Yorkshire’s “Sacred Vale” – The Dawn of Brigantia

The “Sacred” Vale of Mowbray – Brigantia’s Neolithic Capital?

More than 2,000 years before the discovery and widespread use of Iron an unprecedented bout of monument building in the centre of Brigantia created the Britain’s largest religious monument complex, a place that has been suggested as being Britain’s religious capital during the Neolithic Period.

Whatever it was, these monuments were amongst the largest in Britain and will have been an important part of Brigantia’s cultural heritage.

The first monuments erected within the Vale of Mowbray were the cursus monuments. The largest cursus in the north of England was Scorton Cursus, this was over 2.1km long and is now mostly destroyed by quarrying. The other cursus,Thornborough Central Cursus was smaller at approx. 1.2km and is now mostly destroyed by quarrying.

These are seen as the first communal ritual monuments ands clearly mark out an area that is interpreted as being “ceremonial ways” – places for processions. Cursuses often are associated with a number of funery monuments, as can be seen at Scorton – a number of barrows cluster round it. At Thornborough the cursus is close by a Neolithic mortuary enclosure – a place for the laying out of the dead prior to burial. The cursus monuments, though these have yet to be dated, are believed to date from around 3,500 BC.

These cursus monuments created within the area two sacred spaces that in many ways define the area of the “Sacred Vale” – each is associated with a river – Thornborough/Ure and Scorton/Swale – these two rivers join at Boroughbridge to create a clearly defined region that in later years was to become a very significant place.

Around 3,000 BC, the Sacred Vale was created. The critical locations of Thornborough, Boroughbridge and Scorton (via Catterick) were linked with two great alignments of henges. In all, at least six henges were built – The three at Thornborough, Catterick Hutton Moor, Nunwick and Cana Barn. Catterick was the smallest henge in the Vale at 100m in diameter yet this is still one of Britain’s largest henges. The three henges at Thornborough and those at Hutton and Cana were possibly as large as 300m in diameter originally and had an outer bank and inner segmented ditch that created multiple entrances, this created the largest concentration of henges in Britain and was the largest building project attempted during the Neolithic as far as we can tell.

Thornborough Henges Devil's Arrows Catterick Henge Scorton Cursus Hutton Moor Henge Pickhill Artificial Mound Kirklington Barrow

 

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  • #1565
    George
    Keymaster

    The “Sacred” Vale of Mowbray – Brigantia’s Neolithic Capital? More than 2,000 years before the discovery and widespread use of Iron an unprecedented b
    [See the full post at: Yorkshire’s “Sacred Vale” – The Dawn of Brigantia]

    #2182
    Brigantia Movie
    Participant

    Please help. I’m Thomas and in the embryonic stages of doing a film next year about old Brigantia. I have studied this lot but still a novice, need knowledge and alot of it. Most would be from the  earliest Brigantia history to 69AD. Any help appreciated and thanks!

    #2183
    George
    Keymaster

    Hey Thomas! Welcome to the site! Well there’s not a great deal of knowledge about Brigantia from that period, we have some ancient remains, some words by Tacitus and a bunch of theories, which can’t be proven. Much of the debate these days centres around Stanwick, which is an amazing place – the largest fort ever built in Britain, and the debate centres around whether it was Cartimandua’s capital or Venutius’ last stand.

    #2185
    George
    Keymaster

    What sort of timespan do you see your film covering Thomas?

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by George.
    • This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by George.
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