Axes and Hammers -- Pilling’s Prehistoric Legacy: Part One

Pilling’s a good place for ancient history. There’s a lot of it about, lurking under the sods, being trampled by sheep and courting couples, tucked into the corners of meandering dykes (please avoid the obvious comments, will you, and remember that this is still officially a family site).
Fortunately, you see, back in the day, a certain gentleman called Sobee produced a book all about the history of Pilling, and it somehow managed to catch the imagination of the local farmers.
We’ve tried to do the same with the rest of the Fylde and Wyre, but I suspect we’ve failed miserably.
As a result of Sobee’s scribbling, however, farmers around Pilling nowadays tend to pay a lot more attention to the stuff their ploughing up than other local landowners.
And what stuff would that be? Well take a look at this lot.


Somewhere between Cogie Hill and Black Lane Head the ancient stone axe illustrated above (measuring nine and a half inches in length for those who need to know such measurements) was discovered alongside the adze illustrated below.


Incidentally, in case you’re wondering why once again we’ve opted for illustrations rather than photographs, there are a couple of good reasons.
Firstly, our camera is naff and only produces blurred shots of anything less than three feet in height.
Secondly, we’re recycling this lot from our ‘History of the Wyre’ book. (We’re very environmentally conscious.)
Anyhow, getting back to that axe at the top of the article, it was made from partly polished igneous rock originating, like the adze, in the Cumbria (although, of course, there were no county boundaries back when the tools were first fashioned).
What do you mean, what’s an adze? That’s an adze in the illustration, what does it look like?
Okay, adzes were used to hollow out boats and turn soil and stuff. The Cogie Hill adze was made from volcanic tuff, a form of pumice, originating, as we’ve already sort of hinted, at Langdale Pike in Cumbria. Langdale was apparently an important centre for quarrying stone at the time (that being the Neolithic period, of course).
Just to fill the reader in on the details a bit more, a pole would have been stuffed through the hole in the middle of the adze and fastened in place with some sort of rope. Its operator would then stand astride a felled trunk with the stone head pointing towards the ground. Then he’d swing his tool back and forth (watch it…there will be people banned from this board if I find anything offensive in those comments boxes) using the handle for leverage.
Here’s another axe (illustrated below) that was discovered at Bone Hill in 1940.


In case you’re thinking, “How do they know that’s an axe? It looks like any other lump of rock to me,” the truth is, you have to see these things to appreciate them.
Illustrations, even photographs, don’t do the napping and the fine chiselled edges any justice. If you want my advice, you should get in touch with a museum that houses such artefacts and get a private viewing. These ancient implements need to groped and fondled to be fully understood. (I’m warning you lot. We’ve had enough lewd comments around here of late and I know the sort of filthy minds you’ve got.)
Okay, it’s a small, possibly Neolithic, possibly Bronze Age, hand-held axe although, to the best of my knowledge, it’s never been properly dated. The last time we looked it was being kept in a drawer in some deep, dark dungeon beneath the Harris Museum. So now you know who to pester if fancy a grope.
Two more axes were unearthed at Bradshaw Lane Farm. Here’s one of them, six inches in length (seriously…there will be excommunications if you’re not careful) and made from dark, hard mudstone. (Go and look it up if you don’t know what it is.)


And here’s the second, again Neolithic, only this time made of flint.


The nearest flint, it’s worth mentioning, would have been in North Wales suggesting, once again, that trading routes were established by this period. You want more? Of course you do, you’re gagging for it. However you’re going to have to wait until part two because I want my dinner.