fitzcoraldo
Kick out the rams
Copey’s shamanic face paint is a big hit with the sheep of Shap
Image credit: fitzcoraldo
Alignment of the Goggleby Stone, Asper’s Field Stone and Skellaw Hill
Image credit: fitzcoraldo
Two un-named stones at NY556153 on the path from Skellaw Hill to the Goggleby Stone
Image credit: fitzcoraldo
View from Skellaw Hill of large stones in wall
Image credit: fitzcoraldo
Skellaw Hill from the road with large stone built into wall
Image credit: fitzcoraldo
Southern entrance with the Lowther Gatehouse in the distance
Image credit: fitzcoraldo
The Information board for the Henge.
Does this illustration show the 3rd henge that was destroyed by the building of the Lowther Park gatehouse? The orientation seems about right.
As EH remind you..Children should be kept under close control. What does that mean..close????
Image credit: fitzcoraldo
Goatscrag Hill & Roughting Linn Farm
Image credit: fitzcoraldo
“The symbols on the Goggleby stone are a shallow wide cup mark with smaller one beneath it on the vertical face of the stone. The Asper’s Field stone, leaning inwards now towards the avenue, has a cup with a single ring on top....
The fact that the symbols are used on a very long ceremonial avenue may link them to the ritual of the avenue”.
Prehistoric Rock Art in Cumbria
Stan Beckensall
Tempus Publishing
2002
“The next site (Broomridge) shares a dome of outcrop rock that has ben
used for producing millstones, so don’t confuse these big circles with the low profile clusters of cups and the eroded multiple concentric circles around a cup at the east end of the rock”.
From Stan Beckensall’s’Prehistoric Rock Motifs of Northumberland.
Volume 1 Ford to Old Bewick published in 1991.
The Abbey Press, Hexam
This stone is situated on the entrance road to the Pitreavie Business Park in Dunfermline. It has been set into the boundary of the Bank of Scotland offices and has a bench seat mounted beneath it. The stone has been carved with it’s name.
There are a number of possible large cups across the southern face although these could be natural features, hard to tell.
All in all bit of a sorry sight but at least it survives.
10,000 year old North Eastern Des-Res
This is a beautiful concentric circle. I was inspired to come here by a lovely aerial photograph that Stubob sent me of the site. Photography on the ground is difficult due to the size of the circle (30 metres) and the flatness of the site. The inner ring is 5 metres across and is described by Burl as a paved ring cairn. This must have been something to see in it’s hayday.
You can see the factory chimneys of Shap quite clearly from this site which implies that the shap complexes would have been visible back in the day.
There is a stone between the outer and inner rings which forms an alignment with the cairn to the east, the circle and Shap. There are also three aligned boulders to the north of the circle.
In summary, an intriguing site, well worth a visit.
This lovely little cairn circle is just beside the entrance to the village of Oddendale. It is situted on a bridleway and close to the path to Shap. It has the feeling of a small shine possibly to protect the village. As I spent some time here a bloody great buzzard flew overhead and seemed to lazily check me out.
The circle is only 5 metres across with 12 outer stones and 3 inners.
Someone had scrawled a notice on a slate informing any passers-by of the fact that this is a ‘stone circle‘
This site is probably not prehistoric. See Misc post
I’ve been trying to get to this site for some time and have eventually got there. I must say I wasn’t disappointed. You can see the stones profiled on the horizon as you come up the road from the cattle grid. The footpath up the hill is walled on both sides and seems like an extension of the road. The first site you come to is the cairn which is bisected by a stone wall. The cairn is approximately 10 metres in diameter and only has stones on the southern side (10 of ‘em). It makes you wonder about the farmers attitudes to these sites. Why did the farmer of the northerly side remove the stones and the farmer on the southerly side leave them in situ?
Fifty metres south of the cairn along the low limestone scar is the second circle. This is a lovely intimate circle with twelve stones, nine of which are lovely Shap granite and the rest limestone (I think).
The view from the circle is over the massive Hardendale quarry. A truely rural/industrial landscape.
