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:

“The meeting was absolutely astounding. Usually, these things attract maybe 20-30 people, but we had 120 – there were people sitting on the floor, and there were 30-40 who couldn’t make it on the night but want to get involved. 

“Everybody seems to be very enthusiastic about it being a new henge. I’m healthily sceptical, but it’s definitely worth a look. If this is confirmed, it will be nationally significant.” 

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:

“Whether these henges are aligned intentionally is up for debate, since for that to hold up you have to disregard quite a few of the others. It may just be that they are positioned along river valleys. 

“They may have been tribal centres, or where the gods live – no people lived in them. They may have represented the border between life and death – at sunset, someone the height of the average Neolithic person standing in the centre of one of these henges casts a shadow pretty much exactly the same length as its radius.” 

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: 

“In a henge, the ditch is on the inside of the earth bank, so we’ll see if we can spot that. If we see something that looks like one, we’ll probably put in a huge long trench from the centre out, through the ditch and earthwork to create a cross-section.” 

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:

“Ten years ago, we thought there were only five henges here in Yorkshire. Now we know there are at least 10. There will be more, I guarantee it.” 

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:

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• Developer withdraws plan for 55 retirement homes in Kirk Hammerton

Parish councils have called for a halt to plans for a new settlement to the east of Knaresborough until after devolution takes place.

With the hand-over to the new unitary authority now just six weeks away, councillors in the area have asked the new North Yorkshire Council to prevent Harrogate Borough Council from spending any more time or money on its development plan document (DPD).

It follows news last month that one of the key landowners in the area earmarked for a new town near Cattal had pulled out of the plans, leaving question marks over their viability.

In a joint letter, representatives of Kirk Hammerton, Whixley, Green Hammerton, Moor Monkton, and Cattal, Hunsingore and Walshford parish councils asked Cllr Simon Myers, NYCC’s executive member for housing, to “step in”. They wrote:

“The DPD process and the Maltkiln planning proposal have lost all credibility and their time is up. HBC should stop work now and concentrate on making the handover to NYC as orderly as possible.

“The developer should be invited to withdraw its application and an indication given (formally or informally) that, if it insists on pressing for a determination, a refusal is inevitable, in the circumstances…

“Meanwhile, it’s high time NYC stepped in and called time on this, before any more mistakes are made (the consequences of which NYC will inherit).”

HBC’s planning policy manager Natasha Durham this week contacted parish councils in the area to invite them to a meeting next month.

She said work was being done to decide whether the DPD could be delivered on the remaining land.

Read more:

• Parish councils to get update on ‘paused’ plans for new town near Knaresborough
• Maltkiln developer still ‘confident’ in new town near Cattal

NYCC has said work by most of the district councils on local plans and DPDs had been paused until the new unitary authority came into effect, but it had agreed Harrogate should continue with its new settlement DPD because it was at an advanced stage.

However, Kirk Hammerton Parish Council chairman Paul Townsend responded to ask how work on the DPD could continue when the land it was based on could no longer be used.

He wrote:

“Since the circumstances underpinning the NYC executive’s decision to proceed with the DPD in December have fundamentally changed (it is hard to think of anything more fundamental to developing a new settlement than no longer having land on which to build it) how has the executive convinced itself that the DPD should continue?

“Does this mean the statement that work on the DPD has been paused is now out of date? It’s all very confusing for us and our residents.”

Parish councillors have also claimed HBC had previously said it had a “duty to determine” a planning application for the site from Caddick, proposing a new town of up to 4,000 homes to be known as Maltkiln.

The councillors said the plans were being pushed through with undue haste in order to have the whole matter dealt with before HBC is abolished on April 1.

However, the council has strongly denied it ever said it had a “duty to determine” the application.

A spokesperson said:

“In response to requests for information on when the DPD would be submitted, we indicated that we were working towards a target of end of 2022 for submission.

“But in view of the recent change of circumstance, the decision to submit the DPD has been paused, something that we have made the public aware of.

“We have also not changed our position regarding the determination of the Caddick/Maltkiln planning application, once again this is hearsay. Currently, there is no timeline for determination as there are still matters to be resolved.

“The principle of development in this location has been established in the adopted Harrogate District Local Plan. Planning applications are determined in accordance with the development plan and circumstances of the time.”

