West Riding Taking the Rails to Redmire a Great Day out at Malham Cove
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5^ q 1! o O) Q i 'S t © .0 I H' ousesfor Locals 'prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding Taking the Rails to Redmire A Great Day Out at Malham Cove • > Aft . Yorkshire Dales Yorkshire Dales Review society^y^-^g% No.90 • Spring 2005 Prehistoric Rock Art ofthe Journal of the Yorkshire Dales Society Editors Colin and Fleur Speakman West Riding Homesfor Locals Its not too often that the National Park Authority allow a young couple to win a foothold on the Members are solidly united over a single issue and housing market ladder without l')eing forced to live win widespread support in the media and from a in penuiy with an outsize mortgage. wide range of local organisations, including the Equally it would be wrong to abandon high Yorkshire Dales Society. development control design standards in a rush for But it has happened over the tricky and "affordable" housing, and the challenge will be to controversial issue of local housing, as we report in consider more high density, cottage-style this issue of the Review, as a result of ground development (as many Dales villages traditionally Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 breaking new policies to confine new housing had) in the larger settlements where there are services such as public transport, shops, .schools. Fig. J: 'Tree ofLife Stone', Snoivcien Cam Washbnm Valley, north of Otiey development largely to building homes for local Fig. 2: 'Elephant 's Eye Rock ', Green Gates. Ilkley Moor Consideration too should be given to developing people, including those of key workers in service Fig. 3: Bakestone Beck Rock.'. Ilkley Moor and other industries so that the Dales" economy can sustainable communities with houses that require survive. less energy to heat through use of such innovative concepts as photo-voltaic roof cells - which can Mysterious carvings on natural rock surfaces are rocks have been recorded so far and others Contrary to popular mythology, this isn't just a replicate traditional roofing materials. Converting found scattered across a number of local moors in continue to come to light, e.g. the "Heygate Stone" National Park issue. One of the least affordable barns in remote locations by pretending a couple what was formerly the West Riding of Yorkshire from my home village of Baildon {Fig 7). and more communities in England for first time buyers is now of farms and a cottage is a "settlement" will on the {Figs 1-3). The designs are based on circular recently, an excellent example from Hartlington, a Ilkley. just outside the National Park, where house other hand do little to resolve real iiousing needs — hollows or 'cups" cut into the rock, often encircled short distance E of Grassington (Fig 8). prices are even higher than in the National Park though it will of course help developers with a by one or more incised 'rings', from which they because of escalating demand from Leeds" sharp eye on the luxury property market for the have taken the name 'cup-and-ring-marked" rocks. 'Cup-and-ring-marked" rocks occur in their many commuters. But in the Dales the problem is kind of outsiders who can sell their suburban semi Association of such cup-and-ring carvings with thousands in several parts of the British Isles, most exacerbated by the demand for second and holiday in Surrey to pay for a retirement dream. other dateable archaeological evidence, in notably in Scotland and Northern England. Sites homes, especially the kind of traditional small, farm particular burials, suggests that they date from the have been recorded in large numbers running into workers' or lead miners" cottages which form the Ensuring that Dales" economy remains healthy and Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age, i.e. circa 2500 BC many hundreds, for example, from Fife. Argyll, lower end of the price range. communities remain socially diverse will depend or even earlier. Familiar examples on Ilkley Moor, Dumfries and Galloway. Northumberland. Durham on creating enough homes for young working The policy stand is a courageous one, supported by such as the 'Swastika Stone" {Fig 4), 'Badger Stone' and Yorkshire. Smaller concentrations are known families. It will require a combination of {Fig 5), 'Hangingstones" and 'Panorama Stone'(F/g from the Peak District and other further flung parts both officers and Authority Members, but is not imagination, political courage and determination to without its pitfalls. Many have been quick to point 6"), have fascinated and puzzled local archaeologists of Scotland such as Orkney and Caithness. find ways around all the inevitable obstacles, for well over a centuiy and may be familiar, but the Examples from the south of England, such as out that interfering with the free market is always a pitfalls and loopholes that will be put in the way. risky process, with losers as well as winners. Whilst fact is that similar carvings have a much wider Cornwall, Dorset and the Cotswolds are widely But the National Park Authority has taken an distribution in the area. Over 650 individual carved scattered and relatively few in number. everyone wants to see "affordable" property, so important step in the right direction, and this is alarming has house-price hyper-inflation become, .something that the Yorkshire Dales Society fully that even if the policy results in a predicted third or supports - even though many of our own members more reduction in hou.se prices for locals over the are among tho.se veiy people fortunate enough to next few years, prices would be still well above the come to live in the National Park in their later amount that any younger person on a typical wage years, or who regularly hire a cottage for a week or or salary in the Dales can afford. more for a summer holiday in the Dales. It will still be important theretf)re to develop Even if the new policies make this more difficult or affordable renting or "shared equity"" schemes in expensive for us to do so. we would all admit that the Dales, such as that being pioneered w'.ith the it is the right price to pay to keep the Dales alive, Skipion Building Society in partnership with the not ju.sl a retreat for the aflluent old and grey. Park .Atilhority and Ciraven Council to build new- properties in the National Park for rent at le.ss than Colin Speakman the market rate. Shared equity .schemes would also Fig. Swastika Stone. W'ooclhoiise Crag. Ilkley Moor 3 the Sun and the Moon, or even the Earth? Were they some form of religious symbol, very much like the cross is for the Christian today? Was this a secret language meant only for the benefit of a select group, such as priests or revealed only to shamans in one of their trances? Or were they a more public form of communication, meant to be seen and understood by the whole community? Were they a map of the area? Of the tribal village? Were the cups and rings meant to stand for houses and the grooves for connecting trackways or encircling stockades? Or do the designs depict the constellations in the sky? Are they maps of where to find water, or metal, or food? Were the cups and Fig. 5: Badger Stone', Green Gates. Ilkley Moor Fig. 6: 'Panorama Stone', opposite St. Matgaret's Church, rings meant to hold blood or water in some form of Fig. 8: Hadlington Pasture. Hartlington. near Ilkley (removedfrom Ilkley moor i)i the late 19th centiuy ritual ceremony or sacrifice? Grassington (discovered hy Ms. Yvonne Luke ofIlkley Considering how much work has been done in the to make wayfor Panorama Reservoir) in 2004) last twenty to thirty years in tracking down cup- to the east, running across Woofa Bank on Burley If, sadly, we can't understand the symbolism and-ring-marked rocks throughout the British Isles, Moor as far as Menston. Ilkley and Burley Moors behind the designs, then perhaps we can learn similar panoramas that are not carved and many it seems unlikely that - apart from further isolated together contain 178 sites, over a quarter of the something from their position in the landscape fine callings that do not command such views and finds - any other major concentrations will now be total for the entire region! Further concentrations instead. In other words, as far as carved rocks are indeed, given the extent of cover in prehistoric found and that the map more or less represents occur on Askwith Moor with 26 sites, Middleton concerned, it is not so much what they are that times, never could have. There again, some are their effective distribution, Moor and Middleton Moor Enclosure with a total of matters as where they are. The designs are of less close to trackways, maybe deliberately so - but As for the local picture, the region in question runs 70 sites, and Weston Moor with 18 sites — though significance than where the caived rocks happen to again a great many are not and take some finding from the Lancashire border near Skipton to as far these are essentially all a continuation of the same be, For example, were they intended as boundary today. What we must remember is that the east as Harrogate. and from Keighley in the south stretch of moorland north of the Wharfe. Of markers, indicating a tribe's agricultural, hunting or landscape that Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age sites to Grassington and Pateley Bridge to the north, particular interest is an outlying isolated domestic territory? Were they pathfinders, way- find themselves in today bears little or no covering some 2500 km2 and 663 carved rocks iFig concentration well to the north near the village of markers, ways of marking viewpoints, of resemblance to the landscape in which they were 9).