 Part of Gardom's Edge enclosure walls within a birch wood - running from upper left to lower right of picture |
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 Part of the walls within the birch wood 
Cairn with upright stone close to enclosure walls |
This site
was first discovered in the 1940's and subsequent investigations and excavation
by the University of Sheffield in the late 1990's have shed some light on it's
possible origins and purpose. Measuring over 600 metres in length and varying
in width between 5 and 10 metres reaching a maximum height of about a metre and
a half, this massive line of boulder and rock delimits a large area of land to
the east of Gardom's Edge itself. It is thought to have formed a seasonal meeting
point or ritual area for the local inhabitants during the Neolithic
and, due to the concentration of later Bronze
Age features in the vicinity (see cairn lower left picture), for some time
later. A theory that the site could have been used as a trading centre is supported
by finds of flint and stone tools while the boulder strewn nature of much of the
interior suggests that it was never a settlement site. Investigations revealed
seven entrances within the walls and evidence that large quantities of the stone
had later been removed to build drystone walls. Despite this stone robbing and
the fact that much of the walls lie within a birch wood covered in bracken, the
site is still impressive in it's sheer size but it remains puzzling as to why
the Neolithic population felt the need to use so much stone to create this monument
and one can only guess at the number of man-hours, or how many years were involved
in it's construction. Beyond the southern end of the birch wood the enclosure
walls have been much removed but some trace remains in a low line of boulders
that extend across the fields. The later Bronze Age carved rock lies just to the east of the walls. |