Gib Hill

Also known as:
Bunkers Hill and Llewing Low
Nearest town:
Bakewell (8km NE)
OS reference:
SK1571963366
OS sheet:
119
Latitude:
53° 10' 0.66 N
Longitude:
1° 45' 53.44 W

Images

Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by thesweetcheat

Cist capstone on top of the barrow, looking towards Lean Low.

Image credit: A. Brookes (5.8.2022)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 2, 2023
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by thesweetcheat

Cist capstone on top of the barrow, looking towards Arbor Low.

Image credit: A. Brookes (5.8.2022)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 2, 2023
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by spencer

Arbor Low with its barrow, right, seen from the top of Gib Hill

Image credit: Mike Purslow
spencer
spencer May 14, 2019
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by spencer

A perfect, still, blue sky evening, Gib Hill and Arbor Low all to ourselves... time to take in the place and the wonderful panorama, think of times past and passing. The profile of the underlying 6000yr old long barrow may be seen in the foreground. First visit in 32 years. Whoosh....

Image credit: Mike Purslow
spencer
spencer May 14, 2019
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by postman

Only from this and the other side can you see the long cairn underneath the round cairn on top.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Sep 22, 2016
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by postman

Looking over the top of Gib Hill and it’s top stone towards Arbor Low.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Sep 22, 2016
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by postman

Only from this and the other side can you see the long cairn underneath the round cairn on top.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Sep 22, 2016
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by postman

Zoomed at from just below Lean Low. Arbor Low’s henge is to the barrows right.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Oct 28, 2013
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by thesweetcheat

Looking NE. The bank of the henge can be seen on the far left behind.

Image credit: A. Brookes (18.9.2011)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Sep 25, 2011
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by A R Cane

Looking north east with one of the stones at the foot of the barrow.

Image credit: A R Cane
A R Cane
A R Cane Apr 27, 2009
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by A R Cane

View from the top of Gib Hill and the stone on top of it, looking back towards the henge.

Image credit: A R Cane
A R Cane
A R Cane Apr 27, 2009
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by stubob

12/02. From this angle the long/oval barrow that the round barrow sits on is visible.

stubob
stubob Dec 18, 2002
Image of Gib Hill (Long Barrow) by stubob

09/02 There’s 4 of these stones around Gib Hill, John Barnatt suggests they are gateposts.

stubob
stubob Sep 10, 2002

Articles

Gib Hill

C
CARL May 28, 2013

Visited 25.5.13

After leaving the stone circle we headed for the Barrow.
Something no doubt all visitors do.

I didn’t realise until reading the information board that the mound sits on top of a much earlier (2000 years earlier) Long Barrow.
Once it is pointed out you can just about make out some of the contours of the Long Barrow. The Long Barrow being the oldest part of the site.

The weather was beautiful with not a cloud in the sky – as it had been all day.
The views from the top of Gib Hill are extensive.

There are a lot worse final resting places.

Gib Hill

texlahoma
texlahoma Sep 14, 2012

I’m with Jane on this being very reminiscent of Silbury, albeit a very small one, perhaps more Silbaby that Silbury then.

Anyhow, the view across to Arbor Low is great from here and the landscape itself very beautiful.

Access couldn’t be better or easier though, and still the building and farm building do not impose themselves while I sit here dreaming.

Gib Hill

Jane
Jane Apr 15, 2004

What a cool place. Even sitting on the banks of the henge at Arbor Low, surveying all the great monument’s glories, Gib Hill’s little head kept catching the corner of my eye. It has a very graceful shape, and proportionally (height/width/angle of slope) really does remind you of Silbury.

It still has some nice stones lying exposed on it too.

Gib Hill

daveyravey
daveyravey Oct 1, 2003

If the excavations by Bateman were anything near like the drawing it is difficult to believe that the stones or anything else are in situ. A nice landscape to catch the sunset, I recommend that this is your last visit of the day

Gib Hill

fitzcoraldo
fitzcoraldo May 20, 2003

Still smiling we walked over to Gib Hill.
This place..........The henge, the circle, the cove, the avenue, the half-a-henge, it’s just too much for an unsophisticated lad like me.....
I’m still smiling!

Gib Hill

stubob
stubob Dec 20, 2002

Gib Hill is thought to have been built in two stages, an early Bronze Age round barrow sits on top of a neolithic oval barrow. Inside the fence that surrounds the ‘hill’ traces of a ditch can be made out, dug to form the oval barrow.

There are 4 long stones (around 4ft ) that lay round the base of the round barrow that Barnatt suggests to be gateposts, quarried from Arbor Low II.

The stone visible on top of the mound is the capstone to a Bronze Age cist; returned to Gib Hill after serving time as a garden ornament at Bateman’s house. When first returned the cist stood proud of the mound, but vandalism to it, soon saw the cist reburied.

Gib Hill

J
jdellis Nov 17, 2001

What a position to see out the rest of time, and to remind all those left of their mortality. It seems building graveyards on top of hills is not a new idea. [See my notes on Arbor Low also.]

Miscellaneous

Gib Hill
Long Barrow
stubob
stubob Aug 30, 2006

Further to Rhiannon’s notes below the name Gib Hill refers to the local story of the barrow once being a gibbet site, although the name ‘gib’ is an olde english word for mound.
On the other hand the name Bunkers Hill, a name given to a number of features here in the Peak that includes hills, a plantation and a rock shelter, comes from the famous victory or is it defeat never too sure which and we did loose in the end, for the British in the American war of independence at Bunkers Hill.

Miscellaneous

Gib Hill
Long Barrow
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Aug 14, 2006

There is a barrow or tumulus called Bunker’s Hill, otherwise Gib Hill, near Youlgreave, in North Derbyshire. It is mentioned in Murray’s Handbook, but the origin of the name is not given.

I notice the name in old English characters on the one-inch Ordnance map, which I suppose simply indicates that the place is marked by ancient remains. The contents of the barrow are described in Ten Years’ Diggings, by Thos. Bateman.
0. F. H.

From Notes and Queries s6-IV (91): 256. (1881). Online at
nq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/s6-IV/91/256-b.pdf

Miscellaneous

Gib Hill
Long Barrow
B
BrigantesNation Aug 22, 2003

“Gib Hill, adjacent to Arbour Low. The original focus for ceremonial activity at Arbour Low, high on a ridgetop south of Monyash, was not at the large henge monument, but here at this mound. Carefull examination of this mounds profile shows that it is a long barrow with a large circular mound superimposed at the south western end. The round barrow is Bronze Age in date, one of two built at this time overlying the main ceremonial monuments of the complex. This one contained a burial in a stone cist, placed at the surface of the original mound, which fell through the roof of Bateman’s tunnel when he dug here in the middle of the nineteenth century. In the earlier mound underneath, probably built several centuries before the henge, early nineteenth century excavations appear to have found cremated human bone in layers. ” Peak District, John Barnatt and Ken Smith.

Miscellaneous

Gib Hill
Long Barrow
Kammer
Kammer Jun 8, 2003

In the back of The Silbury Treasure Michael Dames writes that the name ‘Gib Hill’ is modern. Apparently it was called ‘Llewing Low’ in the eighteenth century. Dames’ source is the Derby Archaeological Society Journal (1908 & 1911).

Miscellaneous

Gib Hill
Long Barrow
stubob
stubob Dec 20, 2002

The neolithic oval barrow according to J.Barnatt was probably used symbolically somehow, no burials were found in the mound.

Excavations did show it’s complex construction. Four mounds of red clay are covered by burnt layers of bone, flint and hazel twigs. And then covered with earth and stones.

Topics

A bit of a weird one 5
FourWinds
FourWinds
Jan 2007

Sites within 20km of Gib Hill

Like all websites everywhere, we use cookies.