Bolton-Stow Conservation Land. Part 2 - a Hillside Site

by pwax
So we walked off down the hill, still hoping to see a real rock pile and did see a rock-on-rock, right there visible from the trail. And then, lo and behold, a rock pile. Down at the edge of the hill, which drops off into wetland, there were a number of these debris covered piles on support rocks. Without taking time to clean any off, there was little hope of seeing more than the pile's existence.And after this we kept seeing other non-descript rock piles covered with debris, as we circled the edges of the hill. There were a couple of rock-on-rocks next to each other at the same level on the hill. One of the two was shimmed into place. This suggestion that the exact placement was important. Here is one of them, it looks like a burnt rock to me.We came up behind a house with a new barking dog and turned more directly up the steep hill heading (as we found out later) directly back to the location of the prayer seat. As we got higher on the hill the piles got more substantial until FFC says: "Hey Peter! I found the good stuff". And he was right, the piles were better defined, and there were some really neat things to see.
For example these next rock-on-rocks were in a line leading downhill to...... an aperture pile. Can you see the hole through the pile?
Note how this pile is just at the edge of the drop off. Was this a hole we look through or one through which the light will shine, or none of the above? FFC was captivated by the fact that there was an unusual rock in this pile which he recognized as coming from the limestone vein which runs across country from where he lives in Carlisle to near here in Bolton and Stow and beyond. So that was the first unusual something he found in a rock pile.

Now here is yet another rock-on-rock with a more substantial pile in the background.
In the next section we'll take a closer look at that more substantial pile.