Harden Moor (1), Harden, Bingley, West Yorkshire

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 07342 38371

Getting Here

We took the long road round to get here, but perhaps the easiest route, from Harden village, is to go up Long Lane then turn right up the tiny Ryecroft Road.  Three-quarters of a mile up, past the entrance to the quarry, park up.  Walk back past the entrance to the quarry, and barely 50 yards past it, a wall on your left heads up the slope.  Walk up alongside the wall on the same side as the quarry (not in the field) for 250 yards where you reach the moorland and some fencing that runs to your left.  Walk alongside this for about 40 yards and then head to one of the birch trees on the moorland about 25 yards away.  Hereby is the large earthfast rock.  You’re damn close!

Archaeology & History

Rediscovered earlier this year, this is—officially at least—the only prehistoric cup-and-ring stone on Harden Moor (a modern one has been carved not far from the Harden Moor circle more than 500 yards to the north-east).  A single cup-marked stone not far from the circle seems to be the only other petroglyph up here…..and for good reason: much of this small moorland area was heavily quarried in the 19th and 20th century and, obviously, traces of the prehistoric sites that were mentioned by earlier antiquarians have been destroyed.  This carving has been damn lucky to survive!

When you stand on top of this large curvaceous earthfast stone, you’ll notice a deep straight industrial cut into the edge of the rock, part of which runs into a section of the carving.  So it seems that the stone was selected for destruction but, for one reason or another, was spared the fate of its neighbours—thankfully!

Of the carving: the most notable thing you’ll see when you visit is the large, wide cup-and-ring design near the highest point of the rock, roughly 45° right of the deep cut.  It’s clearly visible even under bright sunlight, but as you can see in the photos, we’ve wet the stone and this element stands out much clearer.  A carved semi-circle with a smaller shallower cup-mark is attached at the side of this large cup-and-ring.  This may originally have been a complete cup-and-ring, but on our visit here, the high sun prevented us getting a clearer perspective.

At the top-end (south) of the deep quarry-mark is a single cup with a wide surrounding ring, which may have originally been complete.  What seems to be a carved line emerges from this central cup-mark and moves to the southern side of the stone; and it seems there’s a much wider, incomplete outer ring arching round the south- and eastern section of the inner ring.  These elements are visible in the photos but, once again, they need to be looked at in better light, when the sun is low.  Further down the side of the deep quarry mark, closer to the edge of the stone, is what seems to be another single cup-and-ring.  There are other marks on this part of the rock, but most of them seem to be natural.

A curious design element on the stone is at the more northern end where a notable large singular cup-mark is found.  When we brushed water across this part of the stone, the isolated cup-mark seemed attached to an elongated, almost rectangular carved ‘enclosure’ design, near the middle of which was another shallow cup.  You can make it out in the photos, but it was difficult (again!) to see this clearly.

One final note to this site entry: despite a high degree of improbability, there might still be other carvings on some of the remaining rocks on this moorland. The general rule is a simple one: where there’s one carving, others tend to be close by.  So keep your eyes peeled if you explore the area…

Acknowledgements:  Huge thanks to Martin Ferner for getting us up here.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian