Percy's Leap (Beanley)

Trip No.100  Entry No.5  Date Added: 26th Sep 2018
Site Type: Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 23rd Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 2 Access 5

Log Text: Percy's Leap, Beanley (associated with Percy's Cross): Labelled ‘Percy’s Leap’ on the OS with a semi-circular enclosure marked against the edge of the road. Having the car pointed in this direction, and curious to see this site, as it sounded related to Percy’s Cross (by the name), we headed up and parked in the small layby by the information/interpretation board.

There is a low stone wall next to the layby and a gate leading into a semi-circular walled enclosure which is heavily littered and not pleasant. Inside the enclosure a two large stones, which look as if they have been dumped there for effect. In fact, these are two glacial erratics. There are two other interpretation boards inside the enclosure.

The first interpretation board inside the enclosure reads: “The Red Rose of Lancaster. For 30 years between 1455 and 1485 the two families of Lancaster and York fought for the Crown of England. Between 1461 and 1464 the North of England was the centre of activity in the Wars of the Roses. Edward IV supported by the Yorkists was on the throne which he had taken away from the weak Henry VI After the Lancastrian defeat in 1461 at Towton in Yorkshire Henry VI and his wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou, fled to Scotland to plan another campaign against Edward. / Sir Ralph Percy third son of the second Earl of Northumberland, changed sides four times in the Wars of the Roses. In Spring 1463 he was in the Lancastrian fold as were his castles at Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh. In 1464 Edward IV decided to seek a truce with Scotland to enable him to take action to crush the Lancastrians to the north. Lord Montague, younger brother of Warwick the Kingmaker, was sent to escort a Scottish mission through Northumberland in safety. / Learning of Lord Montague’s attempts to meet the Scottish mission the Lancastrians tried to ambush the Yorkists in Durham but this failed when Montague was alerted to the threat. Before proceeding further north Montague increased his forces at Newcastle. His path to Scotland was barred here at Hedgeley Moor by the Lancastrian troops of Sir Ralph Percy and the Lords Hungerford and Ros. / At the start of the battle Lords Hungerford and Ros decided to leave the field with their troops. Montague’s and Percy’s troops attacked head on. Sir Ralph Percy is reputed to have charged the Yorkist line at which his horse is said to have leapt and was wounded doing so. Sir Ralph fell soon afterwards and said at his death, “I have saved the bird in my bosom”. It is not known whether his final words meant that he died for his rightful monarch, Henry VI, or whether he had kept the secret of where Henry and Margaret were hiding. / Montague’s troops finished off the remaining Lancastrians quickly. Less than a month later the two armies met at Hexham where the Yorkists won a convincing victory which ended the Wars in the north for the time being. / Legend has it that the two stones in front of you mark the leap of Sir Ralph’s horse at the height of the battle.”

There is no record on HE for this site.

Percy's Cross (Beanley)

Trip No.100  Entry No.4  Date Added: 26th Sep 2018
Site Type: Ancient Cross Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 23rd Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Percy's Cross, near Beanley, Northumberland: We didn’t have enough time to head up the hill behind Old Bewick, as it had gone 5pm, and there was about a mile each way to walk to the first site. Having spotted Percy’s Leap and Percy’s Cross on the OS map, we decided to stop off and look at these instead.

It was difficult to park just off the busy A697, but we found the wide entrance to a farm track opposite the sawmill, on the western side of the road, and walked back to the farmhouse on the opposite side of the road.

We could see the cross from the gate into their garden, but the gate had a huge chain and even larger padlock. Fortunately, we spotted a track into the wood a metre or so to the north of the edge of the garden. Following this for about 100m led us to a gateway into a field being used partly for caravan storage, and this gate gave access to the very overgrown cross which was surrounded by iron railings with very sharp ornamental spikes.

Worth stopping off to see, although I wondered if this, being dated at 15th century, was too late to post on the Portal, although it is classed as a wayside cross, so I've posted it, along with its associated 'Percy's Leap' erratic rock site.

Holy Trinity (Old Bewick)

Trip No.100  Entry No.3  Date Added: 24th Sep 2018
Site Type: Ancient Cross Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 23rd Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: Ancient crosses, Holy Trinity Church, Old Bewick: This is truly a real gem of a church, with great historical notes in a binder in the church. I took these temporarily out of the folder and read out from them as we went round and saw the individual features identified. There was another set of notes, from a talk given in 2017 which I also photographed and will transcribe into my walk journal when time allows.

In some ways, this church is more enigmatic than Escombe Saxon Church, and is smaller. It comprises a nave, a chancel and a semi-circular apse which has been beautifully decorated.

There is so much to look at – original Norman windows. A 14th century effigy. Huge slabs in the west wall. There is what is described as a cross shaft in corner of porch. There is a lovely consecration cross on south pillar of sanctuary. The carvings on north pillar of chancel are particularly nice.

The cross base (?) in the churchyard that I photographed on 13th April 2014 no longer appeared to be there.

St Bartholomew's Church (Whittingham)

Trip No.100  Entry No.1  Date Added: 24th Sep 2018
Site Type: Ancient Cross Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 23rd Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: Ancient Cross, St Bartholomew's Church, Whittingham: [please note: there are steps up to the churchyard and church; there may be wheelchair access which we didn't spot on the day - please check before visiting]. This cross was remarkably easy to spot, as it was sited on the corner of the wall to the south east of the churchyard, right by a parking spot for one car at the base of the steps into the churchyard.

There was an informative church guide, although the language was slightly archaic and we had to re-read several of the passages to ensure we were interpreting these correctly.

The guide reads: “Whittingham [spoken as “Whitingjum”, or “Witnjum”] is a name which has evolved from the Anglo Saxon Hwita-ing-ham, meaning “the home of Hwita’s people”. The present church stands on rising ground which could have been the meeting place of Hwita’s people for their Moots before it became the site of a church.

Our visit was interrupted by two people coming in to prepare for the 4pm service. As they were praying at the altar, it seemed disrespectful to continue taking photographs.

The church guide is very useful in explaining all the features, and I’ve emailed one of the church wardens to see if it’s possible to get hold of a copy of the detailed guide mentioned both in the church and on one of the websites I’ve visited (the Northern Vicar’s blog).

There is still Saxon work to be seen in the tower, with its semi-circular arch and squared, heavy side, dated to 900AD by the ‘long and short’ stone work (as we saw at Heddon on 20th Sept, last week).

There is also a section of Saxon stonework in the north aisle wall, forming what would have been a half-arch which was later filled in, and it thought to be the entrance to a small side chapel in the original church.

The guide goes onto say: “Almost certainly there had been another earlier church built on this site, but its possible form can only be conjectured (see the detailed guide). There is a record of a consecration at 735AD. It is also likely there was a yet earlier church existing at the time of the Synod of 684AD.

The guide also mentions, as one of the ‘curios’ a stone on the aisle walling to the left of the porch, at the wall’s left hand corner. Just to the right of the top of the buttress is a stone bearing two arrows (Norman chevrons). “This could be an inserted fragment from some demolished structure [or are these natural fault lines in the stone?].

We popped across the road to see the still working water fountain, although this is too recent a feature to log on the Portal.

Hawklemass Well (Whittingham)

Trip No.100  Entry No.2  Date Added: 24th Sep 2018
Site Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 23rd Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: Hawklemass Well, Whittingham: From St Bartholomew's Church in Whittingham, we drove round to this site, parking on the verge near the footpath sign to the church, which was quarter of a mile over the hill. Stepping over the stile into the field, there was a boggy patch marked by a substantial post, such as I've seen on a number of other wells, including Robin Hood's Well in Colwell. Sited at the bottom of a slope, it was a natural place to find such a well.

At the hedgerow to the east of the well, but just to the west of the road, there was a small gully or drain coming down alongside the hedgerow, which seemed to form a rectangular pool in the grass near the well. The OS map shows two drains or small streams which meet near this point.

There was no sign of any stone or brick structure to indicate this has been a well basin or trough. There is no record of this well on the modern OS map, neither on HE or Pastscape, or any other local record on the internet - curious.

On such a nice sunny afternoon, this site seemed entirely peaceful and normal - I was disappointed not to meet the Hawklemass Ghost mentioned by The Northern Antiquarian!

Woodhorn Cross

Trip No.97  Entry No.1  Date Added: 23rd Sep 2018
Site Type: Ancient Cross Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 16th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: Woodhorn Church Museum: This church is now deconsecrated and is a museum. It is only open on Bank Holidays and Heritage Days, such as ‘Doors Open Days’. We arrived just before 1pm and they had just arrived to open the church up.

The Woodhorn Cross was easy to find, but asking where the other Norman stones recorded on a notice by the cross, plus the other stones featured on the Corpus, the Friends of the Church who were helping out told us they didn’t know where they were located, but gave us a leaflet about the church.

