From the Askwith Moor Road parking spot, head west to the Askwith Moor cairnfield. Keep walking west, going downhill past the main cluster of rocks. If you begin zigzagging amidst the heather hereby, you’ll eventually come across this relatively small stone which, even when the heather is deep, thankfully rises to the surface. The Wester Cairnfield 1 carving is close by.
Archaeology & History
Although I presumed that Graeme Chappell and I found this petroglyph when we surveyed the area in the 1990s, I cannot find an early account of it in my files, so must presume that when James Elkington, James Turner and I came across it a few weeks ago, it was the first view of the stone in many a century… It’s another simple carving, only of interest to the mad rock art hunters out there.
…and from another angle
When we first found it, it seemed to me (with the sunlight effects on the stone) that two cup-marks had been etched here; but as Mr Elkington pointed out, from the angle he was looking at the stone, there were another two. He was right. But it’s nothing special to look at, sadly, and is probably only of interest to the real hardcore petroglyph nutters amongst you. (please note that the grid-ref for this carving needs revising and may be 50 yards either side of the one given)
From the Askwith Moor Lane parking site, take the directions to the Askwith Moor Cairnfield. Walk westwards for about 100 yards down the gradual slope, towards the boggy land below, but before reaching the reeds, still in the moorland heather, there are a scatter of rocks. Just keep zigzagging about until you find it. It’s a reasonably large stone.
Archaeology & History
‘Cup mark’ on vertical face
This is one of several simple cup-marked stones found down the slopes about 100 yards west of the Askwith Moor Cairnfield. When James Elkington, James Turner and I re-surveyed this area again recently, I wondered whether it was a newbie or had already been located when Graeme Chappell and I did our tedious surveying of this region in the 1990s—and it turned out that we did! The carving is nothing special to look at, even if you’re a petroglyph zealot. Comprising of a distinct single cup-mark on the top nose of the rock, another is visible on the vertical south face, and another possible is on its eastern face.
1894 map of shooting target
When we look at the early maps of this area, we find that to the north and south of this stone once existed ‘Shooting Houses’. As we can see on the attached map, the position of one of the shooting targets is very close to the location of this stone and so we must conclude that the cups on the vertical face were done by gunshot and are not prehistoric. However, the distinct cup on top of the stone retains its prehistoric link.
Start at the Askwith Moor parking spot on Askwith Moor Road, then walk down the road (south) 300 yards till you reach the gate and track on the other side of the road, heading southeast. Following the track onto the moor and take the footpath on your right after 75 yards. Follow this along until you hit the gate & fence. Climb over this, then follow the same fence along (left) and down, and keep following the fence and walling all the way on until you reach the very bottom southwestern edge of Askwith Moor itself. Now, walk up the slope to your right and, near the top of this rise 250 yards away, past Lower Lanshaw 01 carving, in some ancient walling, you’ll find it!
Archaeology & History
A very faded cup-and-ring carving can be found about 30 yards northeast of the Lower Lanshaw cup-marked stone, just as the hill slopes down to the overgrown stream. It rests on the lower edges of the prehistoric (probably Bronze Age) enclosure in which other archaeological remains can be found. Although the photo here highlights what seems to be 3 cups on the south-face of the rock, only one of them seems authentic. A pecked “line” also seemed evident, but the light conditions were poor when we were here. It does seem that there’s a faded ring around one of the cups, as you can see in the photo.
From Marske village, take the road west and uphill to the villages of Fremington and Reeth. At the top of the hill where the fields open up, several hundred yards along on your right, past the field with the track, a footpath sign points you up onto the moor. Go up the field till you hit the wall that goes right to the top of the moor. Where the four walls meet, go straight across and then walk northwards along the line of walling for 2-300 yards, keeping your eyes peeled for a solitary stone on its own, 100 yards west. You’ll find it.
Archaeology & History
Deep carved line features
A pretty basic petroglyph located within a massive arena of prehistoric sites dating from the neolithic and continuing through the Bronze Age period and beyond. Found a few hundred yards northwest of the once giant cairn of Cock Howe, this design is characterized mainly by the two large deep channels deliberately cut into the stone that run from the middle of the upper surface down to ground level. One of them emerges from a single cup-marking, at an angle; whilst the other comes from the edge of a natural crack in the rock. The channels are wide and flattened. Other faint lines can be discerned too, which may have originally been carved. We need to explore this design in different lighting conditions to see if there are additional features here.
Looking east-ish
An archetypal cup-marking can seen on the vertical edge of the stone and three other faint ones scatter the top. Another small ‘cup’ is along the southern vertical face of the rock which, when we found it, thought was natural; but a photograph of the stone by James Elkington seems to show a ring surrounding much of the cup-mark. We need to go back and take another look at the place.
A number of other carvings described in Paul and Barbara Brown’s (2008) survey can be found in the region.
References:
Brown, Paul & Barbara, Prehistoric Rock Art in the Northern Dales, Tempus: Stroud 2008.
Go up the B6160 road, heading for Kilnsey Crag. A few hundred yards past here, take the road to Arncliffe and, several hundred yards along, keep yer eyes peeled for the (usually) decent craggy dry stream bed on your left (west). Follow this upstream till you hit the large cave, continuing uphill above the crags, following the steep walling upwards to the next set of crags. Above these, another long straight line of walling continues in the same direction you’ve been walking. Follow this along until it meets up with another large line of walling, heading NE. Walk along here till this wall changes direction NE, but here you need to walk across the grasses westwards, past the large cave for another 100 yards. You’ll find it!
Archaeology & History
This is a simple but well-preserved circular monument, probably constructed in the Iron Age, just 100 yards past the incredible Douky Bottom cave (in which various prehistoric remains have been found). No excavations appear to have been made here, yet the near-perfect ring is in very good condition indeed. The monument consists of thousands of small stones – taken from the huge scree immediately behind the structure – whose uppermost visible mass overlays a much older and larger pile of stones, all of roughly the same size.
Douky Bottom ring, looking NE
The ring is less than 10 yards across and gives the impression of it being a large hut circle—which it may or may not be. Without an excavation we cannot know its function with any certainty. Other, much larger prehistoric enclosures and settlements are close by, mainly to the northeast; and you have the truly bizarre rock piles on the ghostly horizon crags, whose histories are quiet indeed…. For any antiquarians amongst you who’d like a good day out, give this region a try! It’s a truly intriguing arena with much much more hiding away than any of the archaeology records can tell you about.
Acknowledgements: Many many thanks to James Elkington for guiding us to the sites in this region.
Take the minor high road between the hamlets of Marske and Fremington (up Hard Stiles from Marske side), turning up Stelling Road at the crossroads, and ⅔-mile (1.1km) along, turn right up Helwith Road. ¾-mile (1.2km) along, on the right, walk thru the gate onto the moor following the walling. Nearly 400 yards on you meet a junction of walling: walk past this until you reach the next line of walling and then follow it northeast for just over 500 yards. Once there, look for the mounds in the heather immediately south, less than 50 yards away.
Archaeology & History
This is one of the “isolated cairns of fair size” mentioned in passing by Tim Laurie (1985) in his survey of the massive settlement and field systems scattering this gorgeous moorland arena. It is one amongst a scatter of several in and around the eastern height of Cock Howe hill on the south side of Skelton Moor. The area has sadly been scarred by an excess of old lime mines—many of which are visible close by—damaging with some severity the excess of prehistoric remains on these moors, none of which have yet been excavated in any detail. This cairn included.
More cairns to the rear
Even though much of the heather here had been burnt back when James Elkington and I visited the place recently, the pile of stones was still very embedded into the peat. The moorland rabbits had dislodged some of the stones, highlighting the mass of rocks much better. It stands nearly a metre high and is roughly 7 yards by 8 yards in diameter from edge to edge, structurally similar to the many Bronze Age cairns scattering Rombalds Moor, Askwith Moor and other Yorkshire clusters. A second cairn of similar size and stature exists some 30 yards to the southeast (visible on one of the photos).
For anyone who might visit this site, the most impressive features hereby are the huge settlement remains scattering the moors just north of the wall a few yards away. When the heather has been burnt back, a veritable prehistoric city unfolds before your eyes, with extensive lengths of walling, hut circles and what can only be described as huge halls, in which tribal meetings probably occurred – much of it in superb condition! Well worth visiting.
References:
Laurie, T.C., “Early Land Division and Settlement in Swaledale,” in Upland Settlement in Britain: the Second Millennium B.C. and After, ed. Don Spratt and Colin Burgess, BAR British Series 143, 1985.
Martlew, R.D., Prehistory in the Yorkshire Dales, YDLRT: York 2011.
Cup-Marked Stone (missing): OS Grid Reference – SE 16940 87301
Archaeology & History
A prehistoric carving that is missing and possibly destroyed since being rediscovered in 2001 by Barbara Brown (2008) and subsequently described in her book on North Yorkshire petroglyphs. She told it to be in “Thornton Steward field hedge bottom” and was a simple glyph, being a
“rectangular slab (with) single cup-mark located in hedge bottom part of old walling.”
When she revisited the site with her husband in 2006, the old hedge and wall had been removed, with “new hedging in place.” The carved stone may be buried within a pile of clearance stones adjacent to the hedgerow, but it has yet to be relocated. If anyone finds it, please let us know! It was one of several cup-marked stones that exist in the wider neighbourhood.
References:
Brown, Paul & Barbara, Prehistoric Rock Art in the Northern Dales, Tempus: Stroud 2008.
ON the A59 Harrogate to Skipton road, right on top where it crosses the barren moors, get to the parking spot right near where the road levels out at the highest point. Walk up the footpath from here onto the moors (south) for about 200 yards till you notice a small black pool ahead of you. From here, walk left (east) offpath and into the heather, roughly along the ridge for about another 150-200 yards. Zigzag about and keep looking. You’re damn close!
Archaeology & History
Close-up of some of the cups
Not far from the Gill Head stone and walling, another previously unrecorded cup-marked rock was discovered on the afternoon of Saturday, May 3, 2014, by Danny Tiernan and his famous teddy bear! The stone seems to have been previously well-covered, but was made visible thanks to the annual heather-burning on this part of the moor. He came across it during an exploratory Northern Antiquarian wander to examine a cluster of other neolithic remains hidden on this moor. The carving consists of a series of plain cup-markings, between eight and twelve in number, running along the middle of the rock and outwards nearer to the edges. The cups are between 1-2 inches across and a half-inch deep at the most. The design was first highlighted on Danny’s walking blog, Teddy Tour Teas — and is gonna be difficult to find once the heather’s grown back.
1st edition OS-map – the unmarked circle’s near the middle
Along the B6265 road between Grassington and Pateley bridge, heading east, past the hamlet of Hebden, a mile or so on where the road goes uphill, stop where it levels out a bit (before it goes further uphill to Stump Cross), a half-mile before the rocky outcrop of Nursery Knott on the left (north) side of the road. A gate into the field on the same side is what yer after, with a small disused quarry therein. Go up here to the quarry-top and then walk uphill for literally 100 yards and the curious small ring is right there.
Archaeology & History
Appletreewick stone circle (courtesy Paul Daw)
This small stone circle sitting on the grassy ridge overlooking the ritual rocks of Simon’s Seat and central Wharfedale to the south and the Yorkshire heathlands east and west, is probably not what it once was. Overcome by the excess of industrial workings in the fields and moors all round here, it is probable that its present condition is far from its original state. Indeed, if we move back to the 18th century, we find that place-name and map evidences tell us the site was a tomb. The 1771 Greenwood map names the site as the Fancairn — an etymological curiosity in itself, possibly deriving from the ‘Windy Cairn’, which makes sense. The place-name fell into its present title of ‘Fancarl’ after the great Ordnance Survey chaps came, heard dialect and went on their way…
The largest rock in the ring (courtesy Paul Daw)
The circle doesn’t appear to have been noted by the great Yorkshire historians Harry Speight and Edmund Bogg in their literary rambles here (rather odd), but was brought to our attention first of all (in a literary sense anyway) by Arthur Raistrick. (1965) He first “surveyed” the site in 1950, but said little until a short remark was printed in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, where the notes told it to be one of “two stone circles, one with clear standing stones, 30ft in diameter, and the other a double circle of small recumbent stones, 12ft in diameter.”
Ground-plan & missing stones (by Paul Daw)
The second, smaller double circle he mentions is probably a hut circle or cairn, faint traces of which are seen in the adjacent field. Remains of a prehistoric enclosure were also once evident in the same field; and thankfully to the south (across the road) we can still find many examples of cup-and-rings at Skyreholme.
John Barnatt (1989) and Aubrey Burl (2000) include the site in their relative major surveys, with both of them citing the circle, of six small stones, to measure 8.5m by 7.5m. The survey shown of this small stone ring was done by Paul Daw following his visit to the site on Monday 10th September 2012.
Folklore
Although we can only see six stones in this ring today, when the surveyor Paul Daw (2012) did a ground-plan of the place, he also did a dowsing survey of the site and found there were originally two extra stones on the eastern side of the circle. An archaeological dig would be interesting to see if post-holes or the remains of these two additional stones are under the turf. He wrote:
My dowsing survey revealed that the stone circle measured 7.7 metres diameter (N-S) and 7.0 metres (E-W). A reaction was received over the centres of stones 1, 3, 6, 7 and 8 indicating that they are still standing in their original positions, but stone number 5 to the south-south-east of the circle had a reaction at its northern end, which indicates that it was once standing but had fallen outwards. It is not therefore an earthfast stone, as speculated by A. Raistrick, when he visited the site. The stone measures 1.65 m x 1.65 m x 800 mm and fans out like a shell from bottom to top. It would have been an impressive stone when standing, but was top heavy, and the most likely stone to fall.
Stones 1, 3, 6, and 8 are all of a similar size, are much more stable, and stand at about 500 mm high. Stone 7 in the western sector is 800 mm high, and measures 950 mm x 850 mm, and looks like a rectangular block, with slightly rounded edges.
I also obtained a reaction at positions 2 and 4, indicating that there were once stones standing in these positions. To the north of the stone circle there are a number of stones lying on the surface. A. Raistrick suggested that there may have been another small stone circle in this area, but my dowsing rods did not detect anything, and it is probable that these are random stones lying on the surface.
This entire region is bedevilled with faerie, goblin and giant lore, plus creation myths of our peasant ancestors (Sutcliffe 1929) — some still living if you’re lucky enough to talk with the old folk, who might tell you a thing or two, or might not, depending on how you smell.
References:
Barnatt, John, The Stone Circles of Britain – 2 volumes, BAR: Oxford 1989.
Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
Daw, Paul M., “Appletreewick Stone Circle, Yorkshire Dales,” unpublished survey report 2012.
Take the A59 road from Harrogate and Skipton and at the very top of the moors near the Gill Head Enclosures, take the small Kex Ghyll road up past the disused quarry works north for a mile or so. At the junction go left, past the Outdoor Centre, thru West End up Whit Moor Road, then go left down to Brays Cross Farm and over the ford. Note the clump of trees on the moors to the west and take the path there. Once here, a large outcrop of rocks will be seen about 150 yards on the moor to the west. That’s the spot! Otherwise, follow the directions of the legendary wandering Teddy!
Archaeology & History
This dramatic looking outcrop of rocks rising out of the ground a half-mile due west of Bray farmhouse has long been known as the rocks of the ravens: oracular birds of ill-omen in all peasant traditions, yet carrier birds of shamans in their Underworld ventures, from accounts in Russia and Scandinavia, through the Scottish highlands and into Yorkshire’s northern hills, as folklore records show. Whether such mythical figures used the Raven Stones here for such magick, we have no firm accounts; but the existence of the many cup-markings on this particular rock (and others in the outcrop) show that animistic traditions of some form or another occurred here in prehistoric times at the very least.
Looking across the stoneLooking down on the cups (after QDanT)
Records of this place as an archaeological spot are scant indeed. It is passed with barely a mention by those Victorian antiquarian giants, Bogg, Grainge and Speight. The rock art students Boughey & Vickerman (2003) give the wrong grid reference here, but added the site to their inventory, saying only that it is “long, low, exposed bedrock. 22-25 cups; some very weathered and smooth.” A series of channels runs down the slope of the stone, but there are probably natural. However, a cup-and-line does occur on the eastern side of the carving.
References:
Armstrong, Edward A., The Folklore of Birds, Collins: London 1958.
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Wakefield 2003.
