Cup-and-Ring Stone (lost): OS Grid Reference – NX 709 489
Archaeology & History
One of the lost High Banks carvings
The drawing here is another by the legendary Fred Coles, previously unpublished until Maarten van Hoek (1990) brought it out of the dusty archives of the Stewartry Museum, Kirkcudbright, and described it in his article on prehistoric rosette motifs. As with its fellow carving of High Banks 2, the location of the site remains unknown; and van Hoek wondered whether these two lost carvings “could have been located at the spot where now the little quarry at High Banks site is found.” Let’s hope not!
References:
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway and the Isle of Man, Blandford: Poole 1979.
van Hoek, M.A.M., “The Rosette in British and Irish Rock Art,” in Glasgow Archaeological Journal, volume 16, 1990.
Cup-and-Ring Stone (lost): OS Grid Reference – NX 709 489
Archaeology & History
One of the lost High Banks carvings
This impressive carving was found somewhere in the vicinity of the well-known High Banks (01) cup-and-ring menagerie, with its clustered mass of cups and multiple rings. And the carving we see here possesses something of a similarity with its complex neighbour—but it remains lost.
The drawing was done by our old Scottish megalithomaniac Fred Coles, who discovered the carving when he visited the area around the beginning of the 20th century. It remained unpublished until fellow rock art student Maarten van Hoek (1990) explored the region and found it hiding away in the archives at the Stewartry Museum, Kirkcudbright. The multiple rings of cups surrounding central cups and cup-and-rings are very rare things indeed and this carving is utterly unique in the British Isles.
In Coles’ drawing, as well as the large carving, we have two other elements below, boxed. These are taken from a notebook found in the same Stewartry Museum and thought to have been done by a Mr G. Hamilton around 1866. In the lower-box, the double-ringed cup with its surround of two more rings of cup-marks was suggested at first by van Hoek (1990) to possibly be the same carving as that found by Coles. But he questioned this, sensibly, as the carved design ‘B’,
“comprises 35 cups (its diameter stated to be 21 inches / 51cm), whereas Coles’ diagram of ‘A’ shows only 24 outer cups. The unknown artist moreover says that, ‘The above (B) is one of a splendid group on Banks Farm.’ So this rosette (B) might be a completely different specimen altogether.”
I have to agree with him. In the second smaller box, ‘C’, the drawing of the cluster of cup-marks is taken from the same 19th century notebook in which the author said there was a cluster of
“70 to 100 small cups without any apparent system, except being in a group of 7 with cup in the centre—also 3 or 4 circles.”
No other details were given. Petroglyph explorers in the area should keep their senses peeled when meandering about here, for this and other missing carvings (High Banks 3).
References:
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway and the Isle of Man, Blandford: Poole 1979.
van Hoek, M.A.M., “The Rosette in British and Irish Rock Art,” in Glasgow Archaeological Journal, volume 16, 1990.
Along the A836 road between Durness and Tongue, take the minor road north to Melness. Keeping to the right all the way along, drive almost to the very end, shortly before which is a double right-hand bend uphill. Park here and walk back along the road, north, past the cottage of Dun Bhuidhe for about 100 yards until you see the large sloping rock face with the telegraph post sticking out of it. That’s the place!
Archaeology & History
Not previously recorded, this cup-and-ring stone is right by the roadside up the far, lonely but beautiful glen west of Melness, which runs to a dead-end and into the heart of the silent moors high up in Sutherland’s remote landscape — and it’s a damn good one! It’s also the most northern example known of a Neolithic or Bronze Age petroglyph on the British mainland. The carving has been etched onto a large easterly sloping rock, fractured into several sections, with the decayed broch of Dun Bhuidhe rising to its immediate southwest. The setting alone is outstanding!
Sketch of the carving3 cups on the lower-east side
It was rediscovered on 25 August, 2015, after Prof Hornby and I had analysed the chambered tomb south of Dalvaid about half-a-mile away. In walking back to explore the aforementioned broch, I cut across the bottom of a nearby rock and found three distinct cup-markings etched near the bottom of its sloping face. Calling out to Prof Hornby, he retreated in his direction to the broch and came back to look at the top of this very large rock surface.
“There are some more cups on this section of the stone!” he called – and began to count them. “At least ten in this little section,” he said. There were indeed!
Carving, looking west
Carving, looking south
By the time we’d finished counting, drawing and assessing the design etched onto the rock surface, amongst at least two cup-and-ring elements we found at least 67 cup-markings, mainly carved onto the northwest portion of the stone. The first three that I’d seen were on the much lower eastern part and were etched in deliberate isolation from the primary design. However, of these three isolated cups, it looks as if one of them may have a spiral element curving out of it. This needs assessing in much better lighting conditions, because when we found it the skies were very grey and overcast, making an accurate survey very difficult (cup-marks on rocks can be hard to see unless daylight conditions are just right) – and, after a short while, the legendary Scottish midges appeared and began to feast on us, which stopped us in our work. The little buggers!
On a subsequent visit here with Sarah MacLean of Borgie in the summer of 2018, she found several more cup-marks beneath the lower arc shown in the above drawing (which I need to update, obviously).
Central features of the carving
Scatter of central cups
The most notable feature to this carving is the arrangement of the great majority of the cup markings. They were quite deliberately carved along the very top of the stone, close to its edge, in two contiguous lines of nine with a small gap separating them. At the northwestern end of this, a very notable feature occurs: a natural crack in the rock runs down the stone and, almost all the way down, we find a line of cups have been pecked onto the stone along the natural crack, with some of them near the top that are unfinished. These cup-marks are more elongated in form than the usual circular status; but this is due to them being etched into the cleft itself. From top to bottom there are 13 such cups. At the bottom of this line, another linear stretch of cups change direction and move back onto the main rock surface, just above another large long natural crack cutting across the rock. This gentle arc of cups (with two other possible cups beneath these) ends at a cup-and-ring, above which are two extra cups next to each other. Above these are a number of other cups of roughly similar size and depth, with a notably large one that gives the impression that the smaller cups around its edges are satellites to its larger parent body.
Line of cups on western edge
Row of cups etched into natural crack
Without any doubt there are other faint features that have been carved onto the stone, but due to the poor visibility factor at the time of its discovery we could not see anything other than the elements highlighted in the rough sketch. In looking through the many photos we took of this carving, there seem to be other faint lines, rings and cups within the overall design, but until we revisit the site (or someone else does!) such further features cannot be added to the drawing.
As the images of this petroglyph clearly shows, the primary feature defining it is the extensive line of continuous cup-markings running along the edges and enclosing a smaller number of internal cups. It’s an unusual element. Sequential line features such as these, defined by cups, are not common. My impression of this feature is that it was a pictorial representation of the horizons, inside which is played the story of….. something… But horizons they seem. Of course, this is a simplistic interpretation and is open to criticisms of any form. I care not! Much more importantly as far as I’m concerned is the fact that we’ve uncovered yet another unrecorded carving – and according to the official records, no such carvings exist here; but where one such carving exists, others are close by!
Watch this space…..
Acknowledgements: Considerable thanks must be given to Prof Paul Hornby, for use of his photos and without whose help this carving might never have been located. Cheers dood!
The multiple-ringed petroglyph of Raith, Kirkcaldy
On the more south-side of Kirkcaldy, head for the roundabout at the meeting of the A910, B925 and B9157, heading out west along the Auchtertool road; but just 60-70 yards past the roundabout, take the first right along Raith Drive. Wibble along here for a few hundred yards until you reach Raith Gardens. Walk down here for 50 yards and cross onto to the grasses opposite where a path runs parallel with a large old stone wall. Barely 2 feet above ground level, keep yer eyes on the walling!
Archaeology & History
Close-up of the carving
This is a peculiar one. A very peculiar one! Found embedded in some very old walling, it is similar in size, style and design to the curiously un-eroded multiple-ringed Binn-1 petroglyph 3.9 miles (6.2km) southwest, this concentric four-ringed ‘cup-and-ring’ stone actually seems to have no central cup. That aint too unusual. But the oddity here is its complete isolation—not merely from any other petroglyphs, but from any other neolithic or Bronze Age site.
The concentric rings are incomplete on the outer two rings, with openings or gateways to the inner two rings (a common element). Several parallel scars are clearly visible that have been cut across the surface of the stone, affecting the clarity of the carving. Whether these scars are geophysical, or were caused when the carving was moved and fit into the wall, we do not know.
The stone may or may not have been a portable one, typical of those attached to cairns or tomb-covers; or it may have been broken from a large piece of rock. We just don’t know. The design is typical of those found in relation to prehistoric tombs, yet none are known to have been here. In 1872 The Antiquary Journal covered the story of four stone coffins being found when the first Co-op building was being built in Kirkcaldy, on top of which was “an earthen urn” – but where was that exactly? Did the carving come from there? We do know that the walling in which the carving has been fixed was once part of an old Abbot’s Hall – but whatever was here before that, history seems to have forgotten.
A fascinating little mystery this one…..
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to Penny Sinclair for showing us to this little-known site. Cheers Pen. 🙂
From Burntisland, go up the Cowdenbeath road for just over half-a-mile, then turn right and walk into the woods up the footpath. Go uphill, over the first stile until you reach the field less than 200 yards above. Follow the line of the trees, right, along the edge of the field for about 100 yards, then walk uphill into the trees again until you reach a small rocky outcrop. That’s the spot!
Archaeology & History
Rediscovered in the summer of 2003, this is one in a small cluster of little-known petroglyphs on the western slopes of the hill known as The Binn. Found less than a yard away from another carving, this ornate-looking fella consists of a wide cup-mark with three very well-defined concentric rings around it. A carved line runs out from the central cup, down the gentle slope of the rock and out of the rings entirely; whilst 60° left of this line, a second one runs from the central cup to the inner edge of the third concentric ring. To the left of the 3-rings is another concentric system, with one clear ring around a faint shallow inner-cup and what seems to be a faint outer secondary ring. A possible third isolated cup-mark is to the top-left of the multiple rings.
The carving under the overhang
Close-up of the multiple rings
This is one of two carvings that are right next to each other and it is curious inasmuch as the erosion on it seems negligible. This may be due to the overhanging rock which shelters it considerably from normal weathering processes. Indeed, if the carving was uncovered from beneath a covering layer soil, the lack of erosion on it makes complete sense. However, I have to say that I was slightly skeptical about assigning any great age to this particular design—and until we get an assessment from a reputable geologist we should perhaps be cautious about giving it a definite prehistoric provenance. It’s still very much worth seeing though. The carving on the adjacent rock however, is a different kettle o’ fish altogether!
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to Penny Sinclair for guiding us to this little-known site. Cheers Pen. 🙂
Along the A810 Bearsden to Dunochter road, 100 yards past the Faifley roundabout, turn right up Cochno Road. Go up for literally 1 mile and hit the car-park. Go back onto the road and walk uphill. Barely 50 yards up, turn right and walk down the track. About 350 yards along its bendy route, some grasslands appear on your right and there, about 40 yards away, is the large Cochno-5 carving.
Archaeology & History
First described by James Harvey (1889) in association with adjacent carvings, he told that “there are eight isolated cups, two of which have a diameter of 2½ inches” on this stone. Harvey was one of those who loved the idea that our ancestors were etching cup-marks as receptacles for collecting blood and similar christian fantasies. It was a bittova fad at the time.
Close-up of topmost cupmarks
James Harvey’s 1889 sketch
As we can see, the kids have sprayed their own ID onto the stone. It’s highly unlikely that they were even aware of this being a prehistoric site as there’s nothing to indicate it as such, and I know of archaeologists who wouldn’t have even seen the cup-marks on the stone, so we can’t really apportion blame. (We must recall that businessman Tom Lonsdale and Ilkley Council branded such things as “twenty-first century informal unauthorised carvings” when they sought and succeeded to get large amounts of cash to justify their own ‘brand’ of vandalism and called it ‘art’. Very common amongst those social types.)
References:
Harvey, James, “Notes on Some Undescribed Cup-Marked Rocks at Duntocher, Dumbartonshire”, in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 23, 1889.
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to the awesome Aisha Domleo and her little dynamic duo for helping us get to this site.
A recent visit to try find this intricate carving—the only one of its kind in Clackmannanshire—proved unsuccessful, and so I add it here in the hope that someone might know where it is and bring it back to light. It looked like quite an impressive petroglyph. If the stone isn’t hiding in undergrowth at the edge of someone’s garden, it may well have been destroyed—which would be appalling. As a unique design, this important carving should have been preserved. Even when the Victorian explorers found it, the covering stone circle had been greatly damaged and many stones in the ring had been removed. This carved stone remained intact however. When Mr R. Robertson (1895) and his friend visited the site, it was covered in sand and dirt and had fallen to the side of an internal cist:
“On clearing this away a remarkable feature was brought to light. The block was found to be elaborately ornamented on its sides and upper surface, with rings, spirals and lines. The labour of cutting these in the hard granite with primitive tools of the period must have been very great. Several successful photos of the stone and its carvings were taken by Provost Westwood, Dollar…. This stone has now been removed to the vicinity of Tillicoultry for safety.”
In the same article, George Black told slightly more of the design:
“The covering stone of the cist…bears on the face a series of concentric circles, and spirals springing from one of the groups of circles, Four grooves also unite the same set of circles with the left-hand edge of the stone. On the edge shown in the photograph there is another group, consisting of two concentric circles. The unevenness of the surface of the stone appears to have been of no moment to the sculptor of the circles, as the incisions follow the surface into its sinuosities and depressions.”
