Tag: cup marked stones

Lochay Woods, Killin, Perthshire

megalithix

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 54125 35388

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 274203

Getting Here

The stone in question

Going out of Killin towards Kenmore on the A827 road, immediately past the Bridge of Lochay Hotel, turn left.  Go down here for just over 2 miles and park-up where a small track turns up to the right, close to the riverside and opposite a flat green piece of land—right by The Green cup-marked rock-face.  Walk up the small bendy track for about ⅔-mile (1km) and eventually, high above the tree-line, the road splits.  Right here, go through the gate and walk downhill, over the boggy land, cross the burn, then the overgrown wall, and a second overgrown wall.  Very close hereby is a small rise in the land amidst the mass of bracken, upon which is the stone in question!

Archaeology & History

Close-up of some cups

This large long, undulating, quartz-rich stretch of rock has two main petroglyphic sections to it, with curious visual sections of natural geological forms accompanying the cup-markings, found either side of the stone on its north and south sides.  Its northern face has at least 20 cup-marks, of differing sizes, measuring between one and two inches across and up to half-an-inch deep.  Their visual nature is markedly different to those on the more southern side of the stone, where they are generally smaller and much more shallow, perhaps meaning they were carved much earlier than their northern counterparts. One of the cups on this section has a very faint incomplete ring around it.

Running near the middle of the rock is a large long line of quartz and a deep cleft in which I found a curious worked piece of quartz shaped like a large spear-head, and another that looks like it’s been deliberately smoothed all round the edges.  Both these pieces fit nicely in my hand.  All around the edges of the stone, many tiny pieces of quartz were scattered, as if they had been struck onto the stone—either to try carving the cups (damn problematic!), or for some visual/magickal reason.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Over Glenny (04), Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire

megalithix

Cup-and-Ring Stone: OS Grid Reference — NN 56991 02834

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 352014

Getting Here

Over Glenny (4) C&R

Along the A81 road from Port of Menteith to Aberfoyle, watch out for the small road in the trees running at an angle sharply uphill, nearly opposite Portend, up to Coldon and higher. Keep going, bearing right past Mondowie and stopping at the dirt-track 100 yards or so further up on the left. Walk up this dirt-track for ⅔ mile, and just before reaching the planted forestry, turn right along another dirt-track. Less than 200 yards along there’s a large sycamore tree, and about 20 yards below it (south) are several open flat rock surfaces.  This is the most westerly of them.

Archaeology & History

…and again

On this small smooth rock surface we find an almost archetypal cup-and-ring stone, whose design consists of a double cup-and-ring and a faint cup-and-ring. The double-ring has several seemingly natural small fissures in the rock running at various angles into the central cup from the outside; and there are two faint ones running from the double-rings outwards to the cup-mark in the single-ring, framing the central cupmark in the middle. It may have been that these scratches on the rock gave rise to the position of the cupmark in this petroglyph.  It’s difficult to see whether or not the single cup-and-ring was ever completed.

Canmore’s description of this petroglyph tells simply: “The larger of the two is 180mm in diameter and has two rings around a cup that is 70mm in diameter and 15mm deep. The smaller has one ring around a cup.”

References:

  1. Brouwer, Jan & van Veen, Gus, Rock Art in the Menteith Hills, BRAC 2009.
  2. Sorowka, P., Davenport, C., & Fairclough, J., “Stirling, Over Glenny,” in Discovery & Excavation, Scotland, vol. 15, 2014.

Acknowledgements:  Massive thanks to Paul Hornby, Lisa Samson & Fraser Harrick for all their help on the day of this visit.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Over Glenny (05), Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire

megalithix

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid — NN 56993 02835

Getting Here

‘Over Glenny 5’ Carving

Along the A81 road from Port of Menteith to Aberfoyle, watch out for the small road in the trees running at an angle sharply uphill, nearly opposite Portend, up to Coldon and higher. Keep going, bearing right past Mondowie and stopping at the dirt-track 100 yards or so further up on the left.  Walk up this dirt-track for ⅔ mile, and just before reaching the planted forestry, turn right along another dirt-track.  Less than 200 yards along there’s a large sycamore tree, and about 20 yards below it (south) is the carving you’re looking for.

Archaeology & History

It’s difficult keeping up with the carvings in this region to the north of the Lake of Menteith, as we find new unrecorded ones on every visit, maintaining the tradition of fellow rock art students Maarten van Hoek, Kaledon Naddair, George Currie, Jan Broewer and the rest—and we know that there’s more of them hidden away.  This one doesn’t seem to be in the Canmore listings, but I put that down to the fact that they’ve got a grid-references wrong somewhere, as it’s pretty plain to see.  Although, to be honest, in the rather vague descriptions of the adjacent carvings (Over Glenny 4 and 6), this carving is in-between them, so you’d expect it to be listed.  Anyway, that aside…

Looking down at the rings
Close-up of faint rings

This long flat exposed rock surface has two primary cup-and-rings upon it: one cup with a double-ring, and the other standard cup-and-ring; there are also two single cup-markings on the stone: one near the middle of the rock and the other on its lower-right side.  The main element is the double-cup-and-ring, which appears to be incomplete—not only in terms of its design, but also, as you can see in the photos, seems unfinished. From the central double-ring, a faint carved line runs out from the centre and into the other faint, incomplete, single cup-and-ring.

Series of metal-sharpening grooves
Arty-farty sketch of the design

At the bottom of the stone (as with several others hereby) a curious set of deep scars have been cut into the edge of the rock.  They’re unmistakable when you see them.  They have probably been created by metal artifacts being sharpened along the bottom of the rock—many many times by the look of it.  These deep cuts reminded me of the more famous Polisher Stone, down Avebury-way.  They may be explained by the fact that, several centuries ago, a battle occurred here and some of the men gathered in the area before the attack.  It would seem as if this and the other cup-and-ring stones were used to sharpen their blades before going into battle.  Whether this was done because of some local lore which imbued these stones with some sort of magick, we do not know.  Folklore here seems curiously scarce (english incomers destroyed local traditions, as writers were telling us in the 19th century), apart from the well-known one of the area being rife with fairies: Robert Kirk’s famous The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Faeries (1691) was written three miles west of here, at Aberfoyle.

References:

  1. Brouwer, Jan & van Veen, Gus, Rock Art in the Menteith Hills, BRAC 2009.

Acknowledgements:  Massive thanks to the rest of the crew: Paul Hornby, Lisa Samson & Fraser Harrick.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Cock Lakes, Blubberhouses Moor, North Yorkshire

megalithix

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 1524 5469

Getting Here

Faint cups highlighted by water

Follow the same directions as if you’re visiting the James Stone monolith.  From here, walk about 60 yards southeast and zigzag about in the heather until you find a small squarish-shaped earthfast rock, barely 6 inches above ground-level (might be hard to find when the heather’s fully grown).  If you’ve got a petroglyphic nose, you’ll find it!

Archaeology & History

A simple faded cup-marked stone, roughly 2½ feet by 2 feet across, can be found about 65 feet southeast of the James Stone and 40 yards west of the Benty Gate prehistoric enclosure.  Sadly when we visited the place a few days ago, the sky was grey and the conditions for good photos were poor.

Line of faint cups from centre
Extra faint cup near centre left

At least five cup-marks have been etched onto the stone, with the main element being a row a three cups in a straight line from the centre of the stone to its SE edge.  The central cup-mark has been carved where a natural crack in the rock, running from the edge of the stone, terminates.  There also seemed to be a carved faded line running along the bottom edge of the stone—but it was unclear and another visit is needed in better light to see if there’s more on the stone.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Grey Stone, Newsholme Dean, Oakworth, West Yorkshire

megalithix

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SE 00621 40841

Also Known as:

  1. Carving no.2 (Boughey & Vickerman)

Getting Here

Grey Stone, Newsholme Dean
Grey Stone, Newsholme Dean

Take the same directions as if you’re visiting the Cob Stone Field carving; but instead of going into the field on your right, walk down the track about 100 yards towards the large barn below.  As you walk down keep your eyes peeled to the field on your left and, right up against the wall of the barn, you’ll see a large boulder resting quietly. That’s what yer after!

Archaeology & History

This large faded cup-marked rock whose western side has been split off in recent years, has a scatter of “up to 21 small shallow worn cups” on its upper surface.  They can be difficult to see in some light, but they’re definitely there (as Ray Spencer’s photos clearly show), fading slowly into Nature’s winds and storms.  A couple of ‘lines’ running down the edge of the stone are  due to modern farm-workings.

Close-up of the cups
Close-up of the cups
Sketch of the design
Sketch of the design

Several other rocks in this and adjacent fields have what may be faded remains of other cup-markings, but without guidance from a geologist or a stone-mason, we can’t know for sure whether they’re authentic or not.  It’s likely that there are other authentic carvings hiding in this area—they just need sniffing out!

References:

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

Acknowledgements:  Huge thanks to Ray Spencer for us of his photos in this site profile. Thanks Ray.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian