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Arrows and Pillars
Richard Bell’s Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, Monday, 16th November 2009
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WHILE DRAWING this medieval monument to the Battle of Boroughbridge (1322), it occurred to me that the masons who carved it might have cannibalised one of the Devil’s Arrows standing stones aligned near the modern A1 on the western side of the town. Today there are three of them but there are early references to a fourth, which local tradition suggests was broken up to be used in the construction of a small local bridge, which can still be seen. If that happened in the 17th or 18th century then is it possible that an earlier, fifth, ‘Arrow’ was recycled to make this monument? Are they the same kind of rock?
The memorial originally stood in Boroughbridge but the Victorians moved it to the adjoining village of Aldborough. This village is built on the site of the Roman town of Isurium, so another possibility is that is was recycled from Roman masonry. Alternatively they might simply have quarried the stone locally, although I assume that for miles around the local bedrock is buried beneath superficial deposits of alluvial and glacial debris.
The Devils Arrows are believed to have been transported from Plumpton Rocks, three
miles south of Knaresborough and nine miles south-
This morning I started landscape vignettes for the booklet. I’ve actually been a little too enthusiastic with this first one as I’ve included more detail than I’d intended. It has to go down to about 2 inches across on the page. Hopefully when I add watercolour it will simplify the drawing.
I sit at my desk and draw directly in pen from digital photographs that I’d taken when we checked out the walk during the sunnier, more settled spell of weather we had earlier this autumn. This suits me better than tracing the outlines in pencil first. It’s as close as I can get to drawing on location without being there.