This cache has been set with the aim of sharing some of the local history I have learned since moving onto the Burnt Stones estate. Not long after I moved in a local historian who lives on our road told me how the name of ‘Burnt Stones’ came about during the time of the Harrying of the North when William the Conqueror swept through the North of England, starting with Yorkshire, burning property and killing the inhabitants. It is thought that a stone-built hunting lodge or even Waltheof’s settlement of Hallam, possibly located just off the Long Causeway at Hallam Head, was burned to the ground thus giving rise to the name ‘Burnt Stones’ which is still in use for the area today.
Barncliffe Stoop
In more recent times the area was used as the location of Burnt Stones Hall believed to have been built c.1833 on Burnt Stones Common high above Rivelin, by the Holy family. The house was demolished to be replaced by the current housing estate where the Burnt Stones name is still used. However, the house’s lodge once commanding the long drive to the house still stands at the far end of Moorbank Road.
Milestone
The co-ordinates to the cache do not take you directly to a cache but to an information board on the old route of the Long Causeway. Opposite the information board you will find the old way marker Barncliffe Stoop showing the way for travellers on the Causeway.
View from Barncliffe Stoop
The information required to get the co-ordinates of the cache can be found on the information board and by substituting the letters in the co-ordinates below with the numbers from the information board:
N 53° 2A.BCD
W 001° 3E.FGH
Altitude where stoop stands in metres =A95
Year Burnt Stones Hall was demolished= 19B4
Year the milestone added to top of stoop = 173C
Restoration completed=200D
Year the Sheffield end of the road was named Ancient Road = 13E3
Year the law was passed requiring the erection of milestones = 17F8
Year that the milestone top of stoop was removed for a garden decoration in Burnt Stones Hall garden = 18G0
Year Sheffield to Hathersage turnpike opened= 176H
The cache site is around a third of a mile from the information board somewhere in the Burnt Stones estate. Please note there is no need to enter private property to retrieve the cache.