Tag: rock carvings

Coilsfield, Tarbolton, Ayrshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NS 4469 2624

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 42713
  2. King Coil’s Grave Stone
  3. Old King Cole’s Stone (Morris 1981)

Archaeology & History

Daniel Wilson's 1851 sketch of the carving

Daniel Wilson’s 1851 sketch of the carving

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

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:

  1. Letham, E.H., Burns and Tarbolton, D.Brown: Kilmarnock 1900.
  2. Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
  3. 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.
  4. Morrison, Alex, The Bronze Age in Ayrshire, Ayrshire Natural History & Archaeology Society 1978.
  5. Robertson, William, Historical Tales and Legends of Ayrshire, Thomas D. Morrison: Glasgow 1889.
  6. Paterson, James, History of the County of Ayr – volume 2, Thomas Stevenson: Edinburgh 1852.
  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. Smith, John, Prehistoric Man in Ayrshire, Elliot Stock: London 1895.
  10. Wilson, Daniel, The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, Sutherland & Knox: Edinburgh 1851.
  11. Young, Alison, “Cup-and-Ring Markings on Creag Ruenshin, with Some Comparative Notes,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 72, 1937.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Lochay Woods, Killin, Perthshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 54125 35388

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 274203

Getting Here

The stone in question

Going out of Killin towards Kenmore on the A827 road, immediately past the Bridge of Lochay Hotel, turn left.  Go down here for just over 2 miles and park-up where a small track turns up to the right, close to the riverside and opposite a flat green piece of land—right by The Green cup-marked rock-face.  Walk up the small bendy track for about ⅔-mile (1km) and eventually, high above the tree-line, the road splits.  Right here, go through the gate and walk downhill, over the boggy land, cross the burn, then the overgrown wall, and a second overgrown wall.  Very close hereby is a small rise in the land amidst the mass of bracken, upon which is the stone in question!

Archaeology & History

Close-up of some cups

This large long, undulating, quartz-rich stretch of rock has two main petroglyphic sections to it, with curious visual sections of natural geological forms accompanying the cup-markings, found either side of the stone on its north and south sides.  Its northern face has at least 20 cup-marks, of differing sizes, measuring between one and two inches across and up to half-an-inch deep.  Their visual nature is markedly different to those on the more southern side of the stone, where they are generally smaller and much more shallow, perhaps meaning they were carved much earlier than their northern counterparts. One of the cups on this section has a very faint incomplete ring around it.

Running near the middle of the rock is a large long line of quartz and a deep cleft in which I found a curious worked piece of quartz shaped like a large spear-head, and another that looks like it’s been deliberately smoothed all round the edges.  Both these pieces fit nicely in my hand.  All around the edges of the stone, many tiny pieces of quartz were scattered, as if they had been struck onto the stone—either to try carving the cups (damn problematic!), or for some visual/magickal reason.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

St. Patrick’s Well, Portpatrick, Wigtownshire

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Holy Well (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NX 0010 5412

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 60610

Archaeology & History

St Patricks Well on 1849 map

This long-lost  holy well was located on the southeast side of the town.  It was highlighted on the first OS-map in 1849, but its waters were disrupted shortly after this. Daniel Conway (1882) told that,

“It flowed where there was a quarry used for the harbour works. The writer of this notice heard from two men, John Mulholland and Owen Graham, dwelling at Portpatrick in 1860, that they had seen on the rock beside the well what tradition said was the impression of the knees and left hand of St. Patrick.”

When the holy wells writer E.M.H. M’Kerlie (1916) came to visit this site, it was “no longer to be seen.”  He wrote:

“The water which issued from a rock on the south side of the village is now diverted by means of pipes into another course.”