A developer has withdrawn plans for 55 retirement homes and a community hub in Kirk Hammerton.

SageHaus Living, which is based in the Isle of Man, submitted the proposal to Harrogate Borough Council for land off Station Road in the village.

The proposal would have seen 55 park homes built along with a hub, which would be open for the community to use for meetings and other activities.

SageHause Living, which acquired the site known as Carlton Fields in 2021, said in documents submitted to the council that scheme would help bring more retirement accommodation to the district, while also being environmentally friendly.

However, the developer has since withdrawn the application.

Read more:

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In a letter to the council from Kirk Hammerton Parish Council, the authority objected to the proposal on the grounds of highways, public transport and amenity concerns.

It also added that it had concern that the plan was outside the development boundary.

A visual of the community hub planned for the Kirk Hammerton site.

The council said:

“The majority of the land to be developed is outside the Development Limit shown in the current version of the Local Plan for the Harrogate district. 

“There are some aspects of the proposals which, despite this, are attractive (the carbon neutral/negative nature of the development, the focus on retirement properties). 

“There are, however, some disadvantages to the arguments put forward in the application to justify a development outside the permitted limits.”

In a letter to the council, Spring Planning, agents for SageHause, said it wished to withdraw the proposal in order to consider comments made about the scheme.

Firefighters rescued a horse trapped in floodwater today in the Harrogate district.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service’s incident log said it was alerted to the danger at 8am this morning. It occurred off the A59 York Road at Kirk Hammerton.

The incident log said:

“Crews from Acomb and Tadcaster attended an incident where a horse had become trapped in floodwater.

“Crews attached a general purpose line and dragged the horse to safety.

“The horse was then covered with a blanket to keep warm.”

The Environment Agency issued a flood alert today for the Lower River Ure in the Harrogate district.

Read more:

• Firefighters rescue horse after collision in Killinghall
• Flood alert issued in Harrogate district
• Knaresborough man admits assaulting two police officers in Harrogate

A man was caught wandering the streets of the Harrogate district with a bayonet after he went looking for spies he thought were bugging his home.

Christopher Graham, 58, from Harrogate, was found with the large, sheathed military-style blade in Kirk Hammerton after his daughter called police saying she was concerned for her father’s welfare, York Crown Court heard.

She told police her father’s mental state had “deteriorated in recent days, to the extent that he thought his [home] was being bugged”, said prosecutor Brooke Morrison.

Graham left his house “saying he was going to kill [the people he thought were wiretapping his home]”, she added.

Police went looking for him and eventually received reports of a man matching Graham’s description looking “disorientated and confused” at a local petrol station.

Officers found him on York Road, Kirk Hammerton, where he appeared “quite confused, had no shoes or socks on and was attempting to hitchhike”. Ms Morrison said:

“He was picked up by police and found to be carrying a bag which contained, among other items, a sheathed bayonet [blade].”

He was taken in for questioning and told officers he had become “more and more anxious in recent days”. The prosecuting barrister added:

“He said he had forgotten the knife was in his bag and didn’t realise he had it with him.”

Graham, of Butler Road, Harrogate, was arrested and charged with carrying a bladed article in public. He admitted the offence, which occurred on September 25, and appeared for sentence today.

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Ms Morrison said there was no evidence that Graham had taken the bayonet out of the bag while he was wandering the streets.

He hadn’t been taking his medication at the time and had been detained in hospital in the past for mental health issues. He was said to suffer from a chronic relapsing psychotic disorder.

The court heard he had 19 previous convictions for 42 offences, including burglaries and drug-related matters, most of which occurred in the 1980s.

His most recent conviction was in 2009 for an offence of false imprisonment for which he received an 18-month jail sentence.

Ms Morrison said Graham had a drug habit at the time of that offence.

‘No intention of harm’

Defence barrister Victoria Smithswain said Graham had been remanded in custody since his arrest and had therefore already served the equivalent of a four-month prison sentence.

Recorder Tahir Khan KC told Graham:

“It appears that you had not been taking your medication, as a result of which you became confused and were thinking negative thoughts.”

He said it was evident the bayonet blade was never brandished, adding:

“I am satisfied that you had no intention of harming anybody…

“I deal with you on the basis that this was an isolated lapse on your part because you had not been taking your medication.”

Graham was given a three-month jail sentence which triggered his immediate release from custody due to the amount of time he had already spent on remand.

The A59 at Kirk Hammerton is closed in both directions due to serious crash.

North Yorkshire Police said the road is closed between Station Road to York Road and Maston Lane to York Road.

A police statement added:

“Motorists are advised to find an alternative route if travelling between Harrogate and York.”

We will update this story as we get more information.

A developer has lodged plans to create 55 retirement homes and a community hub in Kirk Hammerton.

SageHaus Living, which is based in the Isle of Man, has submitted the proposal to Harrogate Borough Council for land off Station Road in the village.

It would see 55 park homes built, which the developer said would be “sustainable modular retirement bungalows”.

A hub would also be built, which would be open for the community to use for meetings and other activities.

The developer said in documents submitted to the council that scheme would help bring more retirement accommodation to the district, while also being environmentally friendly.

It said:

“SageHaus Living are introducing a new concept for eco retirement living to overcome the lack of supply of age appropriate retirement options for the elderly population of Harrogate.

“The development will deliver a retirement lifestyle that is focused on community and independent living whilst being carbon net zero.”

A visual of the community hub planned for the Kirk Hammerton site.

The proposal comes as SageHaus acquired the land, known as Carlton Fields, back in 2021.

In a statement on its website, the company said the nine acre site would help to provide a “peaceful community”.

Simon Westray, managing director of SageHaus Living: 

“Our first site exemplifies our business model; a rural but sustainable site that is very well connected (both Harrogate and York are only 10 minutes by rail) where we can provide a peaceful community for our residents. 

“We very much look forward to working with Harrogate Council to deliver much needed elderly and truly sustainable accommodation in the district.”

Harrogate Borough Council will make a decision on the plan at a later date.

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Seven neighbouring parish councils have jointly raised concerns about the quality of the proposed new town in the Harrogate district.

Harrogate Borough Council is running a six-week consultation until November 14 on plans to create a new settlement called Maltkiln, which will be roughly the size of Thirsk. Up to 4,000 homes could be built.

The consultation sets out a 30-year vision and policy framework on how the site is designed and developed and proceeds any formal planning application.

Parish councils representing Moor Monkton, Nun Monkton, Tockwith, Whixley, Green Hammerton, Kirk Hammerton, Hunsingore, Great Ribston with Walshford and Cattal met last week to consider a joint response.

A summary of their response describes the documents residents are being urged to comment on as “technical and jargon-heavy”.

The summary acknowledges “major development is coming to the area” but adds Harrogate Borough Council’s development plan document “doesn’t provide a sound framework for delivering the ‘exemplar’ new settlement that’s required; nor does it address with sufficient care the implications for nearby villages”.

There are also concerns about the extent to which a genuine consultation is taking place for the new town, the name for which was chosen by developers Caddick without consultation with residents.

The summary says:

“Residents have raised concerns that the consultation process itself hasn’t been inclusive. Despite its far-reaching implications, there have been no in-person exhibition/public-hall meetings about the development plan document.

“The development plan document documents and response forms themselves are difficult to navigate, potentially preventing many residents from taking part.”

Read more:

• Council faces calls to hold in-person Maltkiln consultation events
• Ouseburn councillor opens Green Party conference in Harrogate

Alex Smith, a spokesman for the councils, said:

“There are several important areas — the development framework itself, transport, flooding — where the development plan document offers a wish-list, not deliverable policies backed up by evidence.”

Mr Smith said the speed at which the development was being considered, five months before Harrogate Borough Council is abolished, had “added to the confusion” and the development plan document felt “premature”. He added:

“It’s about meeting a political objective and getting outline approval for the Caddick application before the council is disbanded on April 1 — not about making sure that we get the best possible development for the future generations who will live in, and near it.”

Concerns about transport, flooding and schools

Arnold Warneken

Arnold Warneken, a Green councillor who represents Ouseburn on North Yorkshire County Council, also attended the parish councils’ meeting.

He said many residents had concerns about issues such as transport, flooding and education and “a combined voice” was more powerful. Cllr Warneken added:

“The consultation process has been questioned by residents for lots of reasons wondering why it was so arms-length and not at all easy to understand or comment on by those residents not at ease with planning terminology and also those who struggle with computers and emails

“I think this coalition of councils is showing how a community can come together for the good of the wider community.”

