St. Cuthbert’s Well, Leith, Midlothian

Holy Well (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NT 2611 7600

Also Known as:

  1. Bonnington Mineral Well

Archaeology & History

Site shown on 1862 map

If we’d have lived 200 years ago and walked several miles downstream from St Bernard’s Well on the Water of Leith, we would have eventually come across this little-known sacred site, sadly destroyed in the 19th century.  It was shown on the earliest OS-map on the south-side of the river, enclosed in a small square building with what looks like two entrances, and what appears to be a covering of the spring on the southeast side.  Marked as a chalybeate, or iron-bearing well, this would have obviously have had repute amongst local people and would have worked as a tonic or pick-me-up, aswell as fortifying the blood and a having a host of other benefits.

The Ordnance Survey lads wrote short notes about St. Cuthbert’s Well in the Name Book of 1852-53, where they told:

“A Well Situated at Bonnington. Supposed to have been dedicated to St Cuthbert; about 34 years ago the proprietor repaired the well and at the same time erected a house over it, and fitted it up for Visitors who are charged one penny for a drink. The Water of the well has been analysed by Professor Jameson and Doctor Turner and it was found to Contain Salts of Iron; Soda, magnesia and Lime, also Iodine under the form of Hydrisdate of Potash.”

About the same time as Jameson & Turner’s analysis of St. Cuthbert’s waters, one Dr Edward Schweitzer (1845) wrote one of the most detailed chemical essays on wells, ever!—using Bonnington’s holy well as his primary focus.  A near-thirty-page essay found that, along with an excess of iron, the medicinal aspects of the waters were due to the following compounds found, per grains, in each pint of water:

Sulphate of Potassa — 2.46554 gr
Sulphate of Soda — 1.51227 gr
Sulphate of Lime — 6.28816 gr
Iodide of Sodium — 0.00728 gr
Bromide of Sodium — 0.07886 gr
Chloride of Ammonium — 9.49939 gr
Chloride of Sodium — 3.82963 gr
Chloride of Magnesium — 3.12017 gr
Nitrate of Soda — 2.02154 gr
Carbonate of Magnesia — 1.70443 gr
Proto-Carbonate of Iron — 0.05807 gr
Proto-Carbonate of Manganese — 0.01535 gr
Ammonia (united to organic matter) — 0.42285 gr
Alumina — 0.02245 gr
Silica — 0.18651 gr

In 1837, a Mr Robert Fergusson was known to be “the keeper of the Mineral Well, Bonnington,” but much of its traditions and history have fallen outside of memory.  The site was soon to become another mid-Victorian ‘Spa Well’, where local people would have to pay for water they had always used as Nature intended.  In truth, the waters and its well-house were to become a place where the rich Industrialists could heal their infirm mind-bodies, hoping that the destitution they lacked emotionally and spiritually would be washed away in the sacred waters.  But it didn’t last long!  What little is known about it historically was best described in John Russel’s (1933) essay on Bonnington in the Old Edinburgh Club journal.  He wrote:

“Just where the Bonnington mill lade joins the Water of Leith once flowed St. Cuthbert’s Well, an ancient spring named after the patron saint of the once extensive parish of St. Cuthbert’s, and like the now forgotten mineral well of St. Leonard’s near Powderhall, a relic of a superstitious age.  As to when this well was so designated history is silent but it was probably before 1606, when the Leith portions of Bonnington, Pilrig and Warriston were, by the Scots Parliament, included in the Parish of North Leith…

“In May, 1750 St. Cuthbert’s Well was found to be possessed of medicinal properties.  The Scots Magazine of that year refers to many persons frequenting it.  The Well formed part of a building which included a pump room and a reading room. From advertisements in the periodicals of 1819 we learn that it was open from 6 o’clock in the morning and that newspapers were to be found on the table all day. The tenant also issued handbills headed “St. Cuthbert’s Mineral Well, Bonnington”, giving a chemical analysis of the water and a list of the ailments for which it had been found beneficial. The Well disappeared with the re-construction of Haig’s Distillery in 1857. It now lies beneath the buildings immediately west of the chimney stack of Messrs John Inglis and Sons.”

St. Cuthbert’s feast day was March 20 (Spring Equinox) and September 4.

A half-mile southwest of here could once be seen the waters of St. Leonard’s Well, which Ruth & Frank Morris (1982) erroneously thought to have been this Well of St. Cuthbert.

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, Ancient and Holy Wells of Edinburgh, TNA 2017.
  2. Geddie, John, The Water of Leith, W.H. White: Edinburgh 1896.
  3. Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1982.
  4. Rhind, William, Excursions Illustrative of the Geology & Natural History of the Environs of Edinburgh, John Anderson: Edinburgh 1836.
  5. Russel, John, “Bonnington: Its Lands and Mansions”, in Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, vol.19, 1933.
  6. Schweitzer, Edward G., “Analysis of the Bonnington Water, near Leith,” in Philosophical Magazine & Journal of Science, volume 24, 1845.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Stroness (3), Fowlis Wester, Perthshire

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 9285 2754

Getting Here

Stroness (3) stone

If you can make your way to the Stroness (2) carving, then walk down the slope for less than 50 yards past quite a few other earthfast stones, you’ll eventually run into the stone shown here in the photos.  You’ll find it easily enough.

Archaeology & History

This carving was found when I was heading down the hillside to meet up with my antiquarian colleague 500 yards lower down.  The sun was just setting, so visibility wasn’t good, but as I rushed from stone to stone feeling each one in the hope of finding a carving, this one gave my fingers that distinct feedback of a cup-marking; then another; and what seemed like another.  I had a small amount of water left in a bottle and quickly sprayed it over the surface of the stone and saw that there were indeed a number of cups on it.  Two or three certainly – but possibly as many as five.  I laid on the wet ground and looked across its even surface from several angles and caught what seemed to be a very faint semi-circle around one of the cups.  But I wasn’t sure it was real.  However, on a number of quick photos I took, several of them do appear to show such an arc around one of the cups.  But I’m very cautious about it.  Only when we (or you) go back up and have a look at it in good light will we be able to affirm or discount it.

One additional feature that needs mentioning is a small low arc of walling just above this stone.  It’s man-made, it’s very old, but I couldn’t work out what it might be: hut circle, cairn (there’s one further up the hill), enclosure walling.  I’m not sure, but it needs to be looked at when we have a full day.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Stroness (2), Fowlis Wester, Perthshire

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 92774 27569

Also Known as:

  1. Buchanty Hill

Getting Here

Stroness (2), looking SW

The minor road that runs roughly north-south between the hamlets of Fowlis Wester and Buchanty is probably your best bet.  Nearly 2 miles north of the village up the tiny winding lane, where the moorland at the roadside finishes and the fields begin – is where to take the track, left, up onto the hillside.  But after just 75 yards, go left over the rickety-gate and follow the walling until your reach the burn.  Follow this up all the way to its source (it’s boggy as hell) and, once you’re there, walk due north for 250 yards until you reach a cluster of rocks.  Look around!

Archaeology & History

It’s a long way to come to see such a simplistic design —but for the real petroglyph researchers among you, it’s worth it the trek.  It’s had scant attention.  George Currie (2004) seems to have been the only person to mention this stone, giving the standard bland description typifying archaeology.  He wrote:

“SE-facing slope, 1.2m long pointed rock aligned E-W; three shallow cups, 30-40 x 6-10mm.”

Inspiring stuff, ey?!  Anyhow… As usual, there’s more to it than that.  If we assume that the carving described above is the same one I visited yesterday (Mr Currie’s grid-ref is slightly different), even despite the poor daylight, it was obvious there was more than three cup-marks on this.

