I was up at the rocks today and they were absolutely heaving with folk.
The rocks themselves are an amalgamation of every proto temple you have ever seen. Not so much a landscape but a dreamscape. the Ur equivalent of a city of dreaming spires.
fitzcoraldo
Me and Timmo decided to check this fella out this evening.
We packed our picnic and set off to eat our tea at one of Ormesby’s houses of the dead.
We parked up at Flatts lane and followed the footpath through the woods and into the cowfield.
Crossing the field I noticed a bunch of cows and calves checking us out from a distance.
Half way up the cowfield is a stile, don’t take the one at the bottom of the field...believe me ...experience ( I gotta stop kidding myself that I can find sites using intuition alone).
The middle stile will lead you to the site.
The weather was beautiful, the path was dry and dusty, the grass was parched, the crickets were in excellent voice and there was an acrid smell in the air, a mixture of pigs and cows, the vibe was definitely continental.
The woods beyond the cowfield are full of pigs, they just roam around looking for shade and make a hell of a racket when you disturb them.
Anyhow, the barrow is at the top of the hill and on the edge of a field. The land is private and I suppose you should seek permission from the farmer before venturing on to it.
The mound itself is fairly impressive and totally shagged. The first thing I noticed was the large axle, sub frame and wheels that had been dumped on top of it – they resembled a sort of modern exploded chariot burial!
The excavation trenches are open but as they were dug in the early 70’s they have now become the kingdom of gorse and are on the whole, impenetrateble. There is still enough there to see some sort of structure.
There was a carved rock reported here but I couldn’t find it. I know Graeme C has been up here and also turned up with nowt.
The thing about this mound is the setting – 360 degrees of beautiful Cleveland. To the north is the Teesmouth the as you track east, the nearby Eston Nab, the rock art site of Airy Hill, the mesolithic site of Highcliff Nab. I could go on but the list will only bore you.
Needless to say you have views of the Cleveland escarpment and the vale of Cleveland with westerly views to county Durham and the Pennines beyond are excellent. A fitting place for a grave.
On the way back we got spooked by pigs and chased by half sized cows. As I had my boy with me I had to show a little bravado as he ran for the stile, I turned and faced the curious calves and give them a good bollocking for daring to chase my lad and me...hey it worked, the calves turned and fled but then their mams starting looking a bit pissed and slowly started to head my way..time to leave.
Me and Ella decided to have a traipse down to the Raven Hall Hotel to check out the carving there.
Ella was a bit anxious about going in , “looks a bit posh dad”. The friendly folk on the reception desk informed us that it was £1 per person to have a look around the grounds, but free if we bought a drink from the bar. Two cokes = £2. So drink in hand we checked out the gardens. A quid for this ? complained Ella. Must admit that the gardens weren’t up to much, there was loads of mint and butterloggies but not a lot else. We had a mooch around the ‘battlements’ and admired the views of Robin Hood’s Bay or just ‘Bay’ as it’s known locally.
The carved stone has been cemented into the wall of a wee recess in the cliff face, as Pebbles mentions there is a little carved cave with a plinth carved into it.
The carving is lovely and although I’m glad someone has saved it and preserved it, I would have rather seen it in context, but you can’t have it all can you.
After leaving the hotel we had a walk down to the cliff edge on the NT land, on the way back we were having a poke around an old stone tip next to the cottages beside the hotel when we spotted what appears to be the top portion of a beehive quern being used as an ornament outside of one of the cottages.
If you visit, avoid the bar meals in the hotel – £5 for a cheese toastie!
Check out the lovely Post Office / Tea Shop at Staintondale. 2 toasties, a coke & a pot of tea all for £5.20 new pence.
I saw this fella yesterday from the A1. He was standing in the middle of a beautiful cereal crop. I hope it was barley! unfortunately I couldn’t stop. A couple of miles east is the Kirklandhill Stone another handsome chap also sat in a cereal crop and visible from the A1. I’ll definitely stop and greet them properly next time I’m in the neighbourhood.
The view to Trapain Law and Berwick Law are crackin’.
Cup – looking thang on a large rock to the west of the Wainstones
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
One for Chris.
The sunrise at the solstice.
I reckon the profile shows from left to right, Blease Fell, Blencathra, Scales Fell , Souther Fell.
Showing the location of the field clearance and possible other stones.
Note the concrete base of the little fella.
Clifton is the next vilage along from Eamont Bridge on the A6 south.
We tried to access the stones via the footpath at Mount Clifton but the farmer had not kept the path clear and it would have meant taking two lads through a bunch of agro-industrial stuff. So we used the path from Clifton Hall instead. This turned out to have a bonus because there’s a Peel tower that you can have a mooch around.
Cross the motorway using the bridge and follow the path south along the side of the motorway. Once you get to the gate you can see the stones a couple of fields away. Just before you walk down the field boundary towards the stones, check out the field clearance in the corner of the field. There is one large stone that may be earthfast and a number of other stones. This clearance is on the same alignment as the two standing stones.
The stones themselves are a handsome pair of boulders a big ‘un and a little ‘un. They are made of a red stone. The smallest stone has been set in concrete. They are aligned NW-SE.
There is a nice view of eastern Penrith to the north
Cat Nab is a prominent hill on the seafront at Saltburn.
According to local people, the name comes from the wild cats that used to live on the hill.
There was a burial mound situated on the summit which has now been destroyed.
I’ve posted this site because it is the most northerly of a group of intervisible coastal sites.
If you climb to the top of Cat Nab you can see site of the Warsett Hill group of 7 mounds.
The mound was excavated by Hornsby in 1913. He didn’t publish his excavation. The finds, two cremations, a pygmy cup, the sheards of thre vessels, a collared urn, and a vessel with an inverted green rim are in the Middlesbrough Collection.
Check out the sweet little victorian mortuary house which sits at the foot of the hill.
Dry View
A recently re-discovered kerb stone.
The stone was unearthed by Paul Brown & Graeme C.
I have reburied the stone.
For more information on locations & finds, check this CAPRA site
‘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.
Harland Moor “A” (Farndale). Circle of free-standing stones on earthen bank; 75ft N-S, 69ft E-W, bank 5 to 65 ft in width, 2 to 3 ft high .
No evidenc of burial, habitation or hearths.
Harland Moor “C” is reported as destroyed.
A variation on Rhiannon’s tale taken from Janet & Colin Bord’s “The Mysterious Country”
“A man who used oxen to move the stone to get at it’s treasure was unsuccessful: the chains snapped, the oxen collapsed and the ‘guardian-spirit of the treasure’ in the form of a drake flew from under the stone, which fell back into place. This happened in 1832, according to one account. The stone was eventually buried in a hole dug beside it, because it interfered with ploughing; and in 1913 it was relocated, hauled up (in two pieces, because it had broken), and redeposited near the churchyard gate. Two drakes regularly seen sheltering beneath the stone gave it it’s name.”
The Windypits are a group of fissures in the corallian limestone or the lower calcareous grits along the near the main valley of the River Rye.
There are 8 major windypit- type fissures known in Ryedale and four major cavities.
The name comes from the phenomenon caused by warm or cold air rising from the fissures and coming into contact with the air outside the entrance. In winter a steamy vapour rises in puffs or jets from the holes. In warmer months cold air can be felt in the passage entrances, sometimes moving so violently as to vibrate the foliage nearby.
Most of the known windypits have been excavated and have yeilded corded ware, gritted ware, flint ,stone and bone impliments and both human and animal remains. The recovered materials date from the late Neolithic to the Romano British.
“Finds from the windypits have added greatly to our knowledge of the beaker folk in Ryedale and the food and habits of the people of this period. They were probably partially of wholy nomadic hunter-herdsmen, though stones have been found in the fissures which may be grain rubbers, suggesting a more settled agricultural way of life.
Given a warm dry dry summer, the windypits would serve as a temporary habitation in the winter.
It is likely that they were also used for burial. A cave or a fissure was a likely origin of the chambered tomb of Neolithic times.”
The History of Helmsley Rievaulx & District
by Members of The Helmsley & Area Group of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society.
Stonegate Press
Pub 1963
This is a magical place set in a megalithic landscape.
You can see evidence of the hand of man altering the rocks stretching way back into prehistory. There are at least two sets of rock carvings here that are unique, this is not suprising once you look at the landscape they are set in. Views across the valley to Cratcliff Rocks and Robin Hood’s Stride with Nine Stones Close just beyond, Doll Tor and the Andle Stone less that 1km away and Stanton Moor just beyond that. This is a beautiful and unique landscape and must have influenced the minds of the carvers.
The Serpent carving was very difficult to make out and will probably have to be visited in different light conditions to appreciate it’s true beauty. The quartered circle with cup and petal motifs is gorgeous as are the two ‘eye-like’ rings.
The none-prehistoric carvings are is amazing too. What was in the head of the barmy masons who altered huge swathes of the rocks. Caves, steps, seats, passages and massive rock faces have all been created from the altered rocks. Me and Stu checked out one rock cut room that had been worked on every surface, a small hole had been bored through the cave wall to allow a tiny shaft of light to enter the otherwise dark room. In this room I saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in the UK, it was supsended from the roof and guarding a huge silk ball.
Whilst admiring the view, a huge wagon drove by in the valley below, on the back of the wagon were three massive stone blocks, evidence that the Derbyshire stonemasons have an unbroken lineage from the present day back to the neolithic (that beats the phoney freemasons, with their Solomon’s temple crap, hands down dunnit?).
Rowtor Rocks is a magical place, take your kids, take a torch and take your time.
This circle has a North Yorks Moors groove about it, it’s wrecked, it’s buried in heather and there’s not a lot to see.
I love it!
This is a nice spot and is enhanced by the walk over the moor with all of it’s features and megalithic oddities. Stu reassures me that the site looks a lot better now that it’s had a good coat of looking at.
The setting amongst the birch trees and with the new turf give the site a park – like quality.
I liked the tree with all the bobbles and ribbons on it. It gives a focus to folk who feel the urge to leave their hair care products at this ancient site, although I think a used bobble is pretty crappy gift to leave. At least they’re not strewn all over the stones.
“Love comes pouring out”
The Crystals
Sums it up for me
Nuff said?
When I saw this stone from the road I just had to smile, it’s gorgeous!
It’s a beautiful proto temple and fits right in with the other megalithic wonders of this part of the Peak.
A climb to the top is worthwhile, there are two oversized cups with channels. I think they’re what those blokes on the antiques shows diplomatically describe as “being made in the style of”
“Reference is made in Ord to a ‘hillock in Court Green’ which was destroyed by workmen. In it were found, below a paved surface, 5 urns of ‘flowerpot shape’ arranged in a circle. The present location of the finds in unknown, as is the site of the location itself. Ord further reports, though he did not see it himself, the existance of a ‘number of upright stones set in a circle’ near the mound.
The mound in question does not appear to be Court Green Howe as it is recorded as having been destroyed. Ord refers on several occassions to the whole of the Eston Hills as ‘Court Green’, so the alleged barow and stone circle may be anywhere on those hills.
Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Cleveland
G.M. Crawford