Northern Heaven: April 2010

This wonderful stone is at Washbeck Green, Barningham Moor, in the Tees Valley. Not easy to find and to protect the surface turf has been laid on the stone. If you manage to find the stone you should replace the turf after looking. The cup and ring marking is on Long Meg (mentioned below). What does it all mean ?

There are about fifty prehistoric stone circles in Cumbria, the most famous being Long Meg and Her Daughters (near Penrith), Castlerigg (near Keswick), and Swinside near Broughton -in-Furness. Castlerigg and Swinside are in wonderful settings and Long Meg too has a fine position with the Pennine Fells as a backcloth. Nobody really knows their purpose but they were obviously very special places about 5000 years ago, as they still are. Most probably they were places of worship and where those who made the circles could pay their respects to their dead.

Prehistoric rock art of "cup and ring" carvings exists throughout Northern Britain especially in Northumberland and Durham but is also found in Ireland. A recent book by Paul and Barbara Brown (Prehistoric Rock Art in the Northern Dales) suggests a possible link between the Cumbrian stone circles with the rock art of the sandstone boulders, particularly on Barningham Moor (and surrounding areas) in the Tees Valley. Possibly this was on a routeway via the Stainmore Gap leading to those special places. Many rocks in the area are marked with cups or cups and rings. What do the markings mean ? Perhaps simply an art form and clearly some of the stones are more expertly carved than others. Or is there something else behind the carvings ? We can only guess !

The Barningham Moor setting like the Cumbrian circles is stunning. Obviously the man-made landscape of today would have been different 5000 years ago but the outline of the hills cannot have been much different. The sun would have risen and set in the same way and the seasons would have come and gone. My pictures are from two recent visits to Barningham Moor and a few days in the Lake District. You really have to go to these places to get the feeling of their power.