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Neolithic long cairn granted protected status
The Dudderhouse Hill long cairn, located within the Yorkshire Dales National Park, has been granted protected status as a Scheduled Monument by the Government. The scheduling was recommended by Historic England after a number of stones were recently removed from the cairn.
The monument is believed to date to c.3400-2400 BC, during the Neolithic period, and survives today as a partly turf-covered oval mound of stones measuring approximately 23m (75ft) long and 12m (39ft) wide. It is positioned with views towards the prominent peak of Pen-y-Ghent and might have been situated to mimic the line of the Ingleborough to Simon Fell ridge, which is located to the north-west.
Chuffed about choughs
Reanalysis of a bird’s beak, which was first excavated in 2013 at the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Lyminge, Kent (see CA 284 and 355), has revealed that it belonged to a red-billed chough – small, black birds that were prized for their bright red beaks and even appear on the Canterbury coat of arms. The 4cm-long beak was found within a 6th-century building and has a hole drilled through it, suggesting that it was worn as a pendant.
Red-billed choughs largely disappeared from mainland England over 200 years ago due to habitat loss, but they were reintroduced in the south-east in 2022, and this past August saw the first wild chough successfully fledge – an important milestone in the successful reintegration of this species.
Conservation work reveals 1970s nostalgia
Conservation work at Bootham Bar, one of the historic entrances through York’s city wall, has revealed unusual pieces of history – a cigarette packet and 10p coin, both from 1979 – hidden beneath the lead roofing.
The items had been left by Mick Colley, who now works with Network Rail but whose first ‘big job’ saw him working on the roof of Bootham Bar as a 16-year-old apprentice in 1979. He and his colleague had written their names on the back of the cigarette packet. Reunited with the objects, he said: ‘I was just a lad back then, working… on the roof on my first proper big job. We were proud of what we were doing, and it wasn’t unusual to leave a little something behind – like that 10p piece – as a nod to the future. Seeing it again after all these years brings back memories I hadn’t thought about in decades. The cards and note were in a really good condition so it shows we did a good job!’
Text: Kathryn Krakowka / Photo: Historic England Archive