Lower cups & upper cups

Cups on top

When I got to this stone, the evening sun was literally touching the horizon and so the light cutting across half the rock highlighted very little indeed.  I was rushing, trying to fondle and see as much as I could before the darkening sky clouded everything, and as I almost frenetically sprayed showers of water across its surface, the two or three cups that I could see near the crown of the stone suddenly doubled in number.  Two cups along one edge became three; whilst the sloping surface above these that had one cup suddenly seemed to have a companion.  On the highest part of this gently sloping stone, the form of one of the two distinct cup-marks that first caught my eye seemed to slowly morph into one of the carved “footprint” designs, akin to those clustered on the Ardoch (2) carving 1½ miles south-west of here.  However, this element needs looking at again, as it may have been a curious playful trick between stone and light showing me something that wasn’t there!  Things like that happen with stones.

Altogether there are at least six cup-marks on here, but perhaps as many as eight.  Obviously, if we (or you) visit the site when the light is much better, an even larger design might emerge from this old rock.

I spent perhaps just five minutes here, before heading back down to meet my companion 500 yards below in the midst of the boggy moorland.  Usually a carving gets my fondles for a an hour or two, but conditions weren’t good for us to form a healthy relationship. And so, as I headed downhill, another unrecorded cup-marked stone appeared beneath my rushing feet (Stroness [3] carving)— and I spoke with that for only a couple of minutes.  We need to come back up here and zigzag to find other companions that lay sleeping, forgotten for countless centuries…

References:

  1. Currie, George, ‘Buchanty Hill (Fowlis Wester parish): Cup-marked Rocks’, in Discovery & Excavation Scotland, volume 5, 2004.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

St. Stephen’s Well, Banbury, Oxfordshire

Holy Well (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – SP 4506 4055

Archaeology & History

Well highlighted, in 1730

The holy well of Banbury seems to have been destroyed sometime in the second-half of the 19th century, when the industrialists built over the area.  When the historian Alfred Beesley (1841) wrote about it, the waters were still running.  He told it to be, “a chalybeate spring, well-known and still often visited, situated on the west side of the town, a little north of the footway leading to North Newington.”

The footpath is obviously long gone—as is the well.  It’s iron-bearing (chalybeate) properties would have given the waters good fortifying properties, perhaps of some renown to local people yet, according to Mr Beesley, it was a slow-flowing spring.  In his brief history of the site, he also gave us the results of a chemical examination of its healing waters, telling us:

“This is called St. Stephen’s Well in a plan of Sir John Cope’s property at Banbury made in 1764. It also appears prominently as “A Well ” in an unfinished view of Banbury made in 1730 (illustrated above)….

The water of this spring is perfectly clear and colourless, having a brisk and slightly chalybeate taste. The stone channel is coated with a light red deposit, and a scum of the same colour appears on the water in parts where stagnant. The spring discharges from half a gallon to one gallon in a minute.  In 32 oz. of the water at 60° are,

Carbonic Acid gas, 5 cubic inches
Hydrochlorate Magnesia, 0.21 grains.
Chloride Sodium or common Salt, 0.54
Sulphate Lime, 1.5
Carbonate Lime, 3.8
Protoxide Iron, 0.024
Silica a trace
Total weight of solid contents – 6.074″

Folklore

St. Stephen is an odd character.  His annual celebration or feast day in Britain is December 26. (in eastern countries it’s a day later)  Rites connected to this character are decidedly heathen in nature.  From the 10th century, in England, St Stephen’s Day has been inexorably intertwined with horses, bleeding them on his feast days, apparently for their own health.  Water blessed by priests on this day would be kept for the year and used as a medicine for horses during that time. Also on this day, young lads would “hunt the wren” and, once caught, impale it on top of a long pole and take it from house to house.  Despite this curious motif being a puzzle to folklore students, Mircea Eliade (1964) explained how this symbolism is extremely archaic and “the bird perched on a stick is a frequent symbol in shamanic circles.”

References:

  1. Beesley, Alfred, The History of Banbury, Nichols & Son: London 1841.
  2. Eliade, Mircea, Shamanism – Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Princeton University Press 1964.
  3. Harte, Jeremy, English Holy Wells – volume 2, Heart of Albion press: Wymeswold 2008.
  4. Johnson, William P., The History of Banbury, G. Walford: Banbury 1860.

Acknowledgements:  Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Cairnfauld Field, Lilburn, Wooler, Northumberland

Cup-and-Ring Stone (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NU 013 264

Also Known as:

  1. Cairnfold Field

Archaeology & History

In James Hardy’s (1889) essay describing new archaeological finds from the Lilburn area, he told of seeing a triple-ringed petroglyph that seems to have been cast up from one of the cairns in the adjacent field.  I can find no other reference to this.  He wrote:

“On a wall top, near a gate not far from the Cairn-fauld’s field, lies a detached stone, supposed to have come from a cairn, with three circles and a hollow central cup incised on it, which no one  seems to care for.”

Does anyone know what has become of it?  Mr Hardy also described a series of other carvings a few fields away to the east, some with quite ornate cup-and-ring designs.  These have never subsequently been seen and remain hidden.

References:

  1. Hardy, James, “Further Discoveries of Pre-Historic Graves, Urns and other Antiquities, on Lilburn Hill Farm,” in Archaeoogia Aeliana, volume 13, 1889.

Acknowledgements:  Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Reva Hill (8), Hawksworth, West Yorkshire

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 152 434

Getting Here

Naathen… I’d give you the directions of how to find this stone, but I’m not sure of its precise location.  Just get to the top of Reva Hill, on its more westerly side, and it’s somewhere on its upper slopes.  I was up here again recently and hoped to find it, but the grasses might have grown back over it.  If one of you petroglyph fans manages to locate it, please can you send me its exact grid-reference, so I can update the site profile.

Archaeology & History

This was one in a cluster of carvings that were rediscovered in 2011 and which I’ve not managed to re-locate (bad boy).  It’s very plain and simple, as you can see.  Indeed, I was lucky to even notice it, as the central photograph above shows how faint and eroded the cup-marks are in normal light.  Thankfully with a bit of water, what I initially thought may have been two cup-marks, turned into three or four of them.  So the next time you’re having a look at the Fraggle Rock carving and its companions, remember that this little fella is hiding somewhere close by…

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Green Crag Slack (356a), Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 13665 46014

Getting Here

Carving 356a, Green Crag

From Cow & Calf Rocks, walk up the steep footpath and turn left (southeast) when it levels out on the edge of the moor.  Walk 250 yards along and, where the main path veers down to the road, just keep walking along in the same direction along the footpath that runs gradually uphill until, after 650 yards (595m) you’ll eventually meet up with the footpath that runs along the moorland proper.  Where these two paths meet-up, then head upwards (south) into the heather for 55 yards (50m) until you see a good-size sloping block of stone with a crack roughly down the middle.  If you hit the Little Haystack Rock (a big conspicuous stone) you’ve gon too far!

Archaeology & History

Shallow cupmarks visible

This is one of the many basic cup-marked stones you’ll find scattered all over these moors possessing (as it does) only two distinct cup-marks on its more northern half, although a possible faint third one needs looking at in better light.  When we were kids exploring this and other areas, single and double cup-marked stones like this seemed ten-a-penny and we’d flippantly pass them by after quick perusal, looking for more impressive designs.

The carving here seems to have been missed in the surveys of Hedges (1986) and Boughey & Vickerman (2003), despite the rock standing out quite distinctly.  I can only assume that they checked it out when the skies were grey and dull, making the cup-marks difficult to see.  A number of other prehistoric remains can be found close to this carving, including cairns and sections of enclosure walling.

