Monday 23 May 2011

Green Howe



We took a walk from Wetherby up to North Deighton via Green Howe last weekend. I have been reading more about barrow culture recently; P.V. Glob's Mound People has been inspiring me in many ways, so it seemed appropriate to go and look at what is possibly the nearest one.

Green Howe is a round barrow 60ft in diameter, although heavily ploughed down. The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal from May 1971 details its excavation over some thirty years; the barrow contained 16 burials from late neolithic to bronze age, mostly children or teenagers. North Deighton is a strange little hamlet, neat to a fault and with a strange quiet for its slightly elevated position over a chalky stretch of land. We found all footpaths blocked, although becoming stranded in a nearby farmyard provided a Marie Celeste-like creepiness rather than the bollocking we were expecting.

Closer to the mound itself, easily spotted from the childrens' playground at the rear of the distinctive and historical row of cottages in North Deighton, we chanced upon a local guy starting up his vintage car. He told us the local farmer was unfriendly, all the locals were pretty unfriendly and we'd have no luck at the farmhouse. We believed him, having read about the landowner's uncompromising attitude prior to our visit in an archaeological survey which mentioned the lack of access and the refusal to preserve the mound from ploughing. Instead, after hearing all about the ghostly disturbances our local and his wife experienced in the locality, we took a wide berth of the farmhouse and skirted the (freshly ploughed!) field in which Green Howe stood. I was able to photograph it, but not very well, and we could only get a rough idea of the character of the mound. I wondered at the time what we'd gained by visiting it, but in retrospect the strangeness of the locale has formed strong images in my mind. The landscape has a kind of foreign quality, the soil is different here and the land has more gentle undulations than the gritstone further west, from down by the Crimple beck this mound helps to form a pregnant hill against the setting sun. The archaeological notes mention the soil reflecting a woodland setting, a prominent mound rising in a clearing of the trees. The notes also mention the existence of a hearth predating even the three primary burials, possibly the mound was built on an even more ancient settlement which was for some reason a significant place for the burial of younger family members.




6 comments:

  1. Could be a 'Bradley'! The Old English derivation of the name comes from 'clearing in a wood' :-)

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  2. I love your blog. You have an excellent turn of phrase and post some lovely pics. I lived in Leeds and York for many years and it's striking to see the places you post about in a fresh light.

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  3. Oh thank you! Thats very wonderful to hear (especially as I recognise your username from TMA! your photos are great!) and I know i'm not exactly covering fresh ground here, so to speak, but I do feel an overwhelming urge to visit and talk about these places. I'd be interested to hear what your favourite places are in Yorkshire?

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  4. Thank you (I think my TMA pics are mostly functional!). I love Blakey Topping (hill and circle) and the Moors generally. We used to go out on the Moors Bus from York in the summer a lot. We also used to go to Castle Howard often and have picnics, I love the pyramid - in fact I once made my best friend a compilation tape called "Journey To The Pyramid" in honour of it. I was at uni in Leeds, so I viewed it more for its record shops than anything (this was years before my Arbor Low epiphany) and it's great to see it afresh.

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  5. ooh yeah blakey topping is awesome, I had a fantastic trip to there and Howden Hill. Must go back at some point, I always meant to try and get a tour of the Fylingdales pyramid too but never got round to emailing them. And theres another pyramid at castle Howard (in pretty wood, allegedly) but I've not seen it. It's supposed to be in a bad way. The Hawksmoor one is lovely! I have a load more pyramid sites to put up, maybe i'll go through my photos at some point...they tend to be quite hard to write about, being memorials to other people. Your experience of them always seems to be a sort of retrospective of the person's life rather than any kind of real personal illumination. The castle Howard one was a bit better as I went with no knowledge of the interior and in strange conditions!

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