Tag: prehistoric rock art

Little Almscliffe Crags, Stainburn, North Yorkshire

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Legendary Rocks:  OS Grid Reference – SE 23237 52275

Also Known as:

  1. Little Almes Cliffe
  2. Little Almias Cliff Crag

Getting Here

Little Almscliffe Crag (photo – James Elkington)

Coming from Harrogate, take the B6162 and B6161 road to Beckwithshaw, through the village and, 4-500 yards on, turn right onto Norwood Lane.  2 miles along, keep your eyes peeled on your left for a gravelled parking spot and you’ll see the large rock outcrop 200 yards south of the road. …Otherwise, from Otley: go over the river bridge and turn right up Farnley Lane and follow the B6451 for a few miles, thru Farnley village up the Washburn valley, past Norwood and at Bland Hill, turn right along Broad Dubb Road for 1¾ miles where you’ll reach that same gravelled parking spot.

Archaeology & History

Very much the ‘little brother’ of Great Almscliffe, 3 miles (4.83km) to the southeast, this site would be more of interest to the travelling geologist, perhaps, than to antiquarians.  But that depends what tickles y’ fancy I s’ppose.

In 1702 when the northern antiquarian Ralph Thoresby mentioned this and its big brother to the southeast, he described the “two famous crags of Almes Cliff—in some old writings called Aylmoys ut dicitur—but have seen nothing memorial of it, saving its remarkable lofty situation.”  He missed the cup-and-ring carving on the east-side of the crags, obviously, which indicates that it had some form of animistic sanctity in ancient times.

The location on 1851 map
Little Almscliffe c.1900

Little Almscliffe was one of many impressive places located within the ancient Forest of Knaresborough; and although it wasn’t on the original boundary line, a perambulation (i.e., annual ritual walking to the old stones, trees and wells defining the region) of the area written in 1770, in what Mr Grainge called “the Copyhold Forest”, was undertaken by the Enclosure Commissioners.  It differed from the more ancient perambulation rite, in that the newer one included a mention of,

“five bounder stones also marked F to an earth-fast stone, lying northeast of Little Almes Cliffe, marked also with an F; (and) from thence by other four bounder stones marked F to Sandwith Wath…”

The letter ‘F’ here signifying the word ‘forest’, as in the Forest of Knareborough.

William Grainge (1871) also believed these crags to have been a place of druidic worship.  He wasn’t the only one.  Many other writers of the time thought the same thing; and although we have no concrete evidence to prove this, it is highly likely that these rocks would have served some ritual purpose in pre-christian days.  Certainly in more recent times (during the 1980s and ’90s) we know that ritual magickians used this site for their workings.  On a more mundane level, the crags were previously used as a site for for beacon fires.  One was erected here in 1803 when the first Bonaparte threatened to invade England; but I can find no written accounts of earlier beacons here.

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
  2. Bogg, Edmund, From Eden Vale to the Plains of York, James Miles: Leeds 1895.
  3. Bogg, Edmund, Higher Wharfeland, James Miles: Leeds 1904
  4. Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  5. Grainge, William, History & Topography of Harrogate and the Forest of Knaresborough, J.R. Smith: London 1871.
  6. Parkinson, Thomas, Lays and Leaves of the Forest, Kent & Co.: London 1882.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 

Drumderg (2), Tullymurdoch, Perthshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NO 18523 54950

Getting Here

Drumderg (2) cup-and-ring

Two ways: i) up the A93 road from Blairgowrie, after 5 miles turn right at the Bridge of Cally and up Glen Shee.  After another 3½ miles, keep your eyes peeled for the tiny road on the right signposted to the Drumturk Cheese farmshop.  Go up this long tiny winding road for a mile up to the cheese place and keep on this road for another 2¼ miles where you can park up near the entrance to the huge wind-farm; or – (ii) from Alyth, go up the long winding tiny Bamff Road and keep to the signposts for Bridge of Cally Glen Shee until, after about 4 miles, you reach the entrance to the windfarm.  Walk up the track to the windmills, bearing right at the first junction, then right again at the next one.  From here, shortly before the second windmill, walk down into the moor for nearly 200 yards. It’s quite a large stone.

Archaeology & History

Interlocking rings close-up

This is impressive.  Very impressive!  Found within a huge mass of other prehistoric sites in the Forest of Alyth, its only known petroglyphic bedfellows—Drumderg (1) nearly 500 yards yards south, and Drumderg (3) 120 yards north—have nothing on this one!  Where the others have basic cupmarks, this bears a series of multiple interlocking cup-and-ring designs, some with one ring, others with two, and one with four, albeit incomplete rings.