References:

  1. Agnew, Andrew, The Agnews of Lochnaw: The History of the Hereditary Sheriffs of Galloway, A. & C. Black: Edinburgh 1864.
  2. Agnew, Andrew, The Hereditary Sheriffs of Galloway – volume 1, David Douglas: Edinburgh 1893.
  3. Conway, Daniel, “Holy wells in Wigtonshire,” in Archaeological & Historical Collections Relating to Ayr & Wigton, volume 3, 1882.
  4. Harper, Malcolm MacLachan, Rambles in Galloway, Edmonston & Douglas: Edinburgh 1876.
  5. M’Kerlie, E.M.H., Pilgrim Spots in Galloway, Sands: Edinburgh 1916.
  6. MacKinlay, James M., Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs, William Hodge: Glasgow 1893.
  7. Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1982.
  8. Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in Galloway – County of Wigtown, HMSO: Edinburgh 1912.
  9. Walker, J. Russel, “‘Holy Wells’ in Scotland,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol.17 (New Series, volume 5), 1883.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Cow Keeper’s Field (1), Boulby, Easington, North Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NZ 75398 19218

Also Known as:

  1. BOU-5 (Brown & Chappell)

Archaeology & History

Cup-marked stone inside Cow keepers Field tomb

Inside the once prominent prehistoric tomb on the Cow Keeper’s Field, the northern antiquarians William Hornsby and John Laverick (1920) came across two small petroglyphs in association with a cremation burial, several feet south of the central cist: the Cow Keeper’s Field 2 carving, plus this small, triangular-shaped stone, 8in by 6in, consisting of five standard cup-marks, with two of the cups (as the photo shows) connected to each other.  It is akin to the numerous ‘portable’ cup-marked stones which, in other cultures, were deposited onto cairns in remembrance of the ancestral spirits of the tomb.  Such widespread practices may also have occurred here.  Petroglyph researcher and writer Graeme Chappell (2017) informed us that the carving “is in storage in the Dorman museum in Middlesborough.”

References:

  1. Brown, Paul & Chappell, Graeme, Prehistoric Rock Art in the North York Moors, Tempus: Stroud 2005.
  2. Chappell, Graeme, Personal communication, October 4, 2017.
  3. Crawford, G.M., Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Cleveland, Cleveland County Council 1990.
  4. Elgee, Frank, Early Man in North-East Yorkshire, John Bellows: Gloucester 1930.
  5. Hornsby, William & Laverick, John D., “British Barrows round Boulby,” in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, volume 25, 1920.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Cow Keeper’s Field (2), Boulby, Easington, North Yorkshire

megalithix

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NZ 75402 19222

Also Known as:

  1. BOU-5 (Brown & Chappell)

Archaeology & History

Cup-marks and linear forms

Inside the once prominent prehistoric tumulus on the Cow Keeper’s Field (now destroyed), the northern antiquarians William Hornsby and John Laverick (1920) came across two small portable petroglyphs: the Cow Keeper’s Field 1 carving, plus this “peculiarly marked stone” as they put it, some “5ft south of the centre” where a cist, or stone-lined burial existed.  Measuring 18in by 7in, the rock carving consists of at least one large cup-marking which is clearly evident on top of the stone, plus what seems to be another one next to it, half-covered.  Along the side of the stone, a series of twelve roughly parallel lines have been carved out, running down to the bottom of the stone.  Rock art researcher and writer Graeme Chappell (2017) tells us the carving is supposed to be “in storage in the Dorman museum in Middlesborough,” although no one has seen it in years.  It would be worthwhile if fellow research students could visit the said museum to recover this and other portable cup-marked stones that were found in the area.

References:

  1. Brown, Paul & Chappell, Graeme, Prehistoric Rock Art in the North York Moors, Tempus: Stroud 2005.
  2. Chappell, Graeme, Personal communication, October 4, 2017.
  3. Crawford, G.M., Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Cleveland, Cleveland County Council 1990.
  4. Elgee, Frank, Early Man in North-East Yorkshire, John Bellows: Gloucester 1930.
  5. Hornsby, William & Laverick, John D., “British Barrows round Boulby,” in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, volume 25, 1920.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Cow Keepers Field, Boulby, Easington, North Yorkshire

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Tumulus (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NZ 75400 19220

Also Known as:

