Since November 2021, members of Wigan Archaeological Society have been investigating the remains of a large, previously unknown circular monument in a field at Aspull, about three miles north-east of the town that gives our group its name. This enigmatic site had first come to our attention two years earlier, when a near-circular cropmark was spotted in overhead images seen online. After an initial desk-based assessment identified an intriguing low mound (visible in LiDAR imagery) at its heart, we wondered: might the markings represent the remains of a barrow?
Unfortunately, before our investigation could begin in earnest, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to an abrupt halt – but (during an easing of lockdown restrictions) in 2021 we were able to carry out a resistivity survey. This confirmed the presence of a roughly circular feature 47m in diameter, with a low mound in the middle which rose to a little over 1m in height, and in order to make sense of these discoveries we devised a three-phase plan of investigation. The first aimed to determine what was causing the cropmark; the second would characterise the dimensions, construction, and other details of this cause; and the third, necessarily woolly at this point, would go on to explore the central mound itself.
The site – which we were then calling the ‘Aspull Ring Feature’ – lies on rising ground on the western flank of a valley (the M61 corridor); several miles away, on the eastern side, we find Winter Hill and Anglezarke Moor, a region rich in prehistoric monuments, but our area had not previously been recognised as being particularly archaeologically significant. We hope that our discoveries will help to redress this balance somewhat. Early in the investigation, we were able to establish that there was a great deal of intervisibility between the ring feature and several of the monuments on the far side of the valley, including the Pikestones (a Neolithic long barrow), Winter Hill cairn, Noon Hill cairn, Round Loaf, Two Lads, and a number of other suspected or unnamed prehistoric sites. Might this suggest that the ring feature was similarly ancient, and that the builders of these monuments had been aware of its presence?
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