Siss Cross

A beautiful January but marred by the smell of burning heather. And on a Sunday too. It seems like we’re just spitting in the face of the Australians. And all to maximise the grouse bag. There are some rules: heather should not be burnt where the smoke is likely to damage health or cause a nuisance. That was being flouted today. This is Danby Low Moor, there was also burning on Wayworth and Ingleby Moors.

The stone is Siss Cross, where many Mesolithic microliths were found by Atkinson and later by Elgee. John Walker Ord speculates, in “History and Antiquities of Cleveland” [1846], that many of these crosses “may have been erected over the graves of the early Christians to solicit prayers for the deceased, or to notify the spot where the corpse rested, or are merely simple offerings of the people to piety and worth”.