2 Foxes Stone - Danby Head

The 2 Foxes Stone - Danby Head
I.R
2 Foxes

I was first told about this stone by Author Tom Scott Burns in 1989. I never got around to visiting it until one wet and windy day this December 2018.  Easy enough to find with his instructions but I could not find  another inscription close by, recorded by T.S.B.   "....and low down to the left - "I.Peirson 1796"  - is inscribed upon another rock at ground level" .  The ground is extremely steep and pretty overgrown I could not find this stone.  Within the last few years there had been a cliff fall nearby to the 2 Foxes Stone.  It was raining and unpleasant so I didn't spend a lot of time looking.

The location for both stones is reached with some difficulty. (NZ 692024). From Botton in Danby Dale follow the track which runs south past High Farm, past the forest on your left, it then  ascends onto the moor on the east side of Danby Head, follow the track around  the edge of the wood on your right.  As the track descends towards the beck there is a gate.  At the top of the west side of the beck  there are a few small trees along a small broken crag. A very indistinct zig-zag takes you up to the right from where you can traverse to the rock face where  the 2 Foxes stone engraving is.

Peirsons were a family of Quakers in Danby Dale at one time and it may be a memorial to a hunting accident. Who knows?  Here is a picture of the Peirson Stone,  and the location  where it can be found.  I was unable to locate it even after another visit and much longer search.  Some of the crag appears to have fallen away and perhaps with it, the Peirson stone.

Photo taken by Jane Ellis and published by permission.  This photo was taken about 1988

Photo taken by Jane Ellis and published by permission.  This photo was taken about 1988.  I was unable to locate this feature and I'm assuming it has now collapsed.

Farndale Cairn

Cairns are becoming increasingly common on the North York Moors over the last 20 years as more people take to the hills.  This is already causing a problem where this habit causes damage to archeological sites such as Tumulus (Bronze age burial mounds) National Park Blog=  https:/deconstructing-mounds/

Examples of well built ones with well placed stones are far less common.  Many are placed where they can be seen from a distance, such as the shoulder of a hill.  But this one is extremely well hidden and I'm not sure it can be seen from any public path or road.  I

Its in Farndale.   Its very well built - the stones are carefully selected and placed so that the cairn is a true cone shape. Someone took a great deal of care in making this a nice cone shaped cairn.   I'd probably guess its a memorial to a favoured dog..Or perhaps an accident?  But who knows?

'Consumption Walls'

Consumption walls are so called because they are wide - this one is probably around 7ft to 8ft wide, and were made to use up (consume),

the smaller stones gathered from the field, when the process of enclosing land was first commenced.

They aren't too common, and this is the only one I've seen in the North Yorkshire Moors park.  

This specimen is at Danby Dale just south of Botton village at NZ 690031