Kildale Moor: Cairnfields and Forgotten Paths

The sky is a washed-out blue, untroubled by clouds. Even in their dreary winter shades, the moors still manage to look grand.

I find myself on Kildale Moor, a vast expanse littered with prehistoric cairnfields, settlements, and funerary monuments¹NYMNP HER No: 52 Prehistoric landscape on Kildale Moor²NYMNP HER No: 4020 Bronze Age cairnfield on Kildale Moor
. Allegedly. In reality, one must squint to discern any such features. The standing stone, however, is obvious enough, though it is little more than a “modern” 19th-century way marker³NYMNP HER No: 17968 19th Century Way marker on Kildale Moor. The old Ordnance Survey map does indeed suggest a track once connected the farms of Wood End in Kildale and Sleddale, but if it ever existed, nature, assisted by man, has done an excellent job of erasing it.

Beyond Sleddale Beck lies Commondale Moor, which is curiously lacking in prehistoric remnants. Only towards the south end, beginning roughly where that patch of heather is being burnt—oh no, not again—does the past deign to make an appearance in the form of ancient field systems, burial mounds and a stone circle⁴NYMNPA HER HER No: 51 Prehistoric funerary and agricultural landscape Commondale Moor .

Another curiosity of the moor opposite is that it does not display the usual patchwork of swiddens from rotational heather burning. Instead, it is a more chaotic spread of dull, tan rushes, hinting at a wetter terrain. Perhaps this explains why our Neolithic ancestors gave it a miss. Sensible of them.

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  NYMNP HER No: 52 Prehistoric landscape on Kildale Moor
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  NYMNP HER No: 4020 Bronze Age cairnfield on Kildale Moor

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  NYMNP HER No: 17968 19th Century Way marker on Kildale Moor
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  NYMNPA HER HER No: 51 Prehistoric funerary and agricultural landscape Commondale Moor