  1. Boulby Barns

Archaeology & History

This prehistoric tomb was one in a cluster of tumuli in the Boulby district, uncovered by the northern antiquarians, William Hornsby and John Laverick in 1918.   Most of them have subsequently been destroyed – this one included.  When they visited the site, they described it as “a barrow…with a diameter of 36 feet.”  Once they began digging into it,

“at the centre we found a cist, the top of which was 2ft 7in below the present surface. The cist lay north 64° west, and south 64° east.  It had no cover and the slab at the north-west end was wanting.  The cist measured: side 3ft 6in, end 3ft 2in.  Its depth was 2ft 2in.  In it we found nothing except sandstone chips.  With these there was no admixture of soil. Above the cist and covering a space of 5 ft by 5 ft there was a layer of burnt earth and black ashes (of furze bushes).  At a distance of 5 ft south of the centre, and 1ft 10in below the present surface, there was a burnt burial, 20in in diameter.  With this we found many flint chips, a shale pendant, and the peculiarly marked stone” we’ve called, simply the Cow Keeper’s Field 2 carving.

A second cup-marked stone was also found inside the tomb, a few feet south of the cist. When G.M. Crawford went to survey the burial mound in the late 1970s, he reported “there is no trace of it” and “has probably been destroyed by ploughing.”

References:

  1. Brown, Paul & Chappell, Graeme, Prehistoric Rock Art in the North York Moors, Tempus: Stroud 2005.
  2. Crawford, G.M., Bronze Age Burial Mounds in Cleveland, Cleveland County Council 1990.
  3. Elgee, Frank, Early Man in North-East Yorkshire, John Bellows: Gloucester 1930.
  4. Hornsby, William & Laverick, John D., “British Barrows round Boulby,” in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, volume 25, 1920.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Snowden Carr carving (610), Askwith, North Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 18105 51210

Getting Here

Snowden Carr carving 610

From Otley, take the road north across the River Wharfe up and up, heading towards Askwith Moor.  As the moorland opens up ahead of you, at the crossroads turn right along Snowden Carr Road and literally ¾-mile along (1.25km) where a track on your right goes to Carr Farm, on the left-side of the road is a gate.  Go through here to the Naked Jogger Stone and walk up the rocky ridge ahead of you, alongside the walling (as if you’re going to the Sunrise Stone), and about 20-30 yards up you’ll reach this carving.

Archaeology & History

Best visited on a clear day, this is one carving amidst a small cluster of cup-marked petroglyphs found along the small geological ridge between the Sunrise Stone and Naked Jogger carving (none of which are as impressive as those two!).  This particular design consists of a number of faint cup-marks— between 17 and 25 of them—reaching along the horizontal surface, with no distinct formal pattern, as usual.  The carving continues beneath the encroaching soil.

Looking down at the carving
Archaeo-sketch

It seems to have been described for the first time by Stuart Feather (1973); then subsequently in Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) survey, in which they attach a single cup-marking on an adjacent rock into the matrix of this design—but the two rock surfaces are distinctly separate.  This apart, their description tells, briefly as always: “Large long rock which may be outcrop, with hill falling away steeply below. Seventeen worn cups.”

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Leeds 2003.
  2. Feather, Stuart, “Askwith, W.Yorkshire,” in ‘Yorkshire Archaeological Register’, Yorkshire Archaeology Journal, volume 45, 1973.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Ringstone Carving, Torrisdale Bay, Farr, Sutherland

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NC 691 616 

Getting Here

Ringstone Carving, looking NW

Take the A836 road between Tongue and Bettyhill, turning down at Borgie Bridge for 1.8 miles (2.87km) until you reach the little information sign at the roadside. Walk downhill and cross the little bridge and wander onto the west side of the beach.  You’re likely to end up daydreaming… so once you’ve re-focussed, head into the middle of the beach and walk up the steep-ish sand-banks to your right (south).  Once at the top, you’ll see a gigantic rock—the Ringstone—bigger than a house.  Walk up the hill above this until your reach the rocky plateau where things roughly level out.  Look around!

