Percy Cross Rigg

The road on Percy Rigg runs from Rosedale Head to Guisborough. The section that runs over Percy Rigg is called Ernaldsti, after Ernald de Percy, Lord of Kildale. On a grim drizzly day I decided to walk the road from its junction with the Kildale – Commondale road to Percy Cross.

Percy Rigg Standing StoneThe surrounding moors are also dotted with standing stones, some are prehistoric, others are estate boundary stones. Ashbee MapThere are the remains of a large prehistoric settlement on the south west slope of Brown Hill. In 1953 Archaeologist Paul Ashbee excavated a number of small cairns and a large round barrow on Brown Hill.  He discovered a rock-cut burial pit beneath the barrow and very little in the cairns, concluding that they were probably clearance cairns.Percy Rigg bench markA number of the earthfast stones beside the road are marked with benchmarks.

Local Archaeologist Roland Close excavated a group of hut circles beside the road. He found two large huts with paved floors, two smaller huts with central hearths and one hut with drainage ditches cutting through the two smaller huts. The main finds were nine saddle querns and some poorly-fired pottery sherds.

R Close plan YAJ 44

Close published his excavation in the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal. In his report he mentioned a permanent spring to the north of the huts, probably the primary source of water for the settlement. 1953 Well Map

On looking through some old maps of the area I noticed that, on the 1950 OS map, a cluster of tumuli had been marked around the spring. If these tumuli were burial mounds it could mean that that spring held some significance, other than a source of water, to the people who lived there in the past.

The spring emerges from the hillside into a man-made stone-lined trough and then flows down to the Codhill Beck. There is a standing stone close to the well, the sides of the stone have been dressed, this is probably an estate boundary stone. Unfortunately the moor above the site is covered in deep heather, I was unable to find the mounds marked on the OS map.

Sources

Yorkshire Archaeological Journal Vol.39 1958 & Vol.44 1972

Old Roads & Pannier Ways in North East Yorkshire. Raymond H Hayes. 1988

Map reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

The Rock Art of the Kerb

In his 1979 book, The Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway & The Isle of Man, Ronald Morris listed one hundred and four theories which have been put forward in all seriousness by Archaeologists and others to explain British Prehistoric Rock Art. Could any of these theories be applied to the mysterious markings that are found on roadside kerbstones?Kerbstone viiBurials, Standing stones, Alignment markers, Astronomy, Re-use in burial, Early prospectors, Early prospecting aids, Belief in after-life, Religious, Magical.Kerbstone iUniform religious & magical significance, Sex, Breasts, Mother goddess, Mother goddess worship, Eyes, Phallic symbols, Fertility symbols – Sperm entering the egg, Fertility rites, Marks of sexual prowess.Kerbstone iiCircumcision ceremony, Sex symbols, Sun symbol, Sun God, Baal, Water divining, Mixing vessels, Quantity measures, Freemasons earliest marks.Kerbstone iiiSacred food & wine holders, Fertility Rites (Indian), Copies of worm casts, Copies of tree rings, Copies of ripples from a stone thrown into a pool of water, Druids, Used by Druids, Blood sacrifice, Code, Water time-signals.Kerbstone viiiClocks, Pictographs or Hieroglyphs, Early writing, Messages from outer space, Megalithic inch, All measured in or founded on megalithic inches, right angled triangles, Equilateral triangles, code, spirals are two-centre half-circles of ellipses.Kerbstone ivDifferent races made them, Bonfire ritual site markers, Search for food, Seed production, Early pilgrimage marks, Dye transfer moulds, Metal moulds, Maps of the countryside, Building plans, Star maps.Kerbstone vEmblems, Tattooists patterns, Decorations, Doodles, An elderly man’s screen, Boundary markers, Route markers, Tribal convention commemorators, Mithras worship, Shields.Kerbstone viGaming tables, Marbles, Annular brooches, Animistic carvings, Primative lamp bases,  Water worship, Cattle worship, Marks of piety, Re-use of long dead superstition, Monuments to the dead.Kerbstone ixNatural, Hidden treasure, Plans for megalithic structures, Plans for laying out mazes, Field ploughing plans, Oath marks, Victory marks, Adders lairs, Knife sharpening marks.Kerbstone xAn early form of music notation, Tuning device, Early astronomers night memoranda, Birth-growth-life & death symbol,  A locked-up force, The stone circle builders carved them, Healing magic, Casts for making bronze, Sea goddess worship, Mirror, Womb symbol, Wells, Child carvings.