Great video of a fascinating place. My parents used to take me here when I was kid in the early 1970's. I remember my dad breaking his leg one winter, sledging down one of the mounds. No mobile phones to call an ambulance back then, so he walked nearly a mile back to the car before driving us home to Wetherby. Just thought I'd share that, as it's Fathers' Day.
I have been fascinated by these for more than thirty years. Identical ones can be found on Harden Moor, Baildon Moor, Catstones Moor, Flappit Springs and I have found dozens of them all around the Aire valley and beyond. The mound-lets are made of quarry spoil but there is a lot more to it than that. My favourite observation common to all of these is at a certain time of year they explode with magic mushrooms. Not certain about age, I suspect early medieval but wait till you visit at night with a bright moon it will blow your mind. Oh and mine maps, weird huh. Message me if you want more ramblings on these features.
I love it round Hetchel woods, You should do a video on the Crossgates and Wetherby railway line. I recently walked along a good portion of the line from Bardsey to the A64.
Fascinating, ashamed as a Yorkshire lass who loves any and all history of our part of the world, I'd never heard of this place! Thank you so much, gone on my list to visit
Cheers for the upload! Pompocali / Hetchell Crag is one of my favourite local places. Not sure if you went down to the crag, didn't appear so from the video. I've spent many a day and night there, camped there and even had jams and ceremonies there. As the crow flies, it's about 4 miles from my house; unfortunately the new ELOR site means it isn't possible to walk all the way there on public footpaths, though, ever the optimist, I'm hopeful this will be sorted out as the ELOR site is completed. My friends and I have always referred to them as roman earthworks. There are a quite a few rock faces in Thorner and the surrounding area, that seem quite alien in the landscape a la Brimham Rocks but not as mind-blowingly beautiful. If you sit in the centre of Pompocali, you are protected on all sides from any direct wind; is this happenstance or design? Whatever, it's great for camping and acoustics. In Hetchell Wood, towards the car park, there are two very distinct bowl craters; great for rope swings! I live how the drone footage captures the arc of the old trainline as it joins another line, and how Mother Nature has reclaimed it.
Yorkshire has many secrets we probably not yet discovered yet who knows what out there. Thank you for sharing this with us all as I have never heard about this. Its gorgeous and so mysterious. Awesome and amazing thanks Darren x
Pompocali looks like a much lighter soil dumped on darker substrate below. For example Chalk over Clay. the plants growing on the mounds clearly prefer to be where they are. There does seem to be a form of natural terracing. It isn't midden dumping is it, human faeces that has become a massive coprolite? is it? Very nice vid Darren!
I like this one, you can see it's not a normal area, by the different levels of scrubbery being to the same length on the respective mounds, looks like an early settlement area, and I love these videos so keep up the good work mate!! And at the very least it's an amazing area and formation of land that's been preserved!!
My old neck of the woods My playground as a kid, I grew up on one of the farms in the immediate area in Bardsey/East Rigton and know all the area very very well
So you'll be doing the Leeds to weatherby line from cross gates up pendas way on to scholes then on to weatherby like I've said before i used to live on pendas way and at the end our garden was the Leeds to weatherby line we used to live two doors away from the station entrance all gone now but you can still see where it was if you know what to look for anyway looking forward to the next video best wishes Kevin
I live not far from here (Barwick-in-Elmet) and I've never heard of Pompocali. I'll have to check it out. So much history in this area right beneath our feet. Barwick has the remains of an iron age fort right in the middle of it that's been used as a settlement for about 4,000 years. There's also Hall Tower Hill that used to be a Norman fort, and the maypole (biggest in the country since the one at Nun Monkton lost its tip due to poor maintenance) still has a tri-yearly festival associated with it.
I think it's a graveyard for old kings, you can see from some of your Ariel views the mounds have been dug out and robbed. The romans built squares and to the strengths of the landscapes they were defending. Interesting film plenty to look at there, it would be interesting to find out.
The name of the site is definitely a flight of fancy, based as it is on Cambodunum (which is actually by the M62). And despite what you say, it looks like a quarry to me (there aren't any ancient camps that look like this, I don't think), albeit it might be a Roman quarry!
Thorough and articulate presentation. I live abroad now but came from the Leeds area and share these videos with my old school pals. Any clue about the mounds from the name Pompocali?
Hi Darren, your production and editing just gets better and better. Visited here before we had the kids and my lasting memory is of our dog getting electrocuted on an electric fence, he took some catching 😆
Very intriguing. Never heard of Pompocali before. I suspect that if archaeologists truly believed it was a Roman site is would have been "unearthed" years ago. I guess, disappointingly, that it is a series of waste tips from quarrying or mining. Look forward to a Leeds-Wetherby line adventure as I think that the NE Rly line from Leeds - Cross Gates - Wetherby - Harrogate - Ripon - Northallerton might well have been thriving now as Harrogate Transdev run double decker buses every 10 minutes between Leeds and Ripon via Harrogate.
Love your vids I love the ideas for what the Earthworks might be Your easy relaxed descriptions and the way you do the many Vids is Excellent love watching
dear sir.I have watched this broadcast three times now. this one:THE MYSTERY MOUND OF YORKSHIRE - Pompocali Remains - Leeds. It sounds weird but I don't think I'm wrong. quote: the veins of man. I now take a screenshot and send it to an acquaintance of mine who knows a lot about vulture. I will get reply within a week. I will keep you informed. Greetings from the Netherlands and lots of luck!
I don’t live too far away and I’d never heard of this. I must check it out. It would be useful if you could give the What Three Words reference for your locations. Wonderful filming as always.
Thought I knew this area well but I’ve never heard of it. Looking forward to you exploring the old railways in Wetherby there’s loads to see, thanks again for another great video.
There is something like this near Peterborough called Hills and hollows, they took all the limestone out of the land to use on Peterborough cathedral, what is left is land like this. All very cool
Interesting, loved the stonework on the bridge, never knew about that line. The area looks like a quarry site, would hope it’s more interesting site than just a quarry, hope you find out the truth. 👍🏻😎
Looking on Google Maps there are some interesting crop marks around that site. The only way to make any definitive assessment of the remains is to dig in parts to assess what they are made from. I suspect it is quarrying debris, as, there are a number of quarries around it. It may be that they originally quarried it out then used it to dump spoil from the other quarries as they dug them out.
Yeah it just looks like an old quarry from what I can see on the old maps, though obviously no idea on age... it would take a fair bit of an archeological dig to try sort it out for certain!
As an archaeologist working on many post med industrial remains, this mirrors some sites of major industrial occupation such as the Bersham Ironworks of North Wales. Spoil heaps which completely remodel the landscape are common from the early 18th century onwards. Invention of mechanisation on a massive scale could only have contributed to the shere volume of the earth moved to create such a feature in the landscape. Medieval middens are usually much much smaller and the size also bears no resemblance to any Roman site currently recorded in Britain. Consensus and previously studied industrial sites in the archaeological data of HER's preclude this site to one of either mining or quarrying during the height of the 18th and 19th centuries. We see similar mounds appearing in North Wales in Halkyn, where lead and limestone mining changed nature of the landscape permanently from the 17th Century onwards with entire winching structures being buried under massive spoil heaps (see various grey lit reports).
I remember there being a very large and steep mound in the graveyard of Ripon Cathedral - I climbed it several times when I lived there in 1987-8. Always wondered what it was, or signified. Was it pagan, or merely spoil from the Cathedral's construction?
A quarry is normally a square, rectangle etc. One hole in the ground. Waste piled high in mounds, I doubt it mate. Roman. Nope. They built square forts or towns with grid pattern streets. Now The Old Kingdom in Elmet and ya might be onto something ya know. .
Could those 'steps upward' have been made from large rock cutting machinery used in mining? It makes you think if ampitheatres were disused mines...Or this is how rubble from old world buildings was hidden...maybe full buildings or structures are buried... 🤔
When I found out about Pompocali I took my father to see it, as he is both a historian familiar with roman work, and a geologist who has worked for various mining companies. I'm afraid his conclusion was that it is simply spoil heaps from nearby quarries. He mentioned that it is not regular enough to be a Roman encampment.
Very surprising no one has excavated enough to identify what Pompocali is. And where does the name come from? I also wonder why the first railway bridge is so wide. From underneath the arch it looks like it has been widened from the original. More questions than answers.
To me this looks like remains from quarrying activity. On Rawdon Billing and Yeadon Moor there are the relics of more pronounced sandstone quarrying from Victorian times. Particularly Yeadon Moor was known locally as “the bomb holes”. As it is close to the airport people like to think it is the result of a German air raid which is not correct. The quarrying is older than that.
Sorry to disappoint you Darren but its where Mrs Warboy hides her old shoes and corn plasters. I wouldn't say it was roman as its too hilly as they preferred flat/er land for ease of fast movement? So the mystery remains until Tony Robinson and the Time Team get there for a dig around 😀 Cheers DougT the Mancs pensioner
used to cycle round there a bit as a kid 20 years ago or more. You would find a lot of iron slag hinting some kind of metal works? also in the woods is a natural spring that you walked past and there used to be a fish farm. by the way, I believe the locals call it "pom-pa-kay-lie" (as opposed to "pom-pa-carlie") great video as usual
Doesn't really look much like a Roman camp to me - they were brilliant at knocking up camps very quickly to a pretty standard design in a 'playing card' shape. This looks nothing like that, and is too tall. Looks like some sort of quarry / mineral extraction to me, though I'm probably entirely wrong!!!
I can tell you detail everything about the UK and world but publicly I don't. I've shared little bits. You must understand the land fully and its markings. That isn't public knowledge I learnt myself over 20 years.
Doesn't really look Roman - one thing I learned from watching lots of Time Team episodes is that Roman encampments were rectangular and followed a very standardised layout. They also werent into giant curved earth walls - banks and ditches yes, but this sort of thing really isnt their style!
Pomp o Cali more or less means "Elevated Beauties" But depending on deravations of language as the sam word can be used to mean the opposte thing. It could mean Elevated area of Death. Excuse my language but Fk the Roman myth. Whe you dig into history youl find that Romans is a very generic term which points more to an ideolgy rather than a people. Much of what is called Roman absolutley is not.
Great video of a fascinating place. My parents used to take me here when I was kid in the early 1970's. I remember my dad breaking his leg one winter, sledging down one of the mounds. No mobile phones to call an ambulance back then, so he walked nearly a mile back to the car before driving us home to Wetherby. Just thought I'd share that, as it's Fathers' Day.
I think it’s a quarry. Roman forts were most often ‘playing card’ shaped. If it were a quarry or dump, it might glean some fascinating finds.
I have been fascinated by these for more than thirty years. Identical ones can be found on Harden Moor, Baildon Moor, Catstones Moor, Flappit Springs and I have found dozens of them all around the Aire valley and beyond. The mound-lets are made of quarry spoil but there is a lot more to it than that. My favourite observation common to all of these is at a certain time of year they explode with magic mushrooms. Not certain about age, I suspect early medieval but wait till you visit at night with a bright moon it will blow your mind. Oh and mine maps, weird huh. Message me if you want more ramblings on these features.
I love it round Hetchel woods, You should do a video on the Crossgates and Wetherby railway line. I recently walked along a good portion of the line from Bardsey to the A64.
Fascinating, ashamed as a Yorkshire lass who loves any and all history of our part of the world, I'd never heard of this place! Thank you so much, gone on my list to visit
Me neither until this year.
Cheers for the upload!
Pompocali / Hetchell Crag is one of my favourite local places. Not sure if you went down to the crag, didn't appear so from the video. I've spent many a day and night there, camped there and even had jams and ceremonies there. As the crow flies, it's about 4 miles from my house; unfortunately the new ELOR site means it isn't possible to walk all the way there on public footpaths, though, ever the optimist, I'm hopeful this will be sorted out as the ELOR site is completed.
My friends and I have always referred to them as roman earthworks. There are a quite a few rock faces in Thorner and the surrounding area, that seem quite alien in the landscape a la Brimham Rocks but not as mind-blowingly beautiful. If you sit in the centre of Pompocali, you are protected on all sides from any direct wind; is this happenstance or design? Whatever, it's great for camping and acoustics. In Hetchell Wood, towards the car park, there are two very distinct bowl craters; great for rope swings!
I live how the drone footage captures the arc of the old trainline as it joins another line, and how Mother Nature has reclaimed it.
Went there today, the rail line jumped out on me quite suddenly too! Great video, many thanks!
Yorkshire has many secrets we probably not yet discovered yet who knows what out there. Thank you for sharing this with us all as I have never heard about this. Its gorgeous and so mysterious. Awesome and amazing thanks Darren x
Hi Darren, never heard of it before learn something new every day!
Steve
Pompocali looks like a much lighter soil dumped on darker substrate below. For example Chalk over Clay. the plants growing on the mounds clearly prefer to be where they are. There does seem to be a form of natural terracing. It isn't midden dumping is it, human faeces that has become a massive coprolite? is it?
Very nice vid Darren!
I like this one, you can see it's not a normal area, by the different levels of scrubbery being to the same length on the respective mounds, looks like an early settlement area, and I love these videos so keep up the good work mate!! And at the very least it's an amazing area and formation of land that's been preserved!!
My old neck of the woods
My playground as a kid, I grew up on one of the farms in the immediate area in Bardsey/East Rigton and know all the area very very well
So you'll be doing the Leeds to weatherby line from cross gates up pendas way on to scholes then on to weatherby like I've said before i used to live on pendas way and at the end our garden was the Leeds to weatherby line we used to live two doors away from the station entrance all gone now but you can still see where it was if you know what to look for anyway looking forward to the next video best wishes Kevin
Would be very interested in seeing this. Hopefully Darren does it soon.
Curious site. Glad you managed to squeeze an abutment in though.
I had to. So glad it was there.
I live not far from here (Barwick-in-Elmet) and I've never heard of Pompocali. I'll have to check it out. So much history in this area right beneath our feet. Barwick has the remains of an iron age fort right in the middle of it that's been used as a settlement for about 4,000 years. There's also Hall Tower Hill that used to be a Norman fort, and the maypole (biggest in the country since the one at Nun Monkton lost its tip due to poor maintenance) still has a tri-yearly festival associated with it.
I think it's a graveyard for old kings, you can see from some of your Ariel views the mounds have been dug out and robbed. The romans built squares and to the strengths of the landscapes they were defending. Interesting film plenty to look at there, it would be interesting to find out.
Enjoyed the Video Darren interesting place didnt realise Pompicali existed and so close. I will have to visit soon. Thanks
The name of the site is definitely a flight of fancy, based as it is on Cambodunum (which is actually by the M62). And despite what you say, it looks like a quarry to me (there aren't any ancient camps that look like this, I don't think), albeit it might be a Roman quarry!
I think its a number of hill forts and out looks....there is lots of these in Scotland. These earth works may have been quarried out. Great vid.
Wow, very interesting! I hope you do more videos like this. I never heard of this. TYVM! Love old world history!
No idea Darren but it was sure good to be out in that countryside and then you throw in a derelict mill and a cheeky abuttment - nice!!👍🏻
Interesting....especially the old line ..remember this in situ and in use ...as i say .carry on...
Thorough and articulate presentation. I live abroad now but came from the Leeds area and share these videos with my old school pals. Any clue about the mounds from the name Pompocali?
Good one this Darren
Thanks Gavin.
Hi Darren, your production and editing just gets better and better. Visited here before we had the kids and my lasting memory is of our dog getting electrocuted on an electric fence, he took some catching 😆
intresting, only just came across your channel...., love history and travel...
had no idea, about this earthworks...
Yet another very good and informative video.
spent a lot of time there as a kid and with my kids, and at the old mill
A nice video. Cheers mate! 🏴😊👍🇺🇸
Another great video. Your passion and presenting style must be rewarded with TV work someday.
Haha, I don't think they would like how many takes I do for each shot.
Very intriguing. Never heard of Pompocali before. I suspect that if archaeologists truly believed it was a Roman site is would have been "unearthed" years ago. I guess, disappointingly, that it is a series of waste tips from quarrying or mining. Look forward to a Leeds-Wetherby line adventure as I think that the NE Rly line from Leeds - Cross Gates - Wetherby - Harrogate - Ripon - Northallerton might well have been thriving now as Harrogate Transdev run double decker buses every 10 minutes between Leeds and Ripon via Harrogate.
Thaks Darren, as always with your output great interesting content & choice of music !
Thanks Dennis.
Love your vids I love the ideas for what the Earthworks might be Your easy relaxed descriptions and the way you do the many Vids is Excellent love watching
Thank you very much!
dear sir.I have watched this broadcast three times now. this one:THE MYSTERY MOUND OF YORKSHIRE - Pompocali Remains - Leeds. It sounds weird but I don't think I'm wrong. quote: the veins of man. I now take a screenshot and send it to an acquaintance of mine who knows a lot about vulture. I will get reply within a week. I will keep you informed. Greetings from the Netherlands and lots of luck!
Yes please
Very interesting.
Great production work too.
Its a sand/stone quarry. Its on the edge of the Permian - known for sand deposits.
Amazing and so interesting. The music was great. What a find. Well done. Your drone filming is excellent. So enjoyable. Thank you..
That was great . Thanks very much .
Hi mate, great video
I'd love to see some wetherby content, lost stations and all that
Thanks and subscribed
Thanks Samuel. The Wetherby line is on my list. I did do Pompocali and covered a bit of the Wetherby line.
I don’t live too far away and I’d never heard of this. I must check it out. It would be useful if you could give the What Three Words reference for your locations. Wonderful filming as always.
Thanks Julie. If you just Google maps pompocali earthworks. It's on there
It does look like a fort of some kind👍
Another cool 😎one Darren i think 🤔it's penders way the Leeds to weatherby line say hi to barney 😀
Thanks Michael
Another fascinating look at a hidden corner of Britain. May I ask what make/model of drone you use, the footage is impressively clear.
DJI Mini 2. It's in 4k.
@@AdventureMe No wonder it looks so clear. Really enjoying your videos, getting to see places I'll likely never get to visit.
Thought I knew this area well but I’ve never heard of it. Looking forward to you exploring the old railways in Wetherby there’s loads to see, thanks again for another great video.
Glad to help. I thought it was quite well known.
There is something like this near Peterborough called Hills and hollows, they took all the limestone out of the land to use on Peterborough cathedral, what is left is land like this. All very cool
Interesting, loved the stonework on the bridge, never knew about that line. The area looks like a quarry site, would hope it’s more interesting site than just a quarry, hope you find out the truth. 👍🏻😎
9:40 look at the quality of that masonry. the victorians put modern builders to shame.
They sure did!
Looking on Google Maps there are some interesting crop marks around that site. The only way to make any definitive assessment of the remains is to dig in parts to assess what they are made from. I suspect it is quarrying debris, as, there are a number of quarries around it. It may be that they originally quarried it out then used it to dump spoil from the other quarries as they dug them out.
Yeah it just looks like an old quarry from what I can see on the old maps, though obviously no idea on age... it would take a fair bit of an archeological dig to try sort it out for certain!
Great vid mate
It needs the local Archeology team to investigate.
It sure does.
As an archaeologist working on many post med industrial remains, this mirrors some sites of major industrial occupation such as the Bersham Ironworks of North Wales. Spoil heaps which completely remodel the landscape are common from the early 18th century onwards. Invention of mechanisation on a massive scale could only have contributed to the shere volume of the earth moved to create such a feature in the landscape. Medieval middens are usually much much smaller and the size also bears no resemblance to any Roman site currently recorded in Britain. Consensus and previously studied industrial sites in the archaeological data of HER's preclude this site to one of either mining or quarrying during the height of the 18th and 19th centuries. We see similar mounds appearing in North Wales in Halkyn, where lead and limestone mining changed nature of the landscape permanently from the 17th Century onwards with entire winching structures being buried under massive spoil heaps (see various grey lit reports).
Thanks for your expert opinion. It's looking like it may well be a spoil heap.
The Pompocali looks to me like gardens, maybe growing fruit/veg (hillside or terrace farming)
It reminded me of an olive grove.
Interesting stuff, just wondering if you play the music on your videos?
Some of them yes. The rest is standard UA-cam music
You get around! First you were next to where my partners Mum and dad live and now you are close to where I work near Thorner Village
I like to get around lol. I was in Scarborough today.
I remember there being a very large and steep mound in the graveyard of Ripon Cathedral - I climbed it several times when I lived there in 1987-8. Always wondered what it was, or signified. Was it pagan, or merely spoil from the Cathedral's construction?
Very interesting Darren
Chippies Quarry, scholes is worth a visit on your Cross Gates- Wetherby walk.
What is it Paul?
It’s an old Brickworks just off the track bed in Scholes.
Nice to see you on the right side of the river again!😁
A quarry is normally a square, rectangle etc. One hole in the ground. Waste piled high in mounds, I doubt it mate.
Roman. Nope. They built square forts or towns with grid pattern streets.
Now The Old Kingdom in Elmet and ya might be onto something ya know. .
Intriguing!
To me, that’s a fort.. has water nearby, ermine st…not far away, I need to go there!
Could those 'steps upward' have been made from large rock cutting machinery used in mining? It makes you think if ampitheatres were disused mines...Or this is how rubble from old world buildings was hidden...maybe full buildings or structures are buried... 🤔
strange ;place cant wait for this rail line vid
When I found out about Pompocali I took my father to see it, as he is both a historian familiar with roman work, and a geologist who has worked for various mining companies.
I'm afraid his conclusion was that it is simply spoil heaps from nearby quarries. He mentioned that it is not regular enough to be a Roman encampment.
That seems to be the new consensus, not as originally thought.
looks like spoil heaps from an old quarry.
Unfortunately it does.
They look like Treacle mining spoil tips
Very surprising no one has excavated enough to identify what Pompocali is. And where does the name come from? I also wonder why the first railway bridge is so wide. From underneath the arch it looks like it has been widened from the original. More questions than answers.
Exactly. I can't understand why in this day and age we don't know what it is.
The first bridge seems wide because it is built on the skew, i.e. diagonally and therefore the crossing needs a greater distance.
How about an ancient vineyard?
Yes it does look like that with the steps.
To me this looks like remains from quarrying activity. On Rawdon Billing and Yeadon Moor there are the relics of more pronounced sandstone quarrying from Victorian times. Particularly Yeadon Moor was known locally as “the bomb holes”. As it is close to the airport people like to think it is the result of a German air raid which is not correct. The quarrying is older than that.
go upto flappits in Bradford there old spoil heaps look similar to these
I'll check it out.
Sorry to disappoint you Darren but its where Mrs Warboy hides her old shoes and corn plasters.
I wouldn't say it was roman as its too hilly as they preferred flat/er land for ease of fast movement? So the mystery remains until Tony Robinson and the Time Team get there for a dig around 😀
Cheers DougT the Mancs pensioner
This would have been a good one for them to do.
roman train station ????
Could well be! They did have Pacers back then lol
Possibility off a roman burial ground or matey a old horse and cart way so they dint use roman roads
Asking for a friend (wink), is an abutment a code for innuendo?
used to cycle round there a bit as a kid 20 years ago or more.
You would find a lot of iron slag hinting some kind of metal works?
also in the woods is a natural spring that you walked past and there used to be a fish farm.
by the way, I believe the locals call it "pom-pa-kay-lie" (as opposed to "pom-pa-carlie")
great video as usual
Looks like an old sand quarry to me.
Could well be
Looks like it was a fortification. Hate to think it may just be a dump.
Hi Tomas. Strange to say my friend " George Mann" and I plus 2 girls 70 years ago Visited this place, we walked it from Seacroft Village green.
Doesn't really look much like a Roman camp to me - they were brilliant at knocking up camps very quickly to a pretty standard design in a 'playing card' shape. This looks nothing like that, and is too tall. Looks like some sort of quarry / mineral extraction to me, though I'm probably entirely wrong!!!
I think I agree looking back.
I can tell you detail everything about the UK and world but publicly I don't. I've shared little bits. You must understand the land fully and its markings. That isn't public knowledge I learnt myself over 20 years.
It’s the ruins of Hobbiton!
Looks like it. I half expecting to see the Teletubbies pop up.
Doesn't really look Roman - one thing I learned from watching lots of Time Team episodes is that Roman encampments were rectangular and followed a very standardised layout. They also werent into giant curved earth walls - banks and ditches yes, but this sort of thing really isnt their style!
No. It's looking less likely
Looks like it would make a good bmx track
Get digging!
Pomp o Cali more or less means "Elevated Beauties" But depending on deravations of language as the sam word can be used to mean the opposte thing. It could mean Elevated area of Death. Excuse my language but Fk the Roman myth. Whe you dig into history youl find that Romans is a very generic term which points more to an ideolgy rather than a people. Much of what is called Roman absolutley is not.