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Oddendale
Oddendale - geograph.org.uk - 202609.jpg
Oddendale hamlet
Oddendale is located in Cumbria
Oddendale
Oddendale
OS grid reference NY593133
Civil parish
District
Shire county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town PENRITH
Postcode district CA10
Dialling code 01931
Police Cumbria
Fire Cumbria
Ambulance North West
EU Parliament North West England
UK Parliament
  • Penrith and The Border
List of places
UK
England
Cumbria
54°30′50″N 2°37′41″W / 54.514°N 2.628°W / 54.514; -2.628

Oddendale is a hamlet in Cumbria, England, near the large village of Shap. For transport there is the M6 motorway and the A6 road.

History

Oddendale stone circle

Cairn circle, Oddendale - geograph.org.uk - 2400493
Outer cairn circle
Cairn circle, Oddendale - geograph.org.uk - 2400491
Inner cairn circle

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. The site has benefitted from an extensive and relatively recent (1997) excavation 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.

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).

A second circle and ring cairn was excavated not far away at .

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