Mound on Worsaw Hill, just outside Downham, Lancs

Hi everyone, I'm new to this site/forum but wondered if anyone knew anything about this hill. It's close to Pendle and the OS Explorer map shows a mound marked at the South East (very steep) top of the hill. I've been up there today, fantastic views and a definite circular, low mound. Has anyone any idea what it is?
Thanks

Hello Anne and welcome to TNA. I know that area fairly well but am not sure where you mean with regard to this round hill or mound. Could you supply us with a Os grid reference, please. And a photo would be quite good. You can put the photo on with your next comment, or if you can't upload the photo please send it to myself or Paulus. It sounds interesting all the same. Do you live in the Downham area ?

Hi, and thanks for your response. It's about a thousand years since O level geography so not sure I remember how to do grid references but here goes. I think it's longtitude 2degrees 21.9' and lat 53degrees 1'.

On the Os Explorer OL41 1:25,000 Forest of Bowland and Ribblesdale map it's 3779 4432.

That (I think) is the co-ordinate for the mound. The footpath leads from west Lane, Downham along the base of Worsaw hill (towards Worston) and then curves around the base of the hill towards Chatburn. There wasn't a footpath up the hill but I went up anyway and the mound is at the steep end of the hill with amazing views. It just has the look of a place where someone important might be buried as it's definitely a "high place". The mound itself is low and almost circular.

I'm finding this TNA site fascinating as I've always been into history but until recently haven't had much time for it. I've got bored of wallking the dog on the same routes all the time so am just recently getting out into the countryside a bit more and like to know about where I'm walking - am trying to walk the odd Roman road or medieval track, etc. (I live near Whalley). Are you local to this area?

I'm afraid the photos were rubbish as it was starting to get a bit misty, was very windy and I was trying to hang on to a labrador who is a bit of a hooligan!

Anyway, hope the extra info helps - look forward to hearing from you.
Cheers
Anne

Hello Anne, I will see what I can find out at those co-ordanates. I know Downham village and the Roman road, but not quite so certain about the Worsaw Hill area. Last year I went on a walk around Downham guided by an author that used to be on TNA but is not on the site now. His name was John Dixon. I might be able to contact him for you and see what he knows, unless you want to contact him as well. I live in Nelson but don't drive so am reliant on a friend to take me to places of interest. My friend used to live in Whalley but recently moved to Preston. Whalley is an interesting village with its ancient crosses and abbey ruins. Best wishes, Ray.

Hi Anne -

The grid-ref for Worsaw Hill is SD 779 433. I'd heard of a tumulus on this conspicuous looking mount sometime back - and the local writer John Dixon said he thought there was one up there aswell. I can't remember if it was Lord Downham who told us there was an old mound up there - but I keep meaning to get over that way & have a look misself. Have you had a look in the reference libraries nearby, in any of the books deatiled the local histories of the villages nearby? (I'd forget the archaeological record though, as they're sadly lacking) If you find owt, and can get any pictures, let us know.

All the best - Paul

Thanks Paul. I'm not sure as I don't know this area very well. Could be anything really. I lack the knowledge for the Downham area. Would have to have a look at it.

Sunbright57 wrote:I'm not sure as I don't know this area very well. Could be anything really. I lack the knowledge for the Downham area. Would have to have a look at it.

I'm in the same boat as you with this one, Ray. I truly aint clued-up with the area. John's the fella for this region I think. Mi mate Paul who lives at Earby has, this very week, just moved over Blackpool way - but he also might know a bit about the place.

Just had a look on the old Google Earth. There is something up on that there Worsaw Hill but don't know whether they be earthworks or just some quarrying feature. Yes, John would surely know.

Hi everyone- thanks for your help and responses on this one - you are a v friendly bunch. Also many thanks for the help with grid references - I will get there in the end - with practice. I think the one I gave with Long/Lat may have been somwehere in the North Sea and, although those prehistoric types were great innovators, I'm not sure even they could have put a burial mound there!

Will try and get up Worsaw Hill again on a less windy day (perhaps without the hooligan dog) and take some decent photos. One thing that did strike me from the view was that it lined up directly with a "cut" in Pendle (probably the Nick). Could this be a point on one of Watkins's "Old Straight Tracks".

It really is a stunning spot - it reminded me a bit of Castlerigg with hills all around (although other than Pendle this is probably the highest point for miles).

Nearby there was an outcrop of rock (whitish in colour) which looked like it might go underground if excavated a bit. Although I've never done any proper archaeology (except from watching Time Team/Pub Dig or reading about ancient sites) I do have a feeling that there's something of interest up there. Interestingly, walking to this hill from Worston (which I did at the weekend), there are a load of earthworks (dykes and raised linear things) - probably just drainage but they looked a bit unusual - perhaps a settlement/field system. Then again - I've no training in any of this so don't know.
All the best
Anne

Anne, if you have difficulty putting your photos on please send them to me by e-mail. Let me know and i'll PM you my e-mail address.

Hi everyone, I was browsing the forum and I've found information about Worwaw hill, posted by Lowergate in July 2011.

Thanks for your help, it appears that it is a burial mound with a cave nearby.

I've cut and pasted the [revious post from Lowergate below:

WORSA HILL BURIAL MOUND,CAVE & SETTLEMENT SITE. SD 779 432

DOWNHAM CAR PARK TO WORSTON

Leave the car park to go up the 1st drive on the R & pass through stile by gate. Follow path on to go through gate. Follow line of RH fence/edge of wood, …

Now the great bulk of Pendle dominates our vision, while over to the right deer secretly mark our passing below Downham Hall.

... through kissing-gate & on to end of wall. Here veer to the L & cross the fields to go through kissing-gate & on to go through next kissing-gate. The path leads us below Worsaw Hill …

I find myself in early autumn high above Sfakia in the village of Anopoli. A culture of hospitable tables, at which one sat in groups of a warm evening to eat cheese and olives, drink cool wine and converse. An open space unrestricted by walls sited below the Lefka Ori looking out over the Libyan Sea. Such a setting liberates the human soul and the conviviality affords the recounting of many a beguiling tale. Fact is here mixed with fantasy, times and places are misstated, legends are born, myths arise.

It is here that I meet with three English fellows, cavers who have spent the last ten days exploring a cave system above Anopoli. The food is good and the krasi (rough red wine) flows as it does when Northerners meet in foreign parts, they hailing from Manchester and Leeds. On gleaning that I reside under the shadow of Pendle, they inform me of an illegal ‘cave dig’ they undertook near the village of Worston below an ancient burial mound, only to be halted in their nocturnal endeavourers by stewards of the Downham Estate. The information I gleaned I now share here:

For permission to view the mound on Worsaw summit ask at the farm.

To view the mound follow RH track up alongside the hill, passing a number of old lead workings to a point where you are above the saddle that links Worsaw Hill & Warren Hill. From here start to climb the hill till you reach the summit.

Here we find a large and very prominent round barrow, possibly of Bronze Age origin, that has so far never been investigated. To the west, just below the barrow is a man-made platform in front of a scar of rock. The scar itself is a filled-in cave entrance, the passage of which is known to go in 20m. and then becomes a water sump.

During the excavation of the cave amounts of course brown earthenware pottery were discovered. When I investigated the site I found it not unlike the ‘Fairy Holes’ Bronze Age cave burial and habitation site above Whitewell in Bowland. The site faces east and is sheltered and hidden in the mouth of the scar. The platform is bounded by a semi-circular revetment of stone, and I visualize a timber and turf-roofed dwelling to have been built against the scar. From what I know the earthenware fragments were not taken from the site when the cavers back-filled their illegal activity.

I have always considered Worsaw Hill to be the ‘navel’ to the ‘head’ of Pendle, a shamanic Altai concept explained to me by Danil Mamyev on a visit to the sacred mountain of Uch-Enmek. To the people of the Altai mountains Uch-Enmek, rising in vertical planes of granite high above the Karakol Valley, represents the ‘woman’s spirit in man’, that rises from the solar-plexus region giving rise to the ‘sacred breath’ - transmutation breathing, a mechanism for helping the lungs transform it’s energies for the betterment of the whole body. Worsaw Hill is the sacred navel, a place of meditation and contemplation upon that which is the embodiment of that that is not apparent.

Return the way you came up to the track above the saddle.

Here notice below on the saddle a rectangular ditched earthwork 16.9m x 9m with an internal platform of 14.5m x 6.3m. Look to the slope leading to the fields of Worsa End Farm to observe numerous ditched pillow-mounds, being not uniform in shape or dispersion. This is the site of a mediaeval rabbit warren that was last used by the Downham Estate during the famine caused by the Napoleonic Wars. The rectangular platform may represent the Warren Keeper’s dwelling. In the field below the ‘warren’ is a quarried cave opening that I take to be an old lead mine.

A Romano-British settlement has been located between Worston and Worsaw End, but its exact location is available only on a ‘need to know’ basis as no formal investigation has yet been undertaken.

The Roman road between Ribcheser and Elslack passes below Worsa Hill on the north side, and it was here that during road works in 1778 a large coin horde was discovered. Some Roman nobleman or Romano-British reeve had deposited 1,000 silver denaru of the Higher Early Empire and a bronze lamp within an earthenware urn. The nine workmen who found the horde divided the coins amongst themselves, but about 350 were recovered and given to the ladies of the manor and a Mr. Robinson. The earliest of the coins were those of Augustus.

The site has a lot in common with the Fairy Holes Cave site above Whitewell. Both sites stand on mineral rich limestone and both are linked to mineral (lead/silver) extraction from an early period. A Romano-British settlement site has been located near to Worsaw Hill but only initial field work has been undertaken.
At the moment the two circular features located above Downham on Stony Bank are under investigation (SD 807 430). It is sad that the Whalley & District Archaeological Group has now wound up - a revival would be nice.
The £50,000 funded Pendle Archaeological Survey over the last few years turned up nothing new and a report is not expected, but it did keep one person in paid employment for two years.

Hello John, nice to see you back on TNA. Its like a breath of fresh air. Take care and best wishes. Ray.

I saw the footprint of the settlement recently and actually thought I'd stumbled onto something. I have an old friend who's "in the trade" (archaeology)and sent him a few pics for his thoughts.
I'd very much like to be kept in the loop on any developments with this & available to help if needed. I was gutted that I wasn't the first to see it, but happy that my A level Archaeology knowledge hadn't left me, I spotted what it is straight away!   

This being my first post, I'd better go and say "Hi!" properly now.

Hi Stu and welcome. Have not been on here much recently as I tend to be on the Facebook group of the same name. When I get my friend to take me to Downham I will be investigating whats up there, and there are some kind of earthworks and a cave, I think. The late author John Dixon was very enthusiastic about Worsaw Hill as you will know, but John never got chance to fully investigate the place. So, its probably best to watch this space as they say. I will put pics on in due course!

Sunbright57 wrote:Hi Stu and welcome. Have not been on here much recently as I tend to be on the Facebook group of the same name. When I get my friend to take me to Downham I will be investigating whats up there, and there are some kind of earthworks and a cave, I think. The late author John Dixon was very enthusiastic about Worsaw Hill as you will know, but John never got chance to fully investigate the place. So, its probably best to watch this space as they say. I will put pics on in due course!

Thanks! Yes it would have been good to have known John Dixon by the sound of things, and I'm in Clitheroe too. I was up the hill over the Easter holidays. There is what I took to be a cave up there, not easily accessible unless you're a potholer, but reading what I have recently I'm wondering whether it's not an old mine which has filled in over the centuries.
In reading up I also discovered that there's the ruins of a Roman signal tower on the hill that the village of Mellor is centred on. Obviously this could have been linked to Ribchester in one direction but where to as a next hill-top in the other direction. Pendle would have been an ordeal to get to unless it was permanently manned and Worsaw Hill is close to the Roman Rd as it follows the Chatburn Rd. No signs of any structures on the hill that I saw. But you can see a small round "barrow"(??) about 10-12ft in diameter at the base of the hill on the Worston side. There are several other possible ditches and works nearby to it, which could possibly have been other workings if it was a mine.
All of the area is owned by Lord Clitheroe, who also owns and lives in Downham. I don't as yet know how easily access is granted.
I do have a few pics already, but if it's being kept quiet from what John Dixon said then maybe it's best not to post them yet.

Incidentally, I don't see it mentioned here, but the farm at the base of the hill is the one that was the scene for the 60's film "Whistle Down The Wind", the hill is seen in a few scenes & some of the kids who were extras in it still live locally.

Yes Stu that's correct Worsaw Hill Farm was used in the film 'Whistle Down The Wind' and what a lovely film it was. The children were so innocent. The little lad says: "Is it Jesus". Downham features quite a bit, as does the cafe at Townley, and I think Burnley Library was shown. Incidently, there is the so-called Roman Stone in the wall close to Downham Hall, near where the Roman road intersects. Two Roman soldiers are "thought" to have been buried beneath it after they were killed by the Brigantes. In more recent times it was moved from the fields opposite to where it lays today.

It's a nice burial mound covered in grass rather than stones. But a bit of a climb up the hill to reach it.

Grid reference SD 7793 4322 Danny if you have a map for this site.