Category: Lancashire

Shorey Well, Burnley, Lancashire

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Healing Well:  OS Grid Reference – SD 844 330

Also Known as:

  1. St. Audry’s Well
  2. Whitaker’s Well
  3. Whittaker’s Well

Archaeology & History

Shorey Well, Burnley (T.Ormerod, 1906)

Recently a good turn of fortune has brought about the discovery of a number of previously unpublished manuscripts detailing a number of prehistoric remains, holy wells and old stone crosses that existed in and around east Lancashire, Burnley, Cliviger and Todmorden.  Many of these papers are the all-but-lost writings of historian and antiquarian Clifford Byrne of Nelson.  Having never previously been published, I think his works deserve greater attention and so I’ll be slowly, gradually, sticking them on the internet and give them the wider audience they deserve.  Not all of his notions are necessarily accurate, but the extent of this mans local history knowledge on the sites he describes in his essays is considerable.  The following is his short essay—with minimal editing—on this all-but-forgotten site:

“Shorey Well, or rather its stone housing, was originally situated in the bank of the River Brun slightly upstream of the parish church at Burnley, at a spot now within the grounds of the Burnley Technical College.  From within the stone housing issued the spring proper, which then ran down the brookside into the river.

“From time immemorial until the late 19th century, Shorey Well supplied part of the town of Burnley with its drinking water, then the water was impounded into a pipe and the stone housing removed to a place of safety.  This housing was thought by our Victorian forebears to have sufficient merit to save it for posterity, and this act I feel implies more than a certain interest in the old stones which I suggest the movers of the Well probably did not themselves fully understand, and it is with this concept that I hope now to deal.

“The present location of the stones of Shorey Well is in the little triangle of greenery outside Prestige Ltd at Burnley.  This spot is bounded on Colne Road and Bank Parade.  Behind it squats the base of Burnley Market Cross and the remains of the stocks with — a little to one side — the shaft of the Godley Lane Cross standing out of a huge square pedestal.

“An old map in Burnley Library shows Shorey Well in situ with a well-defined row of stepping stones crossing the river directly in front.  This line of stones went to the site of a still existing property called Shorey Fold — a spot that was probably once called St. Audry’s Fold, as we shall see.

“Godly Lane Cross is an Anglo-Saxon monolith with a somewhat damaged head.  This damage was probably done around the time of the Reformation in the 16th century, when the anti-Catholic movement was at its height.  The name Godly implies a god-like, or god-inspired or religious tone to the area, and Godly Lane — now Ormerod Road — certainly lived up to its name for there stood the parish church, the Cross itself, the Market Cross, another cross dedicated to a priest in the 16th century and now standing in the rear of Townley Hall, “Foldy’s Cross”, with nearby Shorey Well.

“There is a strong possibility that the Godly Lane Cross — sometimes called the Paulinus Cross — was a preaching cross and that it also marked the way to Shorey Well which issued close by.

“No one to the knowledge of the writer has attempted to explain the name Shorey Well.  I therefore suggest that the Well was used for baptism and that it was dedicated to St. Audry.  The parish church was erected prior to the Reformation and thus certainly had its Holy Well close by, from which the priests obtained water for baptism and blessings, etc.  Because of its propitious nature and close proximity to the church, such a Well would almost certainly have been the Shorey Spring.

“A study of the name may be fruitful.  Holy wells are almost always dedicated to some christian saint.  However, many of them have undergone a slight change in name over the centuries, so that it is not always easy to recognise the dedication.  For instance, the Ransible Well near Colne was dedicated to Our Lady of Ransome, or the Virgin Mary; Stellern Well was dedicated to St. Helen; Maudlin Well near Lathom House was dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen; Pewter Well at Sabden  would be St. Peter’s Well; Mattus Well at Sawley Abbey is St. Matthew’s Well; whilst Cooks Well at Colne was surely dedicated to St. Luke the physician.  Thus Shorey Well in the same context is almost certainly dedicated to St. Audry, and this saint we find was one of the most revered saints in Anglo-Saxon times, from which date the Godly Lane Cross stems.

