Notes on Stanbury
D R A F T NOTES ON THE LORDSHIP AND MANOR OF STANBURY Pre-History Evidence of Mesolithic settlement on upland sites in the NW of West Yorkshire along the major watersheds; evidence from Stanbury Moor in the form of three geometric microliths. 1 Bronze Age Stone circle discovered near the site of Walshaw Dean reservoir (SD 967343) on Wadsworth Moor to the SW of Stanbury Moor. The circle, 11 metres in diameter, surrounded a smaller circle, also built of stones. A second circle (SD 96213155) surveyed by the Ordnance Survey in 1962 thought to be a hut circle rather than a ceremonial circle. 2 Numerous additional National Monuments are also situated within the boundaries of the Manor of Stanbury. Anglo-Saxon Place-name: Old English Stan Burh “Stone Fortification”. Editor notes (1961) that “no trace of the fortification remains”. 3 “It is extremely difficult to isolate specific Mercian place-names. Even those containing definite Mercian forms, such as the inflected bury, rather than the uninflected borough from the OE burh (e.g. Stanbury, Dewsbury) may not go back to the 7th century, but may simply be the result of Mercian elements in the local dialect. Moreover, even if a place bears a probable Mercian name, this cannot be taken to indicate that it was actually occupied by Mercians.. It is, therefore, impossible at present to isolate specific Mercian settlements, but the possibility of their existence must be borne in mind in the course of future archaeological work in the county, especially in Agbrigg and Morley wapentakes, where the strongest evidence for Mercian influence is to be found in the place-names.” 4 Manor of Bradford held by Gamel.
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