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The East Moors in Prehistory

Rock art, Gardom's Edge

Hidden by dense heather there are many small piles of stone that are often first found with the feet rather than the eyes!  While some are the waste from quarrying, many have been here for more than 2000 years and are the result of farming that took place here in the Bronze and Iron Ages.  More obvious sometimes are examples of prehistoric monuments.

A tall standing stone above Gardom's Edge east of Baslow, erected by prehistoric people close to a large enclosure defined by a rubble bank and probably used for seasonal gatherings by many of the inhabitants of the region about 5000 years ago. Nearby there are many remains left by farmers later in prehistory

Prehistoric Farms

The better, and then well-drained, areas of the East Moors were farmed in a more sustained way in later prehistory.   For something like 2,000 years there were scattered farmsteads, each surrounded by fields and cultivation plots.  The sites of round timber buildings can sometimes be identified as slight terraces set into slopes, or from arcs of stone piled against their outsides and at surrounding yard boundaries.

A plan of a typical example of the extensive remains of prehistoric farming on the East Moors, at Gibbet Moor east of Chatsworth, with many low stone banks placed against now long disappeared field hedges or fences and piles of clearance stone within them.  Amongst the ancient fields are the sites of circular houses, barrows and small standing stones

The soils in the fields, whilst light and fertile, were also stony.  Thus, much stone had to be cleared for cultivation and to improve the quality of pastures.  It is these stone heaps that survive today, for the field boundaries were hedged or fenced and are long gone.  Recent research into these nationally important remains has included extensive archaeological excavations at Gardom's Edge.  Many other places have such remains and amongst the most extensive or easily found are those north-west of Toads Mouth near Fox House, and those on Big Moor, Eyam Moor, Gibbet Moor and Beeley Warren.

Typical small agricultural clearance heaps of Later Prehistoric date on Gibbet Moor above Chatsworth, typical of those found in many places on the East Moors

Monuments for the Living and the Dead

Closely associated with the prehistoric farming remains is a number of small stone circles and stone-built round barrows, both sited amongst or at the edges of the fields of the people who built them.  In other places, some barrows are placed high above, sited to overlook the pastures and people who lived here.  These circles and mounds were family monuments built to serve the religious and emotional needs of the local farming communities.  In a few special places these monuments are surrounded by small cemetery cairns, the notable example being at Stanton Moor.  Exceptional sites include the large Neolithic enclosure above Gardom's Edge, and the undated hillfort at Carl Wark.

Map showing an example of the distribution of prehistoric monuments and cairnfields on the East Moors, at Gibbet Moor, Harland Edge and Beeley Moor

The Sites Today

Nine Stone Close on Harthill Moor is one of many family stone circles dating from the later Neolithic/early Bronze Age

Many of the evocative small monuments are visited today, but it should be borne in mind that often they are on private land and permission should be sought where there is no current open access.  Amongst the better-preserved stone circles are the Seven Stones of Hordron, on Moscar Moor, the three circles on Big Moor, Stoke Flat above Froggatt Edge, Wet Withens on Eyam Moor and the Nine Ladies on Stanton Moor.

The ruined but picturesquely sited Park Gate stone circle on Beeley Warren, on Chatsworth Estate moorland close to a concession path to Gibbet Moor

While at many of the barrows there is little to see except a heather-covered mound, there are also more interesting examples.  That at Hob Hurst's House on Harland Edge, the ‘house of the hobgoblin of the wood', is square in plan rather than round, with a ruined stone setting at its centre and a bank and ditch at the outside.  A low excavated barrow near Crow Chin on Stanage has a stone kerb and there are fine views over Bamford Moor where its builder's farmed.  One damaged example on Eyam Moor, near the footpath from Stoke Ford to Sir Williams Hill, has a displaced stone at the centre covered with prehistoric carvings known as cupmarks.

The hollows on this large stone, at the centre of a barrow at the western end of Eyam Moor, were created by people in the Neolithic or Earlier Bronze Age. This 'rock art' is so abstract that it gives few clues as to its meaning. The stone itself is possibly displaced from a stone burial cist that may have existed within the barrow

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