The River Ure

The Ure near Thornborough

The River Ure in Yorkshire had, along with the Swale, a spiritual and ritual significance equivalent to the Thames and the Stonehenge Avon in southern Britain. Several henges are found on high ground along its valley, many now little more than unexcavated cropmarks. The Thornborough Henges are an exception. Three henges, which possibly represent Orion’s Belt, were dug from gleaming white gypsum and would have been a focal point for a vast distance all around. The Devil’s Arrows standing stones are a little further downstream near the confluence with the Swale.

The central Thornborough Henge

The Ure is sourced in the Yorkshire Dales and flows through the lowlands after it joins with the Swale, where it changes its name to the Ouse, and flows through York and eventually reaches the Humber Estuary, making it one of the most significant rivers of northern Britain. Ure and Ouse may have the same etymological origin.

The Humber Estuary

Rivers were considered sacred in Neolithic and Bronze Age times and this belief survived in various forms until modern times. The River Avon is believed to have formed part of a processional route to Stonehenge, linking the living with the dead or the physical world with the spiritual world. Ritual offerings and the bones and ashes of the dead were deposited in the water, which represented a liminal boundary between worlds. Rivers were the arteries of the land, much like the arteries of the body, and water was a life-giving essence which formed a key part of rituals. The Ure, which means ‘Holy River’ in ancient Celtic, was probably a central part of ritual life to the people of northern Britain, although four thousand years of time has largely eradicated all physical traces of this.

Ripon Cathedral

The spiritual traces however, remain. Several now-ruined abbeys were built along the river’s valley, and the cathedral at Ripon is situated on the banks of the Ure. Ripon has a particularly powerful sense of peace which I never normally feel in an urban environment, and I felt that same powerful essence at every place I visited along the river. I watched a barn owl flying along the banks at twilight and wondered if that was a sign that, just as the river flows on forever, the spiritual qualities it reflects also do the same.