Nut Head Wood, Steeton, West Yorkshire

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 03308 43184

Getting Here

Nut Head Wood carving

From Steeton village, go up Mill Lane, turning right and then bending up the steep Barrows Lane for a half-mile or so, where in turns into Redcar Lane.  There’s a row of old cottages on your left with a green lane track running into the fields at the back of them. Four fields along you’ll reach a long straight line of walling running uphill.  Up here, above and past the long geological stretch of quarried rocks, the land levels out and two trees sit next to each other by walling.  The carving’s beneath them.

Archaeology & History

Close-up of carving

Rediscovered in the summer of 2024 by Thomas Cleland, a deeply worn cup-mark is the primary feature of this petroglyph on the topmost section of the stone, with the remains of a faint incomplete ring around one side of it. Three or four other smaller cup-marks can be seen close to the main one.  There may be another cup-marked stone on an adjacent rock, with a lines running away from it, but we need to see that in better light or have one of the computer-tech doods to give it their attention to know for sure.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

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