More information : [NY 355 340]. A possible settlement area consisting of cairns and probable hut circles between Linewath and Stone Ends Farm. One saucer-shaped depression, a possible hut circle, was excavated in 1932, near the Black Beck where it approaches Linewath Farm. It consisted of a sunken pit 5.5 feet in diameter and 3 feet deep with an entrance passage, all of which was lined with stone. No dating evidence. (1) [A - sited NY 3556 3420] (3).
A cairn 200 yards south of the west corner of Linewath wall 13 feet in diameter and 18 feet high was excavated in 1937, with negative results. Traces of burning suggested this was a hut site. A third site on Black Beck excavated 1937 was also thought to be a hut (2). [See AO/63/192/5 - plan]. (1-3)
An alleged hut at NY 3552 3423 (see photograph), surveyed at 1:2500, has subsequently been identified as a potash kiln (see record NY 33 SE 16). It is set in a generally uncleared area of rock outcrop and boulders, and most of the cairns depicted by Barker on her map can be dismissed as small 'build-ups' of scree and turf around outcrops. The exceptions are the excavated 'cairn/hut' at NY 3555 3413, which may be a clearance heap, but is clearly not a hut site, and two cairns at NY 3520 3440 in the same category. Nothing resembling the third 'hut' could be found on Black Beck. (4)
NY 355 340. Black Beck. Listed under Bronze Age extensive settlements by Challis and Harding. (5)
The site was surveyed at 1:1000 scale in 1986 by the Cumbria and Lancashire Archaeological Unit as part of the Lake District National Park Survey, and classed by them as two discrete sites. The first, at NY 352 344 (GCE), comprises two round cairns situated on top of a slight rise in an area of otherwise fairly flat ground; the second, at NY 354 341 (GCE), consists of three possible round cairns, situated close to two disused mine tips - which may therefore result from mining activity. (6)
Black Beck. NY 330 340 (sic). Barker's 'hut' is listed by Kinnes as a Neolithic round cairn with a chamber-with-passage defined by battered walls facing cairn material. This feature has been identified as a potash kiln and is now recorded separately in NY 33 SE 16.
(7)
NY 3522 3436: A Bronze Age round cairn located on a highpoint of land 390 metres west of Linewath. The mound is oval shaped measuring 15 metres in diameter at its widest and 0.9 metres in height. Scheduled.(8)
The two round cairns centred at NY 352 343 and a group of four cairns centred at NY 354 341, described by authorities 6 & 8 were identified. Some of the cairns in the latter group may be prehistoric clearance cairns or associated with the post medieval mining in this area.
(9-10)
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