| Summary : Embanked stone circle of probable Bronze Age date, surviving as a structure/earthwork, although alternative interpretation as a ring cairn cannot be ruled out. No artefact discoveries can be firmly attributed to the site although claims have been made for a bronze spearhead, a flint arrowhead, and a probable Beaker, all 19th century finds. Scheduled. |
More information : Stone Circle and Mound 350 yards E of Fellfoot Rd and 200 yards SE of Langthwaite Gill Plantation: on a slight mound roughly circular in shape with a flat top (except for a slight rampart on part of the E side); formed at the end of a small spur, are twenty stones of varying heights from surface-level to 1 ft 7 ins, forming a circle with an average diameter of 59 ft. Its careful siting on a levelled platform identifies it as a stone circle rather than remnants of a tumulus. There has apparently been some slight excavation against the western scarp of the mound. About 8 yards N of the stone circle are faint traces of a roughly circular sinking with fainter traces resembling a surrounding bank on part of the circumference.
Condition: Poor. (1)
Sited to SD 63938000. (2)
Surveyed at 1:2500. (3)
Burl lists Casterton as a stone circle of uncertain status 18m. in diameter, possibly with an embankment. He suggests a possible '?Beaker burial', without giving any authority. (4)
SD 639799 Stone circle 200yds (180m) SE of Langthwaite Gill Plantation; scheduled. (5)
The stone circle is discussed by Barnatt, who notes problems of interpretation. The low stones are set on a low platform or bank, and are widely spaced, so the monument may be an embanked stone circle or kerbed ring cairn rather than just a stone circle. Artefacts including a bronze spearhead, a flint arrowhead and a probable beaker may have been found at the site during the 19th century, though they cannot be firmly attributed to it. (6)
The embanked stone circle, discusssed by the above authorities, is visible as earthworks on lidar and air photographs. The feature measures approximately 18m in diameter. The feature is extant on the latest 2012 oblique photography. (7-8)
The stone circle was targeted for follow-on ground investigation in Stage 2 of EH's NAIS Upland Pilot Project (covering parts of the Lakes, Dales & Arnside), and was briefly perambulated.
The monument is much as described by previous authorities. It occupies a low knoll situated within a natural shelf or bench in the hillside, and commands extensive views west and south over the Lune valley. It comprises a penannular bank, circa 16m in internal diameter, with stones arranged every 2-3m around the inner face although there are 'gaps', presumably where stones are either missing or grassed over. There are 17 stones visible, up to circa 0.4m high. The northern arc of the enclosing bank appears slightly cut back, perhaps by the construction of authority 1's 'roughly circular sinking' (now monument 1575385). The modern field in which the monument stands has been improved, presumably in the post-medieval period, by clearance of surface stone into heaps or 'stores' (UID 1574643), although this mostly seems to have affected the more eastern, uphill, area away from the monument.
It is probably an embanked stone circle, although an interpretation as a ring cairn cannot be ruled out.
Not surveyed. (9) |