Fifty Metres east of the first cairn is a single large stone that stands at the entrance to another walled corridor between fields.
Weird boundaries they have up here!
I have been visiting this site since I was a bairn. My uncle used to take us camping to the lakes and his favouite stopping off place was the boozer at Eamont Bridge. Me and my cousins were given the obligatory glass of pop and a bag of crisps and left to our own devices for a couple of hours. The henge and the river were our playgrounds.
In recent years I discovered the Mayburgh Henge and neglected King Arthurs Round Table. I decided to make amends on my last visit and stayed away from Mayburgh and devoted myself soley to this henge.
It’s a beautiful place! How could I neglect it ? You can be just yards away from a busy road (A6) and yet emerse yourself to an extent that everything else just fades away.
This is what henges do to me, I’m sure that this is what they are supposed to do. I knew it as a kid and I’m re-learning it now.
“The remains belong to two, possibly three, alignments or avenues spread over a distance of more than 1.5m (2.3km). The two identifiable ends were a stone circle and a burial mound and as elsewhere male and female forms were paired. By analogy a Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age date can be assumed”
Archeaological Sites of the Lake District
T. Clare
Moorland Pub. Co. Ltd
1981
The Goggleby Stone is beautiful. No matter how much you read about the Shap complexes, you need to visit the sites to appreciate the scale of the thing. It must have been some place back in it’s day and I was lucky enough to have the stone to myself. I walked from Skellaw Hill, which I would recommend, and saw the stone get larger and more impressive.
The concrete bed is a bit disappointiing but what can you do?
Check out the sheep with the shamanic face markings in the next field!
“Camden in the reign of Elizabeth I described the stones to the west of the village as being of ‘pyramidal form’.
Excavation in advance of the re-erection of the Goggleby Stone found no material which could give a closer date but it was possible to glimpse the method of erecting this 12-ton monolith.
After digging, the hole was partly refilled with loose clay and soil. The stone was then manouvred until it tipped into the hole where it was held at an angle by the loose fill. In this position the effort required to haul it upright would be greatly reduced particularly if shear legs were used. When upright the top of the hole was filled with ‘packing’ or wedging stones”.
Archaeological Sites of the Lake District
T. Clare
Moorland Publishing Co Ltd.
1981
Mr Cope informs us that this humble bump was once a “splendid sepulchral heap”.
All that remains today is a slight rise in the south eastern corner of the field. The field wall to the south of the hill contains a couple of decent size stones, especially when viewed from the field side.
The Goggleby Stone is visible from the hill with another large, unnamed, stone in between. To get to the Goggleby Stone from Skellaw Hill just walk along the narrow marked corridor between two fields that starts at the crossroads. On this path you will also come a cross another couple of decent sized stones.
Explores the Robin Hood myth....not just Yorkshire!
I like this site.
Although it was only excavated in 1977 there is continuity here. Not only has the henge been restored but it is also once again the focus for a community. A well kept estate has been built around the henge and manages not to encroach upon it. The space is here, which is surely what a henge is meant to do.....create a space that is different from it’s surrounding. The sacred landscape is long gone but the sacred space remains. The people of Glenrothes are fortunate enough to have two beautiful sacred sites, Balfag and Balbirnie.
Check the lovely modern megalithic roundabout on the way in from the A92.
ST. MARGARET’S STONE.
It is an old tradition that Margaret, while walking from the scene of her
landing to Dunfermline, complained of fatigue, and on coming to the “huge Saxon stone” on the road, two and a-half miles south-east of Malcolm III.’s residence, is said to have for a while rested herself on it, and that on her frequent “journeys toe and froe” she often used it as a rest.
The neighbouring farm on the west takes its name from this traditional
circumstance, and is called St. Margaret’s Stone Farm. In 1856 this stone
was removed to an adjacent site by order of the Road Surveyor in order to widen the road, which required no widening, as no additional traffic was
likely to ensue, but the reverse; it is, therefore, much to be regretted
that the old landmark was removed.
It is in contemplation to have the old stone replaced on its old site (as nearly as possible), and made to rest, with secure fixings, on a massive base, or plinth-stone.
This large stone, which has long had the name of St.Margaret’s, is probably the last remnant of a Druid Circle or a Cromlech, and may have been placed here even before the beginning of the Christian era. At this early period the road would be a narrow “foot-way” or a “bridle-path.”
From The Annals of Dunfermline.
I got to this site via Balbirnie Park. I drove up to the Golf Club and parked just beside the first tee.
The walk to the circle is a lovely 10 minute traipse along the beck side path which was covered in snowdrops.
I had mixed feelings about visiting this site, especially after reading the posts here. I needn’t have worried, this is a beautiful site and so what if it has been moved, it’s been moved with love and respect and the reconstruction is beautiful.
I like the urban setting and the fact there are houses a few feet from the site. It’s nice to see people co-existing with a sacred space. I would love something like this on my doorstep.
This circle has everything, lovely stones, cists, rectangular cairn-like thang, and rock art (o.k. its a replica). But surely to have a monument like this out in the open air is far better than in some museum.
I love this stone. I used to pass it once a fortnight , either driving up to Scotland or in the opposite direction. It is the first/last megalith you encounter in England (if you don’t get out of your car).
I passed this stoney chap yesterday and I must say he was looking splendid in the winter sunshine.
According to Stan Beckensall,
“There are many similar named caves in the north, some from a pet named for St Cuthbert, whose body is said to have rested at various places on it’s long journey from Lindesfarne.
Although motifs on it haver disappeared, George Tate has left an account and drawings of them and says:
On the scalp of the rock where it dips into the hill, four figures are traceable; but from being very much defaced, it is difficult to make out these forms, even when viewed under a favourable light.”
AN AVENUE, A COVE AND AN ENCLOSURE: FURTHER FIELDWORK AS BECKHAMPTON, NEAR AVEBURY
In Past 34 we reported on the excavation, during 1999, of a newly-discovered Neolithic enclosure near Avebury, Wiltshire, and the rediscovery of a second megalithic avenue (the ‘Beckhampton Avenue’) leading from the Avebury henge. Undertaken by a team from the Universities of Leicester, Southampton and Wales (Newport) with generous funding from the AHRB, work on these monuments continued during 2000 and 2002. (Like so many projects, our plans for fieldwork during 2001 had to be curtailed due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth.) Further sections of the avenue and enclosure were investigated, including what we believe to be the avenue’s original terminal (or beginning, depending on your orientation) – a massive and largely unparalleled box-like megalithic setting known as the ‘Longstones Cove’.
Our excavations have focussed on an area 1-2 km to the south-west of Avebury near the village of Beckhampton. The sequence of Neolithic activity here is a long one, beginning with limited occupation and cultivation during the earlier 4th millennium BC, as revealed by John Evans’ earlier work on the nearby South Street long barrow (Ashbee et al. 1979). This in turn was followed by the creation during the mid-4th millennium BC of the South Street barrow and the nearby Beckhampton or ‘Longstones’ long mound. We now know from radiocarbon dates and finds of Grooved Ware on the base of the ditch that our oval enclosure was constructed early in the later Neolithic, around 2900-2700BC. This puts it more or less contemporary with the Avebury henge enclosure (Pitts & Whittle 1992). However, the Beckhampton enclosure and Avebury henge were very different monuments. In stark contrast to the truly monumental scale of Avebury, the Beckhampton enclosure was a slight and ephemeral monument that was to leave little tangible trace in the landscape. The ditch was no more than 0.9m deep and showed no evidence of recutting. It appears to have been systematically backfilled perhaps a century or two after being dug. The circuit of the ditch was interrupted by frequent causeways, with a major entrance (of the order of 40m wide) on the east. It is highly significant that the style of the monument is more akin to earlier Neolithic causewayed enclosures than it is to contemporary henges. The enclosure’s builders may deliberately have set out to create an anachronistic monument, perhaps out of respect to earlier sacred traditions, as a process of emulation, or as an intentional act of recreation.
Trenches dug within the interior of the enclosure failed to reveal any prehistoric features, nor were any visible on geophysical surveys of the site undertaken by the Ancient Monuments Laboratory of English Heritage. Finds from the ditch were few. A scatter of pig, cattle and sheep bones on the base near the eastern entrance could relate to a brief episode of feasting following on from the construction of the enclosure. Other finds of bone and antler came from the base of the later backfill. Set within grazed grassland, perhaps the enclosure was visited infrequently, if at all, once constructed. In this context it was probably the act of construction that was important, rather than an intention to create a lasting statement within the landscape.
Despite the excavation of 150m of its length (comprising 13 individual stone settings), the chronology of the avenue remains imprecise. It is almost certainly secondary to the enclosure, and may come at the end of the Neolithic sequence in the region, that is around 2500-2300BC. A further pair of stone settings was investigated during 2000, both stones having suffered the common fate of fire-setting and breaking in the early 18th century. We also explored the area immediately around one of the two surviving Longstones (’Adam’). This massive block of sarsen stone was recorded as the sole survivor of a megalithic ‘box’ or ‘cove’ by the antiquary William Stukeley; who recorded much of the avenue during a concerted period of stone destruction between 1700-1725. Our excavations showed this setting to incorporate two distinct phases. The first comprised a linear setting of three stones 40m across, forming a simple ‘T-shaped’ terminal to the avenue immediately to the south-west of the earlier enclosure. Two of the stones were then taken down and their sockets carefully backfilled with chalk. The central stone (set on the centre axis of the avenue) was left in place to form the south-eastern side of the cove. With splayed sides, the cove enclosed an area of c.15 x 10 m; the individual stones standing 2.5-3.5 m above ground and weighing up to 60 tonnes each. Unfortunately, all the stone sockets had been extensively disturbed during the phase of stone destruction recorded by Stukeley, but sufficient survived of one to show that the stones were held in place by a packing of small sarsen boulders. From the stone sockets and fills of later destruction pits came several thousand of pieces of worked flint, much of it debitage from rather ad hoc working.
Almost invariably associated with henges and stone circles, cove settings are known elsewhere, for example at Stanton Drew in Somerset, Mount Pleasant in Dorset, and locally within the Avebury henge (Burl 1988). However, none of these approach the scale of the Longstones Cove, nor do they form ‘closed’ four-sided settings of this kind. The Longstones Cove might, as Burl has suggested for others, reference the format of earlier megalithic burial chambers (ibid., 7). Alternatively, its closed format could have drawn upon memory of the earlier enclosure – a transformation from earth to stone that would parallel the lithic conversion of certain late Neolithic wooden monuments, such as the Sanctuary at the end of the West Kennet Avenue. Either way, themes of time, transformation and a desire to make reference to the past, seem to be deeply implicated in the Beckhampton monuments.
In tracking the course of the Beckhampton Avenue from Avebury to Longstones Field, Stukeley’s observations have proved extremely reliable. He was convinced that the avenue continued beyond Longstones Field to the south-west, eventually terminating on a low hill at Fox Covert (’a most solemn and awful place’: Stukeley 1743, 36). His projected course seemed to be supported by the discovery in 1968 of a large sarsen buried in a pit alongside the present A4 (Anon 1969, 127). Wishing to confirm or refute this south-western extension of the avenue, we returned to the field during Easter 2002. We were again aided by a geophysical survey undertaken by the Ancient Monuments Laboratory. However, this and another geophysical survey further along the projected line failed to detect any buried stones or stone destruction pits. Excavation likewise drew a blank. Did the avenue really extend this far? We think not. Re-analysis of Stukeley’s field notes suggests his identification of this stretch of the avenue was based on the presence of only a small number of recumbent stones, all of which could be naturally occurring sarsens. His records for this section were clearly quite speculative. Technically the case is ‘not proven’ and many ambiguities remain. However, our opinion would favour a termination of the avenue in Longstones Field, at or just beyond the cove. From the end of one avenue to the end of the other, this makes Avebury an impressive 4km long.
Mark Gillings,
University of Leicester