On Some Ancient Battle-Fields in Lancashire / And Their Historical, Legendary, and Aesthetic Associations.

by Charles Hardwick

The "Traveller's Tale" likewise refers to a chieftain named "Billing," who "ruled the Wærns," and who, in Mr. Haigh's opinion, was likewise a "probable associate of Hencgest." Mr. Haigh likewise identifies Whaley in Cheshire, Whalley in Northumberland, and Whalley in Lancashire, with a chieftain described in the same poem as "Hwala once the best." Dr. Whitaker, Mr. Baines, and others, however, derive Whalley from Walalega, "Field of Wells."

Mr. Jno. R. Green ("Making of England,") says—"In the star-strown track of the Milky Way, our fathers saw a road by which the hero-sons of Waetla marched across the sky, and poetry only hardened into prose when they transferred the name of Watling Street to the great trackway which passed athwart the island they had won, from London to Chester. The stones of Weyland's Smithy still recall the days when the new settlers told one another, on the conquered ground, the wondrous tale they had brought with them from their German home, the tale of the godlike smith Weland, who forged the arms that none could blunt or break; just as they told around Wadanbury and Wadanhlæw the strange tale of Wade and his boats. When men christened mere and tree with Scyld's name, at Scyldsmere and Styldstreow, they must have been familiar with the story of the godlike child who came over the waters to found the royal line of the Gwissas. So a name like Hnaef's-scylf was then a living part of English mythology; and a name like Aylesbury may preserve the last trace of the legend told of Weland's brother, the sun-archer Egil."

Although we possess but little information respecting the details of the fight, or of the political complications out of which it arose, we are, at least, perfectly certain of the locality of the struggle. In addition, the magnificent scenery by which it is surrounded, in which grandeur and beauty are seen in the most harmonious combination, the interesting archæological remains, and the numerous other historic associations of the neighbourhood, including those connected with Whalley Abbey, Clitheroe Castle, Mytton, and Stonyhurst, give an interest to the locality which is denied to the sites of many battle-fields, the names of which have become "household words," not merely with one nation or people, but with all the so-called civilised section of mankind.

One of the tumuli to which I have referred was partially opened by Dr. T. D. Whitaker, the historian of Whalley. But, as in his day Anglo-Saxon antiquities were very little sought after and, consequently, very imperfectly understood, his labours were productive of nothing but negative results. Canon Raines, however, in a note to his edition of the "Notitia Cestriensis," published by the Chetham Society, says—"In the year 1836, as Thomas Hubbertsty, the farmer at Brockhall, was removing a large mound of earth in Brockhall Eases, about five hundred yards from the bank of the Ribble, on the left of the road leading from the house, he discovered a Kist-vaen, formed of rude stones, containing some human bones and the rusty remains of some spear-heads of iron. The whole crumbled to dust on exposure to the air. Tradition has uniformly recorded that a battle was fought about Langho, Elker and Buckfoot, near the Ribble; and a tumulus was opened within two hundred yards of a ford of the Ribble (now called Bullasey-ford), one of the very few points for miles where that river could be crossed. The late Dr. Whitaker repeatedly, but in vain, searched for remains of this battle, as he appears to have erroneously concluded that the scene of it was higher up the river, near Hacking Hall, at the junction of the Calder and the Ribble."

Dr. Whitaker does not appear to have noticed all the tumuli in the neighbourhood. In his "History of Whalley" he says—"Of this great battle there are no remains, unless a large tumulus near Hacking Hall, and in the immediate vicinity of Langho, be supposed to cover the remains of Alric, or some other chieftain among the slain." The site of the tumulus, on the left bank, or south-east side of the Ribble, is marked on the Ordnance map. It is scarcely three quarters of a mile from Hacking Hall, and rather more than a mile from Langho chapel. No other tumulus is noticed by the Ordnance surveyors on the south-east side of the river.

Canon Raines states that the "large mound" removed by Thomas Hubbertsty, in 1836, was situated "about five hundred yards from the bank of the Ribble," and that the tumulus that had been previously opened was only two hundred yards distant from that stream. The "large mound" of Canon Raines, removed in 1836, in which remains were found, seems to have been a smaller affair than the other tumuli. This is affirmed by Mr. Abram, in a very able paper on the history of the township of Billington, in the Lancashire and Cheshire Historical Society's Transactions, otherwise he says, "the farmer would hardly have undertaken to level it." The tumuli on the right bank or north-west side of the river are named "lowes" on the six-inch Ordnance map, and "mounds" on the smaller one. The former name is evidently the Anglo-Saxon hlœw, a conical hill or a sepulchral mound, or tumulus, in the latter sense a synonym of beorh or bearw, a barrow. Although these large tumuli are on the north-west side of the river, the nearest is scarcely half a mile distant from the site of the removed one near Bullasey-ford on the south-east.

