A Sacred Place

Enjoyed a leisurely walk to the pub with good friends. Starting in Belmont we headed across the West Pennine Moors out to the Strawberry Duck at Turton. Amazingly we didn't see any rain, although the ground is saturated. A few snaps taken on the way out, but great light at sunset.

This was taken looking back at Cheetham Close, at the north end of Turton Heights. Near to the modern trigpoint there is an early Bronze Age stone circle which is part of a 'complex of ritual/burial monuments', which also includes two ring-bank cairns, two small cairns of unknown structure, and at least two outliers all of which are Scheduled Ancient Monuments. Radiocarbon dating using palaeoecological evidence suggests they emanate from c2000 BC.

Seeing the way the low winter sun, close to the winter equinox, illuminates this site perhaps suggests why these people considered it sacred.