286 holmes: pre-historic remains of rombalds moor. 
rock, rough moraine-leavings on inclined beds, covered by bog, ling, 
bracken, or brushwood in patches, to the cultivated enclosures and 
the well grown trees common to the district valleys. So far as history 
records, the centres of Rombalds Moor were never in a different con- 
dition naturally, whereas it is evident that at a period relatively 
recent in geological times the condition of Rombalds Moor was very 
different to the present. At the very top of the moor, now all bleak, 
bare, and bog, it is evident the larger trees grew in forests of oak, 
elm, and birch. The two former were often taken out of the bogs at 
Lanshaw and elsewhere, in the memory of old people recently living, 
and the silver birch has been found to be numerous in the bog on the 
top of the moor. 
The evidences of primitive man upon Rombalds Moor exist in 
its pre-historic graves, in its remains of barbarous life and action, 
and in its objects of superstition and primitive art. 
About 1844, Mr. Edward Hailstone, and Mr. J. M. N. Colls 
made explorations by digging, and gave an exhaustive account of the 
results, which was published in the Archeologia, vol. xxxi., p. 229. 
This Mr. Wardell, in his early remains of Baildon Common, thus 
summarises: "The first excavation was made near the centre of a 
circle composed of earth and stones, measuring fifty feet in diameter, 
on the south-east side of Baildon Common. After removing succes- 
sive layers of peat, earth, and calliard boulders, at a depth of two 
feet from the surface of the ground, there was found in connection 
with the remains of a fire, a rude urn of circular or bowl shape, twelve 
inches in diameter and about nine or ten inches in depth, ornamented 
in the upper part by incised lines crossing each other at right 
angles, lozenge-wise. It was in an upright position, and filled 
with calcined bones, ashes, and charcoal. The bones, some of 
which were quite perfect, were submitted to medical inspection, and 
pronounced to be those of a young person of from nine to thirteen 
years of age. The next examination was made in an earthwork of a 
peculiar character, situated on the north side of the road crossing the 
common, consisting of the remains of a circle composed of the same 
materials, and of the same dimensions as the last, but bound on the 
south and east sides by a well-defined entrenchment, the form of 