Folklore

Tradition tells that the indigenous Britons had a battle with the Romans on the plain where this carving is found.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Auchentorlie, Old Kilpatrick, Dumbartonshire

Cup-and-Ring Stones (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NS 444 747

Archaeology & History

A couple of interesting multiple-ringed carvings were found high up on the slopes above Bowling, not far from the Bow Linn waterfalls, near the end of the 19th century.  John Bruce (1893) told that, shortly after the discovery of the Cochno carvings,

“in the year 1889, two cup and ring marked stones were discovered in a dyke near the old farmhouse of Auchentorlie while the reservoir for the district water supply was being excavated close by.”

But since then, they seem to have disappeared.  Searches for them by the old petroglyph writer Ron Morris in the 1960s and the Royal Commission lads in the 1970s both drew a blank.  If we’re lucky, they might be hiding in a box somewhere, in the storage rooms of Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum.  As you can from the sketches done by W.A. Donnelly, they’re quite impressive.  The drawings give the impression that they were small portable carvings, which may suggest they were once part of a prehistoric cist or cairn, although no such site has been found in this locale.  If this isn’t the case, their small size is an oddity.

References:

  1. Bruce, John, The History of the Parish of West or Old Kilpatrick,  John Smith: Glasgow 1893.
  2. Morris, Ronald W.B. & Bailey, Douglas C., “The Cup-and-Ring Marks and Similar Sculptures of Southwestern Scotland: A Survey,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 98, 1966.
  3. Royal Commission Ancient Historical Monuments, Scotland, The Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Dumbarton District…, HMSO: Edinburgh 1978.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Dumbuck Hill, Milton, Dumbarton, Dumbartonshire

Cup-Marked Stone (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NS 419 747

Archaeology & History

Very little is known of this site.  It was discovered in the 1890s by a Mr W.A. Donnelly who was responsible for some of the early drawings of the famous Cochno Stone carving (found a few miles east of here), but it seems that he made no such sketch of this particular carving—although it doesn’t sound too impressive when we compare it to some of the others in this area.  It was thankfully mentioned, albeit briefly by John Bruce (1893), who told that it was “a boulder with a large basin and a duct heading therefrom…at the foot of Dumbuck Hill.”  The carving may well have been destroyed by quarrying.

References:

  1. Bruce, John, The History of the Parish of West or Old Kilpatrick,  John Smith: Glasgow 1893.
  2. Morris, Ronald W.B. & Bailey, Douglas C., “The Cup-and-Ring Marks and Similar Sculptures of Southwestern Scotland: A Survey,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 98, 1966.
  3. Royal Commission Ancient Historical Monuments, Scotland, The Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Dumbarton District…, HMSO: Edinburgh 1978.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

Dunarbuck, Old Kilpatrick, Dumbartonshire

Cup-Marked Stone (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NS 449 740

Also Known as:

  1. Dunerbuck
  2. Greenland (5)

Archaeology & History

Bruce’s 1893 sketch

This small and visually trivial cup-marked stone is one of a number in this neck o’ the woods that have either been destroyed or simply lost.  This stone has the “lost” label stamped on it!  It was first described in John Bruce’s (1893) classic local history work where he told it to be “a boulder of sandstone with three cup-marks…(that) lies on the slope of the Hill of Dun, about 100 yards north of Dunerbuck  farmhouse.”  It doesn’t appear to have been seen since, as none of the classic petroglyph writers described seeing it and a search for it in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum in the 1960s drew a blank.  The carving has subsequently been added to archaeological inventories with the standard, “this cup-marked boulder cannot now be located.”  It may yet be found, overgrown by grasses and mosses, just that hundred yards or so above the buildings behind Dunarbuck.  That entire area needs scanning to be honest…

References:

  1. Bruce, John, The History of the Parish of West or Old Kilpatrick,  John Smith: Glasgow 1893.
  2. Bruce, John, “Notice of Remarkable Groups of Archaic Sculpturings in Dumbartonshire and Stirlingshire,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, volume 301896.
  3. Royal Commission Ancient Historic Monuments, Scotland, The Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Dumbarton District…, HMSO: Edinburgh 1978.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian