Noon Hill is a hill on the border of the boroughs of

Chorley Chorley is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England, north of Wigan, south west of Blackburn, north west of Bolton, south of Preston and north west of Manchester. The town's wealth came pr ...

Blackburn with Darwen Blackburn with Darwen is a borough and unitary authority area in Lancashire, North West England. It consists of the industrial town of Blackburn and the market town of Darwen including other villages around the two towns. Formation It was fou ...

and

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...

, in

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

. It is located on

Rivington Rivington is a village and civil parish of the Borough of Chorley, Lancashire, England, occupying . It is about southeast of Chorley and about northwest of Bolton. Rivington is a rural area consisting primarily of agricultural grazing land, ...

Moor, Chorley and is high. Part of the

West Pennine Moors The West Pennine Moors is an area of the Pennines covering approximately of moorland and Reservoir (water), reservoirs in Lancashire and Greater Manchester, England. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The West Pennine Moors are separat ...

, it is a popular

walking Walking (also known as ambulation) is one of the main gaits of terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined by an 'inverted pendulum' gait in which the body vaults o ...

area, and is of significant historical interest. The summit of Noon Hill is home to a Bronze Age burial mound which is listed under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance.

Bronze age burial monument

The burial monument, sometime known as the ''Noon Hill Saucer Tumulus'' is one of a pair of such burial mounds. The other being around to the east, towards the summit of Winter Hill. The mound has been dated to around 1100 BC. The monument on Noon Hill has been excavated twice, first in 1958 and then a second time in 1963/4 by Bolton and District Archaeology Society (no
Bolton Archaeology and Egyptology Society
. During these excavation, the remains of three cremated people were found. Those in charge of the excavation found that the remains were that of an adult male, an adult female and a child. These remains were "''located beneath a collapsed enlarged food vessel and inserted into a central stone cist.''" In addition to these central cremations, the remains of several secondary cremations were found alongside flint tools including barbed and tanged arrowheads, scrapers and a sacrificial knife with one serrated edge and a sharp cutting edge. The archives for these excavations, reports and photographs are now online at th
BAES Archives
Despite the excavations in the 1950s and 1960s, the monument the round cairn on Noon Hill is believed to survive reasonably well. There is evidence of further interments and that the associated grave goods may still exist within the cairn and upon the old land surface beneath.

References

{{Blackburn with Darwen geography Marilyns of England Mountains and hills of Lancashire Rivington Tourist attractions in the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton Tourist attractions in Chorley Hills of the West Pennine Moors

Bronze age burial monument

See also

References