The Story of the East Riding of YorkshireBrowne, Horace B. (Horace Baker)
History
The Story of the East Riding of Yorkshire
Browne, Horace B. (Horace Baker)
Yorkshire (England) -- History
Remains of British chariot burials have been discovered at Hesselskew
and Arras, near Market Weighton; at Beverley Westwood; at Danes’ Graves;
and, most recently, at Hunmanby. In all these instances there have been
interred two horses standing in their harness, and in the barrow opened
at Danes’ Graves in 1897 there were _two_ human skeletons, proving that
in this case the charioteer, as well as his chieftain, was buried.
Of course in all these interments the remains of the chariots themselves
have been small, little existing but fragments of the bronze naves and
iron rims of the wheels, and of the bridle bits of the horses. But these
have been sufficient to show that the diameter of the wheels varied from
2 feet 8 inches to 2 feet 11 inches, and that the horses themselves were
of a much smaller breed than those of to-day.
With three, at least, of these chariot burials, were also found remains
of an iron mirror, a thing not found elsewhere. We are accustomed in
these days of motor-cars to make use of mirrors for a knowledge of what
is happening on the road behind the driver, and these remains point to a
similar practice among the charioteers of the Brigantes. Really we are
not, perhaps, so far advanced in the twentieth century as we thought we
were.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] Earthworks at Skipsea Brough. [_C.W. Mason_
]
* * * * *
Further evidence of the Brigantes in the East Riding is to be seen in
the wonderful series of entrenchments that are so noticeable in the Wold
districts. Dikes, double dikes, and treble dikes once covered the whole
of the Wolds, says Mr. Mortimer; in fact, in the area of 75 square miles
which he explored there are 80 miles of earthworks existing to-day.
These consist sometimes of one ditch and one rampart only, but commonly
of three ditches and four ramparts; and in one case, in the
neighbourhood of Huggate, the entrenchment consists of a series of six
parallel ditches and seven ramparts.
By far the most remarkable of these ancient entrenchments is the
so-called ‘Danes’ Dyke,’ which, 2½ miles in length, cut off the rocky
promontory of Flamborough Head, and converted it into an impregnable
fortress 5 square miles in area. In making it, advantage was taken of a
natural ravine—a relic of the Ice Age—which ran down to the south; but
in its northern portion, where the ground was naturally level, a huge
ditch roughly 60 feet wide and 20 feet deep was dug, the soil from this
being thrown up to form a dyke or rampart on its eastern face.
At Skipsea Brough, near Hornsea, may be seen other British earthworks,
consisting of a central mound 70 feet high, having a flat top one acre
in extent, and covering altogether an area of 5 acres, together with a
series of entrenchments forming the segment of a circle. The outer
rampart is half a mile in length. Other much smaller earthworks exist at
the ‘Castle Hill,’ Sutton, and the ‘Giant’s Hill,’ Swine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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