Tag: cup-and-rings

Morphing Stone, Dacre, North Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 18559 61795

Also known as:

  1. Snoopy Stone
  2. Eastwoods Rough Carving
  3. IAG 638a (Boughey)

Getting Here

Mr Stroud's drawing of the stone
Mr Stroud’s drawing of the stone

Various ways to get here.  I s’ppose the easiest is from Dacre village.  If you go just past Sunny House, take the footpath on your right & walk along it, roughly straight across a number of fields, until you hit the footpath known as the Nidderdale Way.  The field you’re now in should be scattered with numerous rocks all over the place (if it aint, you’re in the wrong place), reaching down towards the trees.  Walk straight towards the trees for another 100 yards and the carving is somewhere hereabouts under your nose!  You’re very close! If, however, you decide to walk up the Nidderdale Way from Dacre Banks, the field you need is the one immediately to your right just before you reach the Monk Ing Road trackway.  The Tadpole Stone (or Eastwoods Rough II carving) is in the same field, close to the Nidderdale Way path — check that out aswell!

Archaeology & History

This is a large carving I found in April, 2006, in the company of rock-art student Richard Stroud (who sent us the pictures).  Twas in the midst of a fine day wandering about checking some of the ‘known’ sites in the area, when we happened across two or three previously unknown sites — and as the day wore on, just before we were gonna head for home, this little beauty poked the edge of its head out of the turf!  It had the pair of us in near rapture, with numerous “Wow’s” and excitable expletives coming from our mouths! We’re easily pleased us rock-art doods — but then it is a beauty when you first see it.

Morphing Stone carving (photo © Richard Stroud)
Morphing Stone carving (photo © Richard Stroud)
Morphing Stone, Dacre (photo © Richard Stroud)
Morphing Stone, Dacre (photo © Richard Stroud)

We came here several times in the weeks following its initial discovery, and it seemed that on each visit, we found an additional aspect to the carving.  It seemed to keep changing each time we came here — hence the name ‘Morphing Stone’!

The prime feature in the carving is the very large oval-shaped ‘ring’ with huge carved bowl in the middle and several outlying cups-markings around it.  Although it’s not plain to see in the photos, there’s a large tongue-shaped protuberance jutting out from one side of the main ringed feature.  You can also see a small cluster of cup-marks on the top-right of the rock: from here — though it isn’t easy to see in the photo — a long straight line links up with the edge of the major central ring.  Other lines run off on the top of the main feature and there are several other cup-markings on different parts of the stone.  It’s obviously best to see the carving “in the flesh”, so to speak, to get a good impression of what it actually looks like.  And, to those of you who might wanna venture up here, there are several others nearby.

A year or two after rediscovering the carving, rock art student Keith Boughey (2007) described the stone, saying:

“Measuring 2.61m from N-S and 1.88m from W-E at its greatest extent, the carved surface carries quite a complex design… At its N end is a large cup/basin with an approximate diameter of 25-30cm, surrounded by a ring that may or may not be complete: 2 cups have been incorporated into the ring on its N and W side. W of this ring a groove leads off S to a further possible cup. On the E side of the large central cup are 3 further cups of varying size. These motifs are all enclosed within a wide groove, which forms almost a dome pattern. Out of the ring, a further groove runs NW out of the design, bisecting the enclosing groove, curving round to form a handle shape before running back in towards the large central cup. The groove shows signs of continuing E towards the edge of the stone. Just outside the W edge of the enclosing dome is one well-defined cup. S of this, in a slight depression, are 2 further cups of differing size. A straight groove appears to run SW out of the enclosing dome shape on its E side towards further motifs on the stone’s S side. The groove may run into an area of cup marks, but there appears to be a break before it continues. When exposed, the carvings looked quite fresh and sharp, suggesting that they had remained covered for some considerable time – possible since antiquity or at least from a time in the prehistoric past when cup-and-ring-markings had begun to lose their significance and were no longer required to be visible in the landscape.”

To those of you who like the new computer images of cup-and-rings, the three below are samples from a number of such images done after the stone had been discovered.  Intriguingly, the long line running between the cluster of cups to the large cup-and-ring doesn’t show up too well; but the barely perceptible line running out, zigzag-fashion, from the large central cup-and-ring, shows up much clearer than when looking with the naked eye.

                          Morphing Stone Nikon Morphing4
References:

  1. Boughey, K., “Prehistoric Rock Art: Four New Discoveries in Nidderdale,” in Prehistoric Research Section Bulletin, no.44, Yorkshire Archaeological Society 2007.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Middleton Moor Carving (454), North Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 10980 51284

Archaeology & History

Carving no. 454

About 10 yards north of the old boundary stone on the Middle Ridge heading to the western end of Dryas Dike and about 10-15 yards east of the Middleton 453 carving, is this small rounded rock with between 12 and 15 cup-markings on its north and north-eastern sides.  Several curious deep ridges run down across the rock which some ascribe as being man-made – but to me they’re Nature’s fine handiwork, although I may be wrong…

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Middleton Moor Carving (453), North Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Line Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 10968 51279

Archaeology & History

Carving no. 453

Named boringly after the catalogue number given it in Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) survey, this is another of the many small cup-marked stones clustered at the western end of the ridge between Delves Beck and Dryas Dike, below the moorland slope up to the Old Pike and Beamsley Beacon.  It’s one of the more impressive of the carvings in this locale, albeit when it’s highlighted, as in the photos shown here (apparently done by one of the photographers in the Ilkley rock art group, I was told).  It’s perhaps better seen when the sun is low and the stone’s been wet, which shows the shallow undulations of the cup-marks and wavy line that seems to split the main group of twelve cup-marks  at the top northern side of the stone, from the two on its south side.  There seems to be another wavy line carved above the main cluster, but this is difficult to make out.

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Middleton Moor Carving (440), North Yorkshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 10875 51390

Getting Here

Middleton Moor CR-440

From the old T-junction in the hamlet of Langbar (where some doods have stuck up one of those ‘Private Road’ signs, typical of those Southern-types who bring their weird private land notions up here), go along the ‘private road’, keeping to the left until the road runs out. Then follow the small footpath above the house onto the moor, following the lines of walling along, crossing boggy streams, up the small hill and, once over the top and dropping down, keep your eyes peeled for the large boulder to the left of footpath, and a small scattered cairn on your right.  It just a few yards past the cairn material!

Archaeology & History

Just 20-30 yards up the slope on the north side of Dryas Dike stream, to the left of the footpath, is a small, rounded flat stone with perhaps as many as eight cup-markings on it.   Six seems more believable — though some of ’em on here (if not all) don’t look to have the air of authenticity that some of the other carvings hereabouts possess.  One of the cups has a small ‘tail’ protruding from it.  It’s a rather cute little thing!  A small, unexcavated cairn lies in ruin about 10 yards east of the crude carving.

…and from another angle

On the other side of the footpath from here is that “large boulder” I mentioned above, which is reported by Boughey & Vickerman (2003) to have “one clear cup” marking etched upon it.  They also report that archaeologists from “English Heritage report two cups and a possible short groove” on this rock. However none of the carvings reported here by either authority are man-made.  All marks on the rock are completely natural and it needs omitting from any future archaeological survey.

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Middleton Moor Carving (003), North Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 11288 51542

Getting Here

In the middle of the moors, with no footpaths close by.  Unless you’re a rock-art freak I guess there aint gonna be too many people searching for it!  From the Ilkley-to-Langbar road, take the track (Parks Lane) onto the moor where the road bends right.  Follow it up for about a mile (though it doesn’t seem that far) and where the cup-marked stone at the edge of the wall where the spring appears (Middleton Moor carving 483), walk west (left) into the heather for a coupla hundred yards below Foldshaw Ridge.  Look around!

Archaeology & History

Little-known cup-marked stone on Middleton Moor (photo courtesy Richard Stroud)
Cup-marked stone, Middleton Moor (photo © Richard Stroud)

This is one of a small cluster of carvings Richard Stroud found on a few average-sized stones prettty close to each other in April 2005 — and one which the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service told him couldn’t be there cos the region had already been surveyed.  Hmmm…

Crap drawing!

Well, my first impression of this when I saw it was a absolute thumbs-up! Simple to look at, I know – but a bloody good little carving.  It’s primary characteristic is that most of the ten or eleven cups occur on the vertical and near-vertical face, which aint too common.  In traditional societies (though not all) where carvings occur on vertical faces, they’re deemed to be ‘male’ in nature (those on rounded smooth surfaces, female).  The carving is well worth checking out — especially as there’s probably more to be found up here, hiding beneath ages of peat and heather.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Middleton Moor Carving 002, North Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 1154 5202

 

Photo by Richard Stroud

Getting Here

To find this, follow exactly the same directions as that of the Middleton Moor Carving 001, which is just a few yards away. Both of these stones may take some finding when the heather’s deep — but when we first discovered them, the heather had recently been burnt back.

Archaeology & History

This small rounded stone had a covering of vegetation on it when Richard Stroud and I first discovered it in April 2005, with just a couple of cups visible, but once the heather’d been carefully rolled back, another fine carving greeted our keen-eyed petroglyphic senses!

Drawing of the carving
Drawing of the carving
…and again!

At least eight cups seem apparent here, though once Richard had the photos processed there appeared to be a couple of things on the stone which we hadn’t noticed when in the field (a common cup&ring dilemma). One of the most curious parts of the stone seems to be the winding line near the bottom of the stone. Make of it what you will!

Just a couple of yards east of this carving we find the rounded remains of a single burial cairn, probably for just one person, just like as with Middleton Moor 001.  This site could do with excavating, as we may have a small neolithic or Bronze-Age cemetery hiding under the heath.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Maen Cattwg, Gelligaer, Glamorganshire

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Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – ST 1269 9744

Also Known as:

  1. Gelli-Gaer carving
  2. Maen Catwg

Getting Here

From Gelligaer, take the northernern road up Heol Adam for 2-300 yards, where you’ll see a footpath on your left taking you into the fields. Walk up the path and as it crosses the wall and bends due east, you’ll see the boulder in the middle of the field. That’s it!

Archaeology & History

Across the road from Tir-y-Rhen is this singular flat boulder, measuring about 10ft x 6ft, with at least 33 full cup-markings etched on it. Described briefly in Chris Houlder’s (1974) Welsh Archaeological guide, then more recently in John Sharkey’s (2004) Welsh rock-art book where he told there to be perhaps another seventeen cups on its surface, the Royal Commission (1976) lads gave us the surity of definition in their survey of neolithic sites in the region. A kilometre north of Gelligaer, some 260m above sea level, we find this well-preserved carved rock:

“An approximately rectangular block…much weathered at at the corners…2.6m long NE-SW, by 1.7m wide, and about 0.6m thick.  The upper surface is covered with a haphazard series of 33 cup-marks varying from 40 to 115mm in diameter, and from 5 to 60mm deep… There are also 17 more cup-marks which are too weathered for precise measurement, but whose presence is certain.  Other may have been completely worn away.  Two more slabs of stone are just visible under the west corner of the main stone, suggesting the possibility that the cup-marks were made on the capstone of a cromlech, now collapsed.”

An earlier account by Wheeler (1925) described a number of lines or channels linking some cup-marks to each other, but these are now very difficult to see.  I’ll hopefully get some decent images of this carving sometime soon!

References:

  1. Houlder, Chris, Wales: An Archaeological Guide, Faber: London 1974.
  2. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Wales, An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan – Volume 1: Pre-Norman, Part 1: The Stone and Bronze Ages, HMSO: Cardiff 1976.
  3. Sharkey, John, The Meeting of the Tracks, Gwas carreg gwalch: Llanwrst 2004.
  4. Wheeler, R.E.M., Prehistoric and Roman Wales, Oxford University Press 1925.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Langbar Stone, Langbar Moor, North Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 11180 52052

Also Known as:

  1. Carving no.41 (Feather)
  2. Carving no.459 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

Langbar Moor carving - with extra ring
Langbar Moor carving © Richard Stroud

Various ways to get here (being in the middle of the moor n’ all).  I s’ppose the best way is to go from Langbar village, up hill to The Old Pike giant cairn, then follow the footpath on about 100 yards before dropping down the slope to your right, south (NOT the other way!).  You’ll notice some walling and an old path near the bottom of the slope SE from you – head in that direction, but before you get there, a coupla hundred yards before, stop and look around.  Good luck!

Archaeology & History

Found halfway up the southern slope beneath The Old Pike giant cairn, we find this large, flat earthfast stone, on which are the very faded remains of archetypal cup-and-ring motifs. At the top-end of the stone are slightly more pronounced cup-markings – seemingly more than is shown on the drawing, with the multiple-rings halfway along the stone. On the southeastern part of the stone, Richard Stroud found another previously unseen aspect of the carving, consisting of one large ring, with perhaps a line running out to the east. This can be seen in the water-highlighted photo.

Langbar Stone, with small single circle not noticed by archaeologists
Langbar Stone, with extra single ring not previously noted

If you visit this carving, try and get to the Middleton Moor CR-482 stone half-a-mile southwest – where I for one got the distinct impression that whoever carved that stone, also carved this one!  Barmy p’raps — but if we don’t allow subjective interface here and there, we never learn a damn thing!

Listed as stone 459 in Boughey & Vickerman’s (2003) survey, they erroneously ascribe Eric Cowling to have found it in Rombald’s Way (1946), whereas the first mention of it appears to have been by Stuart Feather in 1966 (though Cowling does mention a ‘Langbar Stone’, but illustrates another one nearby).

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
  2. Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  3. Feather, Stuart, ‘Mid-Wharfedale Cup-and-Ring Markings. No.41, Langbar Moor, Ilkley,’ in Bradford Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 11, 1966.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Knotties Stone, Otley Chevin, West Yorkshire

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Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 20772 44181

Also Known as:

  1. Carving no. 396 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

Knotties stone (photo, James Elkington)

From The Royalty hotel, walk along the footpath onto the Chevin itself, turning left then walk about 350 yards east, past the small copse of trees.  Just north of the main path before the land slopes down you’ll find it.  It’s carved on an earthfast rock about 6 feet long.

Archaeology & History

This is an excellent carving if you’re into cup-and-rings!  Eric Cowling (1940) first described the stone* in an article for the Yorkshire Archaeology Society.  Although it’s somewhat faded, when the stone’s wet and the sun’s low on the horizon, you can make out more rings than just the three which Boughey & Vickerman (2003) described in their survey.

Folklore

Knotties Stone (E.T. Cowling)

Although the Chevin itself has a tradition of ‘supposed’ heathen goings-on in bygone days, the carving has nothing specific said about it.  Although one intriguing bit of info comes from the old Otley historian, Harold Walker (1974), who said that, “blocks of stone were sent from (the) Chevin to form the foundations of the Houses of Parliament”!

Those lying deviants probably smashed up a few bits of extra rock art when they did this — not that those sort of people give a shit about anything unless it’s about money.

References:

  1. Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS 2003.
  2. Cowling, E.T., ‘A Classification of West Yorkshire “Cup-and-Ring” Stones,’ in Archaeology Journal, 97, 1940.
  3. Cowling, E.T., Rombald’s Way, William Walker: Otley 1946.
  4. Hotham, John Paul, Halos and Horizons, Hotham Publishing: Leeds 2021.
  5. Walker, Harold, This Little Town of Otley, Olicana: Otley 1974.

* Graeme Chappell tells me that this carving was named after Cowling’s nickname, Knotty!

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Keill Vreeshey, Crosby, Isle of Man

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SC 3316 8014

Archaeology & History

Keeill Carved Stone (Shaw 1877)

Seemingly destroyed, this carved standing stone was first described in Shaw’s Tourist Guide to the Isle of Man (1877), where he says it stood by the wall of the chapel, telling how it was “one of several stones inscribed with various designs and inscriptions.”

Hope that I’m wrong, but it seems like we’ve lost some more good old cup-and-ring art…

References:

  1. Shaw, N., Tourist Guide to the Isle of Man, 1877.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian