Tag: cup marked stones

Grey Stone, Newsholme Dean, Oakworth, West Yorkshire

megalithix

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 00621 40841

Also Known as:

  1. Carving no.2 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

Grey Stone, Newsholme Dean
Grey Stone, Newsholme Dean

Take the same directions as if you’re visiting the Cob Stone Field carving; but instead of going into the field on your right, walk down the track about 100 yards towards the large barn below.  As you walk down keep your eyes peeled to the field on your left and, right up against the wall of the barn, you’ll see a large boulder resting quietly. That’s what yer after!

Archaeology & History

This large faded cup-marked rock whose western side has been split off in recent years, has a scatter of “up to 21 small shallow worn cups” on its upper surface.  They can be difficult to see in some light, but they’re definitely there (as Ray Spencer’s photos clearly show), fading slowly into Nature’s winds and storms.  A couple of ‘lines’ running down the edge of the stone are  due to modern farm-workings.

Close-up of the cups
Close-up of the cups
Sketch of the design
Sketch of the design

Several other rocks in this and adjacent fields have what may be faded remains of other cup-markings, but without guidance from a geologist or a stone-mason, we can’t know for sure whether they’re authentic or not.  It’s likely that there are other authentic carvings hiding in this area—they just need sniffing out!

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, West Yorkshire Archaeology Service 2003.

Acknowledgements:  Huge thanks to Ray Spencer for us of his photos in this site profile. Thanks Ray.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Carrot Hill, Inverarity, Angus

stuant63

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NO 4545 4000

Getting Here

Newly found cup-marked stone

The stone is situated on the north-facing slope of Carrot Hill (almost equidistant with neighbouring Dodd Hill actually) at 225 m OD.  Use of a  GPS and the co-ordinates above are very definitely recommended for finding this stone which lies flat on a heather covered hillside.  You most likely won’t locate it without them.  There is ample car parking space at the popular viewpoint car park on Carrot Hill (NO 464 408), walk to the summit trig point and follow your GPS from there.

Archaeology & History

This cup-marked stone was first noticed in February 2012.   Remarkably, this stone seems to have been previously unrecorded despite lying just metres from a small path through the heather.

There are at least 15 cup marks on this sandstone boulder which was measured to be  1.2 x 0.7 x 0.2 m in size.  There is no evidence of any rings around any of the cups. 

The closest known examples of more rock art are just over four kilometers away to the west at Huntingfaulds where there is a cup and ring marked boulder.

© Stuart Anthony, 2012


Lochmaloney, Kilmany, Fife

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Cup-and-Ring Stone (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NO 379 204

Archaeology & History

J.R. Allen’s 1882 sketch

Here’s another old carving that has succumbed to the lack of animistic respect endemic in modern culture.  Ronald Morris (1981) reported that this carved rounded boulder was “dynamited by the farmer and (is) now no longer extant.”  First described in 1882 and later included in the Fife Inventory (1935), the large smooth rock used to lay within a nice copse of dense gorse, measuring 2½m x 1¾m across and about 1m high from ground level.

It was uncovered in 1872 and mentioned briefly for the first time in Arthur Mitchell’s (1874) fine essay on the antiquities of Cromar, where he told that “Dr. Batty Tuke tells me there is a cup stone on a moor forming part of Lochmalonie farm, in the parish of Logie, Fifeshire.”  His notes were followed up by the great Romilly Allen (1882), whose sketch is all that remains of this ancient site.  The carving was subsequently included in one of Ron Morris’s (1981) survey of Scottish petroglyphs, describing it simply as,

“2 cups-and-one-complete ring (one mostly weathered off), diameters 10cm (4in) and 27 cups (carving depth and angle of slope not now known.”

Its isolation from any other known petroglyphs is a little odd and there is every possibility is accompanied a prehistoric burial of some sort; although from the attitude of the farmer, all trace of that would have gone too.  On a more positive note, when Batty Tuke spoke with Romilly Allen about this carving, he told that he has “frequently noticed well-marked cups on dry stone dykes in the Glenduckie area.”  Petroglyph explorers amongst you might want to spend some time meandering in this neck o’ the woods….

References:

  1. Allen, J. Romilly, “Notes on some Undescribed Stones with Cup Markings in Scotland,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries Scotland, volume 16, 1882.
  2. Mitchell, Arthur, “Vacation Notes in Cromar, Burghead and Strathspey,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries Scotland, volume 10, 1874.
  3. Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
  4. Royal Commission on Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Eleventh Report with Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1935.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian