Cup-and-Ring Stone: OS Grid Reference – SE 0577 4210
Also Known as:
- Carving no.144 (Boughey & Vickerman)
Dead easy! Avoiding Keighley (as common sense dictates), but going to its outskirts, get to the huge Cliffe Castle (tis free) on the northern outskirts of the town. Go inside and look around!
Archaeology & History
Initially located in the ground a few yards south of Dobrudden caravan park amidst a large gathering of other carved rocks, this grand-looking cup-and-ring stone is no longer in situ. As with a several other carvings, this has been on a bittova wander in the last century! It was first uprooted from the Earth and archaeologically transferred to Bradford’s Cartwright Hall Museum sometime after World War 2, where it lived peacefully for a number of years, before being moved to Cliff Castle Museum, where it still lives, quietly (along with another prehistoric carved rock, the Comet Stone, that was nabbed from the uplands near the Roms Law circle).
As we can see from the photos (taken in poor lighting in the museum – sorry…) there are five cup-and-rings with one cup-and-2-rings standing out (plus about another 10-12 cups scattered here and there); though when W. Paley Baildon drew a picture of the stone around 1913, he could clearly see another cup-and-ring etched onto the stone, but this has faded somewhat in the last century. Messrs Boughey & Vickerman (2003) were unable to see it.
References:
- Baildon, W. Paley, Baildon and the Baildons – parts 1-15, Adelphi: London 1913-1926.
- Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Leeds 2003.
- Hedges, John, The Carved Rocks on Rombald’s Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
- Jackson, Sidney, ‘Cup and Ring Boulders of Baildon Moor,’ in Bradford’s Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 1, 1955.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian