Circle-hopping around the country

Press, 18 March 1989, Page 25

Circle-hopping around the country

COLIN BRYANT

is entranced by stone circles and monoliths in Britain

GHILL MOORLAND mist was swirling round the strange, weather-ravaged monolith high above the bleak Yorkshire landscape near Todmorden, England. This was my first sighting of such an ancient stone. It pierced the damp murk like a grotesque phallic symbol. But it left me with such a profound sense of wonderment that I vowed to search as many lesser-known tracts of land as I could for such oddities.

I discovered wayside stone crosses beside a weed-choked, high-level packhorse track in the Bronte country near Haworth. A peculiar, flower-shaped "cross” stands askew in a boggy field near an old Roman road between Burnley and Halifax. A huge stone circle is in wild country near Keswick, in the Lake District. Two circles are just two miles apart in Shropshire. In the depths of Devon, I found a cross so old it was being enveloped by the bole of a centuries-old tree.

“Thou tekk my advice and never meddle with them stones,” advised a dour Yorkshireman I asked about the twisted monolith. "Them’s not fer the likes of us. Them’s fer the witches.” I heard tales of strange gatherings among the frost-shattered boulders, high above the peat moss, where mists enshrouded them in an eerie blanket. Locals had seen the glowing of fires on certain nights, found chicken bones in the ashes next day. No barbecue, they insisted — more like a sacrifice. There was certainly a strange feeling in the vicinity of the weathered relics I discovered, but this was no doubt partly due to the usually exposed and remote areas in which they were found. Also, their extreme age

(more than 4000 years) generates a certain feeling of awe. The more I found out about the menhirs (prehistoric upright stones) and scattered stone circles, the more I wanted to discover.

At first, I thought it would be a simple task just motoring round a few counties in Britain, then striking across remote country on foot to locate them all. But I was in for a shock. There are believed to be some 900 stone circles in Britain, and a huge number of standing stones and ancient crosses.

Stone circles have been variously described as religious monuments, astronomical weather forecasters, focuses of natural energy erected by latter day ecologists, and more recently as places of silence after experiments with ultrasonic sound.

Conversely, the peculiar single standing stones were found to emit a pulsating sound at certain times of the day, probably a connection with the sun.

Many, circles and menhirs were aligned with the Moon, Sun, or stars, but there still remains as much conflict as certainty about the broadly scattered remains.

Although there are so many, it can take patient searching and physical discomfort to find the remains. Most are in inhospitable high country, from the Orkneys in the far north to Cornwall in the south.

There were so many dots on a stone circle location diagram, they looked more like splots from a spray-gun. My eyes started to blur after pinpointing about 200 in the north-east of Scotland, but I noticed the sites started to lessen in the south of England, and were sparser in the east.

It’s a depressing fact that the more popular a relic becomes, the more controlled it is. Spiked metal enclosures like prison gates have been erected around many standing stones, destroying their feeling of isolation and age. When I first glimpsed Stonehenge as a child 40 years ago, it seemed stupendous. When I saw it again more recently, it seemed smaller, desecrated by an overkill of control — an underpass from the thronged car park, commercial crass, litter. More like a holiday outing to Blackpool than a visit to the greatest creation of prehistoric man in Europe.

I took pictures with a telephoto lens since I couldn’t bear the

crowds. By chance, I stumbled across my first standing stone near a centuries-old stone house in Yorkshire, once used by Quakers. There were holes near the top where perhaps a cross had once been the normal configuration. ' Once on the monolith hunt, it is surprising how quickly the eye spots others if you explore the back routes of rural Britain. I soon found a huge, solitary stone, almost as tall as a nearby telegraph pole, and incorporated into a drystone wall near Todmorden, Yorkshire.

It was equally by chance that I found the twin stone pillars of Abel Cross that mark the old,

high moors tracks from Colne to Halifax, high above Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire. Seen on a late winter’s day with patches of snow nestled about the cotton grasses, the stubby shafts with twelfth century stone crosses cut into them were a sombre sight. Later, when a local told me the pillars marked a grave site, I was prepared to believe him. This was emphasised when researching the name of the twin crosses, which was described as “mourning” or “grassy place.” The most likely background is as boundary or track markers to guide monks and other travellers along their indistinct route on

the packhorse track from Whalley Abbey into other regions during the early years of the wool trade. There was also a settlement called Abel Cote in the vicinity.

It is most invigorating exploring these ancient trackways, high above the industrial grime and tall chimneys. Out of season, you can tramp the old “green” roads (often grass with wheel tracks) and bridleways over remote countryside, with only skylarks twittering overhead for company. While . wandering across the barren uplands near an old Roman road that ran from Burnley in Lancashire to Halifax in Yorkshire, I came across a weird, leaning stone, topped by a

flower shape. Up there in the blustery uplands, battered by wicked winds and flurries of snow, it seemed far removed from the drab, terraced houses of Todmorden. Just the odd stone dwelling, wisps of smoke curling up from their chimneys, and the occasional vehicle burbling along the Long Causeway. Packhorses had clomped along this ancient route with killing loads of coal, lime, iron, wool and corn. The strange monolith, ravaged by close on 1400 years of savage winds, drenching rains and extreme temperatures, seemed to epitomise the rigours of the early inhabitants and travellers in this inhospitable moorland.

Not surprising, then, that they were Norsemen, from a land of ice and snow, and this monolith has a Norse flower design. These conquerors came down the Long Causeway from the Yorkshire Dales, seeking fresh places to settle.

Although research shows the design to be Norse, Mount Cross, at Siperden, is said to be a replica of the Paulinus Preaching Cross and is the oldest monument in the region. It is known as a wheelhead cross, even though it is not actually a cross, and supposedly named after the roving preacher who founded churches along the route of the Roman road.

There is no disputing the exposed nature of the area, though. I can recall many years ago traipsing the bleak uplands when the police recovered the body of a reservoir keeper who knew the moors like we know our back gardens. He became lost in a blizzard and perished. There are many reminders of Norse influence in the villages and hamlets of Yorkshire. Those

founded by the conquering Vikings were given names ending in “thwaite," “thorpe” or “by” (Lounthwaite, Dalethorpe). The cascading streams became “forces,” still shown on contemporary maps. The gaunt monoliths or menhirs are strange enough, but it is the great stone circles, high on windswept hilltops, that-seem the most supernatural. Set against a storm-wracked sky, or backdropped by azure blue, scored by an abstract of aircraft vapour trails, the stone circles defy imagination. On Rombold Moor, ' not far from the busy tourist centre of Skipton, you could be in an alien world. There you will discover huge stones, barrows (prehistoric burial mounds) and other signs of where once stood a large settlement. Vessels and human remains have been found at certain sites, and some have contained the remains of cremated bodies. Often the stone circles marked burial sites for individual warriors, as did the raised mounds known as tumuli. Since there are many thousands of tumuli in Britain, an enormous number of warriors must have perished. To appreciate the full impact of the more popular stone circles, it is wise to visit out of season, or at less popular times, such as directly after breakfast, or early evening. In late May, I saw the Castlerigg circle in its full glory with not a soul in sight. The 39 stones, with a 110 ft diameter, were set strangely against a brilliant sky. The bigger stones probably weighed hundreds of tonnes and were a few years ago subjected to some fascinating experiments related to ultrasound. It seemed a world away from the busy Lake District town of Keswick.