Gilbeber Hill: Mysterious Earthwork at Barnoldswick

This afternoon, I took advantage of the weather’s clemency and went awalking. On Barnoldswick’s outskirts is a hill called Gilbeber upon which is an earthwork. ‘Earthworks’ are typically rough mounds, the remains of ancient activity. It seems to be a roughly rectangular earthwork and can be seen from the Gisburn road leaving Barnoldswick. It may be of Roman origin (it’s not far from the road which passes the chapel towards Ilkley) or it may be medieval.

There is a tradition that the royalist leader Prince Rupert camped here in 1644 when travelling through Craven. Why a cavalry unit would camp on the summit of a hill, I know not, unless he was planning to stay and defend it some time.

A strange earthwork; there seems little reference to it online.