The developer behind a proposed new Harrogate district town of up to 10,000 people are proceeding with a consultation event today despite calls for it to be deferred.

Caddick Group is holding a public drop-in event at Green Hammerton Village Hall from 3pm to 7pm.

The proposed new town, called Maltkiln, will be built in the Hammerton and Cattal area and include up to 4,000 homes, as well as two primary schools, shops and a GP surgery.

But some councillors and residents feel the event should be postponed until after the Queen’s mourning period ends.

Cattal train station would be at the heart of the new development.

North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council have postponed meetings this week.

Paul Townsend, a member of Kirk Hammerton Parish Council, questioned whether it was appropriate for the event to proceed. He said:

“The guidance we have been given as parish councils is that it is expected that non-urgent business should be deferred until after the period of national mourning.

“I have therefore informed the scheme promoters that Kirk Hammerton parish councillors will not be attending the event in their official capacity.”

Read more:

• Council faces calls to hold in-person Maltkiln consultation events
• New Harrogate district town could have up to 4,000 homes

Today’s event is not part of any official consultation process. Harrogate Borough Council, the planning authority, is expected to open an official consultation next month.

Local resident Alex Smith said:

“It feels unseemly right now even to be drawn in to a debate about whether or not this event should go ahead. I think many residents were just assuming Caddick would postpone it out of respect — and also out of a professional concern to have an effective consultation, with residents’ full attention.

“Volume developers aren’t renowned for their sensitivity, and if Caddick have pressing commercial reasons to hold this event right now, however compromised it might be and whatever the optics — they’re within their rights to do.”

‘Cancelling now would cause confusion’

A spokesman for Caddick said it was “shocked and saddened” to hear of the Queen’s death, adding:

“In line with government guidance on the period of national mourning, which was published on Friday, we decided that the correct course of action is to continue with our consultation event.

 

“To cancel this at very late notice would risk causing confusion amongst the 1,250 residents and businesses we have written to in the local area, and it is important that we conclude this specific consultation process well before Harrogate Borough Council consults on their draft development plan document in October.

 

“However, we can confirm that we will extend the duration of the consultation period by two days, to midnight on September 21. In addition, as part of our ongoing application and engagement with the local community we are always ready to discuss our proposals and receive comments regarding these.

 

“We updated politicians and stakeholders advising them as to our decision to proceed with the consultation, on Friday 9th September. We have been absolutely committed to consulting fully on our proposals throughout this process and are constantly reappraising what we need to do as a business to ensure the widest variety of views can be heard.

 

“If we receive any requests to meet separately with stakeholders, then we will of course consider those and seek to arrive at a suitable outcome. It is of course a difficult time for many and we will further review our approach as the consultation progresses.”

Heated public meetings, protests outside council offices and legal challenges in the high court couldn’t stop Harrogate Borough Council from deciding that 3,000 homes should be built around the villages of Cattal, Green Hammerton and Kirk Hammerton.

The decision was mired with suspicion and ill feeling but now residents are trying to look ahead to how the project can work for them and the people who will eventually live there.

The cold-sounding “new settlement” has been given the more homely title of Maltkiln and a draft document has been published that outlines how the the 3,000 homes along with roads, schools, shops and public spaces will develop over the next few decades.

‘Inevitable’

Since 2016 the name Green Hammerton became synonymous with the new settlement, usually in debates that pitted the merits of developing land there versus Flaxby, which is closer to Harrogate and Knaresborough.

The council’s preferred option for the settlement is now centred around Cattal railway station, on the other side of A59 from Green Hammerton.

Chris Hay and James Veitch are shareholders of Green Hammerton’s Post Office, which also serves as a shop, newsagent and soon-to-be cafe.

The two have a grudging acceptance that the homes will be built but are concerned that Maltkiln will erode the village’s identity, which stretches back to Domesday times.

Green Hammerton

They have already seen Green Hammerton, population 675, swell with three new build housing schemes in recent years.

Mr Veitch said:

“The word inevitable comes to mind but you have to be grown up and make the best of it”.

