High Park, Cowan Bridge, Lancashire

ry HIGH PARK, COWAN BRIDGBO LANCASHIRE Peter lles Over the summer of 1997 the Royal Commission on the Historic Monu:nents of England carried out an analyticai field survey of the archaeology of High Park, above Cowan Bridge, Lancashire. The site lies in the very north-east of the county bordering both Cumbria and Yorkshire, on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales. The survey was undertaken at the request of Lancashire County Council, in order to identiff and record the surviving, visible, above ground archaeology of the area. Before the present investigations started, what was previously known of the archaeology of this area was derived chiefly from a survey conducted by R.A.C. Lowndes between 1960-l (Lowndes 1963). Lowndes identified five large Bronze Age burial mounds or tumuli (labelled TI to T5 on his accompanying plan), plus six settlement complexes (abelled A to F) sr.urounded by a system of 'Celtic' fields. On the evidence of pottery recovered from a small excavation of one of the settlements (Lowndes 1964) he suggested these and the fields were all Romano British in date. The RCHME survey has shown that the landscape is in fact much more complex and extensive than previously thought. It is now possible to say that humans have been living on and farming these hill sides - rather than simply burying their dead here - since the Bronze Age. Much of this activity, particularly on the lower slopes, has been masked or destroyed by later activity, but a type of field pattern typical of the later Bronze Age does sunrive in the north-east of the survey area, characterised by a mosaic of small plots and fields cleared out of stony ground, with the stone deposited into small caims or piled along plot edges. Sometimes these plot boundaries are also marked by lynchets. There is evidence that the Bronze Age farmers were also living near their fields: slight semi circular platforms cut back into the hillside and with stone piled up around their edges are likely to be stances for small timber roundhouses. A number of these stances may be seen immediately east of the modern track that runs north towards the highest of the burial mounds, TI. A second area of probable later Bronze Age settlement can be seen south of Eller beck between settlements C and E. Of the burial mounds, four run in a straight line down the ridge between Leck beck and Eller Beck, and are substantially bigger than the others. These cairns (labelled T1-T3 and T5 by Lowndes) appear to be multi phase, apparently being bowl-shaped cairns erected on circular kerbed platforms and may well be Neolithic in origin. ll o \'r x% \."t r- r) f>tlD J,#,VYl- t ^t--- Tl ..---D rt '> = -\-' \ rut# S -- -\ r-tr- \;{bi( ^-xJ"Yr.^'? )\.' Sketch plot of major archaeological features \ \.'l1'#,, identifield to 18.7.97 1 rz'016 , I .:'l i :l lI HIGHPARK, COWAN BRIDGE V t)lr:l ::;,'} tl ry *:_ Superimposed on this landscape are a series of parallel linear field boundaries, forming a coaxial field system that has some similarities with those in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, or more distantly with the famous Dartmoor Reaves. This field system, which is probably of the middle Iron Age in origin, does not appezu to have settlement sites associated with it, and it has been suggested that these may well have been further down the valley side, and outside the survey area. The majority of the settlement sites identified by Lowndes, and some of the newly identified settlements, lie on top of this coaxial field system, and are thus likely to be of late kon Age or Romano-British date - Lowndes' limited excavation of site C revealed a few sherds of Romano-British pottery. There is a series of trackways linking these settlements, which are generally visible as hollow ways, but there are few obvious "newu field boundaries associated with them. This perhaps suggests that the earlier coarial system was still in use, or that there was no need for formal land divisions - some form of supervised grazing perhaps occurring. The next phase of earthworks include a number of alterations to the earlier settlements, but also some curvilinear fields and two further settlements. One of these settlements, on the eastem side of the survey area, contains a long rectangular house platform and a series of three frelds running down the hillside. This settlement has been compared with Viking age sites elsewhere in the north west, and it is possible that it dates to the eighth or ninth century. Other late features include a series of nanow hollow ways or packfiorse trails which appear to lead from the valley over the fell to Dentdale, and a series of ditched field boundaries by the plantations on the western side of the survey area. There is also a probable post medieval farmstead or shieling located south of the hexagonal plantation, this site is relatively modern but is still overlain by the current field boundaries, and may be of l7th.-18*t. century date. Ribliography Edgerton Lea Consultancy (1997) High Park, Leck Fell,: Documentary Study, (Unpub. report for LCC). Fleming, A. (1988), The Dartmoor Reaves .l Fleming, A. (1994), Swar and Erechwyd: Early medieval polities 'Swadal, in Upper Swaledale' Landscape History, 16, 17-30. g Higham, N.J. (1979), 'An aerial survey of the upper Lune valley' in Higham, N J, (ed) The Changing Past' 31-8. Kog, A. (1978) 'Gauber High Pasture, Ribblehead - an interim report' in HaIl, R.A. (ed) Viking Age York and the North, 2l-5. Lowndes, R.A.C. (1963), 'Celtic fields, farmsteads, and bwial mounds in the Lune valley' Trans Cr:rnberland and Westnorland Antiq and Archaeol Soc, 64,6-13. Lowndes, R.A.C. (1964),'Excavation of a Romano-British farmstead at Eller Beck' Trans Cumberland and Westnorland Antiq and Archaeol Soc, 67,35-47. RCHME (1998), High Park, Lancashire, and Cow Close, Cumbria. An archaeological survey report (Jecock, M, RCHME Archive report). Winchester, A.J.L, (1984) 'Shielings in Upper Eskdale' Trans Cumberland and Westnorland Antiq and Archaeol Soc, 84,267-8. lrl 13.

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