Shap Avenue Complex, Westmoreland. 5 Days on the Greater Stones Way. Part 1 of 4

The official Great Stones Way runs from Swindon to Salisbury down in Wiltshire, but from my perspective we could call the whole of Great Britain and Ireland the Great Stones Way as pretty much all the National Trails have sites of antiquity along them. The Greater Stones Way is just my way of documenting some of these sites, and over the next few weeks I want to showcase the sites around Shap, Westmoreland.
The Shap Avenue Complex is steeped in mystery and folklore, but over the past few century's there have been many witness accounts, descriptions even sketches. The avenue itself was a double stone row with stones as large as fifteen feet in circumference and nine feet tall, shaped like mini pyramids, it was documented in the 17th-18th century as the Avebury of the north also likened to Callanish Stones up in Scotland, for me this statement says it all. We know from these reports that it started at Kemp How Stone Circle, but did it run almost seven miles all the way onto Moor Divock? or was it only for a mile and half to the hill of Skulls? Who Knows, it's so far back in time I really don't think we will ever know for sure, but along with my Grandson Mason we intend to investigate and see what evidence we can find. We spend five days exploring the entire Shap area. Day one (this video) starts on Moor Divock just up from Askham in the Lowther Valley. It's a very old trading route that continues down into Pooley Bridge and beyond, it's also part of the high ground that makes up High Street. So this walk takes us from Moor Divock over Loadpot Hill 675m Mason's first big mountain, then down to the four stones hill complex, and back to Moor Divock to the van. The weather was hit and miss, grey with the odd shower but walking with Mason was so much fun. We encounter the famous herd of Red Deer on the flanks of Loadpot, such beautiful animals and so powerful, it looked for a minute that we would be charged by the young bucks but they backed off. Nowhere for us to run so we got low down watched, and hoped for the best, this meant a detour round them but it was so worth it.
This is a four part series that was recorded last November and the videos are all edited up and ready to go. The idea was to start a new channel called the Greater Stones way and Mason was going to lead it, but life throws curve balls at times and plans change. The new channel didn't happen and these videos have been left on the shelf, until now.


Music: https://www.purple-planet.com