“The close proximity of church, well and cross surely imply that one showed the way to the other, and that all three were at one period of time one unit: the Cross being a preaching place prior to the Church, and the holy well being a place of baptism and healing.”

Mr Byrne’s etymological reasoning may or may not be right here (Mr Ekwall says nothing in his place-name survey and I’m unaware of local dialect analysis that may account for the word), but the description of this and numerous other lost and forgotten sites in his various papers is hugely worthwhile and is a source of considerable study for us over the coming months.

Ormerod (1906) described the site in his tome, but even in his day this once great well with its “abundance of sparkling water” was “disused and neglected.” (the image above is taken from his work) However, as if to dispel any notions of an earlier saintly dedication, we find that in Walter Bennett’s (1948) magnum opus, the site had a more prosaic title in bygone years:

“Whittaker’s Well, or Shorey Well as it was later known, was situated on the riverbank opposite Dawson Square, and was apparently the only public source of drinking water for the inhabitants of tge Top o’ th’ Town.”

References:

  1. Bennett, Walter, The History of Burnley – volume 3, Burnley Corporation 1948.
  2. Byrne, Clifford H., “A Short Study of Shorey Well, Burnley,” unpublished manuscript 1976.
  3. Ormerod, T., Calderdale, Lupton Bros: Burnley 1906.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


 

Castercliff, Nelson, Lancashire

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Enclosure:  OS Grid Reference – SD 8850 3840

Also Known as:

  1. Caster Cliff

Getting Here

Castercliff hillfort plan (after D.G. Coombs)

From Colne train station, cross the road and go along Bridge Street and where it meets Knotts Street follow it all the way up into the countryside and, bending to the right, uphill again until it levels out.  The farmhouse a few hundred yards ahead of you (just off Southfield Lane) at the bend in the road is where you’re heading.  There’s a track on your right, just before the farm.  Go on this and look into the field immediately right.  The undulations and earthworks are the remains of this old hillfort!

Archaeology & History

This old site was constructed some 850 feet above sea level, overlooking the valley of Colne immediately west and giving commanding views of the outstretched landscape towards the sacred Pendle Hill and beyond for many miles.  The place was described as early as Castell Clif in 1515, and then again as Castyclyff in 1533, meaning simply the “castle on a cliff” or high verge as it is here.  Yet despite its early appearances in literary studies, the first real work to explore this monument doesn’t appear to have been done until one J.A. Plummer carried out work on the site between 1958-60.  However, Plummer died before being able to publish his findings in full.   Ascribed variously as a settlement, an enclosure, and generally in the archaeological fraternity as a hillfort, the first detailed published description of the site was done by Forde-Johnston (1965), where he told:

Forde-Johnston’s early plan

“The hillfort is a very regular oval in shape and encloses an area about 350ft long and 250ft wide.  The overall dimensions are 550ft by 450ft.  The site has been affected by quarrying on the south and east and there are a number of gaps in the defences on the northern and western sides.  The character of the remains differs in various parts of the site, but the general pattern appears to be as follows.  The innermost line of defence is represented by a very slight bank or, in many places, only a very shallow scarp which can be traced round the whole circuit of the site… The second or middle bank is the most prominent or substantial of the three.  It has considerable gaps in its length, but the various portions are all of much the same character — it rises between 3 and 5ft above the interior and falls about 9ft to the ditch bottom.  On the south side the middle rampart takes the form of a scarp about 10ft high, immediately below the scarp of the inner rampart.  The third, outermost bank is, in fact, a counterscarp bank to the second ditch.  It does not exist as a continuous bank around the whole of the site, but there are sections of it on the northern and eastern sides.  On the eastern and northeastern sides, from which approach was easiest, there appear to have been additional outer defences, situated about 70ft forward of the counterscarp bank.  These outer defences now take the form of a scarp about 4ft high curving round the eastern and northeastern sides for about 250ft.  At the southern end there is an inner scarp, forming a bank, and a little to the south, is a detached portion of bank.  There are other short detached sections of bank on the northern side which are presumably to be connected with these outer defences.”

When Mr Plummer did his excavation here a few years before, one section of the site was examined and, thanks to the survival of an interim report he did — described by D.G. Coombs (1971) — we know the following of what he did:

“His work was concentrated in the northwest corner of the site where he cut a trench through the defences.  Outside the counterscarp bank, which was not continuous, there was a bedding trench, packed with stones and containing charcoal.  The ditch, which was rock-cut and flat-bottomed, had a homogenous fill.  The rampart itself showed timber supports at the front and back with traces of stone revetting at the front and some distance from the timber uprights.  The rear of the rampart was marked by a line of stones.  Behind this rampart the site had been extensively disturbed and here he claimed to have found traces of primitive iron-smelting furnaces constructed from stones packed and sealed with loose black earth.  A single post-hole beneath the rampart was suggested to belong to an earlier phase.”

Though we have to note here that Mr Plummer believed that the iron furnace remains were actually medieval in date, but that the embanked settlement itself was Iron Age and “that the collapse of the fort could be dated between 60-90 AD.”  When Mr Coombs and his team came back here in 1970 to re-examine the works of both Plummer and Forde-Johnston, they confirmed some of their earlier finds, but uncovered additional finds at what they called this “once great fortress.”

Folklore

In Robert Lord’s (1976) superb imaginary piece on what he calls the Pendle Zodiac (a zodiac allegedly forged into the landscape in ancient times, in the manner of the famous and equally imaginary Glastonbury zodiac), a section of the deity Diana is made up of this prehistoric earthwork:

“The lower edge of the cap (on her head) coincides with a minor road between Colne, skirting the Iron Age Castercliffe hill-fort, above Nelson, as far as Catlow.”

…to be continued…

References:

  1. Coombs, D.G., Interim Report: Excavation at Castercliff, Nelson, Lancs., Unpublished Report 1971.
  2. Ekwall, Eilert, The Place-Names of Lancashire, Manchester University Press 1922.
  3. Forde-Johnston, The Hill-Forts of Lancashire and Cheshire, Lancashire & Cheshire Antiquarian Society 1962.
  4. Pennick, Nigel & Lord, Robert, Terrestrial Zodiacs in Britain, Institute for Geomantic Research: Bar Hill 1986.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Cliviger Law, Mereclough, Burnley, Lancashire

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Cairn (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – SD 872 302

Also Known as:

  1. Law House

Archaeology & History

In days of olde this once proud tomb stood upright on the slopes below the more prominent Cliviger Laithe tumulus above.  But, like many of the ancient ancestral tombs of this region,  its days seem long gone.  Although we’ve found what may be some traces of the outline of the cairn (further analysis required!), when the legendary Lancashire historian Thomas Dunham Whitaker (1872) wrote about the place, he was already writing about it in the past tense.  He said briefly, that “this heap of stones was removed as materials for building a turnpike road” in 1763.  The archaeologist Bernard Barnes (1982) told us that “a cist with an inhumation was found. In 1766 another tumulus was removed and an urn found. An axe-hammer is said to have been associated” here.  The most lengthy description of this site can be found in Mr Booth’s (1899) short work where, in his summary of various prehistoric sites in this region, he told that,

“The first find recorded in this locality took place at Law House, near Mereclough, in the year 1763, when a mound was opened which covered a kistvaen, or stone cist, which, upon being opened, was found to contain a human skeleton.  The information concerning this ancient burial is very meagre, and we have no information as to who were the discoverers of the mound.  It may be noted that nearly 70 years before (in 1695) a number of Roman coins were found close to this barrow.  The mound also contained a rude earthware vase filled with calcined bones.”

It’s unlikely that the earthworks by the walling hereby represent the denuded remnants of the monument in question, although the rise in the field here may be some remnant of the place, but without further excavation we might never know for sure. However, the recent discovery of what may be remnants of the cairn in an adjacent field requires further analysis.  WATCH THIS SPACE – as they say!

References:

  1. Barnes, B., Man and the Changing Landscape, University of Liverpool 1982.
  2. Bennett, Walter, History of Burnley, volume 1, Burnley 1946.
  3. Booth, Thomas, Ancient Grave Mounds on the Slopes of the Pennine Range, R. Chambers: Todmorden 1899.
  4. Whitaker, T.D., History of the Original Parish of Whalley, London 1872.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Annot Cross, Brierfield, Lancashire

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Cross (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – c. SD 881 353

Archaeology & History

Not included in the magnum opus of Henry Taylor (1906), the exact position of this long lost site remains unknown, as even the investigative abilities of Clifford Byrne couldn’t track it down!  It was erected in a region full of pre-christian remains and (at the time) living remnants of heathen folklore and practices between Worsthorne and Nelson.  Mr Byrne (1974) described his search for the place, saying:

“This cross is of ancient origin and no part of it now remains as far as can be ascertained by investigation, although the memory of it certainly remains, for an elderly gentleman living in the cottages of Holt Hill, Briercliffe, said instantly on being asked about he cross that he had often heard it referred to by older people when he was a boy, although he could not say exactly where in the hamlet the monolith had stood.  We are told that the cross is mentioned in a document in the year 1313 when Robert Briercliffe granted away the Sene intacks in the Holt Hill as it lay by Annot Cross on the south side.  This implies that it stood on the south side of the road (between) Thursden and Haggate, which is an old road from Burnley to Halifax…”

This would give a rough grid reference for its position around SD 881 353, but nothing appears to be there.  However, Byrne told of another intriguing bitta folklore a short distance away which may have had some relevance to the positioning of the cross.

“Down the road to Lane Bottoms, behind some bungalows, is a stone shaft in a depression in a meadow which we are told is an ancient standing stone.  Whether this is so is not easy to ascertain for the stone has apparently been used as a gatepost at some time, and further gives indication of having been utilised as a cattle rubbing post.”

Below here we find the old place-name ‘Burwains,’ which clearly indicate a site of a prehistoric burial, though nothing remains of such a place — officially at least.  Perhaps a couple of ventures in and around this area need to be done!  One final note that Byrne made related to the title of this lost cross, saying:

“The name “Annot” may be of Saxon origin, for the Saxon word annet means solitude, and this would have certainly fitted the area in ages past.”

References:

  1. Byrne, Clifford, A Survey of the Ancient Wayside Crosses in North-East Lancashire, unpublished report 1974.
  2. Taylor, Henry, The Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire, Sherratt & Hughes: Manchester 1906.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Herder’s Cross, Wycoller, Lancashire

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Cross:  OS Grid Reference – SD 94057 39369

Also Known as:

  1. Herders Common Cross

Getting Here

From Laneshaw Bridge, near Colne, take the long country road that goes up above Wycoller to Stanbury and Haworth over the Yorkshire-Lancashire border.  A couple of miles uphill, there’s a parking spot with views across the moors.  Stop here.  Cross the road and walk up for about 100 yards, going thru the rickety gate on the left, and up the field (past the small disused quarry) until you see the large rock looming ahead of you, perched on its own.  That’s it!

Archaeology & History

Herders Cross stone

This is a really curious spot to me.  A large singular boulder sat on the edge of an uninhabited moorland with no real history of heathenism, nor religious practices; yet someone at sometime in the not-too-distant past saw something here that made them cut a large square hollow into the top of this stone, in which they stuck an old cross.  We came across this site a few weeks ago quite by accident, but realised that the deep hollow in the rock was an old cross base; so when I got home I checked Taylor’s (1906) magnum opus, expecting to find some info therein.  But even Taylor seemed to know nothing of this place.

A week or two later, Paul Hornby pointed me in the direction of an unpublished essay by a local chap called Clifford Byrne (1974) who’d studied some of the early christian remains in the region and who wrote the following of what he named “Herders Cross”:

“This cross, or more properly its socket, is probably one of the least known in the area.  It was shown to the writer by Mr Stanley Cookson of Trawden, who discovered the socket in passing, so to speak.  On the road to Haworth from Laneshawbridge, opposite the site of Foster’s Leap rocks, on the east side of the road, is a really huge boulder on the moor top.  In the south side is the cross socket, whilst on the north side of the rock can be made out a right-angled mark which implies that either the socket was being placed on that side in the first instance, or that two sockets were once envisaged…

“Old maps show the rock in situ with a “shaft” protruding from the top.  Some yards west a shallow pony track  bypasses the site, whilst some four or five hundred yards east a very well worn and ancient road, long unused, passes in the direction of Emmot Holy Well.  The cross may thus have been a Wayside Cross showing the way to this Holy spring which is remembered as being propitious in the cure of rheumatism.”

Cross-base socket

This may be so; but I suspect earlier, heathen remains upon the moors here to explain the curious position of both this and another cross-base some 400 yards away.  Some dubious cup-marks can be seen by the side of the stone hollow; and other dubious ones have been found on the moors above here.  There is folklore of a lost stone circle on the hills above here, and a scattering of little-known faerie lore, indicating hidden sites and lost myths.  These ingredients are more likely the reasons that Herders Cross was erected here, overlooking the countryside south and west, with the holy hill of Pendle rising in the centre of the distant landscape…

References:

  1. Byrne, Clifford, A Survey of the Wayside Crosses in North East Lancashire, unpublished 1974.
  2. Taylor, Henry, The Ancient Crosses and Holy Wells of Lancashire, Sherratt & Hughes: Manchester 1906.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Jeppe Knave Grave, Wiswell, Lancashire

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Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – SD 7599 3782

Getting Here

Jeppe Knave Grave on 1848 map
Jeppe Knave Grave on 1848 map

From Sabden, head up the steep Clitheroe Road towards the Nick o’ Pendle, turning left 100 yards before the hilltop and along the dirt-track for a few yards, before veering up the winding footpath to the hilltop.  When you’re at the peak of this little bit o’ moorland, go to your left (west), following the small path into the grasses and heather all the way on for a few hundred yards till you hit the triangulation pillar.  Go past this, over one stile (north) and then immediately at right-angles (west) over another stile and downhill for about 100 yards until you’re on the rough grassland level.  Keep your eyes peeled as you’re walking until you see what looks like a denuded stone-lined pit, much overgrown — with the main feature (showing that you’ve hit the target) being the engraving on one of the larger rocks: “Jeppe Knave Grave”.

Archaeology & History

The Jeppe Knave Grave

First described in early perambulation records of 1326 CE, this is a small but intriguing site found on the far southwestern slopes of Pendle Hill, on the ridge beneath the triangulation pillar of Wiswell Moor.  It’s a small and overgrown cairn with a general archaeological association of prehistory attached—though no detailed excavation has ever been done here, despite local archaeologists having access to a large grant to explore this region a short while ago.¹  But up North, as many of us know, archaeology is given little priority and those who do decent exploratory work under the umbrella of such academic quarters tend to be few and far between.  Thankfully we had the northern antiquarian and local writer John Dixon (1993) nearby who gave us the best overview of the site.  He wrote:

“This landscape feature, known as Jeppe Knave Grave, stands at a place called The Lows high on Wiswell Moor and takes the form of a low grass-covered mound 16M in diameter with a stone filled depression in the centre 5 x 3 M.  This feature appears to be a mutilated cairn and has been tentatively ascribed to the Bronze Age.  The outer ring of stones can be discerned in the rough pasture at the perimeter – yellow in dry conditions, showing the circular shape. Given the large size of the stones here, the cairn may have been of a chambered type/passage tomb of the Neolithic period, and if this was the case the burial (or burials?) was one of great importance.

“Upon the largest stone are inscribed the words ‘JEPPE KNAVE GRAVE and a cross (inscribed by the Scouting Association in the 1960’s). The stone marks the final resting place of Jeppe Curteys (Geoffrey Curtis), a local robber who was decapitated for his crimes in the first year of Edward III, 1327.  The name first occurs in a record of the boundaries between Wiswall and Pendleton dated 1342.

“…In those times the punishment of decapitation was unusual, being reserved for those of noble birth.  So who was this Jeppe Curteys, punished by decapitation and later buried on the high ridge of Wiswell Moor in a pre-Christian burial mound on the then boundary of parishes?  That intriguing story we may never know.  But to be buried in such a manner and place was indeed a great indignity – interment in what might be considered in those times to be a ‘pagan’ or ‘devilish’ spot.  It may be that to bury a man in such a place was to literally ‘send him to the devil’. Alternatively one could ask: ‘Was the site thought then to be the burial spot of some noble ancestor, and Jeppe being of possible noble birth interred with great dignity?  Again we may never know, yet it is significant that this lonely spot is still identified with a man who was executed 700 years ago.

In 1608 it was stated that one Robert Lowe had taken a stone from the grave and used it as a cover of his lime kiln.”

Old codgers from the local Senile Society, inspecting York Minster!
Agatha Lyons’ 1871 sketch

The design of the cairn here is unlike the ones you usually come across on the Lancashire and Yorkshire moorlands.  The edges of the Jeppe Knave Grave are walled and much more well-defined than the large rock piles that we find scattering our uplands.  A similar though larger cairn with features similar to these can be seen in the large Low Hill tumulus on Elslack Moor near Earby, about ten miles northeast of here…

Other prehistoric remains scatter the many rolling hills that you can see from here: mainly prehistoric tombs sat upon hilltops as far as the eye can see.  John pointed out what may be the remains of another tumulus that can be seen on the nearby horizon a few hundred yards NNW from here, overlooking the gorgeous village of Pendleton and the landscape beyond…

References:

  1. Dixon, John, Journeys through Brigantia – volume 9: The Ribble Valley, Aussteiger Publications: Barnoldswick 1993.
  2. Dixon, John, Pendle – A Mythic Landscape, Aussteiger Publications: Barnoldswick 2010.
  3. Whitaker, Thomas Dunham, An History of the Original Parish of Whalley – volume 2, George Routledge: London 1876.

¹ John Dixon informed us how the people in question spent the grant — somewhere in the region of £50,000 — on exploring some modern architectural features, instead of exploring some of the little-known sites and seeking out others on these hills.

* John is the author of many fine historical travel guides, including the Journeys through Brigantia series. See the titles in the Lancashire Bibliography and Yorkshire Bibliography for a more complete listing of all his books to date.  If you wanna buy any of his works, or make enquiries regarding them, email John at: lancashirebooks@fsmail.net – or write to him direct, at: John Dixon, Aussteiger Publications, 21 Lowergate, Clitheroe, Lancashire BB7 1AD.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Coffin Stone, Sabden, Lancashire

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SD 7717 3830

Getting Here

From Sabden village, walk up the Clitheroe Road towards the hairpin Nick o’ Pendle, but take the turning left 100 yards before the Nick.  Walk along the dirt-track for less than 100 yards, watching for the small upright on the right-hand side of the track. You can’t really miss it!

Archaeology & History

The Coffin Stone

To be found on the far southern flanks of Pendle Hill, the Lancashire writer and historian, John Dixon,* brought us to this little-known stone a few days back — and gave us the history of the place. (Dixon 1993)  He pointed out how it’s situated right alongside the legendary cross-Pennine prehistoric route that was labelled ‘Rombald’s Way’ by Eric Cowling. (1946): an important trackway which ran from coast to coast, allowing for the passage and transmission of flints, salt and early metals carried for barter and other uses.  What may be another standing stone is on the nearby skyline a couple of hundred yards east; and on the slopes either side of here are the prehistoric tombs of Jeppe Knave Grave and the Devil’s Apronful (amongst others).  A fine little standing stone!

Folklore

The name derives from it being a place where, in bygone days, when coffins were carried along the ancient routeway hereby, it was rested by this stone.  As John Dixon (1993) told:

“It was used to mark a resting point for coffins en route from Pendle Forest to Whalley, allowing the mourners to refresh and pray by the curative Marion well, in a time before the ‘Newchurch’ of St. Mary was established at Goldshaw Booth in 1544.”

…and from another angle

The Marion Well he mentions is more popularly known as Our Lady’s Well and can be found a hundred yards up the hillside above our Coffin Stone.  If you walk up the slope you’ll see the site emerging where a small boggy pool appears on the hillside, and the course of the small stream marked by the reeds growing down the grassy slopes.  Although it became very much a Roman Catholic practice to venerate the Virgin Mary by this old well, the ritual was of course a much older heathen one.

John has also reminded me to mention “the fossil markings on the side of the stone – some plant from a former age” which you can see curving up from the bottom of the upright.

