Details

The monument includes a prehistoric standing stone and the associated buried
deposits immediately around its base. The monument, which is Listed Grade II
is sited on moorland beside the Castleton to Hutton-Le-Hole road where it is
crossed by a trackway. It stands at the intersection of the parishes of
Rosendale West, Farndale East and Westerdale.
The Margery Bradley standing stone is considered to date to the Bronze Age
and to be roughly contemporary with Flat Howe round barrow which lies about
240m to the south west and is the subject of a separate scheduling. The stone
is a rough, undressed slab around 1m wide, 0.35m thick and standing 2.1m above
the current ground surface. It is orientated so that its largest surfaces face
east and west and not to line up with either the road or the trackway. At the
top of the west face there are the carved initials `T.D.' which are thought to
stand for Thomas Duncombe and to have been left in the 18th century as an
estate boundary mark. Carved into the foot of the east face there is an
Ordnance Survey benchmark.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features,
considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Standing stones are prehistoric ritual or ceremonial monuments with dates
ranging from the Late Neolithic to the end of the Bronze Age for the few
excavated examples. They comprise single or paired upright orthostatic slabs,
ranging from under lm to over 6m high where still erect. They are often
conspicuously sited and close to other contemporary monument classes. They can
be accompanied by various features: many occur in or on the edge of round
barrows, and where excavated, associated subsurface features have included
stone cists, stone settings, and various pits and hollows filled in with earth
containing human bone, cremations, charcoal, flints, pots and pot sherds.
Similar deposits have been found in excavated sockets for standing stones,
which range considerably in depth. Several standing stones also bear cup and
ring marks. Standing stones may have functioned as markers for routeways,
territories, graves, or meeting points, but their accompanying features show
they also bore a ritual function and that they form one of several ritual
monument classes of their period that often contain a deposit of cremation and
domestic debris as an integral component. No national survey of standing
stones has been undertaken, and estimates range from 50 to 250 extant
examples, widely distributed throughout England but with concentrations in
Cornwall, the North Yorkshire Moors, Cumbria, Derbyshire and the Cotswolds.
Standing stones are important as nationally rare monuments, with a high
longevity and demonstrating the diversity of ritual practices in the Late
Neolithic and Bronze Age. Consequently all undisturbed standing stones and
those which represent the main range of types and locations would normally be
considered to be of national importance.

The Margery Bradley standing stone is a good, well preserved example of its
type. Its importance is heightened by its continued use into historic times as
a marker stone for parish boundaries, a trackway, 18th century estate boundary
and as a benchmark. The nearby Flat Howe round barrow, the subject of a
separate scheduling, is considered to be roughly contemporary, and adds
further importance to the monument.

Source: Historic England