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22
Feb 2023
New Harrogate district henge could be 'nationally significant'
A previously undiscovered prehistoric henge may lie under a Harrogate district village, a packed meeting was told this week.
The massive earthwork, 170 metres in diameter and thousands of years old, was revealed beneath the village of Kirk Hammerton using state-of-the-art multispectral drone imagery techniques by Tony Hunt, who said the find could be “nationally significant”.
He presented his findings, along with community archaeologist Jon Kenny, at a public meeting of local residents and amateur archaeologists in Kirk Hammerton village hall on Monday. Mr Hunt said:
A henge is a ring-shaped bank and ditch, usually built around 4,500 years ago for purposes that remain unclear, although experts speculate that they probably had religious or spiritual meaning for ancient communities.
A black-and-white image of the suspected henge, taken from a drone by Yorkshire Archaeological Aerial Mapping.
There are currently known to be 10 henges in Yorkshire, six of them aligned along a northwest-southeast axis, including the group of three at Thornborough, north of Ripon. The latest discovery, a possible 11th, lies in alignment with these.
Mr Hunt said:
A map showing how the most recently discovered henge lines up with several of the others in North Yorkshire, including the three at Thornborough.
Mr Hunt and fellow enthusiasts now plan to explore further at Kirk Hammerton, using geophysical mapping and ground-coring techniques. He said:
Mr Hunt has a degree in archaeological sciences from Bradford University and is currently managing director of DJ Assembly, a York-based micro-electronics company. He also runs Yorkshire Aerial Archaeological Mapping, whose thermal and infrared imaging technology revealed the henge. He said:
Using his drones, Mr Hunt has recently discovered lost Bronze Age burial mounds and two new Roman marching camps, both in the Vale of York, as well as mass graves at the site near Northallerton of the Battle of the Standard between England and Scotland in 1138.
Earlier this month, it was announced that two sections of the Thornborough henges, which lie 30 miles to the north-west of Kirk Hammerton, have been donated to the public body Historic England.
Read more:
- Ripon's ‘Stonehenge of the north’ gifted to nation
- Angry Minskip villagers fight developer over possible Roman site
- Developer withdraws plan for 55 retirement homes in Kirk Hammerton
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