References:

  1. Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way: A Prehistory of Mid-Wharfedale, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  2. Dixon, John, Journeys through Brigantia – volume 9: The Ribble Valley, Aussteiger Publications: Barnoldswick 1993.
  3. Dixon, John, Pendle – A Mythic Landscape, Aussteiger Publications: Barnoldswick 2010.

* John is the author of many fine historical travel guides, including the Journeys through Brigantia series. See the titles in the Lancashire Bibliography and Yorkshire Bibliography for a more complete listing of all his books to date.  If you wanna buy any of his works, or make enquiries regarding them, email John at: lancashirebooks@fsmail.net – or write to him direct, at: John Dixon, Aussteiger Publications, 21 Lowergate, Clitheroe, Lancashire BB7 1AD.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Bleara Moor Cairnfield, Earby, Lancashire

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Cairns:  OS Grid Reference – SD 919 457 —  NEW DISCOVERY

Getting Here

From Earby, go eastwards up the steep moorland Coolham Lane. A coupla hundred yards up past the little reservoirs on your right there’s a tall, large wooden stile to climb over, up the old heaps of quarried stone and onto the flat moorland plain of Bleara Moor.  You’re here! If the heather’s grown back however, you’ve no chance of seeing ’em!

Archaeology & History

One of at least a dozen small cairns on NW of Bleara Moor

When we came up here the other day (ostensibly to check out the great Bleara Lowe tombs on top of the moor), a grey wet day scattered its more darkened light across the moor, which thankfully had been burnt back a few months previous. If this hadn’t happened, we’d have never seen what we found: a scattering of at least a dozen small single cairns, typical of those found on the upper and lower slopes of Green Crag Slack on Ilkley Moor.  They’re on the lower northwest-facing plain of Bleara Moor and all are roughly the same size: about 3 yards by 3 yards across and only a foot or two in height, much overgrown in peat and vegetation.  Although we found a good number of these small cairns where the heather had been burnt away, there also seemed to be others in the long heather itself, but this was, of course, hard to say with any certainty.  A few more exploratory ventures in and around the moor would be good after the next heather-burning sessions!

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


St. Patrick’s Well, Heysham, Lancashire

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Holy Well:  OS Grid Reference – SD 4109 6159

Getting Here

From Heysham village centre by the little roundabout, go down the gorgeous olde-worlde Main Street for about 150 yards, keeping your eyes peeled for the little track up to the tree-lined church of St. Peter.  Just before going up the path to the church, set back at the roadside, you’ll see an old pump in an arch in the walling.  That’s St. Patrick’s Well!

St.Patrick’s Well, Heysham

Archaeology & History

Not to be confused with another St. Patrick’s Well a few miles north of here, little has been said of this old holy well in literary tomes (even Henry Taylor’s (1906) magnum opus missed it!)  Sadly the waters here have long since been diverted (which violates religious tradition, quite frankly), and all we see today is an old iron water-pump set inside a stone arch, beneath which – I presume – the waters once ran.  An old plaque on the site of this ancient well tells:

“This is one of two holy wells in Heysham village (the other, Sainty Well, is on private property and covered over), whose dedications are long since lost.  Latterly the water from this well was used for utilitarian gardening purposes within the confines of the old rectory.

“Previously the well had fallen into disuse, suffered from surface contamination and became rubble-filled when the bank above gave way in the mid-1800s.  In the early 1900s, the well-head was again rebuilt and the well itself was cleaned and made safe by capping with concrete.  Recently (May 2002) the well-head has been refurbished and water artificially introduced, thus turning a derelict area into a feature of the village.”

It would be good if local people could complain to the regional water authority and make them redirect the waters beneath the well, back to the surface, to allow devotees — both Christian and otherwise — to partake of the holy blood sanctified by St. Patrick many centuries ago.  And without fluoride or other unholy chemical compounds that desecrate our waters.  Just the sacred waters of God’s Earth please!

Folklore

This is one of the many places in the British Isles where St. Patrick was said to have landed after he’d converted all the Irish into the christian cult!  One of the traditions was that St. Patrick said the well would never run dry — which was shown to be untrue when the waters were filled in with rubble in the 19th century.  The same saint also used the waters from the well to baptise and convert the peasants of his time.

