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Circular Enclosures


sando

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Although not quite Sheffield, it is on the outer limits of South Yorkshire and has intrigued me for a while, when travelling towards Penistone I came across what apeared to be two circular store enclosures (picture attached from Google Earth), within fields built from stone and looking the same age as the dry stone walling to the sorounding fields and about 40 meters in diameter.

There is one on each side of the road, one pretty much intact and full of mature trees which may indicate its age, the second is only part still standing and on quite a slope. The one on the slope looks as though it may have the remains of a building in it, and on the outside of the circle to the right appears to have a couple of mounds just outside the circle to the right.

When looking from above via Google earth the enclosures appear to be exact circles. Has anyone any ideas, what they are or why they were built

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Something similar down the road to the east.

Flash Earth

Yes I notice the ones you highlighted whilst looking on Google Earth, will check them out more closely next time I am out that way.

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Anybody notice that the labels on the 1850 sketch are opposite (or seemingly opposite) the reality, where one would expect that the one labeled "Wood" would be filled with trees, but is not, and the one labeled "Ring" is the one filled with trees? What's up with that?

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Anybody notice that the labels on the 1850 sketch are opposite (or seemingly opposite) the reality, where one would expect that the one labeled "Wood" would be filled with trees, but is not, and the one labeled "Ring" is the one filled with trees? What's up with that?

I think it is a collective name referring to both enclosures 'Ring Wood'.

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1890's map.

Looking at the 1850 and more so the 1890 map and how the walls to the enclosures interject with the field boundry that runs parallel with the road, it looks to me like the circular enclosure was there prior to the field boundry.

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I don't know the place, but they remind me of places in the Peak District, where farmers have walled a circular area to keep livestock out. In the Peak it's usually the site of an old mineshaft, or a lead working where the ground is contaminated.

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That must be what it is ... A simple maze, with two entrances. They cut the mowing by 2/3's, except for the maze paths of course, but it beats mowing the whole thing.

Regarding Mucky Lane -- I can't hardly believe they drove the camera vehicle down that road. That one's a regular goat path!

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That must be what it is ... A simple maze, with two entrances. They cut the mowing by 2/3's, except for the maze paths of course, but it beats mowing the whole thing.

Regarding Mucky Lane -- I can't hardly believe they drove the camera vehicle down that road. That one's a regular goat path!

Maybe they used this, they did the footpath to Malham Cove with it!

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Further north at Fanley Tyas (south of Huddersfield), another circular enclosure

with a road going through it, and a couple of semicircular enclosures to the north east.

1850's

Flash Earth

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Further north at Fanley Tyas (south of Huddersfield), another circular enclosure

with a road going through it, and a couple of semicircular enclosures to the north east.

1850's

Flash Earth

This looks very simmilar to the ones at Brock Holes, is it possible the 2 semi circular ones have lost their other halves to farming?

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As they generally seem to be closely linked with roadways, are they something to do with droving farm animals [cattle, sheep, etc] in the days before such movements switched to rail transport?

Certainly, there must have been a need for places in which to hold such animals overnight on the journey from farm to maket and I would have thought that a circular enclosure is probably one of the simplest forms to construct.

A high level of natural "dunging" would possibly also account for the fact that they generally seem to have since become heavily wooded. Possibly?

They are fascinating though, what ever their origins and purpose.

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As they generally seem to be closely linked with roadways, are they something to do with droving farm animals [cattle, sheep, etc] in the days before such movements switched to rail transport?

Certainly, there must have been a need for places in which to hold such animals overnight on the journey from farm to maket and I would have thought that a circular enclosure is probably one of the simplest forms to construct.

A high level of natural "dunging" would possibly also account for the fact that they generally seem to have since become heavily wooded. Possibly?

They are fascinating though, what ever their origins and purpose.

Now that's an interesting thought. A bit of research on droveways required!

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Maybe it's the roadways that are, (by chance placement), associated with these particular enclosures, versus the other way around. I'm thinking that If the enclosures were orignally intended as cattle-holding structures in more or less modern history, then the question of their purpose would not likely be a matter of speculation but more one of common knowledge.... maybe? By convenience and default they may been in fact used for cattle in more or less modern history, but that doesn't necessarily define them as having been originally built for that purpose.

Stonehenge is circular (as are hundreds of other similarly enigmatic ancient circular structures). Was it built next to a road for the purpose of enclosing cattle?

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I like the droving theory but:

Although the intact one around Ring Wood has a gate, the entrance looks to have been put in there at a later date. I say this because the ends are not finished off as you would expect with a wall of that age. (One would normally expect to see heavy stone gateposts)

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