Here, Robin Longbottom reveals what lies beneath the mystery of a curious South Craven site

ON the hillside south of the village of Sutton-in-Craven is an unusual level area of land.

Topographically it is known as a slump and appeared when the land slipped and settled after the permafrost melted at the end of the last Ice Age.

It lies below the road that passes Lund’s Tower (Sutton Pinnacle) and just above High Jackfield Farm.

As well as being a topographical anomaly it is also the site of several curious earthworks, two long mounds each about two feet in height and a square earthwork surrounded by a ditch and with an open central area, like a small courtyard. A third long, low mound lies a short distance below the slump above High Jackfield.

In 1910 Dr Francis Villy, a Keighley amateur archaeologist, together with members of the Cross Hills Naturalists’ Society decided to excavate the earthworks.

They examined both long mounds and the square one and found areas of charcoal just above the subsoil, suggesting that the land had been cleared by burning prior to the earthworks’ construction.

They also found fragments of pottery within the square earthwork, and these were sent to the British Museum and identified as Medieval. The potsherds were subsequently stored at Keighley Museum and although available to view until the 1970s, they have since been lost.

Other than the pottery and some old coins, including a Roman one, that were scattered in the trenches by local lads from Sutton, nothing else of note came to light.

The third lower mound did not form part of the excavation.

Dr Villy was unable to draw any conclusions regarding the original purpose of the earthworks, although the potsherds suggested that they were Medieval in origin.

He was, however, able to discount local rumours that it had been a Roman villa, or a prehistoric burial site. He also noted that it bore a close similarity to other mysterious earthworks in the South Craven area.

In the late 1920s, after research into other similar sites, it was concluded that they were purpose-built rabbit warrens.

The long low mounds were named ‘pillow mounds’ and the square features were simply four pillow mounds linked together to form a central ‘courtyard’.

During the Medieval period, rabbit was considered a great delicacy and largely reserved for the tables of the nobility and gentry.

The pillow mounds were created for the rabbits to burrow into and were surrounded by a ditch to facilitate good drainage. The square earthwork provided a warren with an enclosed area in which food could be left to fatten those rabbits chosen for the table. This earthwork would have been surrounded by a paling or thorn fence, now long since gone.

The warren was probably created by the Copley family of Malsis Hall, who owned the manor of Sutton. The pottery finds suggest that it dated from the Medieval period and its use probably ceased after the last of the Copleys departed in the 1620s.

A servant, known as a warrener, was usually appointed to look after the rabbits. He would have lived close to the site, perhaps where High Jackfield Farm now stands. The word Jackfield may well allude to the presence of the warren as the term ‘jack’, still used today for a male hare, was in the past also used for a male rabbit.

The males were generally harvested for the table whilst the females were retained for breeding.

Other similar rabbit warrens have been found near Norton Tower in Rylstone, at Coney Garth (literally rabbit enclosure) in Rathmell, Long Preston, and at the Giants’ Graves in Flasby, Skipton. Pillow mounds have also been recorded at Kildwick and Bingley.

Rabbits were originally introduced from the Mediterranean but following successful escapes from warrens eventually became established in our countryside and lost their status as a delicacy.