Not long after Robertson & Black’s visit, the great megalithomaniac Fred Coles (1899) came here—and he found that the “spirals” that Mr Black described were nothing of the sort.
“The huge irregularly-shaped diorite boulder which covered the cist has several cup-and-ring marks on one face and one side…. These marks are now, so I was informed when inspecting them, very much less distinct than they were when the photograph was taken (above) in 1894. It would be difficult now to describe the incised markings with accuracy; it is difficult even to see them when wet. But…I must take exception to the term ‘spirals’ as applied to any of these ‘rings.’ There are three groups of rings so placed as to make the outermost ring in each group touch that of the others (not an uncommon form), but there is no one true volute.
“…What is more noteworthy is the group of four long parallel, nearly perpendicular grooves issuing (probably) from the outermost ring of the group of five rings, and ending at the edge of the boulder.”
Alison Young’s 1937 sketch
Cole also noted that the carvings were to be found on the upper surface of the stone. It would seem very probable that the excessive erosion which Cole described was due to the fact that the stone was, many centuries earlier, exposed to the elements within the stone circle and not buried as it later came to be. It makes sense.
The excessive erosion was spoken of by the Royal Commission (1933) lads, aswell as the last person to describe the site, Ronald W.B. Morris (1981), who said that during his visits here between 1966-75,
“the author has only found traces of possible cups visible on the rough surface, which has flaked badly.”
Morris (1981) said that the stone measured “1½m by 1¾m by ½m (5½ft x 4½ft x 2ft)”—and was last known to be some 10 yards NW of the Tillicoultry House cottage, but we could locate no trace of the stone or its carving. If anyone is aware of the whereabouts or fate of this important neolithic carving, please let us know.
Morris, Ronald W.B., “The Cup-and-Ring and Similar Early Sculptures of Scotland; Part 2 – The Rest of Scotland except Kintyre,” in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, volume 16, 1969.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
This fascinating and very ornate prehistoric carving was found on the underside of a grave-slab beneath Old King Coil’s Grave, or an adjacent prehistoric burial feature (we don’t know for sure). In Daniel Wilson’s (1851) superb early work on prehistoric Scotland is a detailed drawing of this ornate petroglyph—similar in design and form to those found across the waters in Ireland—copied “from a drawing presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by Colonel Hugh Montgomery of Shielmorly, in 1785.” Mr Wilson informed us that,
“It formed the cover of a cist, discovered in digging a gravel-pit at Coilsfield, in Ayrshire, and underneath it was found an urn filled with incinerated bones. The dimensions of the stone were about five feet in length by two and a half feet in breadth”
James Simpson’s 1866 sketch
A few years later Sir James Simpson (1866; 1867) wrote and published the earliest (and still one of the finest) books on aboriginal rock carvings in the British Isles, and all but echoed what Wilson had described. He added a further description of the designs that were carved onto the stone, telling us that,
“it had cut upon it a series of concentric circles, consisting of six rings placed around a central cup, the rings traversed by a straight radial groove. On the drawing are marks of other cups and rings, or rather volutes, and a number of angular lines… This sculptured stone covered an urn…”
Following the descriptions of our early authors, many archaeologists and antiquarians explored the site but could find little else about the carving. In Ron Morris’ (1981) most recent survey, he told us that it was,
“a gritstone slab, 1½m by ¾m (5ft x 2½ft), possibly broken after carving, had on one side (not now known if this was the inner of outer face); a cup-and-six-complete-rings with radial groove from the cup – diameter 50cm (20in) – 5 other cups-and-rings, mostly partly broken off or incomplete, an irregular ‘reversed-S-shaped’ single spiral with 3 convolutions at each end, other irregular grooved figures, 4 cups and about 7 ‘dots’ (6 of these are in the cup-and-six-rings).”
The Royal Commission at Canmore tell us that “the present location of the food vessel and cist cover is unknown”; yet the rock art researcher Ronald W.B. Morris (1981) reported the petroglyph was “said to have been given to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland but (is) now missing”; whilst the local writer E.H. Letham (1900) told us “the urns were conveyed to Eglintoun Castle.” This aint good. Has anyone subsequently found out what became of it?
Folklore
The tumulus of King Coil’s Grave was the legendary resting place of the “Old King Cole” of popular rhymes. There were two such northern kings in ancient times and, as William Robertson (1889) said, “the only difficulty is to say which of the King Coils he was, whether the Coilu who lived three hundred and thirty years before Christ; or Coel, King of the Roman districts, who must have lived in the third century.”
References:
Letham, E.H., Burns and Tarbolton, D.Brown: Kilmarnock 1900.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
Simpson, James, Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, etc., Upon Stones and Rocks in Scotland, England and other Countries, Edmonston & Douglas: Edinburgh 1867.
Smith, John, Prehistoric Man in Ayrshire, Elliot Stock: London 1895.
Wilson, Daniel, The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, Sutherland & Knox: Edinburgh 1851.
Follow the same directions as if you’re looking for the Doo’cot Woods carving; but, in the field that you have to cross before entering the trees, about 50 yards down from the top of the field, a geological ridge of stone runs along into the trees themselves. The carving is along this ridge in the field. Walk along and you’ll find it!
Archaeology & History
Not described in earlier surveys, this is one of two cup-marked stones close to each other along this long ridge of stone reaching across the field. The carving has just two distinct cups, as illustrated, between 2-3 inches across and half-an-inch deep. As with the adjacent carving, no other features seem to visible.
Close-up of cup-marks
We must, however, be cautious with this and other ‘cup-markings’ nearby, as a lot of the stone in this area is conglomerate with nodules of differing forms of rock (visible on nearby stones) falling away to leave cup-like impressions where the softer stone has eroded. Some of the cup-markings listed in John Sherriff’s (1995) survey of this region seem to be purely geological in nature and not man-made.
We have no precise location for this carving, nor several of its petroglyphic relatives who lived within this arena for countless centuries until (you guessed it!) the advance of the Industrialists brought their profane ways to the region, with the usual disregard for local people and their unwritten traditions. Which is a great pity, for there were obviously some old stories and important archaeology hereby. Aubrey Burl (1988) for one, thought this cup-and-ring carving may have played its part in being one of the stones in a larger “four-poster” stone circle, although local history accounts tell that it was part of an impressive prehistoric tomb.
One of the Witches Stones
The Witches’ Stone we see illustrated here was one of at least two carvings in a cluster of stones. The great J. Romilly Allen (1881) wrote about the it, although it seems he never visited the site himself. Instead, his description came from that of a colleague, a Mr W. McNicoll, who told him that at the position marked on the early OS-map as a single “Stone” that was “Remains of a Druidical Altar” there were in fact
“two in number: one, an upright pointed stone, 5ft by 2ft by 3ft 6in high; ans the other lying 3ft 6in to the southwest, 7ft 6in by 5ft by 2ft 6in thick. The latter has fifteen cups, varying from 2 to 3in in diameter; one with a single ring carved on the sloping face at the south end of the stone. It lies horizontally and has two hollows, worn at the ends where the cups are, by the toes of persons climbing onto the top. The ground under this stone has been partly removed and it appears to rest on two others; but the whole appears to be natural and not a cromlech or rocking stone.”
Folklore
One of the Witches Stones
Reference was made to this “Witches Stone” in the 1860 Object Name Book of the region, where it was said to have been part of a larger group, “considered to have been used by the Druids as a place of worship.” This catch-all phrase of druidic relevance should be translated as “local traditional importance” where animistic rites of some sort would have occurred. Certainly we find the usual reverence or fear in the local tale told by Mr Hutcheson (1905) which he thankfully recorded following his visit to the site:
“Here…occupying a small knoll known locally as Greenfield Knowe, towards the western end of the plateau…two upright standing stones of boulder character formed a conspicuous feature. They were, if tradition be accepted, the survivors of a larger group. The same tradition records that the farmer of Greenfield Farm, requiring stones for the erection of dykes, removed some of the standing stones from Greenfield Knowe. He, however, speedily found unexpected difficulty in carrying out his intentions. The dykers whom he had employed absolutely refused to use the stones, alleging they would thereby bring misfortune upon themselves and families, , and threatened, rather than risk such calamities, to throw up the job.
“While in this quandry the farmer, it is said, had a vision: a ghostly figure appeared to him, and in a hollow voice warned him against interference with he stones on Greenfield Knowe, and concluded by the adjuration, “Gang ower the howe t’ anither knowe.” Needless to say, the farmer lost no time in obeying his ghostly visitor. Next morning he carted back the stones he had removed and sought material for his dykes elsewhere.”
This is probably the same tale, slightly reformed, which the local historian W.M. Inglis (1888) described, when he told that,
“About the beginning of the present century, when a worthy old parishioner was having some repairs carried out upon his house, he removed a few of the large stones with the intention of having them built into the walls. Throughout the night, however, an eerie feeling came over him, his conscience was on fire, he could get no rest. Accordingly he got out of bed, yoked his horse into the cart, and like a sensible man replaced yjr sacred stones where he found them, went home, and thereafter slept the sleep of the righteous.”
