fitzcoraldo
Image credit: Cleveland County Archaeology Section
Stubob and Ironman are right, you should see these fellas, they have just been dumped.
The works and the railway make a surreal backdrop.
One of the many stones in the area with the title Thunder Stone.
This fella is a great big Shap granite boulder perched on the edge of a small quarry just beside the Shap to Crosby Rasvensworth road.
Shap Granite is a beautiful stone either polished or raw. Its pink colour comes from the feldspar within it’s matrix and the large feldspar crystals, plagioclase feldspar I think.
No mad sheep today, just a padlocked gate with a barbed wire fence enclosing a poorly repaired stone wall, this sad little circle deserves a little tlc. The sooner the farmers catch onto the custodian tip, the better.
I’ll start this by telling you that I didn’t find the circle but I’m posting this so that you don’t make the same mistakes as me. I do know where the circle is, I spotted it half a mile away as I was returning home but the weather was coming down and the light was fading so it’s one for next time for me.
I parked up at the cattle grid on the Orton to Shap road at NY601091 and followed the bridlepath north. Check out the mighty Thunder Stone that has been built into the farm wall (look at both sides!). The path follows the course of a Roman Road. My tip to find this circle is to forget the cairns and look at the field boundary walls. Once you clear the first rise and can no longer see the road there should be high ground with cairns to your left, look right and keep an eye on the wall across the valley, this will lead you to the circle. The OS map has wicker street and white hag marked, these are limestone pavements and not as obvious as the map implies (they may be more prominent once the snow has cleared).
I stopped a couple of gamekeepers and asked them if they knew the whereabouts of the circle, their reply ..“what circle?” To their credit they did tell me about a local barrow and the Century Tree.
So in summary, keep you eyes on the field boundaries, take the multimap aerial photo, the rectangular plantation is not marked on the 2002 O/S OL19 map so don’t let that throw you, don’t bother asking the gamekeepers. Happy hunting pilgrims.
This was first stop on todays tour of the Howgill Fells.
I parked on the roadside and walked the few yards up the lane. As I was pulling my boots on the farmer, a very pleasant bloke who looked about 200 years old, pulled up for a chat. He asked me where I was walking to? I explained that I was just going to see the stones and he told me of some folk who had stopped him on the fell to find out where the stone were, “daft buggers were looking right at ‘em!.
The fells and the Lune Valley were looking spot-on with a covering of snow and the lovely sun shining upon them. The only thing to spoil the scene was the airforce putting itself on war footing by screaming around in their Tornado jets.
The field with the stones in was full of sheep so I walked to the next field along to use the gate, as I opened the gate, hundreds of black and white faced shep ran towards me “oh shit, cumbrian fighting sheep” they were obviously expecting me to ladle out a few bales of hay. Needless to say I beat a hasty retreat.
Maybe I should suggest to the generals that they forget the Tornados and just drop a few flocks of hungry Cumbrian fighting sheep on Saddam.
Summary – A lovely big Cumbrian Circle in a lovely setting.
Get yersel there!
Following the below extract graves speculates that the Battle of Bardon-Hill may have taken place in this area. This is Stanhope Whites reply to that.
“There is one possiblity, unknown to Graves; that this is not the site of the Battle of Bardon-Hill but of the so-called Battle of Catterick. If the band of heroes from Manau Gododin had sheltered in the ruins of the Roman town whilst they drank for a year, then their last hopeless battle against the Saxons may well have been to the east, towards the coast. Unfortunately for us, Polydore Vergil was allowed to ship all his working papers to Rome, and with them went perhaps many written sources of the period, which are now lost. Instead of speculating about Arthur, modern historians might be better occupied searching in some mouldering archives in Rome for these early accounts”.
The North York Moors
Stanhope White
1979
Graves had this to say in his 1808 book The History of Cleveland.
“Within this township, and nearly at an equal distance between the villages of Seamer and Newby, there is a remarkable tumulus, significantly called HOW-HILL, which is not known to have ever been opened. In the fields adjoining towards the south, on the side of a hill, are evident marks of entrenchment; and in the valley or plain beneath, it is reported that armour, swords and human bones have been frequently turned up by the plough.”
Ord had this to say in his History and Antiquities of Cleveland, published in 1846.
“The parish of Seamer contains several objects of antiquarian interest. The most important is How Hill, a large tumulus, half way between the villages of Seamer and Newby, close to a farmhouse, the property of Colonel Wyndham. This is, perhapsthe most complete of the Cleveland tumuli; but whether Celtic, Roman, or Saxon, we have no sense of judging, not having had the opportunity of exploring the interior. he tenant assured us that some years ago he assisted in partially examining this ancient memorial, but found nothing except large masses of freestone, with fragments of bones”.
This is a pretty unremarkable round barrow. It is however significant that it was one of very few barrow that have been found in the vale of Cleveland. The hills and moors around the area are dotted with barrows but the lowlands contain very few. This could be due to the ploughing- out of sites. There is evidence in local place names that barrows did exist elsewhere in the Tees valley e.g., Ingleby Greenhow, Sexhow.
I parked up at the Lord Stones cafe and followed the bridal way up onto Bilsdale West Moor.
Today I thought I’d go and hunt out the Three Thumb Stone and the Raven Stone. When I got onto the moor it became obvious that today was not the best day to search for stones basically it was a beautiful day with clear skies and very little wind. The problem was a foot of snow covering everything, the moors are especially beautiful following snow, the subtlties of the landscape are revealed but many other features become hidden, such as the stones I was seeking.
Stone Rook is a loose collection of large boulders set around a mound and topped by a cairn, a Tor in minature. I will need to return after the snow has melted to collect further details.
I then crossed the shallow valley and headed north west towards the OS marker, on looking back I noticed a fairly well defined rectangular ditched enclosure on the hillside just below Stone Rook, adjacent to this was another area that appeared to be a field system.
The enclosure looks very similar to the Ayton Moor enclosure.
From British Archaeology
Magazine Issue 63
February 2002
Memories of Callanish
Aubrey Burl on his discovery that folk memories of the circle’s original alignment had survived for 1000 years
Even after 40 years of studying stone circles I have never lost my sense of their romance. But perhaps my favourite find was not the discovery of a previously unknown circle, but of some intriguing information about one of the best-known circles of all – Callanish on the Isle of Lewis.
I first went to Callanish in 1976. I had just finished an excavation in northern Scotland and I thought it would be rather pleasant to go across to the Hebrides to have a look at this marvellous site. It was a remarkably hot day – we had to shelter behind one of the stones while I was taking some notes because we needed some shade.
I was taken aback by the site. It is a unique place because the stones are very tall, with a huge central stone, an avenue and stone rows. It probably started off as a single standing stone, like a navigational marker for sailors – there are a lot of stones like that in the Hebrides on the coast – and then presumably acquired some sanctity, and people put up the stone circle, then added the avenue and the rows, and then they poked a little chambered tomb inside in the end.
About four years later, I was reading a book called The Sphinx and the Megaliths by John Ivimy, who had the belief that Stonehenge was put up by Egyptian astronomer-priests because they wanted an observatory in a part of the world with uncluttered skies! Anyway, this book contained a reference to the 1st century BC Greek writer Diodorus Siculus, who had described a ‘spherical temple’ where Apollo (the sun or moon) ‘skimmed the earth at a very low height’. Ivimy assumed that Diodorus was writing about Stonehenge, referring to an eyewitness report of an explorer who had actually seen the place.
But as soon as I read about Apollo skimming the earth I knew this couldn’t be Stonehenge, because at Stonehenge’s latitude both the sun and the moon are always very high above the horizon. To see that phenomenon (the moon or sun hardly rising above the horizon between rising and setting) you have to go about 500 miles further north, and I wondered if Diodorus might have been referring to Callanish.
Then Diodorus goes on to say: ‘In that temple, at the rising of the Pleiades, the sun is seen to set at the equinox’. And those two phenomena do also occur uniquely at Callanish. The ENE stone row at Callanish was in line with the rising of the Pleiades in the early Bronze Age, and the western stone row does point towards the setting of the sun at the equinox. So three independent lines of astronomical evidence point to Callanish; and that is very convincing.
It is accepted that Diodorus took his information about Britain from the earlier, lost, writer Hecataeus of Abdera, who himself drew on the lost writings of the 4th century BC Greek explorer Pytheas. Now what is remarkable is that by the time Pytheas got to Callanish, the Pleiades would have risen a few degrees to the north-east of the ENE stone row. The Pleiades – whose movements can be dated – had risen in alignment with the row for a few centuries after about 1700 BC (which is presumably when the row was built), but since then had edged away.
So Pytheas seems to have been reporting a folk memory of the connection between the circle and the Pleiades that had survived at Callanish for at least 1,000 years, long after the circle had gone out of use. This may seem incredible but we know from other societies that oral traditions can survive for many, many centuries even though their original use has long since been abandoned.
Strangely enough, years later when I wrote a book about stone rows, I suggested – quite independently of Callanish – that short stone rows (the type found at Callanish) were erected about 1800-1500 BC. And there you go, the Pleiades are rising at Callanish right in the middle of that range.
Aubrey Burl’s revised ‘Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany’ was recently published by Yale University Press
Human Sacrifice in Kettlewell
From the Yorkshire Post 03/01/03
Child in prehistoric grave ‘may have been sacrificed‘
THE remains of a child who could have been a human sacrifice have been found in a prehistoric graveyard unearthed in the Yorkshire Dales by Leeds University archaeologists.
The bones of the child, aged about four and thought to have lived in the Bronze Age about 3,000 years ago, were discovered in a stone-lined hollow – one of eight sets in the ring cairn near Kettlewell in Upper Wharfedale.
The unique discovery of the remains along with prehistoric cattle bones, pottery and an arrow head, suggested the cairn was used for rituals as well as a burial site, said Roger Martlew, who made the find with a team of students from Leeds University’s school of continuing education.
Dr Martlew said: “The site is full of features which, although found individually at different ring cairns around Britain, have not been found together in one place before.
“It could show that the Dales, which had been thought to be a bit of a backwater at the time, actually had wider connections to other parts of the country.
“What is unique is that we have a mixture of two elements – we have got different ritual activity but we have got burials as well.”
He said he had not expected to find the remains of the child because it was usual for Bronze Age ring cairns to be ceremonial and not actual burial sites.
Some ring cairns – circles of underground stone-lined hollows – found across England and Wales contain nothing but pits of pure charcoal that suggest the cairns were used for some ceremony not necessarily connected with burial.
Dr Martlew added: “We have taken a quick look, and the bones seem to be of a child aged four although we haven’t determined yet whether it was a boy or a girl.
“There is a suggestion elsewhere that children were offered as human sacrifices and that is a possibility here.
“We think there may well be more bodies to be found, as there generally tends to be an important primary burial of some sort and this is not it.”
The discovery is the culmination of a two-year project by Dr Martlew and his team of mature students which began as a field survey of the area.
The excavation has already provided the focus for archaeological field courses run by the school of continuing education, and funding has also been obtained from the Centre for Field Research in the US. Work will continue to unravel the complexities of the site over the next year.
[email protected]
02 January 2003
Bronze Age finds in Kettlewell
The rock art motifs here include a rosette
Pat O’Halloran’s description and picture of the stone
Pat O’Halloran’s description of the site
Pat O’Hallorans description of the site
Pat O’Halloran’s description and photo of the circle
Pat O’Halloran’s description and plan of the circle
Stanhope White reports that there at least three other standing stones and are probably part of a kerb.
Stanhope White calls this a circle of rough boulders.
moggymiaow has informed me that this circle still exists and is very accessible.
The Percy Rigg settlement has five circular hut bases, two of them 28 feet in diameter with paved floors and the remnants of some stone walls still standing.
This is a lovely little site, it consists of a cairn that has been robbed of much of it’s stone fill leaving part of the cairn and a kerb consisting of large stones. There is also a stone row consisting of four large stones and a nearby Round barrow with a possible headstone.
I visited this site with Moggymiaow after checking out her ? ruined circle on Hunt House Crag.
There is a well defined track running from Hunt House road up to the Howe.
The situation of the Howe is unusual as it is on the top of the hill rather than the prefered brow ( the usual site here-abouts).
The site itself consists of a well defined kerb of large stones enclosing a cairn. The cairn appears to have been robbed of some of it’s stone filling, some of which has been used to build a windbreak* within the kerb.
The diameter of the circle is approx 12 metres. To the north of the circle is a row of four large stones aligned SE-NW.
Approximately 50 metres north of the circle is an un-named barrow & trig point, this barrow has what appears to be a marker or head stone on its southern flank.
*Fieldnotes amended to reflect the information from Hotaire regarding the recent structure within the kerb
I was told about this place by moggymiaow and duly arranged a joint expedition.
The road to this area (Hunt House Road)
has three lovely stones beside the road in just over a mile. None of these stones are over 3 feet high but they are worth mentioning due to the obvious antiquity of the area. This road is also along the route of and overlays Wade’s Causeway Roman Road. The road also parallels the Wheeldale Road and its own stones.
Down to business, I met Moggymiaow at Hunt House and we trecked up the well worn path the a site where Moggy has identified a possible circle.
The area is a right old mess but there are definite upright stones and with lots of squinting and tilting of heads you can tune into a circle ( a big bugger approx 40m diameter), in fact with a bit of imagination you can tune into a circle within a circle.
This is a megalithic bombsite but the hand of man does appear to have touched this landscape. there is a cairn on the margins of the circle and the trackway that skirts the site leads to a definite megalithic monument further uphill at Simon Howe.
If you were to make a specific journey to visit this site, you may leave a bit dissappointed, Burl would give it a minus one and define it as FUBAR in his classification but if your in the area, check it out and play spot the circle.
One of the southerly pair of holed stones. The western stone looking south.
This pair of stones are about 7 feet high.
For those of you who think they may be gate posts, the holes are about 6 feet from the base and show no sign of erosion (rubbing from a chain or rope).
This applies equally to all of the stones.
Recent article on Windmill Hill
Taken from Frank Elgee’s book
Early Man in North East Yorkshire
Pub. 1930
Image credit: Elgee's 1930 plan
Breckon Howe is one of sixteen large barrows that follow a ridge across an 10 mile tract of moor between Goathland and Robin Hoods Bay and forms part of the ancient Whitby Strand Boundary.
On a recent visit, the eagle-eyed Moggymiaow spotted what could possibly be another circle, (she has a talent for this sort of thing) there are a couple of large-ish stones and a hint of a possible embankment.
The circle is amongst the cairn graveyard to the east of the cairn circle/standing stone and is best seen in winter with the heather burned back.
It’s subtle, so keep your mind opened pilgrim.
The rock art at the Fowberry enclosure contains a unique grid carving NU029261
One of the Gled Law sites includes a carving with the largest number of concentric circles in Britain
A unique British site.
The carvings are horned spirals, triple spirals and running spirals.
According to the Mighty Stan Beckensall in his new book, there are 2 small cups on the north face of north stone and 1 large cup on its south face. There are 2 cups on the south stone on the south and south-west faces and 2 cups on the north face