Cup-and-Ring Stone (lost): OS Grid Reference – NN 880 252
Archaeology & History
A long lost carving, probably quite impressive in design, was recorded by John Laurie, schoolmaster in Monzie. He told us that,
“a large Druid stone with rude carving upon it lies on the side of the public road between the villages of Monzie and Keppoch. This stone was one of a Circle which Mr Monroe, the then minister, caused to be broken and dispersed.”
When Fred Coles looked for the remains of this “circle” at the beginning of the 20th century, he questioned Laurie’s location of the site, but found remains of one in an adjacent field consisting of two stones, but told that “on neither of them could we discern any carving of any sort.” It’s likely that the carving has been completely destroyed, or if we’re lucky it may be hiding in some nearby walling.
Cup-Marked Stone (removed): OS Grid Reference – NZ 1480 6417
Archaeology & History
Ryton cup-marked stone
In a short piece read before Newcastle’s Society of Antiquaries in 1942, a Mr Cocks (don’t laugh!) told that when a friend of his was clearing out an old land drain in his garden, he found this fragmented cup-marked stone, “which had been made use of as a corner slab on the drain”! It was located “about 40 yards south-west of Tweedy’s Buildings,” on the west side of town. Broken from a larger piece of stone, the attached photo here shows the simple design of the basic cup-marks, measuring respectively 2½, 2 and 1⅝ inches across. Mr Cocks told that “there are also two finger-tip hollows on the stone tone which or may not be natural. A dark line running between the cups is a natural fissure.”
Last we heard, the stone was living in a box somewhere in the archives at the Great North Museum, Newcastle.
References:
Cocks, W.A., “A Cup-Marked Stone at Ryton,” in Proceedings Society of Antiquaries Newcastle-upon-Tyne, volume X, no.2, January 1943.
Cup-and-Ring Stone (lost): OS Grid Reference – SE 0965 4797
Archaeology & History
In Ronald Morris’ (1989) gazetteer of British petroglyphs, he included this curious entry but gave no real details regarding its appearance or history. Listed by the Royal Commission lads, it would seem to have been located immediately south of the dismantled railway where it used to cross the Addingham-Ilkley road, but no one seems to have seen it either before or since Morris’ description. Any help regarding its whereabouts would be appreciated.
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Wakefield 2003.
Morris, Ronald W.B., “The Prehistoric Rock Art of Great Britain: A Survey of All Sites Bearing Motifs more Complex than Simple Cup-marks,” in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, volume 55, 1989.
If you’re coming via Ilkley, cross the bridge to Middleton and turn left, following the long winding road for several miles until you hit Langbar village. If you’re coming via Bolton Bridge, go to Beamsley village and turn left up Lanshaw Bank until you hit Langbar village. Whichever of the two routes you use: on the north side of Langabr village is a distinct small rough car park. From here, cross the road where the footpath sign is and walk straight up the steep hill to Beamsley Beacon at the top. You can’t miss it!
Archaeology & History
At the highest point on these hills, 1300 feet up, we come across this ancient prehistoric cairn. Its position in the landscape is impressive to say the least, being visible from nearly every direction on the moorland heights for many miles around, as well as being conspicuous from the riverlands below. A visit to the site nowadays shows it surmounted by a more recent mass of small stones turning it into a large walker’s cairn with only its compact base showing any real sign of antiquity.
Site shown on 1853 mapWestern side of the cairn
Mentioned briefly in parish records from 1658 onwards, it was highlighted on the earliest OS-map as simply a Beacon hill, due to it being used for beacon fires. We’re not certain when its beaconesque function first came about; and, it’s possible, that its beacon element could have replaced a much earlier heathen fiery function, typical of many hilltop sites up and down this and other countries. But we do know that such fires were lit here at the beginning of the 19th century. The great Harry Speight (1900) told that of its
“use as a prospecting-point and beacon there is no doubt. In the Bolton Abbey registers, under date 1803, is this entry:
“Apprehensive of a French invasion, Beamsley Beacon was put in a state of repair, and four people appointed to watch it. About — of the inhabitants of this chapelry inrolled themselves as Volunteers, the whole number of whom in Craven amounted to 1,200 Infantry and 200 Cavalry. A Sergeant was appointed to drill the volunteers of this chapelry at Bolton.”
The beacon at this time received light from Pinhaw on Carlton Moor and sent it forward to Otley Chevin, as appears by an old chart at Wakefield, dated 1803.”
The beacon’s ancient name of Howber Hill is literally the Hill of Tombs, as derived from the Teutonic haugr, and Anglian how, being a burial mound; and berg is a hill, sometimes fortified. Whilst there seems to be no evidence of ancient fortification, compacted cairn material at the base seems to confirms the -how element. Yet despite Speight citing this etymology, he was was somewhat sceptical wondering, instead, if the site was merely a giant boundary marker—which it has been for centuries.
A short distance along the footpath to the east is the denuded old cairn known as The Old Pike. Further east still, along the same boundary line, there was once another old tomb, long since gone…
Folklore
I’m not sure whether this should gone in the folklore section or not. But, well, it’s here nonetheless! In Guy Phillips’s (1976) book on the mythic history of ancient Brigantia, he describes a number of alignments, or leys (not one of those stupid energy lines, which has nowt to do with leys)—one of which crosses Beamsley Beacon. It’s an west-east line that begins at Cockerham and from there goes,
“through Top of Blaze Moss SD 619525, Slaidburn (it is very clear here), Flambers Hill SD 877523, southern edge of Copy Hill 952523, Draughton (extremely clear), Beamsley Gibbeter and Beamsley Beacon, Heligar Pike, Scow Hall 203523, Little Almscliffe Crag, Tockwith church and on to the coast.”
I have to say that I’m sceptical of the veracity of this alignment.
References:
Bogg, Edmund, Higher Wharfeland, James Miles: Leeds 1904.
Cobley, Fred, On Foot through Wharfedale, William Walker: Otley 1880.
Phillips, Guy Ragland, Brigantia – A Mysteriography, RKP: London 1976.
Smith, A.H., English Place-Name Elements – volume 1, Cambridge University Press 1956.
Smith, A.H., The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire – volume 5, Cambridge University Press 1963.
Speight, Harry, Upper Wharfedale, Elliott Stock: London 1900.
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to James Elkington for use of his photo on this site profile. Cheers mate. 😉
Unless the heather’s been burnt back, this takes a bitta finding. Direction-wise, the easiest is from the moorland road above Menston. Go up Moor Lane and then turn right along Hillings Lane. 350 yards on is a dirt-track on your right marked as Public Footpath. Walk up here for two-thirds of a mile—going past where the track goes left to the Shooting Range—to where the track splits. Bear left and after 250 yards you reach a fence on your left where the moorland proper begins. Follow this fence SW for 300 yards until it does a right angle turn. Just before this, you’ll see a large worn overgrown trackway or path running north into the moorland. Walk up here for nearly 100 yards and look around. Best o’ luck!
Archaeology & History
Western arc of earth & stone
Shown on the 1851 OS-map adjacent to the long prehistoric trackway that runs past Roms Law, the Great Skirtful and other prehistoric sites, the antiquarian wanderings of Forrest & Grainge (1868) came past here and, although didn’t mention the Craven Hall cairns directly, they did write of “a group of barrows” hereabouts, and this may have been one of them. James Wardell (1869) gave an even more fleeting skip, only mentioning “pit dwellings” hereby. A little closer to certainty was the literary attention Collyer & Turner’s (1885) pen gave, where they described, “near the adjoining old trackway, which runs from East to West, will be seen a small barrow”—but this could be either of the Craven Hill sites. And the usually brilliant Harry Speight (1900) gave the place only more brevity….
Structurally similar to Roms Law nearly ¾-mile northwest of here, this little-known and much denuded prehistoric tomb has seen better days. It is barely visible even when the heather’s low—and when we visited recently, the heather was indeed low but, as the photos here indicate, it’s troublesome to see. It’s better, of course, with the naked eye.
Highlighted ring cairn, looking NEHighlighted ring cairn, looking SE
It’s the most easterly cairn in the large Bronze Age necropolis (burial ground) on Hawksworth Moor. Measuring some 12 yards across and roughly circular in form, the ring is comprised mainly of many small stones compacted with peat, creating a raised embankment barely two feet high above the heath and about a yard across on average. A number of larger stones can be seen when you walk around the ring, but they don’t appear to have any uniformity in layout such as found at the more traditional stone circles. However, only an excavation will tell us if there was ever any deliberate positioning of these larger stones. It would also tell us if there was ever a burial or cremation here, but the interior of the ring has been dug out, seemingly a century or two ago…
References:
Collyer, Robert & Turner, J.H., Ilkley: Ancient and Modern, William Walker: Otley 1885.
Faull, M.L. & Moorhouse, S.A. (eds.), West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Guide to AD 1500 – volume 1, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
Forrest, C. & Grainge, William, A Ramble on Rumbald’s Moor, among the Rocks, Idols and Altars of the Ancient Druids in the Spring of 1869, H. Kelly: Wakefield 1868.
Speight, Harry, Upper Wharfedale, Elliott Stock: London 1900.
Wardell, James, Historical Notes of Ilkley, Rombald’s Moor, Baildon Common, and other Matters of the British and Roman Periods, Joseph Dodgson: Leeds 1869.
Take the directions to the Balnasuim (1) carving, then up and across to Balnasuim (2). From here, walk diagonally uphill to your right (NE) for about 150 yards and head to the the very top-corner of this field. You’ll see the large embedded rock emerging out of the ground, just ten yards away from a small stream. You’re there!
Archaeology & History
As Officer Barbrady likes to put it, “move along people, there’s nothing to see here!“—and that’s really the case with this, another of Balnasuim’s petroglyphs. This lichen-encrusted rock has just two simple cup-marks, barely visible when the daylight’s poor – and it’s almost as disappointing when the day is good! In all honesty, in wilfully visiting this site and its geographical compatriots, I can sincerely understand how people can tell us petroglyph-nuts that we “really have nothing better to do” with our time!
From Killin, take the A827 road to Kenmore. 6 miles along, on your right, is the track down to the Big Shed at Tombreck. Keep on the A827 for exactly ⅓-mile (0.53km), and opposite the driveway to Craggantoul is a small parking spot. A few yards on the road, over the burn, go thru the gate on your left. From here, follow the straight line of walling uphill and 20 yards before reaching Cragganester (9) carving, follow the line of fencing right (ENE) until you hit the wall more than 350 yards away. From here, follow the walling uphlil 350 yards where it turns a right-angle west. About 50 yards east of the right-angled wall, look around…
Archaeology & History
3 faint cups in an arc
As with the other carvings up here at Balnasuim, there is little to look at unless you’re one of the ardent petroglyphic crazies! On this small rounded stone, cushioned beneath the skylines of Ben Lawers and Meall Odhar, are at least three cupmarks in a rough arc running from the northern part of the stone, with the most pronounced of them being close to the northern edge of the rock. The others are very shallow and can be difficult to make out in poor sunlight. A possible fourth cupmark with a short protruding line may exist close to the SE part of the stone. The Balnasuim (2) carving is 305 yards (279m) to the NE.
From Killin, take the A827 road to Kenmore. 6 miles along, on your right, is the track down to the Big Shed at Tombreck. Keep on the A827 for exactly ⅓-mile (0.53km), and opposite the driveway to Craggantoul is a small parking spot. A few yards on the road, over the burn, go thru the gate on your left. From here, follow the straight line of walling up past Cragganester (9) carving, following the burn uphill parallel to the copse of trees until, after about 800 yards, you reach the wall. From here, walk towards the rounded hill of Meall Odhar and, after about 450 yards, you’ll notice it meets a line of walling that runs downhill. Keep walking along, past this, but after 150 yards, go into the field on your right and walk downhill for about 100 yards. Look around!
Archaeology & History
Despite the climb, plus its description as a ‘cup-and-ring’ stone, this petroglyph is somewhat of a disappointment. An elongated stone, half-covered in earth faces south towards Loch Tay and the mountains across, with a series of very eroded cup-marks.
Cup-marks on SW sideCup-and-ring on NE side
They are separated into two small groups. At the southwest side of the rock we can see three or four faded cup-marks. The middle of the rock seems devoid of anything, but on its more northeastern side we find four more cups in close attendance to a standard cup-and-ring motif. That’s about it! The Balnasuim (1) carving can be found 305 yards (279m) to the southwest.
From Killin, take the A827 road to Kenmore. 6 miles along, on your right, is the track down to the Big Shed at Tombreck. Keep on the A827 for exactly ⅓-mile (0.53km), and opposite the driveway to Craggantoul is a small parking spot. A few yards on the road, over the burn, go thru the gate on your left. Follow the straight line of walling up for 400 yards it meets where another line of walling running right (E), into the boggy pasture-lands. Walk along here for roughly another 400 yards then go up the slope as if walking up Ben Lawers (N). You’ll come to 2 large boulders next to each other where the slope levels out. It’s the one on your left!
Archaeology & History
This carving is really for the purists amongst you. It’s like most of the carvings along this contour line in that the design is simplistic. Consisting of at least nine cups all on top of the stone, they can be difficult to see amidst the rough garnet and lichen-encrusted rock.
Cupmarks on its west faceLooking down on the cups
On one of our visits here, when the light cut across the surface at a lower angle, it seemed as if one of the cups had a faint ring around it; but it looked as if the outline of it had been started, but then for some reason the ring was never actually carved. This outline is very faint. We’ve found examples of this at two of the Duncroisk carvings, several miles to the west, where the faintest trace of a ring was outlined, but never carved. Of the cup-marks: five of them are carved on the east-side of the rock and are pretty easy to see (with the ring around one of them), whilst the other four—slightly more difficult to make out—are on its west side. A couple of hundred yards north you can see the Cragganester 10 carving.
From Killin, take the A827 road to Kenmore. 6 miles along, on your right, is the track down to the Big Shed at Tombreck. Keep on the A827 for exactly ⅓-mile (0.53km), and opposite the driveway to Craggantoul is a small parking spot. A few yards on the road, over the burn, go thru the gate on your left and walk up the path for less than 100 yards. The stone is just a coupla yards on your right (if you reach the derelict tractor, you’ve gone about 10 yards past the stone).
Archaeology & History
Cupmarks along the top
This is another one of the many simple cup-marked petroglyphs scattering the Cragganester and Tombreck regions beneath the slope of Ben Lawers. It’s an elongated, smoothly-shaped ‘female’ stone, aligned north-south, possessing four distinct cups along its crown: three in a small line at the south-end of the stone and a single one close to the north end. However between these is what may be another, shallow fifth cupmark—but this is uncertain.
One notable feature here is that the rock is encrusted with small garnets. This geological ingredient isn’t uncommon in this area, and we’ve found that quite a proportion of the petroglyphs hereby possess this feature. It was probably of some importance to the people who carved them.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Paul Hornby for use of his photograph.
