Oddendale

Hamlet in Cumbria, England

Human settlement in England

Crosby Ravensworth

District

Eden

Shire county

Cumbria

Region

North West

CountryEnglandSovereign stateUnited KingdomPost townPENRITHPostcode districtCA10Dialling code01931PoliceCumbriaFire Cumbria Ambulance North West UK Parliament

Penrith and The Border

List of places: UK; England; Cumbria

54°30′50″N 2°37′41″W / 54.514°N 2.628°W / 54.514; -2.628

Oddendale is a hamlet in Cumbria, England, near the large village of Shap. For transport there is the M6 motorway and the A6 road.

History

Oddendale stone circle

Oddendale has a stone circle nearby, (grid reference NY59201290), part of the complex of cairns, stone circles and standing stones that includes the 'Shap Stone Avenue' of monuments.^[1] The site has benefitted from an extensive and relatively recent (1997) excavation^[2] that revealed various stages in the monument's history: firstly, two concentric circles of oak wooden posts (dating to the Neolithic, c. 2,872–2,350 BC); followed by their removal and replacement with stone cappings of pink granite; followed by an Early Bronze Age ring cairn built over the inner circle surfaced with blue/gray stones and yellow/white pieces of flat limestone, with cremated bone, pottery and other 'token' grave goods; and then a fourth stage which saw the addition of a pink granite platform on to the side of the cairn, which itself had a kerb of red stones around it.^[3]

The colouring of the stones may have had ritualistic significance. The replacement of the wooden circles by stone ones is a feature shared with some other monuments and may represent the replacement of concern for the living (and the Sun) by devotion to the dead (and the Moon or Sunset).^[4]

A second circle and ring cairn was excavated not far away at grid reference NY59031352.^[5]

References

^ Clare, Tom (2007). Prehistoric monuments of the Lake District. Stroud: Tempus. pp. 159, pp.93–96. ISBN 9780752441054.
^ Turnbull, P; Walsh, D (1997). "A prehistoric ritual sequence at Oddendale, near Shap". Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society. 2. 97: 11–44.
^ Barrowclough, David (2010). Prehistoric Cumbria. Stroud: The History Press. pp. 251, p. 114–119. ISBN 9780752450872.
^ Barrowclough, 2010, p.117, 119
^ Clare, 2007, p.95