YEAVERING BELL AND HAREHOPE PORT 161 



which fill up most of the notices written in the eighteenth 

 century, and the early part of the nineteenth. In an article 

 by Sir David Erskine, appended as a postcript to his 

 "Annals and Antiquities of Dryburgh," he tells us that the 

 Eastern summit was crowned with a cairn of stones ten 

 yards high, the middle hollow six paces from brim to brim, 

 and the stones beneath calcined with fire. This, he supposes, 

 was the Bell, and most probably was used either as a 

 Druidical place of worship or an ancient court of law, when 

 the Northumbrian kings lived at Adgefrin. The sides of 

 the mountain, he continues, are covered with small holdings 

 .or priests' houses, and so on. All is subordinated to the 

 idea of a religious use, or a court of law. I can see no 

 trace of Druidical remains at Yeavering. If there is any- 

 where in the district a place for the assembly of the people 

 for deliberative purposes, or religious rites, I should place it 

 at a point on the watershed between Torleehouse burn and 

 the burn running down to Old Yeavering, at a spot where 

 I have marked " Standing stones " on the map. Several 

 stones of considerable size still remain upright in the Moss 

 there, whose situation, though not much exposed, is in full 

 view of many of the large enclosures in the district. This 

 struck me at once as the remains of a stone circle. Should 

 any one regret that by the rude hands of modern experts 

 Yeavering Bell is being stripped of its ancient glories, let 

 him think of the positions occupied by all the great circles 

 remaining to us, from Stonehenge downwards, and, in my 

 opinion, he will satisfy himself that Yeavering Bell was not 

 a likely site. In the field to the North of Yeavering Bell, 

 and between Old and New Yeavering, there lies a huge 

 Monolith, measuring 9 feet 4 inches in length, and 5 feet 3 

 inches in breadth at its base. It stood upright till 1890, 

 when it was blown over, and is said to mark the scene of a 

 defeat sufPered by invading Scots in 1415. Possibly such an 

 event did occur at that date, but the raising of such huge 

 blocks is the work of an earlier age. Mr Eiddle, Yeavering, 

 suggests raising it again into the upright position, which 

 would be a reverent act. There is also a Monolith on Worm 

 Law, 8 feet in length, but otherwise of moderate dimensions, 

 which is also recumbent. 



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