Hikers urged to stop damaging ancient burial grounds in Dales

Senior officials at the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) have tried for years to stop walkers picking up stones from cairns – piles of rocks which date from more than 4,500 years ago.

With a large increase in visitors to the Dales in recent years, new efforts are now being made to put a halt to the destruction of the cairns by walkers often unaware of their historical importance.

The YDNPA’s senior historic environment officer, Robert White, revealed a number of the Bronze age sites in the Dales are now under threat.

“These historic sites are now under threat from some of today’s visitors, who take the stones to build cairns of their own,” he added.

“We would urge walkers to resist the temptation to pick up stones and build cairns – wherever they are – because they can unwittingly damage these important sites. There are problems at a number of historically important sites within the national park.

“The stone mound at Beamsley Beacon near Bolton Abbey is one example of a site that has suffered in this way and we have spent a lot of time repairing it. Much of this cairn, which is now about 11m (36ft) in diameter, still survives.

“But in recent years it has suffered a lot of disturbance due to people using stones from it to make modern cairns and wind breaks. Another smaller historic cairn lies further along the ridge at Old Pike and that has also lost some of its stones.”

The ring cairns around Ingleborough have also suffered significant damage, with walkers picking up stones and using them to start off their own cairns elsewhere.

As part of its efforts to halt the destruction, the YDNPA has just finished a major overhaul of its website with a new section highlighting to walkers the importance of cairns to the Dales.

Archaeologist Karen Griffiths, who helped to construct the website, said: “People seem to have this need to place a stone on a cairn and quite often they can be damaging something that is already there.

“They don’t realise what they are doing.

“It is an unwitting thing but at the same time they are destroying our heritage.

“It is very difficult for us to get information about the importance of cairns out across remote areas where people visit in the Dales and the new website is an important way to do that.

“Sometimes visitors don’t realise they are walking across thousands of years of history and this will hopefully make it a bit more accessible.

“It is not that we don’t want more people to come here, but we want them to be more respectful of the history that is surrounding them.”

The majority of the cairns were constructed on the Yorkshire Dales from around 2,500 BC.

Experts say as the landscape has not been widely ploughed by farmers over the centuries – unlike many other areas across Britain – there is a particularly high number across the Dales.

There are two main types of cairns, clearance cairns, where ancient farmers piled the rocks up as they dug up the soil, and burial cairns.

The new look website, which has been re-named Out of Oblivion, was largely due to the work of archaeologist Yvonne Luke, who undertook the research as part of her PhD and features new maps and photographs as well as much newly discovered information.

The YDNPA’s member champion for conservation of cultural heritage, Roger Bingham, said: “The archaeology and history of the Dales are important elements of its special qualities and the website is a very accessible way for members of the public to learn about them and to find out about places to visit that will be of interest to them.”

For more information, visit www.outofoblivion.org.uk.