There is some confusion in the various descriptions of these mounds. Mr. Abram says, referring to the large tumulus called the "Lowe" on the north-west side of the Ribble—"Into this mound Whitaker had some excavation made about the year 1815, but he found the work heavy and gave it up without reaching the centre of the tumulus, where the relics of sepulture might be expected to be found." As Dr. Whitaker expressly says, he saw no remains of the battle except "a large tumulus near Hacking Hall," he must not only have been ignorant of the character of its immediate neighbour, as well as of the one on the Langho side of the river, near Bullasey-ford, if this "lowe" was the mound he but partially disturbed. This can scarcely be the tumulus referred to by Canon Raines if the distance (two hundred yards) from the river be correct. Neither can the five hundred yards distance of Mr. Hubbertsty's mound be reconciled with the site of the tumulus at Brockhall, near Bullasey-ford. Perhaps his figures have been accidently transposed. I had previously laboured under an impression that Hubbertsty had merely completely cleared away the mound but imperfectly excavated by Dr. Whitaker.

Being anxious to arrive at some more definite knowledge respecting these "lowes" or "mounds," on the ninth of Nov., 1876, I visited the locality, and by the aid of Mr. Parkinson, the present tenant of Brockhall, I was enabled to make a far more detailed inspection of the battle-field than on a hurried visit about twenty years previously. Mr. Parkinson pointed out the site of the tumulus removed by Mr. Hubbertsty in 1836. Nothing of it, of course, now remains. He said that it was the only mound of the kind he had ever heard of on the Langho side of the Ribble. He, however, pointed out a curious circular agger, about five or six feet broad and a couple of feet high, which enclosed a level area some sixteen or seventeen yards in diameter. It is evidently an artificial work, but without additional evidence it is impossible to say, with any reasonable degree of probability, by whom it was constructed, or to what use it was originally applied. On the steep promontory called "Brockhole Wood-end," Mr. Parkinson called my attention to curious masses of cemented sand and pebble stones, which some persons regarded as artificial grout, that had originally formed part of the massive masonry of an ancient building, the foundations of which had been undermined by the falling in of the earth in consequence of the erosive action of the flood water of the Ribble at the base of the cliff. This, however, I found, on examination, to be erroneous. The "grout" in question is a geological phenomenon, a kind of conglomerate or breccia, formed by the percolation of rain water, charged with carbonic acid and lime, through the mass of glacial or boulder "till" and its sandy and pebbly contents. The "till" contains limestones brought by ice from both the Ribble and the Hodder valleys. The phenomenon is a common one to geologists, and the "concrete" at "Brockhole Wood-end" is an excellent example of it. On gazing across the river at the larger "lowe" of the six-inch Ordnance map, Mr. Parkinson remarked that it appeared to him to be what is termed by geologists an outlier of the boulder deposits on each side of the valley, and therefore, not an artificial mound. He pointed out that the flood waters of the Ribble, Hodder, and Calder met in the plain, and when the "till" was excavated by a kind of circular motion of the combined waters, which the present appearance of the valley indicates, the land situated in the centre or vortex would the longer resist the abrading action, and eventually, as the passage of the currents became enlarged, remain a surviving outlier of the general mass of glacial deposit. On passing the river in the ferry-boat, and, by the aid of a pickaxe, exposing the material of which this mound is formed, I confessed that I could detect no difference in its character or structure from that of the neighbouring geological deposits. Still, as the mound, if artificial, must have been constructed from the boulder clay and its unstratified contents, this is not surprising. It is, however, impossible to solve this problem without a much more searching investigation. Even if a mound existed at the time the battle was fought, nothing is more probable than that it would be utilised by the victors in the interment of their honoured dead. The second and smaller mound seems very like an artificial one; but this cannot be satisfactorily affirmed without more complete investigation. Both mounds have been partially opened near their summits, but with only negative results, as might have been anticipated, as the Christian Anglo-Saxons in such cases buried the body in the earth, and afterwards heaped the tumulus or barrow above it, as a monument to the memory of the deceased warrior or warriors. This mode of interment had been adopted in the instance of the tumulus removed by Mr. Hubbertsty in 1836. Interesting results, both to geologists and archæologists, may, therefore, be anticipated from a thorough examination of the contents of these remarkable "lowes" or "mounds;" but, as some expense would be attendant thereupon, they may yet, for some time, remain an interesting puzzle, both to the learned and the unlearned in such matters. They are situated in the midst of the level alluvial plain. The largest is nearly twenty feet high, and forms a prominent object.

When I first visited the locality I was much amused at the rough and ready way in which some of the country people accounted for their construction, or rather the object thereof. They had seen sheep, when the Ribble valley was flooded, mount on the top of them for safety, and they innocently concluded that these historic monuments, mementoes of deadly civil strife during the eighth century, or of the glacial period of geologists, had been erected by some benevolent or thrifty ancestor of the owner of the soil for the especial accommodation of ovine refugees during the deluges to which the low-lying land on the margin of the river is occasionally subjected.