LAY OF THE LAND
A Gift from the Past
My recent ramblings on the John Cross Rigg moorland (both physically and literally) resulted in an interesting discovery. While taking a walk over the burnt moor in search of ‘the missing Tumuli’ (see this previous post) i came across these two small pieces of worked flint just laying on the old land surface. They had probably lain there for 3000 years or more, so it was quite a thrill to find them, and to think of the person who might have dropped them so long ago. Could they have ever imagined that it would be several thousand years before they would be seen again when i stooped down to pick them up? For them these small tools were every day items, but today they have a greater significance, and can be appreciated as a link to our distant past.
The Death of Robin Hood – 2026 film
For many years i have been curious about Robin Hood’s connection with a number of wells and pot holes in the Yorkshire Dales, so although i would not normally write about a film, my interest in this legendary character led me to watch the recently released ‘The Death of Robin Hood’. Having seen some of the online comments about the film i was not expecting much, but it turned out to be the best film i have seen in a long time. For me at least it felt like the film really captured something of the myth and legend of Britain’s past. Although i could not put my finger on it at the time i kept thinking “this film has real power in it”.
The case of the missing Tumuli – John Cross Rigg
A couple of previous posts have looked at the Old Wife’s Neck standing stone, which stands on the Bronze Age earthworks on John Cross Rigg – an area of moorland 5 miles south of Whitby. The old OS maps show the 780m long earthworks running in an east-west line across the moor, but in addition to this, the maps also mark hundreds of small tumuli on the north and south sides of these ancient banks and ditches. The OS maps record similar groups of tumuli at other prehistoric sites on the North York Moors, and these are usually small piles of stones known as clearance cairns. Previous visits to John Cross Rigg had only noted a few of these cairns, and so it was assumed that the blanket heather was covering most of the other mounds. (The more detailed 25″ OS map from 1893 actually plots around 1300 tumuli in total, with 850 to the north of the earthworks, and 450 on the south side.)
Continue Reading >>The Old Wife’s Neck revisited – John Cross Rigg, Fylingdales
Prologue
In August 2025, a fire in Langdale forest (on the North York Moors) spread onto the nearby moorland called John Cross Rigg, and the whole area burned for several weeks. The land was closed off for months afterwards, and when it was finally safe to visit the area, it was just an expanse of blackened earth. All the heather had been burnt off, and in large areas all the under lying peat had burned away too. Some how the Old Wife’s Neck stone was unscathed, and there was even grass still growing around it, so it seems to have been protected. While the fire was a disaster for the ecology of the moor, it also revealed a mass of archaeology that lay hidden beneath the carpet of heather. Among the features that are now clearly visible are the series of Bronze Age bank and ditch earthworks which extend for over 750m in an east-west alignment across the moor. The Old Wife’s Neck stone sits on the western end of these earthworks, although their original purpose is unclear.
Continue ReadingMore Treasures from Denmark
The previous post highlighted some of the archaeological treasures in the National Museum in Copenhagen, which holds an amazing collection of gold, silver and bronze objects from Denmark’s ancient past. These were just a fraction of the items on display, so here is another selection.
