Stoney Raise cairn

Description

Stoney Raise cairn MYD4202 (c) YDNPA, 2023

This large stone cairn of probable Bronze Age date is situated in a highly visible position on Greenber Edge above Wensleydale. The township boundary wall between Thornton Rust and Bainbridge runs over the top of this cairn, making a detour to incorporate this prominent landmark. Charles Fothergill’s diary of his travels in 1805 records that upwards of a thousand loads of stone had been led away from the cairn and that it had been searched for treasure some 50 years earlier. The only finds were a few teeth in a chamber near the base of the mound. It still survives as a high stone mound (up to 2.4 metres), surrounded by a low stone kerb 34.5 metres in diameter. Fothergill may have been exaggerating but there is clear evidence for stone robbing on the Bainbridge side of the boundary wall.

Stoney Raise cairn from the air MYD4202 (c) YDNPA, 2023

Source:

White, Robert (2002) The Yorkshire Dales. A Landscape Through Time. Ilkley: Great Northern Books