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Yorkshire 'Stonehenge'

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Anonymous

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Not sure where to post this but ..
I have recently heard of the Yorkshire stonehenge and wondered if there are other, similar, 'follies' (if that's what it is) in the North of England
Any info, anyone?

The link above is dead, and the website is defunct. Here's the sole surviving photo and the text from the MIA webpage ...
Stone_Circle.gif

In a forest near Masham, North Yorkshire, stands a very bizarre collection of giant stones. As you would also find at the real Stonehenge, these monoliths and trilithons stand in a circle. Other stones form huge tables and alters. There is also a large tomb. It has been known for a long time as the 'Druids Temple'. The main part of the temple is oval in shape, roughly 100 feet long by 50 feet wide. Some stones stand ten feet high. Many of these stones weigh several tons, so putting them into place would have been a massive task. Other stones can be seen scattered over the surrounding moors.

The 'Temple' was erected in about 1820 by one William Danby (1752 -1832) of nearby Swinton Hall, the family seat. Did he intend it to become an attraction to druidical interests? I think not. The main reason is believed to be philanthropic, providing work for unemployed local folk, who would have gone hungry otherwise. He paid them one shilling per day. Danby descended from a family who acquired the lordship of Masham during the reign of Henry VIII. He was a man deeply concerned about local affairs. In 1784 he became High Sheriff of Yorkshire.

William Danby is said to have posed a most unusual task - would any man live as a hermit in the tomb at the 'Temple' for a period of seven years in return for an annuity. Apparently, one man stayed there for almost five years before going slightly mad - spooky!

I don't think there's anything sinister about 'Yorkshire's Stonehenge' I certainly don't get any vibes - good or bad -when I visit. The man had a great love of buildings and architecture, perhaps he just wanted to be different, to build something out of the ordinary. One thing is for sure, he won't be forgotten.
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SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE: https://web.archive.org/web/20021222203615/http://www.stockdill.freeserve.co.uk/stonehenge/

See Also:
Druid's Temple at Ilton, North Yorkshire. 19th Century folly.
https://www.megalithic.co.uk/module...llery&file=index&do=showpic&pid=4138&orderby=
 
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yorkshire stonehenge

Dear Whizzer, I have just had a quick look at your site and will look at it later when I get in from work, but it looks really interesting--I had never heard of the Yorkshire stonehenge!Will post later when I get more time to go through the rest of it,
regards Barbara
 
Time team...

...did a programme in 2001 looking into an 'Archeological Theme Park' at Llygadwy in Wales a collection of pseudo-historical building, which was probably put together in the 19th century though some naughty people in the last 10 years had been also been salting the site with artefacts.

The stories at:
channel4.com/history/timeteam/archive/2001llyg.html#spring
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed (with more elaborate descriptions of the follies) at:
https://web.archive.org/web/2003081...l4.com/history/timeteam/archive/2001llyg.html

In a secluded valley in Wales, what may be a medieval or even Roman trackway leads down to a natural spring. Right in the middle of it is a megalith, a large standing stone, perhaps 3,000 years older than the track. Nearby, there are the remains of what appears to be a Neolithic tomb, and overlooking it what is reputed locally to be a Norman – or maybe Roman – watchtower. Stones in a ruined building on the site have early Christian symbols inscribed on them, leading to speculation that it may have been an early chapel. And in and around the spring itself the landowner has found hundreds of Roman coins, medieval jewellery, blades, buckles, statuettes and a strange collection of weirdly carved stone heads......

....takes us back to the early 19th century. This was when the Rev Thomas Price, a Bardic authority who was into the revival of druidism, came to the local parish, where he was rector from 1825 to 1848. Also good at wood and stone working, Price – or 'Carnhuanawc' as he was called in Bardic circles – was known to have erected a prehistoric cromlech and standing stone in his churchyard. He was also a collector of antiquities and travelled widely in Ireland, Scotland and the continent, meeting and discussing with scholars of the day.

Given the Victorian passion for erecting historical 'follies' – mock 'ruins' and picturesque quasi-historical features – it seems that the 'Norman tower' at least dates from this time. The Rev Price's stoneworking abilities also make him the most likely candidate as the sculptor of the head pillar. And since most of the finds discovered in and around the spring date from his time in the parish or earlier, it seems likely that he had a hand in placing many of them there too.
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The find out more link at the the end of the page is useful too.
 
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Well Whizzer - strangely enough I was looking around the Waterstones bookshop in Middlesbrough today when I noticed a book by my old history teacher from school, Robert Woodhouses 'North Yorkshire Strange But True'. In it was a chapter about the Druid's Temple and other weird follies in the north east!

Synchronicity.

He does mention a number of other strange places in North Yorkshire, including a number of devils' doorways, monuments and holes and even a meteorite strike with a picture of some navvies stood around looking perplexed.

You could win this book at:

Strange but True
 
Thanks, all
I'll be buying the book and hopefully visiting a few sites during the winter: I'll leave Wales until next Spring!
 
Re: Time team...

Timble said:
...did a programme in 2001 looking into an 'Archeological Theme Park' at Llygadwy in Wales a collection of pseudo-historical building, which was probably put together in the 19th century though some naughty people in the last 10 years had been also been salting the site with artefacts.

The stories at:
http://www.channel4.com/history/timeteam/archive/2001llyg.html#spring



The find out more link at the the end of the page is useful too.
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Fascinating!

I'd like to spend a few days wandering around Llygadwy

Any idea if this still exists?
 
More to the point - where is it?
Done a quick mapquest and I can't find it
Routemap, anyone?
 
More dod

A bit off thread, but this case of mistaken archeological identity amused me.

Full story at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1034645,00.html

2,000-year-old carvings dated back to ... 1995

Wednesday September 3, 2003
The Guardian

Blundering archaeologists were red-faced yesterday after "ancient carvings" found on a giant rock turned out to have been made just eight years ago.

The engravings of two intertwined serpents, a dragon and runic symbols on a two-tonne lump of flat-faced granite were spotted in July by holidaymakers on a beach.

Local historians were immediately alerted to the find on one of the rocks imported from Norway in the 1980s to make sea defences at Gorleston near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.

Excited archaeologists from Norfolk county council decided that they could date back 2,000 years.....

But the mystery was solved after the Great Yarmouth Mercury local newspaper reported the "potentially very important discovery". Jobless construction worker Barry Luxton, 50, saw the report and a photograph of the rock and recognised it as one that he had engraved.

He contacted the council to reveal how he had spent three days engraving the designs with a hammer and chisel while he was living in Gorleston.
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BTW I was trying to find out where the Llygadwy place is. The name isn't a place suggesting that it's the name of a farm or estate and that the owners don't want the full address given out.
 
My missus has got an archaeology degree, and she dragged us round Stonehenge, Avebury and all over Wessex this hot summer; a brilliant summer to go on holiday in Engalnd.

She knows all about this druid's temple in Wensleydale- we went past it a bit since, but I couldn't get her to go in. She reckons it's a waste of time.
It seems to be a way off the road, but that doesn't usually stop her.
walk map
OS Map
 
Eburacum45 said:
She knows all about this druid's temple in Wensleydale- we went past it a bit since, but I couldn't get her to go in. She reckons it's a waste of time.
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That's the whole point!
Places I'm looking for will have that 'why the hell did they build this?' factor!
Besides, we almost always find something else of interest when we're not looking
Like surfing the net - I hardly ever end up where I set off to!
 
Did you ever go Whizzer?

If you do go, be careful, there's been some weird goings on there recently...:eek!!!!:


The spot is popular with pagans and goths, as the following from Baroness Masham of Ilton (quoted in Hansard) demonstrates: "A few miles from Masham, on the estate, is a realistic copy of a druid temple, with all the stones, including the sacrificial stone, in the correct positions. One Sunday afternoon, my secretary was going for a walk with a friend when she found a pig's head sitting on the altar, which gave her a terrific shock. It is thought that there has been devil worship there. "On another occasion, I had to leave home early one morning. Just outside Masham, I found a small group of Leeds University students who had spent the night at the druids temple. They were cold and frightened. With the night shadows and the country noises, such as owls hooting, they had fled. As I was going towards Leeds, I gave them a lift. They told me that they had had a terrible experience.
"Another incident at the druid temple was a large gathering of people from Manchester who took over the place for the whole night in order to have a rave. They tore gates off their hinges and broke down trees to make a huge bonfire. The police were called and with the gamekeepers, could only watch at a distance. It was only after a fight had taken place within the group and one of the people had been taken to hospital with severe injuries that the rave subsided. When my nephew visited the site the next day to inspect the damage, he found half-burnt probation orders and such discarded documents."
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...and a colleague who's been said;-

Basically as you say its a folly but its used (and has been in living memory) for black magic rituals etc. There's an extremely unpleasant feel to the place even in broad daylight, and I openly admit that it thoroughly creeps me out. Probably doesn't help that the first time I visited the site there was still dried blood on the altar.
The couple of times I've been there, I've noticed a stillness to the air and also the fact that no birds either fly over or make any sound in the vicinity of the main temple. A couple of the symbols that have been scratched into the circles have been identified as something to do with 'travelling' magic, but a lot of them have yet to be identified.
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The first quote comes from here and has a good pic of the site;-


Peter Crump's Photo
 
I had to go after hearing all the strange stories about the place!

I set off last weekend; a beautiful sunny day...

By the time I drove out of Masham into the hills the clouds had raced in, it became eerily dark and the wind had begun to howl through the forests! Right on cue!

...and here's a pic of the entrance to the 'Temple'...
 
ok! i believe you...(but thousands wont) ;) :D
 
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