We found other fragments incorporated into the fabric of the building, plus others under a table at the north side of the sanctuary, plus others under the altar! AS Corpus Woodhorn 02 and 03 appear to be in the main museum nearby.

St Andrew's Church (Heddon on the Wall)

Trip No.99  Entry No.1  Date Added: 23rd Sep 2018
Site Type: Ancient Cross Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 19th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 5 Access 4

Log Text: St Andrew's Church, Heddon on the Wall: The church is no longer open every day, but we were asked to go along to Holy Communion at 10.30am on a Thursday and stay and enjoy the church afterwards. A very kind lady called Ann showed us round (I think she mentioned her husband was the historian), and I got proper photographs of the Anglo Saxon Cross Head in the Sanctuary this time (last time I visited I wasn’t aware this was an old piece, just thought it was an architectural fragment).

There are a number of other really interesting fragments on the west window sill of the meeting room. I really love the way the arches between the nave and chancel and chancel and sanctuary have settled over the years. Wonderful place! Would have loved to have wandered around this church on my own.

Edinburgh Runestone

Trip No.98  Entry No.2  Date Added: 21st Sep 2018
Site Type: Carving Country: Scotland (Midlothian)
Visited: Yes on 18th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: New site of the Edinburgh Runestone (not been moved yet): As we were going to a building near to hear, we thought we’d do a detour to this part of the University.

We wandered around George Square first of all, but only found a modern sculpture called The Dreamer. We then identified 50 George Square (taken from the BBC article about the relocation of the stone), but only spotted a large hole in the middle of a square flower bed, hedged by low privet, around the side of the building. Having walked all around it, we went into check and I asked the security guard at the reception desk. He told us the stone hadn’t yet been moved, but the hole had been dug in preparation. I thanked him and went to take a photograph of the new site.

Grassmarket modern menhir

Trip No.98  Entry No.1  Date Added: 21st Sep 2018
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: Scotland (Midlothian)
Visited: Yes on 18th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: Modern Megalith, Grassmarket, Edinburgh: This stone was on our walk for the afternoon. It took a bit of finding, located behind the bins and underneath the trees. This modern megalith stands under a group of trees on the paved area of Grassmarket. In the time we spent photographing it, no-one else appeared remotely interested, despite the large numbers of tourists in the area.

It has a plaque which reads: “This plaque was unveiled on 3rd of October 1977 by the Rt. Hon. Kenneth Borwick, Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of a reorganisation of Edinburgh Markets authorised by King James III on 3rd of October 1477. The Cattle Market was situated at the western end of the Grassmarket and in King’s Stables Road. This area was then just outside the Burgh.” Underneath this larger plaque is a smaller one which says: “Stone laid by Grassmarket Area Traders Association, 3rd October 1977.”

Ulgham Cross

Trip No.97  Entry No.3  Date Added: 17th Sep 2018
Site Type: Ancient Cross Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 16th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 5

Log Text: Ulgham Cross, Near Ashington, Northumberland: From Newbeggin By The Sea, we headed inland to try and find this cross, which we thought was near the church. In typical Tate fashion, we'd arrived when there was a Sculpture Show at the Church; as they were charging to go in, we declined, and set off to find this cross, which is around 320m WSW of the church of St John The Baptist.

The photographs we'd seen of the cross had black painted iron railings in front of it, and we were temporarily confused as these have now been removed. This cross is located just west of the junction of Ulgham Lane with the B1337, in front of two modern bungalows. With the railings no longer in place, I walked up the four steps and had a look at the back of the cross. It looks as if it’s had a hard life and has numerous holes and weathering. It looked to my untrained eye as if it might have been a repurposed standing stone.

Much to the amusement of the passing traffic, I darted in and out of the road to try and get the best photographs I could, as the sunlight behind the cross was dazzling.

Redhills Rock Art

Trip No.96  Entry No.6  Date Added: 14th Sep 2018
Site Type: Rock Art Country: England (Cumbria)
Visited: Yes on 11th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition -1 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: Sockbridge / Redhills cist, small stone circle and round cairn (now all destroyed): We went to see this site as part of our amateur investigation of the possible Newbeggin Stone Alignment. Whilst the location is glorious, overlooking a steep scarp slope to the River Eamont below, and views to the hills of the North Lakes to the south, nothing can be seen here at all.

Just to the north of the scarp slope, there is a faint, very shallow, sub circular area, with one very broken stone at its edge, now almost buried in nettles. This stone is very unlike any of the others around Newbeggin in shape, almost looking like a mudstone rather than sandstone or limestone. This stone did have veins of quartz running through it, along with a few inclusions.

It was worth coming to this site for the walk and the scenery. We approached using the footpath from Sockbridge village, walking through a field of enormous Friesian cows, then a huge field of recently harvested sileage, then using the footbridge over the River Eamont, and up the hill, veering off to our left after the limestone pavement that ran along the top of the scarp slope.

Kells Well (Newbeggin)

Trip No.96  Entry No.5  Date Added: 13th Sep 2018
Site Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring Country: England (Cumbria)
Visited: Yes on 11th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 1 Access 5

Log Text: Kells Well, Newbeggin: This well is located opposite a house called Rockholme on the OS map, and near the Clickem Inn, just south of the B5288

The farmer from Sycamore View told us about the well, saying it had recently been “done up and claimed for the village” by the villagers. This was more like a glorified rubbish tip – the place was horrible, one of the worst places we’ve stopped at in years.

There was an old pebbled path leading round the well, together with the remains of an old stone structure, now largely covered in weeds and falling down. There was a pool of water to its northern side, and the whole of the central area around the stone structure was boggy and puddled; a small stream ran to a partly culverted ditch just to the north. Horrible. Glad to escape.

Motherby (Cumbria)

Trip No.96  Entry No.4  Date Added: 13th Sep 2018
Site Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring Country: England (Cumbria)
Visited: Yes on 11th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: Well, Motherby, Cumbria: This is a very old village, with very picturesque cottages and farm houses. The well is not recorded on either Pastscape or Historic England.

The ‘wall’ is a strange structure. Following the line of stones up the hill, it ends in what seems to be a building platform and possibly an old quarry. The footpath at the village end of the footpath was closed due to building work, so we couldn’t investigate further.

I have emailed Mark Brennand at Cumbria County Council to see if he has any information. The line of stones follows an old footpath on the 1860 OS map, together with the letter 'T' (troughs?) where the troughs are currently located. No mention of the well.

Newbeggin Stone Row

Trip No.96  Entry No.1  Date Added: 12th Sep 2018
Site Type: Stone Row / Alignment Country: England (Cumbria)
Visited: Yes on 11th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Newbeggin Stone Row: We went along to Newbeggin armed with permission from a number of landowners to walk along their boundary stone walls to look for other possible standing stones. We found a few more, but these looked more like erratics which had been shaped and used in the stone walls. I will document these and send them off to Sandy G for comment.

We got to see the stones outside Sycamore View/House with the farmer, who said the archaeologists said they were probably rubbing stones, although the farmer said they weren't (currently) tall enough even for sheep to rub against. There were certainly no signs of animals having trodden away earth at the base of the stones.

Twizel Standing Stone

Trip No.95  Entry No.6  Date Added: 9th Sep 2018
Site Type: Standing Stone (Menhir) Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 6th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition -1 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Site of possible standing stone, Twizel: The boulder no longer appears to be in the field, although there is a small raised area in the field – as this is England, we couldn’t find anyone to ask permission to walk into the field, so photographed it from the fence near the cottage. For a last stop of the day, a little disappointing, as a standing stone would have 'wrapped things up nicely'.

Norham Cross

Trip No.95  Entry No.5  Date Added: 9th Sep 2018
Site Type: Ancient Cross Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 6th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 5

Log Text: Norham Village Cross: (Before looking at this cross, we stopped off to look at the Victorian Jubilee Fountain just over the border in Scotland, which still has its original pump handle, although this doesn't work). We passed this cross several times today, but with it being immediately next to the children’s playground, there were children sitting on its lower steps, and propping their bicycles against it. When we passed by on the way back from seeing the holy wells at Upsettlington, there was fortunately no children around it, so we stopped to take photographs, much to the amusement of two ladies passing by who stopped to watch. It was nice to see the cross still very much part of village life today.

Whilst the top part of this cross looks Victorian/relatively recent, the steps look much, much older and are very worn.

Nun's Well (Upsettlington)

Trip No.95  Entry No.4  Date Added: 9th Sep 2018
Site Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring Country: Scotland (Scottish Borders)
Visited: Yes on 6th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 4 Access 4

Log Text: Nun's Well, Upsettlington: From St. Mary's Well, walking up the hill to the gate which leasds into the next field, we walked back down hill towards a steam. The well monument can be seen between two large trees, just before a small burn leading westwards into the RiverTweed. The trees on the western bank of the river hid the view of the water, but what a magnificent spot.

I didn’t realise until we got home and brought up the Canmore record that the actual well is hidden by the stone dome, which is outside the monument enclosure.

The monument seems to be built on much older steps, which are held together with a large number of iron staples. These aren’t mentioned in the Canmore record.

St Mary's Well (Upsettlington)

Trip No.95  Entry No.3  Date Added: 9th Sep 2018
Site Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring Country: Scotland (Scottish Borders)
Visited: Yes on 6th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: St Mary's Well, Upsettlington: From Monk’s Well, and in the same field, we walked east-north-east towards this fenced off area of the field. To our left hand side, raised some 0.5m+ above ground level, and seemingly in a perfect circle, was a funny wooded area; closer inspection revealed it was being used as a large, tree-covered feeding station for pheasants/grouse? There was no record on Canmore of this being a cairn or the site of a hillfort.

St Mary’s Well, with its inscription barely legible on the top, reminded me very much of the well houses in Durham City. The structure was very overgrown, although underneath the name of the well, there was still the remains of a metal pipe leading into the well trough below (the latter was hidden by vicious nettles).

The latest visit report recorded by Canmore in 1971 says the well is now dry, but the inscription is still intact.

From here, we walked northwards, uphill, to a gate into the next field which contained Nun’s Well.

Monk's Well (Upsettlington)

Trip No.95  Entry No.2  Date Added: 9th Sep 2018
Site Type: Holy Well or Sacred Spring Country: Scotland (Scottish Borders)
Visited: Yes on 6th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 2 Ambience 3 Access 4

Log Text: Monk's Well, Upsetllington: From St Cuthbert's Church in Norham with its Saxon pillar, we went to Norham Castle (well worth looking round, and free of charge). This was the start of quite a treat - three holy wells in two adjacent fields!

From the castle, we crossed the bridge over the River Tweed, going from England to Scotland, following the B6470 to a left hand turn, by a Victorian water fountain by the side of the crossroads. This turning led to Upsettlington, which seems to have been renamed Ladykirk at some point (all the signs and house names read ‘Ladykirk’ Lodge, etc).

At the cross roads between the houses, at the entrance to the main house, we turned left towards Black Row, the Smithy and East Lodge, parking by the phone box. We let ourselves into the field (gate to the left of the phone box), only to find there were four horses galloping from the far side of the field towards us, and a fence between us and the well. We decided to drive back along the road towards the B6470, where there was another gate into a stock-free field. This field also contained two of the wells and gave access through a gate into the field with Nun’s Well.

There was a large pallet at the point where the grid reference for this well was. Lifting the pallet, a smaller pallet, half buried in the mud beneath, with a man-hole cover underneath. Some 20m to the south east there was a modern man hole cover, demarked from the rest of the field by three stakes placed in a triangle, with a pipe leading down the slope. Which of these is the real well, we weren’t sure. There were a few possibly dressed stones peeping above the turf near the pallet.

Having photographed both possible well sites, it looked as if the ‘staked site’ had possibly been the site for a drinking trough, but there had been so much ground disturbance it was difficult to tell.

St Cuthbert's Church (Norham)

Trip No.95  Entry No.1  Date Added: 9th Sep 2018
Site Type: Ancient Cross Country: England (Northumberland)
Visited: Yes on 6th Sep 2018. My rating: Condition 3 Ambience 5 Access 5

Log Text: Anglo Saxon Pillar, Norham: The journey seemed to take a lot longer than anticipated, and we didn’t arrive here until almost 3pm. At first, keeping the tower of the church in view, we went the wrong way, past the village cross and the first school, then turned round, travelling back along West Street (the B6470), turning down North Way to Church Lane. We spotted the churchyard first; the church is at the bottom of Church Lane, so we ended up parking near the gate at the bottom at NT 89710 47356 and walking up to the south porch along the path.

Andrew thought there were originally 25 stones here, but there are actually only 18, built into a ‘pillar’, with different sides showing, some recorded separately on the Corpus. A few of the fragments have been lost between their finding in 1833 and today, but the Corpus holds some drawings from the 19th century.

After photographing the Saxon pillar, we looked around outside, spotting the musket ball holes where Oliver Cromwell’s army had shooting practice, and looked at the site of the original Saxon church, which is on a mound slightly higher than the modern church.