The vale of Lyvennet : $b its picturesque peeps and legendary loreBland, John Salkeld
History
The vale of Lyvennet : $b its picturesque peeps and legendary lore
Bland, John Salkeld
Cumbria (England) -- Description and travel
Penhurrock, the highest point by the road leading from Crosby to Orton,
was a large mound of stones, but it has been removed and broken up
for road metal, with the exception of a few boulders of granite. Its
diameter was about twenty yards, having in the centre a cist surrounded
by an irregular circle of stones about eleven yards across; the
boulders are only very small, and have been covered up in the mound.
A quantity of bones was found, some of them of gigantic proportions:
and what is rather curious, in a small cavity on one side were found
a quantity of ashes, remains of the fire by which the bodies had been
consumed. As no account was kept of the deposition of its contents,
in what position the entire skeletons were found, or where the ashes
of those consumed had been placed, we can form no decided opinion
respecting its age; but from its mixed contents it was probably used as
a burial place by different succeeding races.
On Long Scar Pike is a large mound of stones twenty yards in diameter,
and eight or nine feet high. It has been opened, but no account kept.
There is another on How Nook Pike, a little further south; these
are the highest points in the parish of Crosby Ravensworth, and are
positions truly worthy as the resting-places of some ancient chieftains
or warriors, overlooking as they do the vale of Orton, the Lune and
their tributary dales of Bretherdale, Langdale, Wasdale, and the vale
of Birkbeck with its far-famed medicinal spa, backed by the bleak and
rugged peaks of Shap Fells.
On Wicker Street, near the stone circle, is a large irregular oblong
mound, twenty-four yards in length, and another at no great distance,
but small and circular, on the east side of the Roman road. A more
remarkable one is on a limestone cliff overhanging the Lyvennet, in
Crosby Gill; it is an oval, or keel-shaped, ten yards the longer
diameter, and six the less, and about seven feet high.
Robin Hood's Grave is an oblong mound, seven yards by three. It is
situated at the bottom of a narrow rocky dell at the head of Crosby
Gill, where the footpath from Orton to Crosby enters the woods, once
the chase of Sir Lancelot Threlkeld. It is noticed by Mr. Sullivan in
his "Cumberland and Westmorland," but he speaks of two heaps: this is,
however, a mistake, there being only one. Of this mound he says "It was
once customary for every person who went a-nutting in the wood, at the
south end of which this heap is situated, to throw a stone on Robin's
grave, repeating the following rhyme:--
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, here lie thy bones;
Load me with nuts as I load thee with stones."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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