Country: | England |
Static Image Name: | Oddendale - geograph.org.uk - 202609.jpg |
Static Image Caption: | Oddendale hamlet |
Coordinates: | 54.514°N -2.628°W |
Official Name: | Oddendale |
Civil Parish: | Crosby Ravensworth |
Shire District: | Eden |
Shire County: | Cumbria |
Region: | North West England |
Constituency Westminster: | Penrith and The Border |
Post Town: | PENRITH |
Postcode District: | CA10 |
Postcode Area: | CA |
Dial Code: | 01931 |
Os Grid Reference: | NY593133 |
Pushpin Map: | United Kingdom Eden |
Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Eden, Cumbria |
Oddendale is a hamlet in Cumbria, England, near the large village of Shap. For transport there is the M6 motorway and the A6 road.
Oddendale has a stone circle nearby,, part of the complex of cairns, stone circles and standing stones that includes the 'Shap Stone Avenue' of monuments.[1] The site has benefitted from an extensive and relatively recent (1997) excavation[2] that revealed various stages in the monument's history: firstly, two concentric circles of oak wooden posts (dating to the Neolithic, c. 2,872–2,350 BC); followed by their removal and replacement with stone cappings of pink granite; followed by an Early Bronze Age ring cairn built over the inner circle surfaced with blue/gray stones and yellow/white pieces of flat limestone, with cremated bone, pottery and other 'token' grave goods; and then a fourth stage which saw the addition of a pink granite platform on to the side of the cairn, which itself had a kerb of red stones around it.[3]
The colouring of the stones may have had ritualistic significance. The replacement of the wooden circles by stone ones is a feature shared with some other monuments and may represent the replacement of concern for the living (and the Sun) by devotion to the dead (and the Moon or Sunset).[4]
A second circle and ring cairn was excavated not far away at .[5]