Fairy holes
| Fairy holes
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| Location: | Forest of Bowland , Ribble Valley , Lancashire , England | |
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Geographic location: |
53 ° 54 '57.5 " N , 2 ° 31' 34.4" W | |
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| Geology: | limestone | |
| Type: | Rock caves | |
| Particularities: | 3 caves | |
The Fairy Holes ( German fairy holes ) are three caves in a limestone cliff in the Forest of Bowland , above Whitewell and the River Hodder near Clitheroe in Lancashire in England . The main cave and the smaller East and West Caves are south of New Laund Farm.
The main cave is an almost straight passage with a length of about 22.5 m, an average width of 1.8 m and a height of 3.0 m. The platform in front of the cave is 0.6 to 1.8 m wide, its edge drops almost vertically 6.0 m. The largest cave turned out to be of great archaeological interest in the late 1940s, 1960s and later as there were many finds there, including flint , a fragment of a Bronze Age collar urn , a hearth, pottery shards, animal bones and three indeterminate small pieces of iron. Two walls were found in front of the mouth of the cave.
In 1984 a large round stone was found in the River Hodder. Archaeologists recognized the stone as a mortar for grinding grains and dated it to the Bronze Age. Now known locally as 'The Whitewell Stone', it is now in the hotel in the village. "
literature
- JA Gilks: A note on the collared urn from Fairy Holes cave, Whitewell, Lancashire . Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 82, 1983 pp. 188-93.
- RC Musson: A Bronze Age cave site in the Little Bolland area of Lancashire . Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 59, 1947. pp. 161-70.
- R. Peterson: Excavations at New Laund Farm, Whitewell, Lancashire , 2012. University of Central Lancashire, unpublished interim report. Available at [1]