Ilkley Moor

Ilkley Moor
Cow and Calf rocks
Elevation	402 m (1,319 ft)
Prominence	c. 244 metres (801 ft)
Parent peak	Thorpe Fell Top
Listing	Marilyn
Location
Location	West Yorkshire,  United Kingdom
Topo map	OS Landranger 104
OS grid	SE114452

Ilkley Moor is part of Rombalds Moor, the moorland between Ilkley and Keighley in West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom. The peat bogs rise to 402 m (1,319 ft) above sea level. It is famous as the inspiration for the Yorkshire "county anthem" On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at.

Etymology

See Ilkley.

History and information

Ilkley Moor on a clear evening as the daylight falls.

To the north, where the moor drops steeply down towards the village of Ben Rhydding, a satellite of the town of Ilkley, are two millstone grit rock climbing areas: Rocky Valley and Ilkley Quarry.

Ilkley Quarry is the site of the famous "Cow and Calf", a large rock formation consisting of an outcrop and boulder, also known as Hangingstone Rocks. The rocks are made of millstone grit, a variety of sandstone, and are so named because one is large, with the smaller one sitting close to it, like a cow and calf. Legend has it that there was once also a "bull", but that was quarried for stone during the spa town boom Ilkley was part of in the 19th century. However, none of the local historians has provided any evidence of the Bull's existence.

According to local legend, the Calf was split from the Cow when the giant Rombald was fleeing an enemy, and stamped on the rock as he leapt across the valley. The enemy, it is said , was his angry wife. She dropped the stones held in her skirt to form the local rock formation The Skirtful of Stones.

A photograph of the swastika stone alongside its replica carving and the view it overlooks from Woodhouse Crag.

The name of the giant Rombald is likely to be a retrovention, due to the name of the entire 'Rombald's Moor', which is most likely to derive its title from the de Rommilles, who held the honour of Skipton in the thirteenth century.^{[citation needed]}

July 2006 saw a major fire on the moor which left between a quarter and half of it destroyed.^{[citation needed]}

Swastika Stone

Located on the Woodhouse Crag, on the Northern edge of Ilkley Moor there is a swastika-shaped pattern engraved in a stone, known as the Swastika Stone [1], also referred to as a Fylfot. In the figure in the foreground of the picture is a 20th century replica; the original carving can be seen a little further away. [2]

This stone is, however, just one of a great abundance of carved rocks on the moor, well known others include the 'Badger Stone' and 'St. Margaret's Stones'. These are earthfast boulders, large flat slabs or prominent rocks that have cups, rings and grooves cut into them and thought to date from either the late Neolithic or the Bronze Age. While some carvings consist of simple cups, others such as the Badger Stone, Hanging Stones and the Panorama Rocks have complex series of patterns (or motifs) combining many different elements. Indeed Rombald's Moor can boast the second highest concentration of ancient carved stones in Europe, with carving as far away as Skipton Moor. There is also a small stone circle known as 'The Twelve Apostles'.

Geology

The local millstone grit not only gives character to the town of Ilkley but gives the area its acid soils, heather moors, soft water and rocky scars, like the Cow and Calf rocks. Ilkley Moor, in the Carboniferous period 325 million years ago, was in a swampy area at around sea level with meandering river channels coming from the north. The layers in the eroded bank faces of stream gullies in the area represent sea levels with various tides depositing different sorts of sediment. Over a long period of time the loose sediments were cemented and compacted into hard rock layers. Geological forces lifted and tilted the strata a little towards the south-east and produced many small fractures, or faults.

Since the end of the Carboniferous time there has been a tremendous amount of erosion and more than a thousand metres of the coal-bearing rocks have been completely removed from the area. More recently, during the last million years or so, Ice Age glaciers modified the shape of the Wharfe valley, deepening it, smoothing it and leaving behind glacial debris.^[1]

References

1. ^ Information courtesy of David Leather of the Wharfedale Naturalists' Society; in leaflet literature from Bracken Hall Countryside Centre.

External links

• Ilkley Moor info
• Ilkley tourist information
• An account of the alleged 1987 abduction
• Ilkley Moor alien photograph info

Coordinates: 53°54′54″N 1°48′54″W / 53.915°N 1.815°W / 53.915; -1.815