The design is etched onto the sloping face of a curved triangular ‘female’ stone.  An eroded cutting all but separates the two main components of the design, but this cut has within it a distinct singular cup-and-ring almost linking each side together.  On one side (which is near the middle of the stone) we have a complex series of multiple cup-and-rings that seem to be sequentially moving and (almost) growing into each other in some form of organic pattern.  The bottom of this growth begins from a standard cup-and-ring and runs immediately into a vulva-like slit of a cup-mark surrounded by four incomplete rings.  As the photos show, this keeps climbing upwards.

Cupmarks on its W-side
Looking into the setting sun

A more simplistic basic design has been etched onto the more western side of the stone, on the other side of the eroded cutting.  Two of the cup-marks have rings around them, with one of them seeming to give birth to another upward “growth”, but this time comprising merely of a line of more cups, curving ever-so-gently towards the middle of the stone.  Along with this there are also cup-marks on the top ridge of the stone; faint carved lines curve and intersect.  Movement seems embedded in this fixed non-linear design.  That’s my impression anyhow!

The only literary attention given to the carving seems to have been by the Scottish Royal Commission (1990) lads in one of their Perthshire inventories.  It’s simple as always, telling basically,

“this heavily weathered cup-and-ring marked boulder lies 150m south of the hut circles… The carvings are on the southwest face of the boulder and comprise: at least four cups surrounded by single rings; two cups surrounded by triple rings; an oval cup measuring 100mm by 70mm surrounded by four rings; and twenty-two plain cups marks, the largest 60mm in diameter.”

If there’s anything extra that we should puzzle over, it’s this: why do we have such an intricate carving here, living in near isolation in the midst of countless other prehistoric remains?  The answer, most likely, is that it’s not alone.  I highly suspect that others are waiting to be found up here beneath the endless ocean of heather…

References:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, North-East Perth: An Archaeological Landscape, HMSO: Edinburgh 1990.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

West Lamberkine (1), Aberdalgie, Perth, Perthshire

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Cup-Marked Stone (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NO 0617 2328

Archaeology & History

Site shown on 1933 map

First highlighted on the 1933 OS-map of the area, it was located alongside the old fence-line hereby, but no subsequent description of the carving has been made since then.  A small boulder and a number of other stones can be found along the line of fencing, but none seem to be possessed of petroglyphs and apart from it being shown on the old maps, I can find no reference or description of it.  It may have been destroyed.  Some researchers have wondered if the carving was mistakenly marked at this spot by surveyors who confused it with another one more than 500 yards to the southeast (and described by Fred Coles in 1903), but this would seem an unlikely error to have been made.  Whilst this was described as a simple “cup-marked stone”, its neighbour at West Lamberkine (2) was a distinct and more complex cup-and-ring design.

References:

  1. Coles, Fred,  “Notices of …(4) of Some Hitherto Undescribed Cup-and-ring-marked Stones…” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries Scotland, volume 37, 1903.

Acknowledgements:  Many thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland. 

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Stone of Stars, Rivock, Silsden, West Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 07507 44564

Also Known as:

  1. Carving no.26 (Hedges)
  2. Carving no.65 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

A Stone of Stars, Rivock

The best/easiest way to approach this and the Rivock carvings as a whole is to reach the Silsden Road that curves round the southern edge of Rombalds Moor (whether it’s via East Morton, Riddlesden, Keighley or Silsden) and keep your eyes peeled for the singular large windmill.  About 200 yards east of this is a small parking spot, big enough for a half-dozen vehicles.  From here walk 450 yards east along the road till you hit the dirt-track/footpath up towards the moor.  Follow the track up for about 400 yards and you’ll see the crags a half-mile ahead of you.  Get up there to the Wondjina Stone and follow the walling east for about 175 yards where you’ll see a track-cum-clearing in the woods. Walk along and the first large stone on your left is what you’re after.

