Line Stone, Skyreholme, Appletreewick, North Yorkshire

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 0732 6251

Also Known as:

  1. Carving no.401 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

Skyreholme 401 carving (photo © Richard Stroud)
Skyreholme 401 carving (photo © Richard Stroud)

Along the B6265 Pateley Bridge-Grassington road, roughly halfway between Stump Cross Caverns and the turn down to Skyreholme and Appletreewick (New Lane) is a dirt-track on your right-hand side called Black Hill Road. Walk along here for a few hundred yards till y’ reach the gate on the right. A track meanders downhill to the psilocybin-rich pastures of Nussey Green. Several hundred yards down, to the right-hand side of the track, we find this stone and its several nearby companions. Look around – you’ll find it!

Archaeology & History

I like this carving — I think because of the initial impression it gave, which was one of numeracy and linearity: an unusual quality for a cup-and-ring stone. Those of you with an astronomical or mathematical slant may have a similar response.

Line Stone Carving, Skyreholme
Line Stone Carving, Skyreholme

The stone was first described in one of Stuart Feather’s (1964) many short notices.  Its existence then remained dormant until it was eventually listed in Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) survey on the West Riding rock-art, where they catalogued it as ‘stone no.401.’  The carving comprises of two parallel lines—one quite deep—with cup-marks at either end; one of the lines having another 2 cups along it. A third line at an angle has one or two cups along it aswell.  Several other single cups scatter the rock (forgive my crap drawing of it!).

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
  2. Feather, Stuart, ‘Appletreewick (WR),’ in Yorkshire Archaeology Journal 41, 1964.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


(Visited 26 times, 1 visits today)

Written by 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *