Follow the same directions to reach the Lunar Stone carving. Once here, amble about a few yards to your immediate south and you’ll find it — assuming the heather aint grown back over and covered it!
Archaeology & History
Teaspoon Rock, Stanbury Hill
This’d probably be another of those carvings first found by Stuart Feather in his amblings here in the 1970s, but we can’t say for sure. In Boughey & Vickerman’s survey (2003), apart from attributing it as being in two separate positions (mistaking some reference from the English Heritage doods as some other carving – though that shouldn’t surprise anyone!),* they then correctly describe it as having “one cup with groove” running outwards — which we can see quite plainly (lending Michala Potts to say, “it reminds me of a teaspoon!” – hence the title!). There may be as many as four other cups on this rock, though it’s hard to say for sure. Two of them, perhaps, may have a very worn line linking them together (as you can slightly work out on the top-half of the carving) — but again, this is hard to say for sure. Certainly this poor little carving aint quite as decorative as its nearby partners!
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
* In their survey this stone was also listed as carving no.98 by mistake, which should now be deleted from subsequent survey listings.
Follow the same directions to find the Lunar Stone. Once here, walk just 20 yards southwest and keep your eyes peeled! This is a long flat stone which can easily get overgrown in the heather, so you might need to search around till you find it.
Archaeology & History
Ringtail Stone, Stanbury Hill
Thought to be another carving first located by Stuart Feather in 1978, though we can’t bne totally sure on that. Curiously omitted from Hedge’s (1986) survey, this old glyph comprises of a single cup-mark near the western end of the stone and a complete cup-and-ring at the eastern-end. It was first illustrated in Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) fine survey, but they missed seeing a quite distinct line or ‘tail’ coming out the northern side of the cup-and-ring. Nowt special in archaeological terms, but of obvious relevance to the dood who carved it! They thought there may have been two faint cups in the ring, but it isn’t clear by any means.
As with the other carvings nearby, we find it amidst a scattering of prehistoric walling and the remnants of old cairns.
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
Follow the same directions as to find the Lunar Stone, Spotted Stone, etc. Go thru East Morton village up the steep moorland road, east, and where the road levels out there’s a right turn and a trackway on your left which leads onto the moor. Go ½-mile up this track till you hit a moorland ‘footpath’ signpost. Stop here and walk due west (left) for a coupla hundred yards. If the heather’s grown back you aint much chance of finding owt – but if there’s only low growth, amble about zigzagging – and keep your eyes peeled!
Archaeology & History
Section of cairn rubble & walling
Although there’s been no written record of the Stanbury Hill remains until very recently, it seems quite probable that Mr Stuart Feather would have come across at least parts of these remains when he uncovered the rock-art in the same vicinity, but he never made public his finds. He was a diligent researcher and finder of cup-and-ring stones, nose to the ground sorta chap, and it would be odd for him to miss the other remains on this hill. For as we now know, there are undeniable evidences of considerable neolithic and/or Bronze Age walling scattered along (mainly) the southern side of Stanbury Hill, running mainly along an east-west axis, but there are also examples of the walling running roughly north-south. In at least one position near the western end of the ridge, halfway down the south-facing slope, is what seems to be the unmistakable trace of an enclosed hearth. At the time of writing a series of archaeological digs are, slowly, being done hereabouts, so it will be good to read their final evaluations.
Very close to some parts of the walling we find the remains of old cairns, and at least one cup-and-ring stone has been carved along the axis of one line of walling (it reminded me very much of the Bronze Age settlement remains found at Snowden Moor, over the northerly horizon, in the Washburn Valley). Several other previously unreported cup-marked stones have also been found here (we’ll highlight them on TNA in the coming weeks).
Upon first impression the remains found upon and around Stanbury Hill seem more related to mortuary practices than what we’d call ‘domestic’ living practices, as the prevelance of carvings and cairns indicates. But we’ve gotta be cautious here, as in many sites the dead were kept with the living; and as we find in many traditional or aboriginal cultures, the land of spirits and that of the living are much more closely allied than in our profane ‘Western’ paradigm.
Same direction as the Lunar Stone: from East Morton village take the moorland road, east, up the steep hill. Where the road levels out there’s a right turn and a trackway on your left which leads onto the moor. Go up this track and keep walking till you hit a moorland ‘footpath’ signpost. Stop here and walk due west (left) onto the gently sloping rise of Stanbury Hill. Keep walking for a 250 yards or so, where the land has sloped gently down to the end of the spur; and just 50 yards before it drops down to the stream below, you’ll find a cluster of rocks scattered about. One of the stones here is this one!
Archaeology & History
First reported by Stuart Feather in 1977, this is an excellent carving with an apt title suiting its appearence. Just 13-14 yards west (towards the cluster of other carvings very close by) are the denuded remains of what looks like a robbed cairn. Initially I thought that the archaeologists had been here and turned it over – but it seems not!
Spotted Stone – looking westClose-up of NE section
There are between 55 and 61 cup-markings etched onto this stone, with several short lines and ringlets; with one small ridge of two curves ‘arching’ over a couple of cups giving the impression of owl’s eyes! (O.G.S. Crawford would have loved this one in his book, The Eye Goddess!) The stone gave me the distinct impression that it had either once stood upright, or else was part of a burial; and the finding of a prehistoric cairn just a few yards to the west reinforced this thought (although, gotta be said, knowing that cup-&-rings and death is a common theme upon these moors, it’s likely to sometimes afflict my ability to see these carvings with fresh eyes each time I come across them). Added to this is that the carving is in a very good state of preservation, with a considerable lack of general erosion on the cup-marks (as found on the majority of carved rocks on these moors) adding considerably to the thought that this might have once served part of a tomb, or perhaps cist cover and only been brought to the surface in quite recent years. This seems undeniable.
Unless, of course, this carving was etched sometime in the last century…
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
Hedges, John (ed.), The Carved Rocks of Rombald’s Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
From East Morton village, take the moorland road, east, and up the steep hill. Where the road levels out there’s a right turn, plus (more importantly!) a trackway on your left which leads onto the moor. Go up this traclk and keep walking till you hit a moorland ‘footpath’ signpost. Stop here and walk due west (your left) onto the gently sloping rise of Stanbury Hill. Keep walking for a 250 yards or so, where the land has sloped gently down to the end of the spur; and just 50 yards before it drops down tot he stream below you’ll find a cluster of rocks scattered about. One of the stones here is this one!
Archaeology & History
This is an excellent carving first recorded, it seems, by Stuart Feather in 1977, as cited in the Yorkshire Archaeology Journal’s ‘Listings’ for 1978. It can be found some 27 yards west of a prehistoric cairn near the top of the ridge (14 yards east of the same cairn is the Spotted Stone carving).
Lunar Stone carvingSoutheast section, with 3 cup-and-rings?
We have to assume that when Mr Feather first located this stone that the faint cup-and-rings on the topmost southeast section of the rock had been exposed to the elements from Day 1, so to speak: as the designs here are quite faint and well-worn. Another not unreasonable assumption is that Mr Feather then proceeded to dig away at the rest of the rock, exposing other features on the stone which had laid under the soil for countless centuries, as the northernmost part of the carving has minimal erosion effects on it. Indeed, unless this is true, we have to start thinking that the carving was made over quite lengthy periods of time, due solely to the greater and lesser effects of weathering on different sections of the stone.
As seen in both the diagram and photos, this is a quite extravagent design. Consisting of several cup-and-rings, aswell as a double-ring, it is found amidst a small cluster of equally impressive, albeit very different carved rocks, all appearing to have a quite specific relationship with death and ritual. This and the other stones are found on the western end of a small serpentine ridge of land (Stanbury Hill), with streams flowing on the north and western sides and small remains of marshland to the south. The geomantic feature here, if relevant, relates to movements between the Earth, water, death and the setting sun: quite potent and important issues in the lives of the neolithic and Bronze Age peoples who lived hereby.
Northern section of carving – with calendrical cups?
The title of this stone carving — the Lunar Stone — should be quite evident: the design has all the hallmarks of celestial lunar movements around the ridge of the heavens; or here, pictured along the edges of the rock (symbolic of the firmament), upon and amidst which the moon travels in its rhythmic motion through the heavens. But don’t take that too seriously: it’s just an imaginative flutter that struck my otherwise distraught inability to know what I’m talking about!
References:
Hedges, John (ed.), The Carved Rocks of Rombald’s Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
NB – Since writing this and analysing the imagery, it seems there’s another cup-and-ring on this stone which was missed by Messrs Hedges, Boughey and Vickerman and which we missed in our survey from just a few days ago. We’re going back up to assess the design again in a few days time and it seems very likely that we will have to amend the diagram above.
