continues around the other sides. A causeway crosses the ditch on the northwestern side. Two caves and two large unworked blocks of stone are said to be associated with the enclosure, although the archaeological significance of the caves and stones, and their “association” with the enclosure, is obscure”.
“The work has features in common with Castle Hill, Dufton, centred at NY 70172301; (also unclassified by RCHM, but apparently an enclosed RB settlement)“.
“The earthwork had no internal remains, but it form and construction appear to place it in the broad context of domestic enclosures”.
The famous barrow digger Cannon Greenwell excavated these barrows and recovered broken bones from Cairn A and the scattered bones of two bodies, the bones of an ox and a later insertion cremation in a collared urn from Cairn B
“Prior to 19th century quarrying Penhurrock was a large cairn or mound. Its piecemeal destruction led to the uncovering of numerous burials, a ‘cist shaped hole’ cut in the solid rock and a number of stone circles. The site has been built on a natural knoll, no doubt to create an illusion of size”.
Archaeological Sites of the Lake District
T. Clare
Pub. Moorland Publishing Co Ltd
1981
I found this little beaut whilst mooching around the MAGIC site. Unfortunately the SMR failed to yeild up a summary so I can’t give an accurate description of the site type. But with a name like that I couldn’t let this one slide.
The modern OS 1:25 000 scale map shows a roughly eliptical earthwork marked as an enclosure
Further investigation led me to the excellent old-maps.co.uk.
The 1863 map (linked below) shows the area marked with the site title, there are also two nearby sites marked stone & stones as well as a couple of caves and tumuli.
Needless to say this site has gone to the top of my “must get a good coat of looking at – soon” sites.
I believe the location of this circle is extremely significant and believe that it’s location would have had a deep significance to people travelling across the Pennines from the north-east of England to the Cumbrian mountains following an ancient route as mentioned in my weblog “Langdale Axes, Trade Routes & The Birth of Mammon. The Ramblings of Fitzcoraldo”.
It’s position on the edge of Stainmore affords travellers their first glimpse of the Eden Valley and the Cumbrian Fells beyond.
It is also a site which illustrates continuity of use as can be seen by the substantial Roman remains, the Christian Cross, and the modern transpennine road.
This site also, in common with many other Megalithic monuments, has an asociation with the death & burial of a king or legendary figure, in this case Eric Bloodaxe.
Bit of controversy over this one.
In his book “Walks in Ancient lakeland” Robert Harris says, “This ancient henge is slightly smaller but similar in scale to King Arthur’s Table at Penrith, but it seems to lack the interior ditch.
English Heritage’s record of Scheduled Monuments describes the site as an “Early Christian Enclosure”.
Could this be a christianised henge? Roll on the good weather!
Turned up this care of the wonderful MAGIC Map.
This is the only reference I can find to the circle and will be following it up shortly by taking my life into my hands trying to get across the A66.
The circle is described as “a roughly circular stone setting occupying a commanding position at the head of the Stainmore Pass. This is interpretted as a stone circle of Bronze Age date”
Taken from English Heritage’s Record of Scheduled Monuments.
The Hob on the Hill mounds were opened by Canon Atkinson in 1863.
In the southern mound he found five burial deposits;
A cremation accompanied by a flint knife.
A cremation accompanied by a pygmy cup, a bone pin & an arrow head.
An unaccompanied cremation.
Another unaccompanied cremation.
An empty food vessel.
In the northern mound Atkinson found a cremation in a collared urn which he declared to be ‘the most perfect I have ever seen at all’. He also found a pygmy cup and cremated bone.
All information blagged from-
Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Cleveland
By G.M. Crawford
Published by Cleveland County Council Archaeology Section 1980
“The most interesting of these groups (cairns), which are well worth a visit, are those around Iron Howe, on the southern tip of Cow Rig, between Parci Gill and Arnsgill on Snilesworth Moor, 900 to 1,025ft. OD. Here are plots and enclosures and over 300 cairns, including a strange, elongated construction joining two cairns about 25ft apart.
There is a total of 1 1/4 miles of walling, probably field boundaries”.
A History of Helmsley Rievaulx & District
Members of the Helmsley & Area Group of the YAS
Stonegate Press 1968
“The walling here is the most highly developed on the moors and there appear to be the remains of drove ways between the walls. Nearby is a Mesolithic site. On one visit I spotted a very strange stone which, with the permission of Lord Ingelby, I excavated. It consisted of a block of coarse limestone about 16ins high and a base 14ins by 17ins; from near the top, at the back of the stone, running down to the base at the front, is a deep channel, in cross-section thistle-head shaped, 9ins across the top of the thistle and about 7ins in diameter in the body part. What this represents has yet to be determined”.
The North York Moors
Stanhope White
Dalesman Books
1979
“Unsquared, rough, standing stone, alleged to be the remains of an avenue or stone circle”.
From EH’s Pastscape website
Just to add to Rhiannon’s comment. I think it is worth quoting Burl directly as this is a good example of the wit & wisdom of the mighty fella.
“happily, the deterrent of a line of sharp-edged kerbstones at the roadside has ended this conversion of a ritual circle into a napkin ring”.
From Carnac to Callanish
Aubrey Burl
Yale University Press
1993
The Reverend Young excavated on of the barrows on the hill and recored the following;
“..a small urn, preserved entire, in possession of the author; discovered a few years ago at Upleatham, within a large urn. It is only 2.25 inches diameter at the top and 2.75 inches at the bottom, 2in. deep without and 1.25in. within”
History of Whitby
G. Young
1817
An alternative explanaition for the name freebrough is from the Old English Frithborh meaning a pledge or guarantee or Freeborh meaning a free or frank pledge in relation to this conspicuous hill being a meeting place or court.
There may also be some confusion between borh meaning pledge and beorh meaning hill
SMR No.3292 Standing Stone
This is a standing stone beside a gate on Sandy lane. The stone is marked on the O.S. map of 1893 and stands 80cm high, 30cm wide and 30cm deep. The stone is narrow at the top, but wider at the bottom where it is 50cm wide and deep. The stone is in front of and probably supporting a low wall. The gate across Sandy Lane may have fastened to the stone. The standing stone has slight V-shaped grooves on the path side, but there are no traces of how a gate would be suspended from the stone. The stone is in fair condition.
An Archaeological Survey of the Upleatham Hills.
Peter Rowe & Stephen J. Sherlock
October 1999
“This is the more northerly of two mounds known collectively as the Black Howes. They are prominently sited on a north-west/south east ridge in open moorland at 280m O.D. The mound is largely of earth, and is 18m in diameter and 2.2m high, with traces of a megalithic kerb round it’s outer edge. One kerbstone has a benchmark. A modern marker cairn has been constructed on the highest point (now gone – fitz).
The Black Howes were opened by Atkinson, who found that both had been previously disturbed and their centres excavated. Atkinson excavated this mound extensively, and probably left very little untouched. Within the kerb he came upon ‘an imperfect barrier of stonework’ – an internal revetment wall – and at the centre he found a central cairn. On the north-west edge of the cairn he found inurned cremation which is now lost. 2.7m east of the centre was a large tripartite urn ‘quite full of bone’ accompanied by a bone pin.”
Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Cleveland
G.M. Crawford
1980
“The Percy Rigg village was first noticed by the late Mr Proud of Sleddale Farm in 1962, and excavated by R.S. Close in the following years. The site stands 880 feet above sea level at the centre of a large rectangular field about 300 fet long. There are five circular hut bases, two of them 28 feet in diameter with paved floors and walls still standing to a height of three courses of stone. Nine saddle querns and the base of one rotary quern were found.”
The North York Moors
Stanhope White
1979
If you pick up a copy of the leaflet “Walking in and around Newton Stewart & Creetown” there is a route to the Cairn & 4 poster that avoids having to jump over any walls.
According to Aubrey Burl. This site was originally a simple pair of stones with pits dug to receive the cremated bones. A circular cairn was then heaped over the cemetery and two more stones were added converting the monument into a four poster.
Newton Farm is a wonderful place if your looking for a lovely secluded beach to camp on.
It makes an excellent base for getting around the local sites.
The facilities are pretty none existant but the beach is a trip. Take lots of firewood and enjoy the Burial Chamber, Rock Art and lovely beach.
All that for £2 per tent per night.
“I met a man from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
tell that it’s sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
P.B. Shelley
“As I sat on the stela of Adam’s Grave, I was gazing down the heaving slopes of human thought, and nature spoke to me of man’s visions of her, no less than of her own unequivocated loveliness. For one hour I was a droplet left by the tide of humanity that had ebbed from their slopes, and I knew that it was only by treading in the worn steps of the hill-dwellers that I could realize so much as a fragment of the seemingly incomprehensibles of their lives. I do not believe for a single moment that Downland man chose the high places either in search of pasturage for his flocks or because the wooded valleys were the haunts of peril or even demons, or as a refuge for human foes. He went there because he was a man of self-regarding, of devastatingly material and yet of appealing piety. He dug metals not to become rich but immortal; he climbed the hills to come nearer to Godhead, not in terms of the spirit but of the fortunate and desirable life he lived”.
From
Downland Man by H.J. Massingham
Pub 1927 by Butler & Tanner
Pen = A British hill name cognate with Welsh & Cornish; Breton Penn, head, headland hill.
Source – The Mighty Elgee!
“The obelisk shaped stone is reputed to be the origin of the name of the pass because of it’s resemblance in profile to a church roof.”
Lakes and Cumbria Today
Issue 7
A brief summary from the Record of Scheduled Monuments.
A prehistoric boundary dyke on the western edge of Urra Moor ovetrlooking Bilsdale.
The dyke varies in size along it’s length and in some places has been partially disturbed by small quarries and paths. The bank is up to 3.5m wide and 0.5m high and in places the western flank is revetted with stone. The flanking ditch is in places cut into the bedrock.
“Perhaps the most remarkable example of prehistoric walling, is that known as the Low Bride Stones at an elevation of 825 feet on the slope of Sleights Moor, a little to the west of and below the High Bride Stones. They consist of two groups. In the southerly group I counted twenty six stones, many upright, others fallen over, and all deeply weatherworn. The two tallest are between 4 and five feet high. Their arrangement suggests an alignment or wall straggling in a general north and south direction for seventy yards. In the middle of the line the stones are irregularly clustered and suggest an extremely rude circle, north and south of which they form distinct lines.
One hundred yards north of this group is a more extraordinary series. I counted sixty stones, the majority upright, the tallest 5 feet, and all deeply weatherworn. Their arrangement is decidedly complex. Young, who first described them, thought the foremed the remains of a ‘camp’ 170 feet square, but so “mutilated that we only meet with a great number of straggling upright stones, the remnants of demolished walls.” He compares the site to his Fryup ‘Camps’ which, as we have seen, were fields.
I have carefully examined these stones and can say definitely that they do not form a circle. On the eastern and higher side the stones are arranged in a long irregular line, sometimes single and sometimes double. On the southern side what stones can be observed in the rank vegetation make a line at right angles to the eastern. The southern line descends the slope to the western line which, though badly preserved, is in alignment with the group of twenty six already described. Between the eastern and western lines I counted many stones, some of which seem to form lines parallel to the main lines. Other suggested circles but the whole area is so overgrown with moss and ling that their arrangement cannot be satisfactorily made out. In fact, for a prehistoric site the ground is unusually wet and boggy.
It is thus clear that the Low Bride Stones are the remains of stone walled enclosures, possibly fields.
No doubt they were erected not only as boundaries but as a symbol of a cult to promote the fertility of the crops. In fact the arrangement of the stones vividly recalls that of the menhirs aligned along the paths through the rice fields in Assam where as Mr J.H. Hutton has shown, standing-stones are associated with the dead, crops, and the reproductive powers of nature generally.
Near the stones I found a dry circular hollow and a circular stone pavement, possibly hut-sites. Round barrows are numerous on the moor above where the High Bride Stones formed the sacred site of this settlement. As a long barrow stands close to the Lower Bride Stones it is more than likely that the settlement was continuously inhabited from long-barrow times until the urn period, and that long barrow man was the first to erect stones on the spot.
Frank Elgee
Early Man in North East Yorkshire
1930
Frank Elgee’s assessment of the Blakey Circle from his Book “Early Man in North East Yorkshire” published in 1930.
“Three large standing-stones about 6 feet high on the south-west side of Blakey Topping, that singular hill seven miles north of Pickering, are the remains of a circle about 18 yards in diameter. Two or three hollows in the ground indicate the position of other stones, some of which are serving as gate-posts near by. Others have been broken up to help build a wall. These stones are associated with a large settlement site similar to that on Danby Rigg, not very far from the imposing Bridestones and approached by an ancient trackway known as the Old Wife’s Trod”.
norlonto.net/index.cfm/action/articles.view/itemID/66
The Goddess in Wharfedale by Gyrus.
Well worth a read.
“Known as the backstone Beck enclosure, this prehistoric site consists of extensive low rubble walling encompassing a small ridge that runs north towards the Backstones Beck ravine. It is now known that the walling belongs to the later bronze Agre (800-500 BC) but there is clear evidence that this area was a favourite camp-site for about two thousand years or more before that. many flints, some small fragments of pottery, pert of a shale bangle and the rim of a jet cupo have been unearthed during excavations on this site. Charcoal from four deposits on the site indicates sporadic use of the site from about 2,500 BC.”
From “Find The Past on Ilkley Moor”
Pub. Bradford Metropolitan Council.
” The walling is about one hundred years old and has been used for sheepfolding in living memory. At the back, however, are the remains of a rectangular building which was probably a dynamite store for the small quarry behind the fold. The tall, pointed stone and outlying smaller standing stones are thought to have prehistoric origins but a full excavation would be necessary to substantiate this”.
from “Find The Past on Ilkley Moor”
A booklet published by Bradford Metropolitan Council
available from the Cow & Calf Tea kiosk
” in 1865 a visitor to Ben Rhydding Hydro, a Mr Terry, was watching men prepare for quarrying, when he noticed some fine rock carvings in danger of being destroyed. He informed Dr. McLeod at the Hydro who appealed to Squire Middleton to stop the quarying. The carvings cover 17m & are of an unusual design. There are many cups, rings & grooves, 3 larger than usual.”
From “Walks Around Cup & Ring Stones”
A booklet published by Ilkley Tourist Information Centre
Available at the Cow & Calf tea kiosk for 50 new pence.
Airy Hill (1) NZ 6425 1675
Previous to 1966, when it was ploughed out, the Ordnance Survey records that this burial mound wads 13.5m from east to west and 10m from north to south.
It is now only visible as a slight swelling in the field.
The mound situated close to Airy Hill Farm was prominantly placed on a west facing slope at 215m O.D. It was opened by Atkinson who uncovered two cremations; one was accompanied by a few scraps of burnt flint, the other wasd unaccompanied, but was enclosed in a clay dome like structure.
Airy Hill (2) NZ 6443 1675
This is situated 200m west of the firdst, and is prominently sited on the south-west facing slope. The two mounds would have been intervisible.
This mound is of earth and stone construction, 12.5m in diameter and 0.6m high. A possible kerbstone was discovered on the fence line in 1975 and was found to bear 6 cups.
Atkinson’s excavation yeilded no results.
Taken from “Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Cleveland”
G.M. Crawford
1980
Unfortunately all that remains of these sites are low mounds from the Bronze Age barrows that overlay the sites.
I have posted this site to illustrate the rich cultural activity that was taking place on the North Yorkshire Coast during the Neolithic and early Bronze Age.
The finds from the excavations included Neolithic and Bronze age flints, pottery, a couple of axes, a nice collection of jet buttons and a number of cup marked stones.
The Neolithic Cairn was excavated by B E Vyner & published in 1984.
The Wossit was excavated by B E Vyner & published in 1988.
A report of both of the excavations is available from Tees Archaeology.
“It would now appear that Tibradden, in County Dublin, often acclaimed as a genuine Passage Grave, is in fact a 19th century folly of rather a special kind. Before the excavation of the site by the National Monuments Branch of the Office of Public Works in Ireland, it was thought that the barrow on Tibradden Mountain contained a dry-walled Passage Grave of classic form, and that in the centre of the circular chamber there had been found, in 1849, a megalithic cist containing a food-vessel and cremated bones. Before the clearance work done by Mr Marcus O Hochaidhe three years ago (1956) the site had indeed the semblance of a filled-in Passage Grave, but now that it is open down to ground level this sembalance is revealed as accidental. The whole construction of the passage and chamber walls is uncharacteristic of the megalithic builders, and around the inside of the chamber is a stone bench. The excavator is of the opinion that the passage and chamber were built in the mid-19th century, and we may imagine visitors sitting on the stone seat admiring the central cist.”
Glyn Daniel
Some Megalithic Follies
Antiquity 33
1959
‘Ryedale Windypits’ by Richard Myerscough, from the University of Hull.
The Ryedale Windypits are located in the Hambleton Hills within the North York National Park and have attracted both archaeological and geological interest since the Rev. Buckland first descended ‘Buckland’s Windypit’ in the 1820’s .For the last 50 years they have been popular with cavers and now provide important protected bat roosts. The name is derived from cold air rising from the pits with such velocity as to blow out leaves and other debris .The Windypits are vertical fissures in the Upper Jurassic Corallian Group (Lower Calcareous Grit and Coralline Oolite Formations) formed by cambering over the underlying Oxford Clay Formation on scarps and parallel to fault scarps. They differ from the fluvial caves in the Corallian, e.g. Kirkdale. The concentration of Windypits in the Hambleton Hills west of the valley of the River Rye is now seen as stress fracturing associated with a combination of tectonic features and examples from The Cotswolds and Roquefort-sur-Soulzon in Southern France will illustrate the fracturing process associated with their formation.
At least 4 of the Windypits (Antofts , Ashberry, Buckland’s and Slip Gill) attracted ancient peoples to use them as ritual burial sites . In The Neolithic Period (Radiocarbon date 1750+/-150bc) Beaker pots with selected animal and human bones /skulls were deposited in the pits. While in Romano-British times (C1st-4th) at least one pit (Ashberry) was used a temple site for ritual sacrifices using animal bones ,metal and other votive objects as sacrifices to the Gods of the Underworld. Parallels are to found in ‘Windyholes’ of Africa. The historical importance of valley of The River Rye and new Windypits to be discovered by Aerial Photograph survey, Geophysical investigation and excavation supported a recent application to Channel 4 ‘Time Team’.
Further to the fieldnotes
TD stands for Thomas Duncombe
A few yards south of “D”
Standing stone in N bank. Remains of bank or kerb, two stones in edge in south bank 6 ft apart.
Bank with parallel stones 3ft apart set on edge in south bank
51ft N-S, 49ft E-W, 43ft NE-SW.
Low bank 10ft wide and 1ft 6 in high.
Incorporates on north side a standing stone 5ft high.