Hob

George Tate wrote in the late 19thC:

The other two camps are on the Horton grounds. Near to one of them are the remains of a stone circle, which during the last century would have been called a Druid’s temple. Five stones are remaining, two only standing in their original position; when complete the circle had been about 100 feet in circumference; and it probably marks the burying place of some chieftain. At no great distance form it, are several barrows which also appear to have been places of sepulture. Mr Greenwell dug into some of them, but nothing was discovered save traces of burning.

Which makes me wonder where the fifth stone went, and when was the third (temporarily) re-erected? Are the two standing today the same two Tate observed? What about the cairns and can they still be found amongst the heather?

According to Timothy Darvill & Blaze O’Connor, an early 20thC excavation showed up zoomorphic carvings on one of the stones from the mound.

The relevant abstract from the proceeedings of the prehistoric society can be found on University College London’s website.

One of the many barrows at Came Wood yielded a rare (for the South of England) example of prehistoric rock art in the form of a cist cover with three concentric circles. It gets a mention in Tate’s ‘Sculptured rocks’ book, a more detailed description being given by the excavator. (Warne, C. 1866. The Celtic Tumuli of Dorset. London: John Russell Smith.)

An image of the concentric circles can be found on the University College London web site.

Alas, this particular marked stone is currently on the missing list.

The remains of 2 Bronze Age cairns, the most northerly of which, when excavatated in 1885 by GR Hall, yielded several cists and 17 examples of portable rock art, including one example of the rare ‘microcups’.

English Heritage’s online record of scheduled monuments claims that these portables have since been lost. In fact, they are safe and warm in the stone room of the Newcastle University Museum of Antiquities. The confusion may have arisen as EH spell Pitland with two ‘t’s, whereas everyone else seems to spell it with only one. But it’s the same site.

These portables may also have been the subjects of the first ever photograph of prehistoric rock art. Possibly.

Saved from the quarrymans wedges?

Apparently the carvings at Morwick were once threatened by a quarry, the remains of which are now to be found about 100m to the east of Jack Rock. Such was the claim a letter in the Newcastle Journal of Feb 18th, 1886 (a copy exists in a binding of the many volumed ‘Denham Tracts’).

However, an investigation and field visit by Mr G.H. Thompson on behalf of the Society of Antiquities of Newcastle upon Tyne reported that the proposed quarry was not a threat to the carvings, and that given the keen antiquarian tendencies of the landowner, Algernon, Duke of Northumberland, no threat was ever intended. However, he also notes that some of the rock on he flat above the carvings had been stripped to examine the strata. This fact, in conjunction with the fact that The Duke Algernon in question was not the same Duke Algernon who was renowned for his antiquarian proclivities, but rather his succsessor, leads me to wonder if the account is a bit of Victorian spin to cover over a narrowly avoided embarrassing incident. Maybe I’m just being overly suspicious, but it seems that the quarry was possibly nearly placed on the wrong outcrop and that the letter in the Newcastle Journal pointed this out.

(Details can be found in the Proceedings of the Society Volume II, 1886, Number 22)

It’s interesting that Green Castle is also known locally as ‘Cup and Saucer Camp’ When considering that ‘Cups and Saucers’ is a colloquial term used in 19thC Northumberland for cup and ring marks, and that a marked stone was found in the ramparts of this site, it’s possible that the local name refers not to the shape of the earthworks, but to rock art.