Not a village

A development plan document (DPD) drawn up by Harrogate Borough Council includes a vision for what Maltkiln will eventually become, which is a “garden village with a distinctive identity where people want to live, work and spend time”.

It conjures up a pastoral scene but with an eventual population larger than Boroughbridge, calling Maltkiln a village is misleading to some.

Mr Veitch said:

“They call it a village don’t they? How on earth can you call a 3,000 development a village? It’s a town, not an insignificant one at that. It will be big enough to create traffic jams on the A59”.

3,000 new homes is likely to result in at least 6,000 cars. Mr Veitch fears that much more investment in Cattal Station is required if commuters are going to leave their cars at home.

Cattal Station

He added:

“There will be a lot of commuting, that’s the bottom line. The A59 will be busy and the railway will not increase its capacity much more than what it is. I don’t buy the argument that it’s a hub where you can transport 10,000 people to anywhere.

“People will still use their cars, anyone who suggests otherwise is naive.”

Fresh blood

Keith Welton and his wife Val have lived in Cattal for 16 years, close to the railway station that the developer Oakgate Group hopes will be one of the unique selling points of Maltkiln.

With homes set to be built in green fields that currently surround the family home, Mr Welton might be forgiven for feeling negative or even bitter about the development.

However, he’s taking a pragmatic approach and sees several benefits that it could bring to the area and the people who live in the villages.

Serious infrastructure investment is promised in the DPD, including improvements to the dangerous Whixley crossing on the A59. Cattal Station already saw £10m of investment in 2020 to increase the number of trains to Harrogate and York.

Kirk Hammerton will also be impacted by Maltkiln

Mr Welton has seen his children and their friends priced out from living locally and he hopes affordable housing can inject some younger blood into the area.

He also hopes the new North Yorkshire Council will be firm with the developers and ensure that affordable housing genuinely is affordable.

Mr Welton said:

“There’s an acute need for affordable housing. Many of our young people come out of university and want to go to Leeds, Manchester or London. They settle down, and they want to come back. We need to capitalise on that talent and make housing available for them.”

“I’m 74 and you can’t have a village full of 74 year olds!”

‘Make the best fist of it’

A criticism of HBC for choosing Green Hammerton over Flaxby was a perception that its residents will be heading in one direction towards York for work and leisure.

But Mr Welton said the majority of his family’s trips are to Harrogate to visit restaurants or the theatre.

He believes Flaxby is “one of the most desirable commercial sites in the whole of North Yorkshire” and that homes built next to a noisy motorway would have made it a poor choice for housing.

He added:

“I do think the location for Maltkiln makes sense. It’s now up to people to make the best fist of it. It’s easy to be negative. We should turn those energies around to get the sort of development that will be an exemplar and people think, wow”.

Climate emergency

The DPD for Maltkiln is 88 pages long and the words ‘climate change’ are mentioned on 36 of them.

It’s clear that HBC hopes the settlement will differ from every other large housing scheme in the district it has approved in recent years that have done little to tackle the climate emergency or help the council reach its emission reduction goals.

The government is set to ban gas boilers in new build homes from 2025. It means the homes in Maltkiln should be powered by renewable energy sources such as heat pumps or solar panels.

The document also claims the development will offer a “biodiversity net gain”, which is a planning phrase that means it will leave the environment in a better state than it was before the homes were built.

But when Maltkiln will involve concreting over vast swathes of green fields, it’s an ambition that could appear impossible.

Land in Cattal earmarked for development

Arnold Warneken, Green Party councillor for Ouseburn on North Yorkshire County Council, said he hopes the developer can be influenced to ensure go further than government regulations around the environment.

He said:

“It’s really, really important we don’t get into lip service and tokenism around biodiversity but it’s going to happen so let’s make sure it happens for best of our community, not just stand back and say I don’t agree with it.”

He added:

“The solution is not to concrete over it, but then the scenario is where do you build the houses? Some people say brownfield but people underestimate the biodiversity of brownfield sites, nature gets everywhere”.

Council’s legacy

Harrogate Borough Council will cease to exist in less than a year’s time but arguably the biggest decision it made during its existence was deciding to change the face of Green Hammerton, Kirk Hammerton and Cattal forever with the new settlement.

How successful Maltkiln will turn out could be HBC’s ultimate legacy.