Silver Well (2), Ilkley Moor, West Yorkshire

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 10496 46625

Also Known as:

1. Carving no.70 (Hedges)
2. Carving no.240 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

Go up Wells Road out of Ilkley central, up and across the cattle-grid and, one-third of a mile (0.5km) past the grid, keep your eyes peeled for the small road on your left.  Go up here for literally half-a-mile and park at the roadside.  From here you’ll see the straight track leading to the Silver Well cottage in the trees.  Walk 250 yards along the track (past the larger Weary Hill [3] carving on the slope just above) towards the cottage and, about fufty 100 yards before reaching the gate, walk up the slope through the heather to the small flat-faced rock that looks down at you.  If you’re approaching the much larger, more notable boulder of the Silver Well (3) carving, you need to be about 20 yards east of it.

Archaeology & History

This is a simple but notable cup-marked rock.  As you walk up the slope towards it, you get the impression you’re looking at the front-end of a tomb entrance of some sort—but it’s nothing of the sort (sadly).  Once you reach the flat face of stone, you’ll see that its topmost section is a thin wedge of stone along which are three distinct and quite deep cup-markings.  The stone was first mentioned in Hedges (1986) survey, where he also thought there may have been a fourth cup on the south-side of the stone.  When I first saw photos of this, I thought it was either a modern one or just another of Nature’s carved handiwork; but when we visited it recently our opinions changed.

There’s a rock a short distance east of here with a single cup-mark on it—but it’s not really worth looking at and might not even be the real deal.

References:

1. Boughey, K.J.S. & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Leeds 2003.
2. Hedges, John (ed.), The Carved Rocks of Rombald’s Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.

Acknowledgements:  Big thanks for help and assistance on our day’s venture to Graeme Chappell and Tom Cleland.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian