Northumberland Rings

We took a drive up to Northumberland to visit the most northerly English Stone Circle, Duddo aka The Singing Stones aka The Women.

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Whilst in the area we dropped in at a couple of Prehistoric Rock Art sites. First stop was Roughting Linn where ate our lunch down besides the lovely waterfall. We then walked through the bluebell-clad ramparts of the ancient promontory fort to the large outcrop in the woods. The Fell Sandstone outcrop is covered in Prehistoric rock carvings and is the largest carved rock in Britain. The most of the carvings have been placed around the edges of the outcrop and have been likened to Irish Passage Grave Art.

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This part of Northumberland is littered with Prehistoric Rock Art sites, most have wonderful views over the nearby fertile valleys. Many sites are intervisible with each other, quite a few also have nearby earthworks which have been interpreted as Iron Age in date. The carvings themselves are thought to be Neolithic/Early Bronze Age in date, the relationship between the carvings and the earthworks is not fully understood but it does indicate that these sites had a degree of continuity lasting for a considerable period of time.

We headed over to Weetwood Moor to check-out the carvings on the outcrops there before moving on to Chattonpark hill and the wonderful Ketley Crags, a Prehistoric Rock Shelter, its floor covered in deep cup and ring carvings.

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Solstice: Duddo

On such a night the hills dissolved

And re-assembled in a shifting mist,

Numb with moonlight’s touch.

We learnt that silence was not hostile,

Took upon ourselves its deepest strength

Waiting for dawn’s layered sun.

A moon that placed

As crow’s shout cracked the sky

Fled from the triggered bird-song

Hesitant, then loud.

Before our eyes, a second birth,

A new-created universe,

Green and blue and gold.

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Fluted stones whose shape had shifted

With emitted heat

From bearded barley heads,

Buried to the hips,

Reclaimed their circle and identity,

Introspective, Janus-headed,

Guarding and inviting

As the sun’s diurnal course

Played a slow game

With shadow shapes

Time and time and time again.

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Solstice: Duddo by Stan Beckensall from Northumberland Power of Place. 2001

Map and Lidar images by permission of the National Library of Scotland

Cups & Rings in the northern dales

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On a beautiful clear day, Graham and I took a wander up to the Stone Circle on Barningham Moor. We stopped at the Frankinshaw How cairn to drink in the views to the distant Cleveland Hills and Teesside. The cairn, with its cup-marked kerb stones, doesn’t appear to have any statutory protection, this is a worry as it is close to an estate road that has recently been used by heavy vehicles and not too far from a road stone quarry. There are also signs that turf has been stripped close to the cairn, presumably to top the nearby shooting butts.

We moved on to the slowly-sinking, messy Stone Circle at the head of Osmonds Gill, the viewshed here is to the north across the upper Tees valley towards the Durham plain.

Walking over to Eel Hill, we cross a low, dry valley and encounter the best fairy ring that I have ever seen.

Eel Hill, I have visited this beautiful carved stone many times and have never once been able to walk straight to it. I’m convinced that it moves around the hilltop.

We head off to explore Holgate passing these lovely shooting butts. I’m no fan of driven grouse shooting and wouldn’t care if another butt was ever built, but I do love these earth and stone built structures. With their construction and alignments, they have a prehistoric soul. These butts won’t be seeing much service this year. Later we hear a different sort of gunfire, the pom pom of artillery from the nearby military ranges.

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At Holgate, we search for carved rocks amongst the boulders that litter the terraces below Holgate Howe. After four thousand years of upland Yorkshire weather and the acid rains of the industrial era, it amazes me how any of these carvings have survived, I also wonder about what has been lost.

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Some of the boulders, including some with carvings on them, have been quarried by local stonemasons. The method of removing a stone, suitable for use as a gatepost or lintel, is to cut a series of linear holes across the stone, it is then left to allow nature to assist with the work. The process of freeze/thaw will eventually weaken and fracture the stone along the line, the stone can then be more easily cut. There are a number of quarried stones laying around that have not been used.

This large flat boulder has been quarried along one edge. The stone has a number of weathered cups on its surface. The cups have been joined up with a thin, sharp, incised line. Perhaps this was the work of a bored stonemason who noticed the ancient cups and spent his tea break trying to make some sense of them.

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We finish the day at this lovely earth-fast boulder which was thankfully spared from the attention of the stonecutter.

Solstice Wanderings in Cumbria – Tuff

Great Langdale Cup Marked Stone – Dungeon Ghyll – Harrison Stickle – Loft Crag – Pike of Stickle – Martcrag Moor – Stake Pass – Mickleden – Old Dungeon Ghyll – Copt Howe – Mayburgh Henge 21.06.2019

A cup-marked boulder at the foot of the Side Pike pass to Little Langdale.

I don’t have a great head for heights, the narrow scramble between Harrison Stickle and Dungeon Ghyll makes me question my choice of route, to withdraw would be to fail.

There are two genii, which nature gave us as companions throughout life. The one, sociable and lovely, shortens the laborious journey for us through its lively play, makes the fetters of necessity light for us, and leads us amidst joy and jest up to the dangerous places, where we must act as pure spirits and lay aside everything bodily, as to cognition of truth and performance of duty. Here it abandons us, for only the world of sense is its province, beyond this its earthly wings can not carry it. But now the other one steps up, earnest and silent, and with stout arm it carries us over the dizzying depth. On the sublime by Friedrich Schiller. 1801

 Staring down the gulley to the valley below, then scrambling to the summit of the Pike of Stickle, terrifying and exhilarating.

Chasing clouds across the fells

Tracking  Prehistoric Cairns along Mickleden

Flakes of Tuff carried down the scree from the Neolithic quarries on the Pike of Stickle

On leaving, I visit the prehistoric carved boulders of Copt Howe

Mayburgh Henge, generally my starting and finishing point when visiting Cumbria.

The Gainford Stone

The Gainford Stone was discovered during deep drainage excavations at Gainford, it is thought to be a cist cover and is now in the Bowes Museum

Reference. British Prehistoric Rock Art. Stan Beckensall. 1999

Prehistoric Rock Carvings – Patterson’s Bank

I photographed these cup-marked stones about 10 years ago. The stones are associated with a Bronze Age burial mound and are no longer visible as they have been buried by Tees Archaeology to protect them from damage/weathering.

The top photo shows a cup marked slab that is thought may have acted as a cover for a cist (stone-lined box). The second and third photos are of a stone that may have been one of a number of kerb stones positioned around the base of the mound.

The mound itself has a large central depression, thought to be as the result of an episode of 19th century barrow digging. In 1817 the Reverend George Young reported the excavation of a tumulus at Upleatham in his History of Whitby. He later donated a small ceramic pot, found during the excavation, to the Whitby Museum.