Beyond the festival

Tours

Saturday 1st June 2024

Tour 1: King Arthur's Round Table / Mayburgh (Meet at King Arthur's Round Table at 10am)

Tour 2: Shap Area Sites (Meet at Shap Village Hall at 1pm)

Led by Emma Watson

Emma has recently conducted excavations on the site of King Arthur's Round Table near Penrith. This remarkable henge monument is one of a cluster of sites including the huge Mayburgh henge, near the confluence of the rivers Eamont and Eden, that were of great significance to people in the Neolithic.

Emma has also examined sites in the Shap area, including the remains of a huge megalithic avenue in and around Shap village itself - one of the most significant prehistoric sites (which incorporated a stone circle, or perhaps two) in England. This tour gives you a unique opportunity to look behind (and in!) the stone walls of the present landscape around Shap to find out what was going on here thousands of years ago - including visting the Goggleby Stone (pictured below).

Sunday 2nd June 2024

Tour 4: Long Meg and her Daughters stone circle

Led by Emma Watson - meet at 3pm at Long Meg

The iconic Long Meg and her Daughters stone circle - one of the largest in Britain - has recently been the focus of a fascinating community excavation and survey campaign under the auspices of Archaeological Services Durham University, led by Paul Frodsham. The details of their discoveries have revolutionised our understanding of this complex site - putting it firmly on the map of important Neolithic monuments in the UK and Ireland.

Tour 3: The Moor Divock site complex

Led by Stan Abbott - author of Ring of Stone Circles

Although not as extensive as the remarkable ceremonial landscape at Shap, Moor Divock, on the fells above Askham and Helton villages SW of Penrith, is home to a remarkable collection of burial cairns, cairn circles and ceremonial avenues, as well as the beautifully located Cockpit stone/cairn circle (pictured below), with its views over Ullswater and back to Knipe Scar stone circle to the east.

The walk is a leisurely five miles or so, starting near the Cop Stone above Helton

and following the line of major and secondary stone avenues towards the Cockpit.

We'll see several burial cairns and ring cairns, one of the former featuring an extant cist (burial chamber). We'll speculate why the Cockpit is so-called, and there'll be an option to go beyond the Cockpit for those who want to see more.

Pre-booked tour delegates in their cars meet at the Co-op Car Park next to Crosthwaite Parish Room in Keswick (CA12 5NN) at 10.30am, or at Askham Village Stores, Askham, 5km south of Penrith (Stores - CA10 2PG) at 11.30am. Bring a packed lunch!

Monday 3rd June

Tour 5 - Meet at the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel car park,

Great Langdale LA22 9JY at 10am

Great Langdale - Copt Howe Neolithic rock art and a journey up Mickleden to view the stunning Early Neolithic stone axe blade production quarry sites on Pike o'Stickle from below

Great Langdale is simply one of the most spectacular of the many valleys radiating from the central fells of the Lake District. Around 6000 years ago it formed the focus for groups seeking stone for axe blades from the Langdale Pikes high above it. Blades were quarried in their thousands here, particularly from Pike o' Stickle's vertiginous cliffs (now a protected area as part of the Lake District National Park World Heritage Site).

But there's more to early Neolithic Langdale than the stone axe quarries. In the late 1990's researchers found Neolithic rock art at the immense Copt Howe boulders lower down the valley. Recent excavations have revealed more about this art - demonstrating beyond doubt that it is Neolithic in origin. We find out all about this and more on this tour to the mountains at the heart of the Lake District.

Tuesday 4th June

Tour 6 - Start times and meet locations tbc Friday 31 May - West Cumbria road trip visiting the important stone circles on Brat's Hill and on Low Longrigg above Eskdale (hill walk, steep ground), and the remote, beautiful site of Swinside stone circle north of Millom (pictured below)

Note: Wednesday 5th June - three talks (1) Castlerigg, (2) Scottish stone circles and (3) Archaeoastronomy - all three starting at 6.30pm with Castlerigg at the Crosthwaite Parish Room

Thursday 6th June

Tour 7 - Meet at the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel car park, Great Langdale LA22 9JY at 10am.

Great Langdale - Copt Howe Neolithic rock art and a journey up Mickleden to view the stunning Early Neolithic stone axe blade production quarry sites on Pike o'Stickle from below

Great Langdale is simply one of the most spectacular of the many valleys radiating from the central fells of the Lake District. Around 6000 years ago it formed the focus for groups seeking stone for axe blades from the Langdale Pikes high above it. Blades were quarried in their thousands here, particularly from Pike o' Stickle's vertiginous cliffs (now a protected area as part of the Lake District National Park World Heritage Site).

But there's more to early Neolithic Langdale than the stone axe quarries. In the late 1990's researchers found Neolithic rock art at the immense Copt Howe boulders lower down the valley. Recent excavations have revealed more about this art - demonstrating beyond doubt that it is Neolithic in origin. We find out all about this and more on this tour to the mountains at the heart of the Lake District.

Friday 7th June

Tour 8 - Latrigg with Johnny Campbell (start 1.30pm Moot Hall Keswick CA12 5JR)

Tour 9 - Castlerigg with Steve Dickinson (start 2pm Crosthwaite Parish Room Keswick CA12 5NN)

Sunday 9th June

Tour 10 - Castlerigg with Steve Dickinson (Meet at Castlerigg at 7am)