Archaeology & History

This previously unrecognised carving on the edge of the rocky promontory that drops down to the stunning Torrisdale Bay—above the gigantic and legendary Ringstone boulder—is very much like the curious ‘C’-shaped motif on the Fyfield Down petroglyph, a couple of miles east of Avebury, literally 499 miles (803km) to the south.  Indeed, that’s all I kept thinking about when I found it!

Ringstone carving, looking S

The carving’s nowt special—apart from the fact that it’s seemingly isolated and has no apparent companions nearby.  It’s an incomplete circle, perhaps more like a bell-shape than a circle, about six inches across and seems to have no inner cup-mark.  Its general appearance on the rock surface seems to indicate it was carved by a metal tool, instead of being ‘pecked’—but it’s still very old.  Initially, I wondered whether it was an ichnological fossil or stromatolite—but it isn’t.

(Note that the OS-grid-ref is just a 6-figure one. I was ambling about and didn’t make an exact note of the place, but it won’t take much finding on the rocky levels above the giant Ringstone if you zigzag about. Apologies for the poor photos too, but She was cloudy most of the day.)

Acknowledgments:  Huge thanks to Donna Murray, for putting me up in this part of Paradise.  Cheers Donna.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Lochmaloney, Kilmany, Fife

megalithix

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


Guisecliff Wood (629), Bewerley, North Yorkshire

megalithix

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 16415 63565

Also Known as:

  1. Carving no.629 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

A box of cup-and-rings!

Takes a bitta finding this one – especially a this time of year when the bracken’s high – but it’s worth the walk.  You’re probably best finding your way to the open-air carving on the slopes above Westcliff Farm, the Guisecliff Wood 626 carving (it’s pretty easy to find).  From here, walk eastwards across the top of the two fields until you hit the old gate that take you back into the woods.  Now it gets difficult!  Walk less than 100 yards in the same direction, if you’re lucky, along the small footpath that runs pretty level through the trees, keeping your eyes peeled for a large sloping rock above you.  I’d say that it’s probably best to start checking the relevant rocks (large ones) after 50 yards in the trees, just to be on the safe side.  If you aint been here before it’s probably best to check it out at the end of Winter or during Spring time.  Good luck!

Archaeology & History

As noted by several people in our visit here the other day, some aspects of this carving are similar in design to the Tree of Life Stone on the eastern edge of Askwith Moor, 10 miles south of here.  But the features on this large carved rock have intriguing elements of their own here: not least of which is the large square ‘box’ into which a cluster of otherwise normal cup-and-rings are enclosed.  It’s a unique feature in prehistoric carvings in this part of the world — although such ‘box’ motifs can be seen further north at Dod Law in Northumberland.

The fainter cup-and-rings
Boughey & Vickerman’s 2003 drawing

There are two distinct sections of carvings on the stone, both of which have a similar tree-motif patterns, but the boxed one grabs your attention more once you’ve sat with the stone for a while. The other small cluster of cups are a little more difficult to notice, but once you see them they almost grow into life!  You can just make out the surrounding rings and lines around some of these fainter cups, which I tried to capture in the photos (but without much success).

Our visit here didn’t pass without some voicing the thought that ‘box’ section could have been added at a much later date — perhaps a Victorian addition?  But we could be way off the mark with that one!

There’s every likelihood of other carvings being found in and above the woodlands here, though any further exploratory excursions here can wait till winter time, as the Nature’s summer growth here is considerable and covers most of the rocks in green.  The carving was first described in Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) text as a

“Very large rock with extensive flat surface on which there seems to be two separate designs.  Seven cups are joined in a branch-like pattern, the whole within a square groove from which the ‘stem’ of the branch just protrudes; away from this is an approximately linear feature with three cups enclosed by linked rings at one end and then six more cups with a partial ring.”

If you’re a rock art enthusiast, or a real healthy heathen, this site is well worth checking out!

References:

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

Links:

  1. More images of Guisecliff Wood carvings

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian