The climb out of Grosmont onto Sleights Moor is steep, very steep, but the effort is well rewarded

The object was High Bride Stones, a group of, it is said, eleven standing stones “possibly the remains of a pair of Bronze Age ‘four poster’ stone circles” dating to the Bronze Age¹‘Heritage Gateway – Results’. 2012. Heritagegateway.org.uk <https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=29287&resourceID=19191> [accessed 3 December 2022]²North York Moors Historic Environment Record (HER) No: 3902.

I must admit I was a tad disappointed. Most of the stones have fallen, and the tallest one has the ignominy of having coins wedged into its cracks, no doubt as ‘offerings‘, coins which give away their age by going rusty — modern coins have a large iron content. No particular pattern could be imagined from the stones, both standing and recumbent, they neither make a circle nor are they directed to any particular point of the compass.

400 metres west from the High Bride Stones are the Low Bride Stones, the subject of the main image³North York Moors Historic Environment Record (HER) Nos: 3899/3900/3901/6471/6472⁴‘Heritage Gateway – Results’. 2012. Heritagegateway.org.uk <https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=aa7d99ae-81a8-4e74-97c1-00b59afd2381&resourceID=19191> [accessed 3 December 2022]. These are far more interesting.

We came upon the group of 26 stones quite easily. Again many were lying prone but all were sort of aligned north-south. But I read that a hundred yards north there was a further group of 60 stones, “undoubtedly … the remains of stone walled enclosures, possibly fields“. We missed those, a return visit beckons.

In contrast to that other group of rocks of the same name, Bridestones, further south in Lockton, which are said to be a petrified bridal party that became lost in the moorland mist, these Bride Stones are thought to be named after Brigid, a goddess of the Iron Age tribe, the Bigantes⁵Burl, Aubrey. ‘A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany’. 1995. Quoted in ‘The High Bride Stones 1817-1995’. 2015. The Smell of Water (The Smell of Water) <https://teessidepsychogeography.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/high-bridestones/> [accessed 3 December 2022].

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  ‘Heritage Gateway – Results’. 2012. Heritagegateway.org.uk <https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=29287&resourceID=19191> [accessed 3 December 2022]
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  North York Moors Historic Environment Record (HER) No: 3902
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  North York Moors Historic Environment Record (HER) Nos: 3899/3900/3901/6471/6472
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  ‘Heritage Gateway – Results’. 2012. Heritagegateway.org.uk <https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=aa7d99ae-81a8-4e74-97c1-00b59afd2381&resourceID=19191> [accessed 3 December 2022]
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  Burl, Aubrey. ‘A Guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany’. 1995. Quoted in ‘The High Bride Stones 1817-1995’. 2015. The Smell of Water (The Smell of Water) <https://teessidepsychogeography.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/high-bridestones/> [accessed 3 December 2022]