Cairn: OS Grid Reference – SD 80652 66193
Also Known as:
- Scar Pasture
The scattered heap, looking south
Paul, Danny and I came here via the Feizor village route, zigzagging about, to and fro, seeing the other old sites in the region; but the easier direct way to get here would be from Settle. Walking through Settle, going out of the top end of town, cross the old bridge and take the country-lane on the right, up northwards towards Stackhouse. A mile along the road (shortly before Stackhouse), a footpath on your left veers up diagonally through a small copse of woods. Go up here and out the other side of the trees, the path turns left and up over the fields. Go up here, and over the third wall along the footpath, you’ll see a large overgrown pile of rocks 30 yards in front of you with a large stone laid roughly in its middle. You’re here!
Archaeology & History
This is an excellent though much neglected prehistoric cairn of some considerable proportions, its rocky mass laying half-covered in deep earth and grasses, yet with still a very large section of it open to the elements. The creature is nearly 30 yards across and some 4 yards high — though it’s hard to say with any certainty, where exactly the natural Earth begins and the cairn starts. But from whichever way you look at this large cairn, walking around the overgrown features, you know it’s a big thing — similar in size and nature to the Great Skirtful of Stones on Burley Moor, and the neolithic cairn on Bradley Moor, near Skipton.
Paul & Danny atop o' t' pile
Bear's photo, looking SW
On the modern OS-map there are 2 ancient cairns marked close to each other — and our “Apronful of Stones” is the lower one of the two.
In recent years the site was described briefly in Dixon’s (1991) Journey through Brigantia, but there’s been very little written about the place in modern archaeological surveys. However, a good account was given of the place following a visit here by the legendary Harry Speight (1892) in the latter half of the 19th century. Along with mentioning a number of other prehistoric tombs upon this ridge, Mr Speight told:
“From Settle Bridge you may take the field-path…or the rustic lane to Stackhouse, and where the road divides just beyond Mr Priestley’s pretty house you wind beneath the wood behind Scale House to a gate and stile on the left. Here ascend the field between two large trees, and at the top go over a stile, whence a path leads up the field a good half-mile to a gate which opens into what our remote Celtic ancestors would have reverentially called the ‘Field of the Dead,’ for within this enclosure are traces and remains of human graves which carry us back to the far dim ages of unwritten history. Following the grassy cart-road a short distance you will see on the left a large circular mound thrown up about 30 feet on the south side, and about 10 feet on the north or higher side. There are other mounds of similar and smaller dimensions within the same area, some of which have been examined, but others do not appear to have been disturbed. Many of the barrows or ‘raises’, have at some time or other been carelessly dug into in the hope of finding valuables, and as doubtless in most cases nothing was found but rude chests or coffins, containing bones, these were tossed aside and no record of them deemed worthy of preservation…
“The largest of these existing raises has happily been described by a writer who signs himself ‘W.F.’ in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for 1784 and 1785. Although his account fills several pages, it is obviously defective in many particulars. We are told that the circumference of the base of the mound is 210 feet, and that its height is 9 or 10 yards, and that the casing is composed of stones “so small that a soldier could carry them,” while the inside is made up of earth and stones, some of the latter being “much larger than the external coating.” In form it was circular…and the diameter of the summit was 45 feet. The barrow he tells us was opened many years ago, but some old people in the neighbourhood remember it being entirely complete, and having a very flat top.
“…Upon examining it in its former state the writer discovered several human bones scattered about the rock and soil, among them the palletae of the knee, the vertebrae of the spine, part of the jaw and several teeth. In the centre of the mound was a cavity containing a chest composed of four upright stones and a lid 6 feet 9 inches long and 3 feet broad. The chest was in partitions, in the edges of which were a kind of hole with a rude mould. The writer, under date, Settle, Nov 23rd 1784, next informs us that, “not many weeks ago the curiosity of some of the neighbourhood was excited to investigate this stupendous work of art, and accordingly labourers were hired, when upon searching a day (yet not half the work done) a human skeleton was found, in due proportion, and in a fine state of preservation, excepting the skull and one of the limbs, which were moved out of their place by the workmen’s tools. A small circular piece of ivory, and the tusk of an unknown beast, supposed to be of the hog genus, were also found; but no ashes, urns, coins, or instruments were discovered.”
Other important prehistoric monuments can be found on the grassy limestone plain beyond the Apronful: these include the fascinating Sheep Scar Enclosure just 180 yards (165m) to the north; an associated prehistoric cairn (one of several) 57 yards further northeast; and a delightful, though overgrown cairn circle 325 yards NNW. Other Iron Age and Bronze Age remains can be found elsewhere within this arena.
Folklore
Big stone in t' middle
Harry Speight (1892) told us how the place got its name “from a tradition…that his Satanic Majesty, in haste to complete the bridge bearing his evil name near Kirkby Lonsdale, tripped and his apron-string broke which let drop this immense heap.”
Another tradition told by someone calling themselves just ‘W.F.’ in the Gentleman’s Magazine (1785) said how this giant tomb, “was raised over the body of some of the Danes slain in the general massacre of that nation.”
References:
Dixon, John & Phillip, Journeys through Brigantia - volume 4: Beyond the Hill of Winds – Walks in Upper Ribblesdale, the Three Peaks & Upper Wharfedale, Aussteiger: Barnoldswick 1991.
Speight, Harry, The Craven and Northwest Yorkshire Highlands, Elliott Stock: London 1892.
Links:
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
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