Noon Hill

High on the summit of the often foreboding Noon Hill is a Bronze Age round cairn topped by a more recent cairn of uncertain age. The round cairn was excavated in the 1950’s/60’s and yielded several cremations and funery ornaments now in the possesion of Bolton Museum. This site is rumoured to have been put to use in more recent times as a secret meeting place for persecuted Christians.

National Monument Number: 23708 “The monument includes a round cairn located on the northern edge of the summit of Noon Hill. It includes a slightly oval mound of earth and stones up to 1.3m high with maximum dimensions of 21m north-south by 19m east-west. On the monument’s southern edge there are three partially exposed gritstone boulders which form part of the cairn’s kerb. Limited excavation of the cairn in 1958 and again in 1963/4 located the primary burial at the monument’s centre. This comprised three cremations interpreted by the excavator as an adult male, adult female, and a child, located beneath a collapsed enlarged food vessel and inserted into a central stone cist. Three or four secondary cremations and a number of flint tools including barbed and tanged arrowheads, scrapers and a knife were also found during these excavations.” “Despite two limited excavations of the monument during the 1950s and 1960s, the round cairn on Noon Hill survives reasonably well. These excavations located human remains, flint tools and pottery, and further evidence of interments and associated grave goods will exist within the cairn and upon the old landsurface beneath.” English Heritage NMR

Created: 27  November  2016  Edited: 29  November  2023