3.—Banniside and Torver Moors.
Up the road behind the Railway Station, in twenty-five minutes you reach the gate of Banniside Moor, which we passed in descending the Old Man. Along the quarry road to the right towards Crowberry Haws, about a third of a mile from the gate, below you on the right-hand side is an ancient garth of irregular rectangular shape, with a circular dwelling in the middle of the highest side. A small outlying building is just to the south-east. This seems more modern in type than some of the remains we find in the moors, but it is difficult to classify and impossible to date.
Returning to the gate, follow the Walna Scar path over Banniside to the south-west for ten minutes; 300 yards west of the flagstaff is a ring-mound on a levelled platform at the edge of Banniside Mire, formerly a tarn, but now almost peated up.
Rather more than half a mile south-west of the flagstaff you strike Torver Beck, after passing many clearing-heaps among the bracken beds—the subject of Dr. Gibson's dialect sketch of "Bannasyde Cairns" in The Folk-speech of Cumberland.
Clearings and tries for slate, old limekilns and pitsteads and sheepfolds and so forth, are traps for the amateur antiquary. But in many cases, as we have seen, and shall find in the course of our day's walk, digging has proved that the cairns on these moors were actually the graves of prehistoric people, or forgotten sites of ancient habitation. Much remains to be explored; and the "enclosure" we come to, a few steps down Torver Beck, is a case in point.
It is a ruined stone wall forming an irregular quadrangle, through which a cart-track now runs. Within it is what looks like a hut circle on the brink of the ravine, from which water could be got by simply letting a backet down into the stream beneath. Across the beck, about 100 yards to the south-west, Mr. Cowper notes another ring-mound "badly preserved, without entrance or trenches."
Going due south to the footbridge across Tranearth Beck (or the Black Beck of Torver), and then striking up Hare Crags to the south-east (about two-thirds of a mile from the last), we come to a large ring-mound with double ditch, intrenching the top of the hill. From this, descending to the south-west and crossing the beck by another footbridge, we strike a path leading north-west in half a mile to Ashgill Bridge and Quarry.
Along the ridge of Bleaberry Haws (1/4 mile south-west) is yet another ring-mound on the edge of a lake basin, now peat moss; and 200 yards farther we find the northern angle of the Bleaberry Haws dyke, a more important example of the kind seen on Hawkshead Moor.
Following the dyke to the south-west and turning to the left where it disappears, we find a circle of seven stones, into which Mr. Cowper dug, and found a rough pavement of cobble-stones at a depth of two to three feet resting upon the natural rock. Many cairns are passed on going a few steps eastward to strike the main line of the dyke, which runs down into Bull Haw Moss, making a curious fold or fork at the farther side of the valley, and then climbing the steep bank and running over the top due south, until it loses itself among a group of cairns in which Mr. Cowper found prehistoric interments. The dyke is altogether over a mile long, partly a stone wall, partly an earthwork. Antiquaries have been much divided over its possible use and object; the late W. Jackson, F.S.A., thought it might be a kind of deer trap. The deer would be driven from the south-west along the moorland valley, and cornered in the fork of the wall.
From the southern extremity of the dyke a path leads down to the road from Broughton Mills to Torver. Two miles south-west along this road, and between it and Appletreeworth Beck, Dr. Kendall of Coniston has noticed a similar dyke. The name of a neighbouring farm, Burnmoor, suggests the recognition of "borrans" or stone heaps of more than usual importance. In the Burnmoor above Eskdale are important stone circles.
Torver Station is rather more than a mile from the point where we struck this road, and Coniston 2-1/2 miles more by road or rail.
Coniston is a good centre for further excursions in search of moorland antiquities. From Woodland station a day's round might be made by Broughton Mills to the cairns and enclosures on the south side of Stickle Pike and above Stonestar; across the Duddon to the ruins of Ulpha Old Hall, Seathwaite, the home of "Wonderful Walker" (born at Undercrag, 1709; died at Seathwaite, 1802, in the 67th year of his curacy there); then back by Walna Scar, passing ancient remains of undetermined age. The first group is found by turning to the right below the intake wall until a stile is reached, below which, and beyond, are traces of rude building. On rejoining the road up Walna Scar, a gate is seen across the beck; through it and about a quarter of a mile horizontally along the breast of the hill are extensive ruined walls, and many outlying remains on a shelf of the mountains about 1,000 feet above the sea. Hence the way to the top of the Scar is plain, and Coniston is about an hour's easy walking by a well-marked path from the summit.
Swinside Circle is about 4-1/2 miles from Broughton station, and is little inferior to the great circle near Keswick. On digging it we found nothing at all; we learnt, however, that the place was not used for interments or sacrifices, and its origin remains a mystery.
Other prehistoric sites within reach of Coniston are Barnscar and Burnmoor (by the Eskdale railway); Urswick Stone Walls, Foula, Sunbrick Circle and Appleby Slack, Pennington Castle Hill and Ellabarrow in Low Furness; and Hugill British Settlement near Windermere station.