Bigger/better pics of the Slabs-on-edge at Horse Clough
Image credit: Bruvs
Bruvs
Bigger/better pics of the Slabs-on-edge at Horse Clough
Image credit: Bruvs
Bigger/better pics of the Slabs-on-edge at Horse Clough
Image credit: Bruvs
Here’s Snap’s map. I’ve annotated it with a white arrow to show the exact location of the site [it’s virtually where the two branches of the stream meet – between the streams on either side – and there is a big drop down into the Clough here....]. It seems there were quarries nearby. However, the structures photographed are not on any way down to the Valley [or certainly not the easiest way down as far as I can tell – look at the alternative ways down]. So, what are they and why were they put there.....?
I’ve shown the pics to a Peak District Park archaeologist. On the basis of photos alone, he said it may be Neolithic, “The two slabs certainly could be something. They potentially could be Neolithic but with so little to go on its more of a guess than anything. Definite potential!” and advised a dig around the stones to try to get some further indication.... To give some background detail.
The stone slabs in the pics reminded me of things I’d seen elsewhere in the Peak District and in Brittany too [maybe the heart of a larger monument that has had the other stones stripped away...?]. There are 2 large slabs once set parallel to each other and side-by-side. The one on the left [blue arrow] has been pushed over by the growth of trees and was covered in peat and moss, which I scraped back a little for the pics. The upright one [red arrow] appears to be bedded on sandy stuff, which isn’t seen elsewhere in the peat – with stones jammed around it [see F – the thin ones on top were
jammed between the surrounding stones and the large slab]. There are other cut slabs nearby [lower pics; G, H and elsewhere] that seem to be similar [again covered in peat and moss – partially removed to allow them to be seen and photographed]. Could all this be the last vestiges of some stone monument...? There doesn’t appear to be a quarry anywhere nearby and this is a striking place above the valley which couldn’t be more off the beaten track, fenced off and unfarmed to this day on the hills. You have to cross a bog to get there and it is not near any public right of way. No sensible
adult would ever find it by accident, but I remembered it from my boyhood adventures.... It overlooks 2 streams / waterfalls [I; where one side is shown], and is high above the fork between their meeting, with a long drop into a spectacular wooded chasm below – Horse Clough – near Simmondley, Glossop. There is no real way down the hillside from here with precipices into the valley below on either side. In short, I don’t see why these stones are here..... The Roman Road from Melandra to Buxton passed by within a few dozen yard though.....
Image credit: Bruvs
It’s a fabulous place. The path up to the enclosure was called Pennyunk / Penyonke [Lane] back to the 1300s and likely long before[geograph.org.uk/photo/351089] as this seems to be a pre-English [i.e. Old Welsh] name [it doesn’t make any sense in Old English but does in the language spoken in the Peak until the 7th/8th C]. Pennyunk would have meant something like ‘headland of [the] youth’ in Old Welsh [Pen = top, end, head, headland; Iouanc = youth, youngster]. It’s possible that this was the pre-English, P-Celtic, name for the enclosure. After all, Penbroga [= ‘land’s end’ = Pembroke] goes back to the Iron Age... Cf. the shape of the hill with another ‘penn’; Pendle.
Glossop site? Above Horse Clough: could these slabs be the remains of a megalithic site...? Any input appreciated.
Image credit: Paul Brotherton