The Heysham hog back stone

Digging into the hog back stone I uncovered this interpretation of the various images of the side that I photographed.

The overall form is as a house with a tiled roof supported by four figures, visible only on the hidden side.

On the side you can see we are on the side of light and life. The central figure is Sigurd in his human shape. There are the “Signs of Sigurd,” a tree with nine branches. “Yggdrasil” and birds two resting below it and two flying towards it. In addition to these birds there are three other animals and a fish. One of the animals is a horse in motion and has a very arched neck, looking rather like an Indian humped ox. It is a saddled horse, Grani, the horse belonging to Sigurd, who bowed his head to his master, as depicted here.

Sigurd was famed for his extreme bravery as a consequence of which he had an enormous task to perform. He had to slay the dragon Fafnir , a terrible, awesome scourge. It was only possible to do this at the dragon’s drinking place and in preparation for the deed, Sigurd had to dig a pit in which to hide so that he could thrust his sword into Fafnir as he passed over the top of the pit. The fearsome creature, however, was so huge that one pit would not be sufficient to contain the dragon’s blood and Sigurd would surely be drowned as it submerged him. To avoid this fate he had to dig a series of pits connected by ditches so that the blood could flow away without harming him.

Heysham, Lancashire

Took a couple of days off at the end of last week and on our travels we ended up at a favourite place of mine, Heysham on the Lancashire coast.

The part of Heysham I particularly like is St Patrick’s Chapel, the remains of an early 8^th century church built on a site occupied since the 6^th century.

At the site are a series of rock cut graves with sockets for a grave marker, probably just a simple wooden cross. I also learned something new – the graves feature on the cover of a Black Sabbath album, their Greatest Hits from 2000.

Near to the chapel is the parish church, St Peters, also dating back to Saxon times, there remains the re-errected stump of a Saxon cross in the grounds.

The church itself is home to a number of locally found artefacts. A small fragmentary early mediaeval chalice is mounted in a wall niche.

The church also displays a large Viking hog back stone, a grave cover that has a series of images that depict both the light and dark sides of life.

The Battle of Filey Bay

The occasion of my friends in Filey selling their house on Friday has prompted this post about the Battle of Filey Bay, also known as the Battle of Flamborough Head, a naval engagement that saw Britain lose a battle and then go on to lose the war (as I paraphrased it when setting a quiz question).

The engagement took part during the American War of Independence (or the American Revolution if you prefer). John Paul Jones had been in France buying arms and was given a ship, the Duc de Duras, that he re-named the Bonhomme Richard.


He was sailing up the coast of Britain when he encountered two Royal Navy ships, HMS Countess of Scarborough and HMS Serapis. In the ensuing battle the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis became entangled and finally Jones managed to board the Serapis. The Bonhomme Richard sank and Jones escaped in the British ship. The actual wreck of Jones’ ship has never been located.


The name Bonhomme Richard is still remembered in Filey today as it is the name of a pub just off the sea front.

Leeds VC holders

I was coming back from a meeting in a very wet Leeds today when I came across a memorial I hadn't thought about for a long time. In front of the Art Gallery on the Headrow is a bronze plaque dedicated to the VC winners who were either born in Leeds or were buried in Leeds.


The name are alphabetical but I want to give you the story of the first name on there, Acting Flight Sergeant Arthur Louis Aaron of the RAF. He was the only winner of the medal from Leeds during World War II.


Arthur Louis Aaron – Flight Sergeant, Age 21 - No.218 Squadron, RAF Volunteer Reserve, Turin, Italy - August 12th 1943

Three engines, the windscreen and the elevator controls of his Stirlling bomber were hit by gunfire. This made the aircraft unstable and very difficult to fly. Aaron and other crewmembers were injured. The navigator was killed. Aaron’s jaw was broken, parts of his face torn away, his lung damaged and right hand unusable. The aircraft dived several thousand feet until he managed to level the aircraft at 3,000 ft. His bomb aimer took control of the aircraft whilst Aaron received medical attention and morphine. Too weak to control the aircraft and unable to speak because of his facial injuries he wrote instructions with his left hand. Aaron died nine hours after the bomber belly landed at Bone airfield in Tunisia.

The mission was his 20th. Arthur Aaron was also the holder of the Distinguished Flying Medal. Because of his lowly rank Flight Sergeant Aaron was not eligibe for the Distinguished Flying Cross, a rank divide that was rectified in 1993 when the DFM was withdrawn and the DFC became available to a ranks.

Born and educated in Leeds, Aaron studied to be an architect and, in March 1941, he became one of 23 cadets who formed the Inaugural Flight of Leeds University Air Squadron.

To mark the millennium a statue to Arthur Louis Aaron was sited on the roundabout close to the West Yorkshire Playhouse at the start of the Headrow.

York military railway

River Ouse looking downstream from the Millennium bridge towards the old Terry's factory

An Indian Summer set in over the UK and Val and I decided to take Friday off from work and walk across the Knavesmire and then follow the River Ouse up into the city of York.

Once we had crossed the Millennium Bridge to the right bank of the river (heading upstream) I came across a feature that I had been told about but until recently had never been able to find. Now I know where it is I can't miss it and wonder how I ever did!

The remains of the military railway narrow railway looking towards the bricked gateway

That feature is the military light railway constructed to run from a wharf on the River Ouse (sadly now lost) to run into the military supply depot and army hospital that existed a short distance away. The railway was constructed in 1888 to move supplies brought by river from London. I don't sadly know when the feature was abandoned and the gateway into the establishment bricked up.

The River Ouse looking upstream towards Skeldergate Bridge with the River Foss confluence on the right.

Castlerigg stone circle

Recently returned from a week in the Lake District. On one of the hills outside Keswick is a stone circle called Castlerigg.


The stones are of a local metamorphic slate, set in a flattened circle, measuring 32.6 m (107 ft) at its widest and 29.5 m (97 ft) at its narrowest. The heaviest stone has been estimated to weigh around 16 tons and the tallest stone measures approximately 2.3m high. There is a 3.3m wide gap in its northern edge, which may have been an entrance. Within the circle, abutting its eastern quadrant, is a roughly rectangular setting of a further 10 stones. The circle was probably constructed around 3200 BC (Late Neolithic/Early Bronze-Age), making it one of the earliest stone circles in Britain and possibly in Europe.


It is important to archaeoastronomers who have noted that the sunrise during the Autumn equinox appears over the top of Threlkeld Knott, a hill 3.5 km to the east.

Recently a Roman fort has been discovered to the south of the stone circle, dissected by the narrow track. Nothing above ground is visible and it is hard to see how the presence of te fort influenced the name of the area as some have suggested.

The Glenelg Iron Age Brochs

Dun Telve

I’ve recently returned from holiday on the Glenelg peninsular in Scotland, just across from the Isle of Skye on the west coast. Three miles down the road were two brochs or dry stone, hollow walled towers that date from the 1^st cent. BC/AD called Dun Telve and Dun Troddan.

Dun Telve

Brochs are the most spectacular of a complex class of roundhouse buildings found throughout "Atlantic Scotland".

Dun Troddan

The construction is rather strange in that there are steps and floors in the hollow walls that suggest they served as corridors, although they do get rather narrow the further up you go.

Dun Troddan internal staircase

Brochs' close groupings and profusion in many areas may suggest that they had a primarily defensive or even offensive function, although it is probably best to consider broch sites individually in that there may never have been a single common purpose for which every broch was constructed.