Archaeology & History

I first visited this carving in my teenage years in the 1970s, before the intrusive so-called “private” forest covered this landscape and when its petroglyphic compatriots were easier to find.  Thankfully this one’s still pretty accessible and possesses a damn good clear design.  It was rediscovered in the 1960s by Stuart Feather and his gang, zigzagging their way across the open moors, pulling back the heather to see what they might find.  His description of it told how the stone,

“has two roughly level areas, one 18ins and the other 2 feet above ground level.  Both (levels) have several well-preserved cup-and-ring markings on them.  There are eight single cup-and-rings and 18 cups, two of the latter being joined by a clear channel seven inches long and 1½ inches wide.  Nearly all the markings are unusually well preserved and the pocking marks are very clear.”

Note the line running down

He also had “the impression that all the markings on this stone and possibly one other similar stone in the Rivock area have been carved by the same hand, as all the symbols are nearly identical in in type, size and execution.” (this other carving he’s referring to seems to be one about 170 yards to the north, where occasionally “offerings” have been found)

The design from E-W

When John Hedges (1986) and his team checked the stone out he could only make out “seven cups with single rings, twenty two other cups”; whilst the ever descriptive Boughey & Vickerman (2003) saw “twenty-nine cups, eight with single rings.”  Eight cup-and-rings is what most people see when the light’s right.  There’s also a long, bent carved line on the lower level of the rock, running from near the middle of the stone out to the very edge.  It seems to be man-made (although I may be wrong) – and I draw attention to it as this same feature exists on at least three of the other large and very ornamental cup-and-rings hereby within 300 yards of each other – and on these other carvings the long “line” is definitely artificial.  Tis an intriguing characteristic…

Stuart Feather’s old sketch

When visiting this petroglyph you’ll notice how some of the carved elements on top of the stone are more eroded than those on the lower section.  This is due to the fact that the lower section was only revealed by Feather and his team in the mid-20th century, after it had been covered in soil for countless centuries.  As a result you can still see the peck-marks left by the implements that were used to make the carving, perhaps 5000 years ago!

The name of the stone was inspired by a local lady who saw an astronomical function in the design (I quite like it as well).  Examples of petroglyphs representing myths of heavenly bodies have been described first-hand in some tribal cultures and, nowadays, even a number of archaeologists are making allusions about potential celestial features in some carvings in the British Isles.  That doesn’t mean to say that it’s correct, but the idea’s far from unreasonable…

Anyhow – check this one out when you’re next up here.  You’ll like it!

References:

  1. Bennett, Paul, “The Prehistoric Rock Art and Megalithic Remains of Rivock & District (parts 1 & 2),” in Earth, 3-4, 1986.
  2. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
  3. Deacon, Vivien, The Rock Art Landscapes of Rombalds Moor, West Yorkshire, ArchaeoPress: Oxford 2020.
  4. Feather, Stuart, “Mid-Wharfedale Cup-and-Ring Markings – no.16 – Rivock,” in Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, volume 8, no.10, 1963.
  5. Hedges, John (ed.), The Carved Rocks on Rombalds Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
  6. 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.

Acknowledgments:  Huge thanks to Collette Walsh for use of her photos.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Raven Stones (562), Thruscross, North Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – SE 1194 5810

Getting Here

The Raven stone setting

Take the A59 road from Harrogate and Skipton and at the very top of the moors keep your eyes peeled for the small Kex Ghyll Road on your left(it’s easy to miss, so be diligent!).  It goes past some disused disused quarry and after a mile or so where you hit a junction, turn left, past the Outdoor Centre of West End and straight along Whit Moor Road.  About a mile past the Outdoor Centre go left down to Brays Croft Farm and over the ford, then keeping to the footpath up to the right (west) and note the clump of trees on the moors above you to the west.  That’s where you need to be.

Archaeology & History

Several of the cupmarks

Several natural basins that might have been worked in prehistoric times are accompanied by several distinct cup-marks near the middle-edge of the stone, in a rough triangular formation, with two others slightly more eroded a little further down the same side.  Boughey and Vickerman (2003) noted several other cupmarks on the rock, some distinct, some not so.

Adjacent to this carved stone is another naturally worn stone of some size, with incredibly curvaceous ripples over the top of the rock which, in all probability, possessed some animistic property to the people who carved this and other nearby carvings. Check the place out.  It’s a gorgeous setting!

References:

  1. Armstrong, Edward A., The Folklore of Birds, Collins: London 1958.
  2. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Wakefield 2003.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 

Traquair Churchyard, Traquair, Peeblesshire

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Cup-Marked Stone (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NT 3202 3347

Archaeology & History

In 1974, Ordnance Survey reported the existence of “a large piece of sandstone containing two depressions resembling cup marks” in the churchyard wall which, tradition told, originally came from the ruined 12th century parish church (long gone) more than 300 yards to the southwest (at NT 3185 3328).  However, in recent years the cup-marks seem to have disappeared and may be hiding behind the overgrowth of ivy in the boundary wall.  It needs to be recovered.

Halfway between the location of the original church and the present one, waters from the heathen St Bryde’s Well used to flow, but it had already been drained by 1856.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Craig Hill cluster (6), Kenmore, Perthshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 81307 44422

Getting Here

Craig Hill cluster (6) stone

Follow the same directions to reach either the Craig Hill cluster (3), no.4 or no.5 carvings.  Once here, looking at the sloping moorland ahead of you, the elongated stone that’s closest to where the moorland slopes downhill is the one you’re after.  Y’ can’t really miss it!

Archaeology & History

The sixth carving in this small close-knit cluster and, design-wise, the least impressive of the bunch.  There are three distinct cup-marks on the rock: two on its more southern side and one near the middle of the stone.  There may be another two cups, but these may have been part of the curious long, naturally-eroded line running along the length of the stone.  Other man-made elements may have been cut into the stone, but it needs to be seen in perfect low light to tell us one way or the other.

References:

  1. Currie, George, “Craig Hill (Dull parish): Cup-and-Ring Marked Rocks,”in Discovery & Excavation Scotland, NS Volume 6, 2005.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Broomridge (1), Ford, Northumberland

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NT 97298 37110

Archaeology & History

In 1863, a bunch of reputable Victorian authors and antiquarians met with the Duke of Northumberland in Alnwick Castle to discuss the matter of making decent images of the petroglyphs which, at the time, had only just been rediscovered in the area.  At one of their meetings, the floor in one of the Castle rooms was covered with rubbings of carvings that they’d made—this one included.  I’d loved to have been there!  Subsequently, from this meeting, sketches of this carving were done and included in the works by George Tate (1864; 1865) and then a few years later in J. Collingwood Bruce’s (1869) rare tome that had been published with the help of dosh from the Duke.

Found along a raised geological ridge running roughly east-west, a number of other carvings are close by and well worth looking at when you visit here.  The basic (and first) description of the site by Tate told that here,

Tate’s 1864 sketch
J.C. Bruce’s 1869 image

“on a high ridge on Hunter’s Moor, a large surface of rock, some forty yards by twenty, having a gentle slope to the northward, is partially uncovered.  In one part, which has been entirely cleared of turf, fourteen figures are scattered over an area of 15 feet by about from 5 to 7 feet.  Some of the figures are of the common type, one of which is 28 inches in diameter; but others present new features; and several are curiously united by straight and curved grooves.  Across the entire diameter of a group of four concentric circles, runs a groove connecting them with other combined figures.  An irregularly shaped, rounded, angular figure, encloses two hollows or cups; and united to this is a broad oval figure.  One figure around four cups approaches to the reniform.”

When the modern rock art expert Stan Beckensall wrote about this site, he mentioned how his own picture of the carving consisted of a number of elements that weren’t included by the 19th century pioneers—which isn’t unusual.

References:

  1. Beckensall, Stan, Northumberland’s Prehistoric Rock Carvings – A Mystery Explained, Pendulum: Rothbury 1983.
  2. Beckensall, Stan, Prehistoric Rock Motifs of Northumberland – volume 1, Abbey Press: Hexham 1991.
  3. Bruce, John Collingwood, Incised Markings on Stone; found in the County of Northumberland, Argylshire, and other Places, privately printed: London 1869.
  4. Tate, George, “The Ancient British Sculptured Rocks of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders,” in Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists Club, volume 5, 1864.
  5. Tate, George, The Ancient British Sculptured Rocks of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders, Henry Hunter Blair 1865.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Jedburgh Abbey, Roxburghshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NT 6504 2045

Archaeology & History

A little-known cup-and-ring stone that was uncovered in the forecourt of Jedburgh Abbey by Walter Laidlow in 1903, now lies all but forgotten in the abbey grounds.  Laidlow’s original description of his find was very basic indeed: “a sculptured stone, with incised ring-and cup-symbols… of yellow sandstone, 1 foot 8 inches long, 9½ inches broad, 4 inches thick.”  The Royal Commission (1956) lads did slightly better, saying:

“A slab of stone… measures 1ft 8½in by 9½in by 4in, and bears on one face six cup-marks ranging from 1in to 2½in in diameter.  The largest of these is encircled by a ring 5in in diameter, in “pocked” technique; while slight traces of what may have been a similar ring can be seen around another cup, which is fractured.”

Laidlow’s 1903 photo

You can see from the photograph how the stone has been broken from a larger piece, strongly suggestive of a greater prehistoric design on the original slab—but there have been no subsequent finds that might show us its original form.  In all likelihood, the stone originally came from a prehistoric tomb, but we know not where that might have been—much like the Mathewson’s Garden carving, also in Jedburgh.

The carving apparently still lies somewhere in the Abbey grounds, sleeping, but I’ve not visited the olde stone so I don’t know its exact position.  If any local folk can tell us more, that would be great!

References:

  1. Laidlaw, Walter, “Sculptured and Inscribed Stones in Jedburgh and Vicinity,” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 39, 1905.
  2. Morris, Ronald W.B., “The Cup-and-Ring Marks and Similar Sculptures of South-West Scotland,” in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, volume 14, 1967.
  3. Morris, Ronald W.B., “The cup-and-ring marks and similar sculptures of Scotland: a survey of the southern Counties – part 2,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 100, 1969.
  4. Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
  5. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Roxburghshire – volume 1, HMSO: Edinburgh 1956.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Mathewson’s Garden, Jedburgh, Roxburghshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – c. NT 65 20

Archaeology & History

Apart from the petroglyph found at Jedburgh Abbey in 1903, there’s a distinct lack of known cup-and-ring stones in this area; so when the petroglyph pioneer George Tate was in town in 1860, he was fortunate to find a small “portable” stone with a rather impressive design on it.  We don’t (yet) know the exact position of where the stone was located, as Tate simply told how,

“Lying among a heap of stones in Mr. Adam Mathewson’s garden, I detected, on a much weather-worn block, defaced sculpturing of the same family character as those in Northumberland.  …There are five concentric circles, central cup, radial grooves, and a string of cups around the outer circle.  Forty years ago this stone was built into the wall of a house; but whence it originally came is not known.  Doubtless it belongs to the district, and probably had been connected with an interment.”

His final remark would seem most likely and has subsequently been echoed by several other rock art students.  A few years after Tate’s initial find, the carving was mentioned in Sir James Simpson’s (1867) classic work, who told us:

Dr Falla’s 1866 sketch

“Sometime ago Mr Tate, of Alnwick, discovered in the garden of Mr Matthewson at Jedburgh a stone cut with concentric circles, possibly a sepulchral cist, but peculiar in some respects.  The stone is roundish, but broken off at one side, and about eighteen inches broad.  Its face is covered by five incised concentric rings, and through the central cup pass at right angles two straight lines, which completely bisect all the circles.  The outermost circle is about fourteen inches in diameter.  Some inches to the left of the central cup is a second, with one incised circle around it.  Arranged circularly outside of the outermost circle is a series or ring of points or stars, each cut out—so Dr Falla writes me—”as with a single stroke of a pick, rather than hewn out.” I am indebted to the same gentleman for the sketch of this stone.”

Subsequently all other written accounts repeat the same basic description—and each account remained (as we still are) perplexed as to its original location, wondering where on Earth the Rev Adam Mathewson’s garden was in Jedburgh (surely someone must be able to find out?!).  Thankfully the carving itself has been saved and presently lives in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow.  Whether it ever had any relationship with the petroglyph at Jedburgh Abbey, we don’t yet know.

References:

  1. Laidlaw, Walter, “Sculptured and Inscribed Stones in Jedburgh and Vicinity,” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 39, 1895.
  2. Morris, Ronald W.B., “The Cup-and-Ring Marks and Similar Sculptures of South-West Scotland,” in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, volume 14, 1967.
  3. 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.
  4. Morris, Ronald W.B., “The cup-and-ring marks and similar sculptures of Scotland: a survey of the southern Counties – part 2,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 100, 1969.
  5. Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
  6. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Roxburghshire – volume 1, HMSO: Edinburgh 1956.
  7. Simpson, J.Y., “On Ancient Sculpturings of Cups and Concentric Rings,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 6, 1866.
  8. Simpson, James, Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, etc., Upon Stones and Rocks in Scotland, England and other Countries, Edmonston & Douglas: Edinburgh 1867.
  9. Tate, George, “The Ancient British Sculptured Rocks of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders,” in Transactions of the Berwickshire Naturalists Club, volume 5, 1864.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian