Todmorden (Blackheath) |
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| District: Yorkshire
(West) Ordnance Survey map reference: SD 943253. Landranger map number: 103. Latitude: degrees. Longitude: degrees. Architecture: Embanked stone circle.. Length of the major axis: 27.4 metres. Length of the minor axis: 27.4 metres. Height of the highest stone: metres. Shape: Circle. Number of stones in the circle originally: . Number of stones in the circle now: . Impression of the site (10 amazing, 1 limp): 0 Burl rating of the circle: 3 (Ruined but recognisable ). Thom reference for the circle: -. Astronomical alignments from this circle: -. Excavations undertaken at this circle: 1898. Details of any finds at this circle: Pennine urns, pygmy cup, faience beads. This circle is not in state care. Access to the circle: The position of this site lies within the realms of a golf above the town of Todmorden, half way down the sixth fairway. Description: Although this site is listed in Aubrey Burl's Stone Circles of the British Isles, it is not actually a stone circle. A number of stones were scattered around the outer edge of the site, but until recently it's purpose was unclear. It was known locally as the Frying Pan circle, simply because of its shape. Excavations in 1898 found human remains and it has now been identified as a flat barrow with a raised bank delineating it. It appears to have served as a funerary site.Below is an extract supplied by Paul Bennett from his book 'The Old Stones of Elmet' and is reproduced here with his kind permission. Site 14: Blackheath Circle, Todmorden SD 9433 2545 Not strictly a stone circle, but as Aubrey Burl (1976) includes the place in his authoritative work on British stone circles, it necessitates inclusion. One of several folk-names given to the site is the “Frying Pan Circle” which, like its namesake at Morley, is an etymological curiosity. The only thing that instantly comes to mind is the physical appearance of the place: flat, circular, with raised edges surrounding it, not unlike a frying pan. Another early title of the place was “Roman Barrow”—alluding to the local belief of its antiquity from that period. The archaic West Yorkshire game of Knurr and Spell used to be played inside this circle. This is a game played with a wooden ball (the knurr) which is released by spring from a small brass cup at the end of a tongue of steel (the spell). When the player touches the spring the ball flies in the air and is struck with a bat. Quite why they chose this place is unknown. It was accurately described for the first time by Robert Law (1898) in the Halifax Naturalist; but a most eloquent detail of the site was given several years later by J. Lawson Russell (1906) who, even then, told that it had been “cut into again and again by deep plough ruts, marked out by tufts and hummocks of varying height.” The first detailed excavation was done on July 7, 1898, when the site was examined in quadrants and turf cut accordingly. “The diameter of the circle was 100ft (30.5m), i.e. measuring ridge to ridge, from north to south,” Russell told us. Several urns in upright positions, between 18 and 24 inches tall, were found near the centre, just beneath the surface. At the very centre stood another urn, “surrounded at a radius of 2ft by a ring of deposits. . . . At a distance of about 10ft from the centre another series of deposits was radially arranged, but all to the east side of the north-south centre line.” Certain parts of the northern portion of the circle were extensively covered in two inches of charcoal. Other remains were found scattering different parts of the circle, but perhaps most interestingly, “curious cairns of stones had been placed just inside the vallum and these, we soon discovered, accurately marked the cardinal points—N, S, E and W—the most curious of these cairns being that which lay exactly south. The stones here were in the form of a semi-circle, having an armchair-like arrangement in the middle, the back of the chair looking due south, i.e. by the sun at midday.* Portions of an urn were in this cairn. “Many of the stones in the other cairns lay in groups of three pointing in one direction. Some of the groups looked as if they had been upright at one time and (been) thrown down.” One of the stones in the western cairn was incised with a single line which the excavators thought was man-made. “At the western point . . . stones lay in an imbricated fashion . . . placed in two rows about 2.5 feet apart, five in one row, four in the other. A large flat stone lay near, and by it one which was probably the fifth of the second row. Between these rows of stone, and all around them, lay great quantities of what looked like . . . baked clay or disintegrated pottery. In the southwest quadrant lay an incomplete ring of stones.” Russell found this ring of stones intriguing and inferred it to have had some death-ritual element. There were a number of large stones set around the edge of the circle, some of which were still in situ in 1898. This led subsequent archaeologists to think the site was originally a stone circle. It may well have been, but I’m sure the excavators of the period would have made such allusions. Certainly they thought it had some ritual import. How can we disagree!? The information on this site was supplied to me by Paul Bennett & Duncan Thomas; kind regards to both. |
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| This photograph of the
site at Todmorden (Blackheath) was sent to me by Duncan Thomas and shows
the barrow on the golf course at the left hand side of the picture. |
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| A plan of the Todmorden (Blackheath Barrow) supplied by Paul Bennett and taken from H Ling Roth, The Yorkshire Coiners 1767-1783, and Notes on Old & Prehistoric Halifax (F King & Sons, Hx 1906), pp.307-22. | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Contact me with any queries or information regarding any of the sites in this data base. | ||||||||||||||||||
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