Gallow Howe – Prehistory to the Cold War

Gallow Howe was a large prehistoric burial mound located beside the moorland road that runs across the high moors connecting Eskdale with the Vale of Pickering. Today, there are no traces of the mound to be seen and it is no longer marked on the OS maps.

In 1863 R.C Atkinson, described the mound as a chambered cairn 7 – 8 feet in height and about 9 yards in diameter, with a kerb of stones standing 3-4 feet high around its base. On excavating the mound, an internal dry stone walled chamber or cist, 5 feet long 3 feet wide, was found. The excavator dug 5-6 feet down into the cist and found nothing.

Atkinson also tells us that there was a tradition that a gallows once stood on or near to the mound.

It’s unfortunate that large cairns close to roads were often used as convenient quarries for road menders and stone wallers. Today, the only trace of the site is a nearby stone carved with the name Gallow How, the stone is one of 25 erected along length of Castleton Rigg to mark the boundary between the Westerdale and Danby estates.

The site is intervisible with other large barrow groups along the Esk Valley margins including Danby Beacon which can be seen on the far right of the image above.

A lorry passing the site of Gallow Howe carrying moorland stone… there’s a metaphor here somewhere.

In her book, An Illustrated Guide to Stone Antiquities on the North Yorkshire Moors, Elizabeth Ogilvie wrote that the gallows was in use until around 1760 and that a gibbet* stood on the howe long after it was last used.

She also wrote that the Hand of Glory, which is now in the Whitby Museum, was alleged to have come from a corpse hanged on Gallow Howe.

Gallows sites were viewed as places of dread, inhabited by the lost souls of those executed, they were often located in liminal places. This site, a gallows built on top of a pagan burial mound, on an estate boundary, on an empty moor would have been seen and understood by everyone travelling to the dale. Two thousand years earlier, the Chambered Cairn may have been located here for similar reasons.

The site maintained its strategic value into the twentieth century. During the Second World War it was used by the Royal Observer Corps. During the Cold War an underground bunker was built on the site to monitor radiation levels during a nuclear attack. The bunker was abandoned in the 1990s and has recently been restored and can be visited on open days

* A gibbet was a cage or set of chains where the body of the hanged person was left to rot as a warning. The body was sometimes covered in tar to preserve it.

Sources

Map extract reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland’

J.C. Atkinson. Traces of our Remote Ancestors The Gentleman’s Magazine Vol. 214. 1863

E. Ogilve. An Illustrated Guide to Stone Antiquities on the North Yorkshire Moors. 1996

Gallows image credit  Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

S. White. Standing Stones and Earthworks on the North Yorkshire Moors.

Castleton Cold War Bunker

Burning Moors

I took a walk onto Danby Low Moor to have a look around the old silica rock quarries. The quarries were active from the late nineteenth century until the mid twentieth century.

The stone was transported from the moor via an incline to a crushing plant in Castleton. The silica-rich stone was used in the manufacture of refractory bricks and foundry moulding sand.

Keepers across the moors were taking advantage of the light southerly winds, I could see the smoke from at least half a dozen moorland fires. As the day progressed more fires were lit. Smoke was blowing from the high moors into the Esk valley via Westerdale and Danby Dale.

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Looking eastwards along Eskdale , a low bar of smoke could be seen running along the coast where the light onshore winds met the stronger offshore wind, pushing the smoke northwards along the coastline

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The smoke from the northern moor tops gradually made its way to the escarpment edge and could be seen dropping down into the Tees valley and East Cleveland. If you were beneath the escarpment you probably wouldn’t notice the smoke, however, it was quite visible from above.

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The periodic burning of the moorlands is a controversial issue with arguments for and against, there is no doubt that it is a destructive process and can have a detrimental effect on the delicate ecosystems of the upland moors and bogs.

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What isn’t often discussed are the human health effects of these burnings. In an attempt to cut pollution and improve air quality, the government is currently legislating to reduce emmisions from all sectors of society but I can’t find any reference to the burning of moorland in the Government’s Clean Air Strategy

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In many ways, the grouse shooting industry seems to be untouched by the modern world. It occurs to me that with the current pandemic, many people are experiencing breathing difficulties, any increase in atmospheric pollutants is not a good thing, especially for those who live in the moorland dales.

Smoke is defined as the gaseous products of burning materials especially of organic origin made visible by the presence of small particles of carbon

It is unlawful to cause emission of smoke which is prejudicial to health or causes a nuisance. [Section 79 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990] The Heather & Grass Burning Code

Lealholm Moor

I took a walk from Danby Beacon to Lealholm Moor to have a look at a Ring Cairn that I had recently read about.

The wide track from the Beacon is made of slag, the slag would probably have been brought from the furnaces of Teesside during the early days of WWII when a large radar installation was built on the moors. Ironstone travelling from Rosedale and the Esk valley down to the furnaces of Teesside with iron-rich slag returning to the moors.

A rainstorm blows into Great Fryup Dale from the high moors

The storm tracks along the Esk valley, the sun briefly follows behind.

At the side of the track a gorse bush has grown a hedge around its base, a prickly windbreak for itself and the moorland sheep

On the rigg the thin moorland soils offer little, this is compounded by the regular burning and draining of the moors, ensuring that very little apart from heather and a few grasses can thrive. In times of increasing climate instability and the loss of native species, the management of grouse moors is coming under increasing pressure to change its ways.  Stanhope White once called the moors ‘a man made desert’.

A moorland cross base and cradle, the remains of Stump Cross. The cross was located at the junction of 2 medieval trackways, Stonegate and Leavergate.

The cross base sits at the foot of Brown Rigg Howe, a Bronze Age Round Barrow located on a small hill. The barrow is intervisible with a number of other prehistoric monuments including mounds on the other side of the Esk Valley.

On top of the barrow is a steel plate, a base plate of a military searchlight, used for guarding the nearby Radar station during WWII.

The Brown Rigg barrow was opened by Canon Atkinson of Danby, he found a cremation burial and a stone axe made of basalt. A number of stone axes have been found locally including one made from Ironstone, it is now in the Whitby Museum.

Rabbits have made the mound their home, their paths revealed where the heather has been burned-off.

I walk on to the next barrow, a gamekeeper cruises by in his large 4×4. The keepers work for the Baron of Danby, Viscount Downe owner of the Dawnay Estate. The Dawnay estate website states that the Barons ancestors came from Aunay in Normandy. I would like to think that a number of my ancestors lie beneath the earth and stone mounds of the moors.

I arrive at the Ring Cairn. As with most surviving North Yorkshire moorland Ring Cairns there is very little to be seen, the 14 meter diameter ring can just be made out in the heather.

What draws me to these places is not necessarily the physical remains of the monuments but the opportunity to walk and observe their viewsheds, seeing how they sit in the landscape and speculate on their relationship with the many other prehistoric monuments of the area. Lines of mounds running across the moors and along the coast, marking the trackways and territories of our ancestors.

intervisibility/alignment – monuments – invasion beacons – radar stations – trackways

axe – ironstone – scoria

A great article on the WWII radar site at Danby Beacon http://liminalwhitby.blogspot.com/2012/12/danby-beacon.html

Heather Burning Article Yorkshire Post March 2020 

A Charm

An ancient charm to counter witchcraft as told by Joseph Ford of Castleton. The charm was undertaken at the Old Bleach Mill in the Esk Valley. The owner believed that a witch had cast a spell upon his cattle.

The Charm

The heart must be taken out of one of the cursed beasts and brought into the house. It was then pierced with nine new pins and the same number of new nails and new needles. These were all embedded in the heart which was then to be over a slow fire made of elder, rowan or ash wood. Great care had to be taken to ensure that the doors were all securely bolted and barred and the windows covered up with thick bed quilts to ensure that no light could be seen from the outside. Extra care had to be taken that no one witnessed the mysterious proceedings.

The heart, hanging from a hook over the fire would then be left to slowly shrivel and contract until the dead hour of night drew near. The lighting and tending of the fire had to be gauged so that the burnt and blackened heart would be shrivelled up and ready to burst into flames and fall to ashes just as the clock struck the midnight hour. At this crucial moment the leader of the weird proceedings had to begin the the final act by reading aloud two verses of a particular psalm from the scriptures. That was the deed done, if undertaken correctly, the curse would be lifted and the cattle would return to health.

Ford also tells us that if you are passing the house of a reputed witch, To shield yourself from her evil spells you should hold your thumb in the palm of your right hand.

Source – Some Reminiscences and Folk Lore of Danby Parish & District. 1953

Map Image – Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Chasing the Solstice Sun

On an overcast Solstice day, I go looking for one of Frank Elgees prehistoric settlement sites in the Commondale Beck valley

Limekilns are few and far between on the northern moors

Tall solitary pines are also a rarity.

Sunlight briefly breaks through, a moment of joy

The sound of the train fills the valley

The settlement site sits on a terrace overlooking the Commondale Beck. Elgee found other sites on located on the same terrace on both sides of the river.

An old hollow way leads to one of the many rocky outcrops on the valley side, a quarry for field walls and butts.

Clouds are moving rapidly westwards across the moors, I catch a glimpse of the sun.

An alignment of grouse butts runs across the moor, tops covered with fresh turfs.

The moor is sodden, there is a possible alignment of standing stones on the moor top

I return to the road, blue skies can be seen through a break in the clouds above the Kildale Gap, I head west.

On the edge of the escarpment I encounter the sun, I drink tea and bask in its warmth.

Ian MacDonald – Quoits Esk Valley 1970’s

Details Cafe Royal Books

Siss Cross

High Thorn under Will’s Hut passing Harlow Bush to the tank road. South passing Robin Hood’s Butts to Sandy Slack Head, west at Elm Ledge crossing Black Beck Swang peat pits to Siss Cross Road.

Swang

..the last earth fort

Podzol

Born waiting to die

Viewshed sunwise – Gerrick Moor – Elm Ledge – Beacon Hill – Glaisdale Rigg – Great Fryup Dale – Heads –  Danby High Moor – Danby Rigg – Ainthorpe Rigg – Danby Dale – Castleton Rigg – Westerdale Moor – Kempswithen – Kildale Moor – Haw Rigg – High Moor – Siss Cross Hill

A Danby Perambulation

I recently found this on my hard drive. I’m not sure of the source.

Perambulation of the Boundaries of the Forest, Dale and Lordship of Danby, August 1792

BEGINNING from the Water of Eske, up Commondale-Beck to Thunder-Bush Beck or Lane; from thence to Bank-Top, through two Inclosures where one William Carter formerly lived, and now or late occupied by John Rickaby; from thence to Tod-How, near Leaden-Well; from thence to White-Cross; from thence along by Sandwath by the Middle of the Common King’s Highway, leading from Stokesley to Whitby; to a Place called Harlot-Busk, otherwise Harlow-Bush, otherwise Harlot-Thorn, otherwise Harlow-Thorn, otherwise High- Thorn; from thence to Water-Dittings; from thence to Beckwith-Stone; from thence to Little-Dinnond; from thence to Great-Dinnond; from thence to the Stone on Frankland-Dyke; from thence to Long-Stone; from thence to Good Goose-Thorne; from thence to Nan-Stone; from thence to the Head of Hardill-Beck, and so into the same Head, going down the said River, toward the South, unto the Lane of Woodall, and further by the same River there, called Woodall-Beck, and by a Ford called Stonegate-Ford, into a Place where the said River falleth into the Water of Eske, going down the said Water unto Glaizedale-Beck, to a Place there called Firris-Bridge, or New-Bridge, (at the low end of Glaizedale;) from thence going up Glaizedale-Beck, towards the South, up to the Upper Head thereof; from thence to the Yoak; from thence to Lamb-Folds; from thence to Holed-Stone; from thence to, Shunner-How; from thence by a Rook of Stones to Loose-How; from thence to White-Cross; from thence to Ralph-Cross; from thence descending the Top or Edge of the Hill, between Danby and Westerdale, by Gallow-How and Crown-End, even as the Rain-Water falleth both Ways, even to the Water of Eske, and so down to the Place where Commondale-Beck meets with the same, where it first began.