earth mysteries

Stroness (3), Fowlis Wester, Perthshire

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

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.

Stroness (2), Fowlis Wester, Perthshire

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

Also Known as:

Buchanty Hill

Getting Here

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.

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:

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

Megget Stane, Yarrow, Selkirkshire

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Standing Stone: OS Grid Reference – NT 15061 20292

Archaeology & History

This curiously-named and barely frequented Megget Stane has seen better days. Found in the middle of a veritable nowhere, when Duncan Fraser (1901) first wrote about it there was only a solitary pathway running between these uninhabited glens, with this old stone standing as a solitary sentinel—albeit a not very grand one! It’s present position at the roadside was given it following a forced removal into a nearby ditch, when the old Edinburgh District Water authority who built the Talla Reservoir a couple of miles away all but destroyed it! On one of Mr Fraser’s many visits, in August 1899, he found what he called his “old friend…lying among the heather broken into three pieces.”

“I frankly confess that this wanton act of vandalism filled me with the deepest indignation,” he wrote—and so he sought to redress the situation and find out who’d damaged the old stone. It transpired that,

“The Edinburgh District Water Trust had a few months before this time purchased from Lord Wemyss the ground at the head of Meggat, which slopes down to Talla. In marking off their new possession, the Trust had run a strong five-barred wire fence along the march, and as Meggatstane stood on the line, why, Meggatstane was bound to go!”

He contacted a local farmer and, between them, they protested to the water company who, eventually, fixed the pieces of the stone back together and erected it in the position that we see today, very close to its original spot. Prior to it being damaged, Fraser told that it stood four feet tall, but when cementing it all back together again, some of its original size was lost.

Its history and legends had been forgotten even in his day and despite enquiries with other local wanderers, all that was ever told of it were variants on it standing hereby since time immemorial. For my part, I’m somewhat sceptical about it having a prehistoric provenance, despite the Royal Commission (1957) lads suggesting a Bronze Age origin—but that’s just my own feeling on the place. I’m more inclined to see this as an early mediaeval stone—but would love to be wrong. It may, perhaps, even date from Viking times…..

Fraser told us an intriguing note when the stone was eventually re-assembled,

” I was interested to learn that when they dug to the bottom of the stone, they found the part underground covered with certain runic-like characters.”

These don’t appear to have been seen since.

References:

Fraser, Duncan, “Meggatstane – An Incident in a Riverside Ramble,” in Border Magazine, volume 6, no.70, November 1901.
Royal Commission Ancient & Historic Monuments, Scotland, An Inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Selkirkshire, HMSO: Edinburgh 1957.

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.

Bachilton, Methven, Perthshire

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Stone Circle (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NO 0015 2411

Also Known as:

Skelfie

Archaeology & History

Sometime between the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a Perthshire architect by the name of Thomas Ross was informed by a farm-worker called John Lawson who lived at Meckphen, that a stone circle had existed at Bachilton, but which had been destroyed when he was young. The information was gained by the great Fred Coles (1910) during his extensive survey work in and around Perthshire, but all trace of the site had gone when he came to write about it. He told us simply:

“Many years ago, several Stones of a Circle stood here, upon what appeared to be an artificial, and quite distinct mound which is still visible. The Stones were, however, undermined and buried, so as to be out of the reach of the plough, close to their respective sites.”

All subsequent searches for the site have proved fruitless and the circle’s long gone.

References:

Coles, F.R., “Report on stone circles in Perthshire principally Strathearn,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.

St. Stephen’s Well, Banbury, Oxfordshire

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

Archaeology & History

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:

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

Cairnfauld Field, Lilburn, Wooler, Northumberland

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

Also Known as:

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:

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.

Villa Real, Jesmond, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland

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Cist (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NZ 260 656

Archaeology & History

All remains of this prehistoric burial site have obviously long since fallen into only the vaguest of memory, but its incidence deserves reviving for those who may live nearby and seek for a place where our truly ancient ancestors once faired. Here, beneath the modern buildings of homo-profanus, less than a mile north-east of Newcastle city centre, a small prehistoric burial chamber, or cist, was uncovered quite accidentally by a Mr Russell Blackbird (1832) in the first-half of the 19th century. In a letter to the newly-formed (as it was back then) Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle in April of that year he told,

“In trenching some ground for planting, this morning, we discovered a stone vault, 4 feet long by 2 feet wide, and 20 inches deep, deposited in a dry hard marl below the soil, which we were taking out for making the walks in the garden. It contained the bones of a man, the head, in particular, quite perfect, with all the teeth in it. Also a small urn (was found)… There was some red-coloured earth in the urn which the labourers threw out.”

Mr Blackbird sent the antiquarian society a sketch of the urn that he and his colleagues discovered, reproduced here.

References:

Blackbird, Russell, “Account of the Discovery of a Stone Vault and Urn, at Villa Real, Jesmond,” in Archaeologia Aeliana, volume 2, 1832.

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.

Reva Hill (8), Hawksworth, West Yorkshire

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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…

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

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

Getting Here

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

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.

Auchentorlie, Old Kilpatrick, Dumbartonshire

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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:

Bruce, John, The History of the Parish of West or Old Kilpatrick, John Smith: Glasgow 1893.
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.
Royal Commission Ancient Historical Monuments, Scotland, The Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Dumbarton District…, HMSO: Edinburgh 1978.