Burwains Farm, Thursden - wherefore art the tombs?

Does anyone know anything about the prehistoric tombs that were once in the fields near Burwains Farm, near Catlow, towards Thursden on the NE side of Burnley?

Mr Lowergate - do you know owt about 'em? I've had a look in Bennett's History of Burnley, but he says very little. Any help appreciated!

atb - Paul

Burwains Farm takes its name from some now lost tumulus or other.

Nearby, nestled above Pathole Beck is the whitewashed 17th century farmstead of Ring Stone Hill. Up to around 1850 a large circle of stones stood next to the house, sadly the circle was dismantled when the present barn was built with only the name to give memory to the former monoliths.

What is thought to be a burial mound is sited in a field above the farm at SD 8926 3693. This is in the form of a small mound, 3m. in diameter, on the soulder of the hill to the right of the wall-stile.

The stone below the wall-stile is said to be one from the original Ring Stone Circle.

('Historic Walks around the Pendle Way' J Dixon & B Mann,1990, Aussteiger Publications) - pages 47-49 record all the sites in the area & what is known about them. The book is now out of print but available in Nelson, Colne & Barnoldswic Libraries.

Hi John - I thought you might have a bit of info!

lowergate wrote:Burwains Farm takes its name from some now lost tumulus or other.

Its the place-name that made me look. Do you know the area well? Two fields west of the farm there's a 'ring' mark in aerial shots, and a considerable scattering of lots of small rocks across the field. Looks like a good contender of where the site might once have been? But notice the smaller circular-mark in the field below aswell.



Wot d' y' reckon? Owt? Nowt?

Hmmmm, yes I see what you see.

In my book I 'suggest' that it may be the 'Catlow' refered to in Bede as the area is littered with prehistoric sites & part of the Hameldon Massif network.

I would get on to Peter Isles at Lancs Sites & Monuments - see what he has got

It is over 20 years ago since I looked fully at the area - nothing much of worth has been done since, other than the find of a Roman building in the grounds of the school on Marsden Heights - Over the last year I have looked at Marsden Heights from Padiham Heights above Sabden and it has struck me how singular & prominent the old site of Marsden is, but alas it is time for me to move on in my wanderings (relocating, yurt and all, to Gibraltar Farm in Silverdale - exploring the Lune Valley & Kent Valley in my dotage)leaving the wonderful de-lites of Burnley for others.

Good hunting

John

There is another ringstones 2 miles to the south of Burwains Farm SD 886 330 - this one is a square-type monument - thought by antiquarians to be a 'Pagan Temple'.

Enough to say that all the monuments in this area, and there are many, stand on the Hameldon range of hills

The place-name Hemeldon is a composite of 'nemeton' & 'hamala' giving us 'maimed sanctuary' - the site here has much in common with other 'pagan celtic precincts' (Mellor Hill, above Ribchester, Ashill, Norfolk, etc.,

As I have said before - The Hameldon Massif deserves a close inspection/survey of sites in its own right and a study group should be established to this end - if one does get established they may have full use of my work in this area of which there are copious amounts (others work as well) as I am of to Silverdale.

John

Hi John -

lowergate wrote:There is another ringstones 2 miles to the south of Burwains Farm SD 886 330 - this one is a square-type monument - thought by antiquarians to be a 'Pagan Temple'.

Memory tells me that the squarish-one is post-Roman in date. Some finds there even suggest it may have been medieval. I'll dig out the material if ever you want it.

lowergate wrote:...The Hameldon Massif deserves a close inspection/survey of sites in its own right and a study group should be established to this end - if one does get established they may have full use of my work in this area of which there are copious amounts (others work as well) as I am of to Silverdale.

I've gotta agree there. I did have one helluva bizarre dream about that region a few years ago (lucid-type) where I ended up flying over the landscape, in the middle of the nite, coming across 13 megalithic rings that were intervisible from each other. The odd thing was, I'd not been reading, looking or paying any attention to the region in anyway - it was just one of those exploratory dreams that some of us have from time to time. When I was looking at the region last week, via GoogleEarth, the dream came back quite vividly. Twas curious...

But anyway - less of that bollox!

Talk later - Paul

Just looked at Bennett's HISTORY OF BURNLEY, Vol 1 - he compares it with similar sites near Barnoldswick that evidence of Roman occupation was obtained during excavations in 1939. As to Ringstones itself there is a good site plan & reconstruction in Bennett (pp. 27-30), excavated 1925 & concluded to be of 'Roman' origin.

If you have any refF's to more recent research please let me know.

I too will dig out other notes I have on these sites.

Do we have any member 'active' in the Burnley/Colne area ?

John

There was at one time a stone circle adjacent/close to Burwains Farm to the north-east of Briercliffe. There is nothing there now. The stones were probably robbed away to make walls and other stuff up there. The stones may have stood on a small hill to the south-west of the farm, but don't quote me on that !

Further up the road in the direction of Thursden Valley / Trawden are the earthworks of Burwains Bank, an Iron Age camp or settlement, but called an enclosure on the OS maps. This can be seen from the carpark above Thursden Valley; the rampart is clearly visable where the WW2 concrete pillbox stands just further along going towards Coldwell Activity Centre.

Do you want me to post these ?





cheers Danny

Thanks very much Danny. These are very good aerial views of the site which is the Broadbank Earth Circle, rather than Burwains Farm. I will see if Paul will put them on the site page. Cheers.

cheers any where else ? map ref. I don't mind so long as no one else does, still new here
cheers Danny

Thanks Danny, There was originally a stone circle at Burwains farm, but all trace of that has gone unfortunately. You'd be hard pressed to see anything there today. The confiusion is because Broadbank Earth Circle further up the road is sometimes referred to as 'Burwains Camp'. Cheers.

Hi Ray...I would agree with that. There seems to be a little confusion over the Broadbank `Camp` and the name Burwains, which is quite a way away from Burwains farm itself.
I used to visit Burwains farm quite often up until a couple of years ago when my friend Malc Brynes was living there. Apparently the owner Keith Walton, who has owned the farm for over 20 years said that there had never in his time been a mound of any description on his land. I think that you will find the last photograph behind the house is infact the old quarry.
What is quite interesting is that apparently the guy who built the original house in the 1100s, was a prominent and powerful local figure
that allegedly, or according to the present owner, owned all of what is now Briercliffe and was thus once named Briercliffe House or Hall after its inhabitants the Briercliffes. A couple of hundred yards on is Foulds House which is home to the famous Quaker burial site, now home of Mr Schmitgen. To throw a spanner in the works, maybe its possible that Foulds was part of the `Burwains` estate and that the Foulds house area has maybe always been a sacred burial site in some form or another throughout time, and could possibly have held the burwain or mound somewhere in its grounds.
Another thing to bear in mind I think when tying in other prehistoric sites to this area of Burwains, is that the clough or brook lying inbetween the two houses leads not only down towards Ringstone hill but also the promontory `fort` that has recently been discovered by English Heritage that lies just upstream of the ford at Catlow Bottoms. It is highly possible that at one time a track lay by this area, one that connected Burwains farm with the original Catlow pack horse bridge. From the bottom of the brook that meets Catlow Brook water and just below Ringstone Hill lies this original pack horse bridge, this crossing point probably goes back to the Bronze/ Iron Age. (The bridge further downstream is often percieved to be THE packhorse bridge used by the Romans to get to Castercliffe which is very possible, but the crossing point predating this, the one that lead ultimately towards Ringstone Hill, Waltons (Spire) and `Burwains` Camp via the ridge above. Recent local investigations have revealed that the bridge at the bottom of Burwains is indeed the original one.
This ties up the four ridges from Finsley Gate through Towneley Hall, up to the first ancient ridgeway at the gateway into Worsthorne from Brunshaw Rd through to Worsthorne, Swinden, Extwistle and Monk Hall areas via Extwistle road which is the road from Worsthorne (the second ridge). (This road was re routed hundreds of years ago at Shay lane to its present location near Monkhall veering left then S-bending down towards Roggerham Gate and Hag Gate, thus on to the Sun Inn at the top of Harle Syke). This would at one time have continued down towards Bosdane farm over Thursden brook up towards Inghams farm, then met up with what is now Blackhouse lane and across Halifax road on the third ridgeway, then down Burwains lane between the two farms Foulds and Burwains, crossed the original ancient Catlow bridge at the Holme at Pathole beck and Catlow waters, turning right up the track towards Ringstones Hill, which would and still does lead to the ancient four lane crossing point between the top of Crawshaw lane a few yards up, which lies beside the original 12th century Catlow quarry, then past Ringstone Hill itself and Delves lane where lies the even more ancient Waltons monolith. Just around the corner lies the connection with Burwains farm, none other than Burwains camp, all these now linked by a prehistoric road system that is probably many thousands of years old. At various times in our history this ridgeway track could have connected religious tribes, trade routes, Roman legions and who knows, maybe the many and varied armies that could quite possibly have converged to fight the mighty battle of Brunanburh on our very skyline.
This of course is only an opinion but certainly one that is possible based on our recent new evidence.

Away from the subject slightly. Keith Walton the present owner of Burwains farm told me a story a few years ago. Keith sails his yacht from the Americas every year for two or three months as part of some tax avoidance. One particular year they decided to stop off at a far away island somewhere in the Caribbean. After stopping for a few days they came across this old house that looked similar to their own back home at Burwains only to find that it bore the same name. I cant imagine the amount of surprise they felt when after doing a spot of research, he was told that it was the same guy that that once resided at the present Burwains and named it after his birthplace. Absolutely true I can assure you.

Thank you Viking, that makes for a very interesting theory. You may well be correct in what you say. You seem to know the area quite well. Cheers.

I now see from the aerial photos of Broadbank/Burwains Earth Circle/Enclosure that there are two smaller (connected) circles at the E side of the main circle and, at the S side but quite faint, another medium sized circle. I have looked at these photos before and failed to spot them before. Yes, there has always been some confusion as to the name of this enclosure/earthworks, but generally it is called 'Broadbank' with Burwains being a bit further south towards Briercliffe, although the name 'Burwains' is usually connected as both areas of land are connected.