David Raven

After visiting the Bull Stone near Otley Chevin for the Midsummer Solstice, we made our way back to the car park at the Royalty pub. The footpath crossed a field holding a pair of frisky horses, so we decided to take a slight detour.

Spotting what we thought was a boulder, we headed for that to make the dry-stone wall easier to climb. Upon closer inspection we noticed that the boulder was one of a pair, and the one on the other side of the wall appeared much longer and narrower than the first, reminiscent of the nearby Bull Stone. In fact, it was positively ‘menhir-like’!

Could this one of the ‘lost’ stones described by Paulus?

A ‘possible’ standing stone of the Bronze age.
Beware if you visit it – it’s right by the side of a busy road, at the top of a hill, on a slight bend! Great views though :-)
The words ‘Stump Cross’ are just visible at the base of the stone.

The O.S. map for Nidderdale shows a ‘Standing Stone Hill’ just north of the village of Hartwith, near Summerbridge. Though any references to an actual stone are hard to come by.
We followed the public footpath through Highfield farm and asked the farmer permission to wander his land looking for the stone. He was very amiable and gave us directions to it, telling us it was off the footpath in the middle of one of his pastures. He also mentioned that the stone was pushed over by cattle in recent years. After a prolonged bout of torrential rain, the ground (which is damp pasture anyway) became so soft, the cows constant rubbing and scratching made it topple into the mud. The farmer and his family re-erected it. It seemed pretty well planted to me. Hat’s off to him!
On first sight, it reminded me of a miniature ‘Devil’s arrow’, the huge stones further south-east. It possesses the same curious weathering, a ‘fluting’ at the top. The views west to the lofty Pennines are magnificent, the vast Vale of York lays to the east.
There are 3 possible cup marks on the side of the menhir (Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, 2003), but I didn’t notice them. Having said that, there were so many little indentations on it’s surface, they could’ve been any of them!

In February 2003, myself and a rambling buddy were wandering the moors above Ilkley. We noticed the heather had been recently burned off for the grouse to feast on the young shoots, leaving the huge enclosure at Woofa bank visible. Climbing down, I paced the low rubble walls to be about 50 meters in diameter. The site holds various cup-marked rocks, one of which is actually part of the wall. In fact the plateau contains up to a third of the carved rocks of the moor. An enclosure nearby (at Green Crag Slack) is tentatively dated at Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (Edwards and Bradley 1999). In the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze age the whole area was covered in light scrub, with hazel, alder, birch and pine covering the plateau, according to pollen analysis. It has also been suggested that a shallow lake may have occured here. Not only were conditions favourable for settling, the area is thought to have been part of a major trade route across the Pennines.

Did you find the little well that lies roughly north, Ken? Dunno how old it is but it’s very ‘well’ preserved!

The fourth moor would be Bingley Moor, Kozmik.

There’s the huge tract of land adjacent to this feature bearing a masonic name too; The Square.

Rivock – Probabley Old English for ‘Riven Oak’.

At first this area gave me little inspiration to explore. Over the years I’d made a few trips through the barren interior of the plantation there. It always seemed a dead and forbidding place, so it was with little enthusiasm that we undertook a trip to search for the many cup-and-ring marked rocks we’d heard were there...

The entire wood is private land with one bridleway running through and one footpath that ends at the boundary! The only way to find anything is to accidentally wander off the paths and be ‘lost’!
Of course, I’d never advocate trespassing!

Within the plantation are lots of cup-and-ring marked rocks. Unfortunately they are covered in 30 years of conifer needles and accumulated dross!
It’s slow-going going crawling about on all fours, searching for the stones and scraping away the earth to see if there’s any carvings... fun though!
We only found a few during an entire afternoon – have to get ‘lost’ up there again soon...

There’s also the curious ‘Rivock Oven’; a sort of ‘chamber’ of rock with a chimney. And the Rivock Well. And probabley more that we haven’t found yet...

Apart from irate landowners, beware of the floating ‘hooded figures’ seen there in 1998 by council countryside workers who were resurfacing the bridleway! (Maybe they were the ‘Genii Cucullati’?!)

It was this very site, and Ironman’s post, that fired up my imagination to find these things! Last year I did!

Amazing place. Most walkers wander by oblivious ignoring the curious forms! Even when the moor is teeming with visitors, this backwater is usually empty of folk.

The name is said to be pronounced ‘doobler’ by the locals. Possibly deriving from an old regional word for a ‘large, shallow dish or plate’, according to Phillips in his book ‘Brigantia’.

Having read Paul Bennett’s book, I made a trip up there last April.

This charming, tumbledown, overgrown circle, camaflouged by newer dry-stone walls takes some finding, but it’s certainly worth the effort!
It’s perched on the flanks of the Backstone Beck valley. I must’ve walked near it dozens of times over the years and never noticed it. Maybe it’s because it’s hidden amongst more recent constructions, or maybe it’s only noticed if you’re actually intent on finding it! The stones nestle into the moorland vegetation, partially obscured by great tussocks of sedge. To me, the attendant man-made remains don’t seem to detract from the peaceful sanctity of the place.

As can be seen from the lush vegetation in the pictures, parts of this site are very damp. This is due to an underground stream running close under the earth.
Geological fault lines surround the circle on three sides. Compass and temperature readings can exhibit wild fluctuations! Apparently, tests in the late eighties recorded a difference in temperature between stones inside and outside the circle at certain times of ten degrees Fahrenheit!

I visited again in late June and noticed a 6-foot long stone, laid on it’s side in the bottom of the quarry behind the circle. Probabley nothing, though a flight of fancy had me thinking of ‘recumbent menhirs’!
Traces of green candle-wax graced the stone, indicating pretty recent activity!
We also thought we could hear water and have since found that a well lies there, only usually apparent after heavy rains.

A magnificent boulder, must be 10 feet high!
We parked at the junction of the A61 and the tiny road from Wike village. A place frequented occasionally by car thieves so lock up your valuables if you leave it there!
Over the dicey A61, avoiding mental speed-freaks, takes you through the grand gateway into the Harewood estate…

The rock itself is isolated, standing alone in a north facing field, bounded by woodland.
The views northwards are far-reaching, Almscliffe Crag being easily seen and in direct line with the spiral carving on the north-western face of the rock. It seems to be seven concentric rings, though they are now very indistinct… Graeme Chappell reports on his excellent website that the midwinter full moon would set behind Almscliff Crag at the major lunar standstill when viewed from here, around 1800 B.C.!