References:

  1. Quick, R.C., Morecambe and Heysham, Past and Present, Morecambe Times 1962.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Bleasdale Circle, Lancaster, Lancashire

megalithix

Timber Circle:  OS Grid Reference – SD 57717 46004

Getting Here

Pretty easy to find, and a nice walk to boot! Head up to Bleasdale Church (worth a look in itself!), keep going up the path north to the aptly named Vicarage Farm.  From here you’ll notice a small copse of trees on your left (east) heading to the hills.  To those of you who like Predator, “it’s up there – in them trees…!”

Archaeology & History

On my first visit here in the company of John Dixon and other TNA regulars, my first impression was “this is a henge” – and noted subsequently that it’s been described as such by several writers.  But the general category given to this fascinating place is a ‘timber circle.’

Bleasdale ‘henge’ circle

First discovered at the end of the 19th century and described in considerable detail by Mr Dawkins (1900), this is a gorgeous-looking monument was erected in at once a gentle and tranquil, aswell as an imposing natural setting, at the foot of Fair Snape Fell (to the northwest) and Bleasdale Fell (due southwest).  These aspects of the landscape would have  had obvious mythic importance to the people who built this ring amongst the trees.  A condensed version of Dawkin’s material was described in J. Holden’s (1980) Story of Preston, that outlined this circle as being,

“a centre for religious worship in about 1700 BC.  It was made up of a circle of timber posts which enclosed an area 45 metres in diameter. In the centre was a small mound surrounded by a ring of oak posts and a circular ditch.  Inside the mound there was a grave that had in it two pottery urns filled with human bones and ashes. Examination of the contents of these urns shows that the bodies were wrapped in linen and burnt on a funeral pyre. A small ‘accessory’ cup was found inside one of the urns and this may have contained food or drink for the afterlife.”

Urns from Bleasdale Ring
1898 photo of Shadrach Jackson (left) & Tom Kelsall (centre) digging the site

Located within a much larger circular enclosure, the internal Bleasdale ‘henge’ Ring consisted of a small circle of eleven timber posts near the edge of the ditch, and an entrance way to the east, to or from which was an avenue of further wooded posts that led to the edge of the larger enclosure.  It gives the impression that this was some sort of avenue along which a ceremonial procession may have took place, strongly suggesting a ritual function.  Robert Middleton (1996) told that,

“The post circle and barrow appear to respect each other  (in date), whilst the enclosure may be later.  The post circle has been dated to around 2200 BC, although the context and reliability of this date is unclear.”

Looking out eastwards from the middle of the internal henge-style ring and through the ‘entrance’ we find an alignment with a large notch on the skyline which, modern folklore ascribes, is where the midwinter sun rises — which is very believable, but I aint seen it proven anywhere yet.

A much greater and full excavation report of this site was written by Raymond Varley (2010), whose essay I urge fellow antiquarians to read.

References:

  1. Dawkins, W.B., ‘On the Exploration of Prehistoric Sepulchral Remains of the Bronze Age at Bleasdale,’ in Transactions of the Lancashire & Cheshire Antiquarian Society, volume 18, 1900.
  2. Dixon, John, Journeys through Brigantia – volume 8: Forest of Bowland, Aussteiger Publications: Barnoldswick 1992.
  3. Edwards, Ben, “The History of Archaeology in Lancashire”, in Newman, 1996.
  4. Gibson, Alex, Stonehenge and Timber Circles, Tempus: Stroud 1998.
  5. Holden, Jennifer (ed.),  The Story of Preston, Harris Museum: Preston n.d. (c.1980)
  6. Middleton, Robert, “The Neolithic and Bronze Age,” in Newman, 1996.
  7. Newman, Richard (ed.), The Archaeology of Lancashire, Lancaster University 1996.
  8. Sever, Linda (ed.), Lancashire’s Sacred Landscape, History Press: Stroud 2010.
  9. Varley, W.J., ‘The Bleasdale Circle,’ in Antiquaries Journal, volume 18, 1938.
  10. Varley, Raymond, “The Bleasdale Bronze Age Timber Circle,” in Lancashire History Quarterly, 2010.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian