LAY OF THE LAND

Willey Howe (Willy Howe) – Wold Newton

Willey howe


  Willey Howe is a large round barrow located near the village of Wold Newton, 7 miles to the north west of Bridlington in East Yorkshire.

  In folklore this mound has become connected with a story written down in the 12th century by William Parvus (William of Newburgh) who was Born in Bridlington, and later became an Augustinian monk at Newburgh. The story (translated from the latin original) is worth quoting in full …

In the province of the Deiri, also, not far from the place of my nativity, an extraordinary event occurred, which I have known from my childhood. There is a village, some miles distant from the Eastern Ocean, near which those famous waters, commonly called Gipse, spring from the ground at various sources (not constantly, indeed, but every alternate year), and, forming a considerable current, glide over the low lands into the sea: it is a good sign when these streams are dried up, for their flowing is said unquestionably to portend the disaster of a future scarcity. A certain rustic belonging to the village, going to see his friend, who resided in the neighboring hamlet, was returning, a little intoxicated, late at night; when, behold, he heard, as it were, the voice of singing and reveling on an adjacent hillock, which I have often seen, and which is distant from the village only a few furlongs. Wondering who could be thus disturbing the silence of midnight with noisy mirth, he was anxious to investigate the matter more closely; and perceiving in the side of the hill an open door, he approached, and, looking in, he beheld a house, spacious and lighted up, filled with men and women, who were seated, as it were, at a solemn banquet. One of the attendants, perceiving him standing at the door, offered him a cup: accepting it, he wisely forbore to drink; but, pouring out the contents, and retaining the vessel, he quickly departed. A tumult arose among the company, on account of the stolen cup, and the guests pursued him; but he escaped by the fleetness of his steed, and reached the village with his extraordinary prize.

  Although we would now class this “extraordinary event” as a piece of folklore, it was actually written down as part of the areas history.

Willey howe


  The medieval text does not mention the name of the village, only that it was ‘not far’ from Bridlington, and ‘some miles’ inland from the coast. The ‘hillock’ was a few furlongs (ie. less the a mile) from the village, and the Gypsey Race stream also ran nearby, so this narrows down the location considerably. The original Latin text used the word Tumulo for the mound, which has been translated as ‘hillock’ in the text above, however this word is derived from Tumulus, which is often used to refer to a burial mound or barrow.

Willey Howe
Willey Howe in the Wolds landscape

  The identity of the village and ‘hillock’ remained something of a mystery for the next 700 years, until 1857 when Thomas Wright employed men to dig a trench into the centre of a large tumulus called Willey Howe, near the village of Wold Newton, to the north west of Bridlington. After several days digging into the mound, the scale of the task proved too great, and he decided to call off the dig. However, while Wright was at Willey Howe the local villagers told him several legends connected with the mound, which led him to suggest that this was actually the same barrow described by William of Newburgh 700 years earlier. Wright noted …

“The peasantry now tell us that, one winter’s night, a farmer returning from market heard, much to his astonishment, sounds of mirth and revelry proceed from Willey-hou, where-upon he rode up to the hill to ascertain the cause of this extraordinary occurrence. As he approached, a little dapper man presented himself, with a cup of welcome. The farmer, supposing it to be silver, drank the contents, and setting spurs to his horse rode off with the treasure ; but on his arrival at home, to his great disappointment, he found that it was nothing but base metal.

Willey Howe
image from the notice board at Willy Howe

  Considering the passage of time, this folklore connected with Willey Howe would seem to be a good match for the story written down by William of Newburgh in the 12th century. The location of Wold Newton village and the Willey Howe mound, plus the nearby Gypsey Race stream, do fit the description in the medieval text, although we can not be 100% certain it is the same place . If however this is the same location then it is a rare example of an oral tradition that can be traced back 700 years.

Willey Howe
Willey Howe from the Wold Newton road over the Gypsey Race stream

  It is also interesting to note that the 12th century version of the story does not mention the fairy folk or ‘little people’ within the mound, only that it was “filled with men and women, who were seated, as it were, at a solemn banquet”. The oldest accounts of fairies describe them as being the same size as humans, and that they could walk amongst a crowd of people unrecognised. At other times they had the power to make themselves invisible if they wished to move about unseen. These characteristics, and the connection with ancient burial mounds adds weight to the theory that the fairy folk were originally spirits of the dead.

  It is perhaps no surprise that folklore and legends became attached to Willey Howe, as it is one of the largest round barrows in Britain – standing over 7m high and 40m in diameter. The local villagers also told Thomas Wright that the mound contained a great treasure guarded by a black cat …

“They tell you gravely that years ago some avaricious personage dug into the tumulus in order to gain possession of the treasure it was supposed to contain. At length, after much labour, he came to an immense iron chest, the receptacle of the coveted riches, but the lid was no sooner uncovered than it lifted itself up a little, and out sprang an immense black cat, which seated itself upon the chest, and glowered with eyes of fire upon the insolent intruders. Not daunted by this, after making various ineffectual attempts to move the chest, the digger for treasure fixed to it a strong chain or rope, to which he attached so numerous a team of horses, according to some accounts, or bullocks, according to others, that they reached two and two from the tumulus to North Burton, a distance of full a mile and a half. When all these preparations were completed, the director of these operations gave the order for moving exultingly in the following words—of course addressing his animals :— “ Hep Joan! prow Mark! Whether God will or no, We’ll have this ark.” He had hardly uttered the words when the rope and the traces broke in a hundred places, and the chest of treasure disappeared for ever.

  Even in the mid 1800’s, Wright noted that is was still a common belief that burial mounds contained treasure, but people were afraid to dig it up because it had been placed there under the protection of “fearful dragons, or of still more powerful fairies or demons” Those who were tempted to dig into the mounds tried to protect themselves from these supernatural guardians by using magical incantations and charms. While digging into Willey Howe in the 1850’s Wright noted …

our proceedings excited general alarm among the lower classes, who expected to see some manifestation of vengeance on the part of the beings believed to hold the guard of the tumulus; and few would have ventured out in its neighbourhood after dark.”

Willey Howe

A Fairy mound

  Thomas Wright was also told that anyone running around Willey Howe nine times would then hear the fairies inside the mound. 30 years before Wright’s visit , a “T.C. of Bridlington” wrote a short article about Willy Howe for Hone’s Table Book. Writing in the early 1800’s, T.C. noted that he had often heard the “most preposterous stories” connected with Willey Howe. One of these was an earlier version of the treasure story, where a chest full of gold still lies buried within the mound, and a depression visible in the top of the mound was the result of an attempt to dig up the chest. He also noted that the mound was regarded as a fairy dwelling …

“The inhabitants of the neighbourhood also speak of the place being peopled with fairies, and tell of the many extraordinary feats which this diminutive race has performed. A fairy once told a man, to whom it appears she was particularly attached, if he went to the top of ” Willy-howe” every morning, he would find a guinea ; this information, however, was given under the injunction that he should not make the circumstance known to any other person. For some time he continued his visit, and always successfully ; but at length, like our first parents, he broke the great commandment, and, by taking with him another person, not merely suffered the loss of the usual guinea, but met with a severe punishment from the fairies for his presumption.”

  Although fear of the supernatural seems to have protected the mound for generations, it did not deter Canon Greenwell, who excavated Willey Howe 30 years after Wright’s attempt. Greenwell dug a huge trench through the middle of the mound, leaving it in its current disfigured state. Ironically, for all his digging, Greenwell found nothing significant in the barrow, concluding that it had not been a burial mound, but suggested instead that it was a memorial or cenotaph to some tribal leader.

Willey Howe
Willey Howe split in two by Greenwell’s trench
A sacred mound?

“Many more are the tales which abound here, and which almost seem to have made this a consecrated spot …” (T.C. 1827)

  The lack of burial evidence puzzled Greenwell, leading him to suggest that the mound served another purpose. In other parts of the country the place name ‘Willey’ has been traced back to the Anglo Saxon ‘weoh=leah’ meaning a ‘sacred clearing’ – an area used for a shrine or temple. It is known that the Anglo Scandinavians used mounds and cairns for this purpose, so this may explain the Willey Howe name. As a sacred object, Weoh also referred to an idol or religious image, which in some cases took the form of a carved wooden pillar. Perhaps such a pillar once stood on top of the weoh-leah mound, and when it was finally dug up this left the depression in the top. Such a ‘sacred’ mound may also have served as a ‘Ting howe’ – the Norse Thing or Anglo Saxon moot hill, where regular assemblies were held to settle matters of law, justice, and politics. Each district had such a moot (meeting) hill – often a prominent location where ceremonies and religious rites also took place.

  Was it these later settlers who actually raised this impressive mound in their Weoh-leah? – which might explain the lack of burials? Or did they reuse a much older burial mound, but Greenwell failed to find the internments? He appears to have only dug in the centre of the mound so perhaps the burials were in other parts of the barrow. Wright’s excavation found burnt material in the upper section of the mound, so this may have been the case. Given the numerous other ‘supersized’ Neolithic monuments in this area (Rudston and Duggleby etc.), it seems most likely that Willey Howe is a round barrow from that period.

 End note
On my first visit to Willey Howe i was quite shocked to see the state in which Greenwell left this barrow. A deep trench still cuts the mound in half, along with a large spoil heap tipped on its west side. It suggests that he cared little about the actual monuments themselves, only what he could find inside them before moving on to dig elsewhere. For such an important site in Britain’s ancient heritage it really should be repaired. Who knows, maybe the fairy folk will return to Willey Howe after being so rudely evicted by the barrow diggers.

Willey Howe
Greenwell’s trench
Willey Howe


References
Wright, T. (1861) Essays on Archaeological Subjects – vol 1 (internet Archive)
T.C. (1827) The Table Book, (William Hone) Vol 1
Parvus, W. (William of Newburgh) Historia rerum Anglicarum book 1 Chapter 28

The Lay of the Land

Archive

Blogs and websites

Folklore in the Landscape

Text and images copyright 2025