Two real ways to get here. Either (i) follow the directions to get to the Stag Cottage carvings of Duncroisk 1, then walk down to the fence by the riverside and walk along to the left for a coupla hundred yards till you reach a second metal fence-post sticking out of a rock on the other side of the deer-fencing; or (ii) from the roadside burn a coupla hundred yards along the road before you reach Stag Cottage, follow it down to the riverside, then head along the footpath behind the fencing, parallel with the river’s edge. It aint far. Within 100 yards you’ll reach the stone with the metal pole sticking out of it and the carvings are on this!
Archaeology & History
Confusingly redesignated as Duncroisk 5 carving by the usually efficient Canmore people, we’re sticking with this stone’s original name given by Ronald Morris (1981) in his British Archaeological Report of this and nearby carvings — and a quite fascinating carving this is as well!
C.G. Cash’s drawingDuncroisk 3 stone
As with many cup-and-rings, erosion and lighting has a powerful effect on seeing the design correctly. On my visit here in recent months there were quite distinct additional elements in the carving which haven’t been noted by previous archaeologists. But in saying that, there were also some elements that were reported by the earliest antiquarians that proved difficult to see in the grey light of day when I was here. The earliest report of the carving by C.G. Cash (1912) told there to be five rings, whereas today only 3 or 4 are visible (though this will probably change when viewed in other lighting conditions).
When Mr Cash told of this stone in his essay on the antiquities of Killin it sounded as if it was lucky to have survived, as it had previously been dug out and left by the roadside, before then being reused by a local to fix a fence-post in! Mr Cash told us that the local,
“had used it as the foundation stone of the stretching post at the south end of the easternmost fence on the farm, and there I found it, near the brink of the river, buried in sand and turf. I cleared it and then in pouring rain crouched over it to make a hasty sketch. It bears eighteen cups, of which five are surrounded by rings. The largest cups are 2½ inches and the rings 6 inches in diameter.”
Ron Morris’ images
When I visited the place the weather was much the same as Mr Cash described: lovely teeming rain, typical of the mountains, with the surrounding trees breathing moisture onto the slopes as ever.
Years later when Ronald Morris (1981) came here he saw “4 cups-and-one-ring…probably complete rings, up to 12cm (5 in) in diameters and 10 cups up to 2cm deep.”
If you stand and face the stone, the cup-marking on its lower right side (see Morris’ old photo, above) has a pecked line running from it further to the right and down to the edge of the rock. You can clearly make it out on the top photo. This carved line also seemed to touch another carved line which can be seen running along the outer edge of the stone — although the poor light didn’t allow me to view this with absolute confidence. I’ll have another look at it again when I’m up in the area in May and hopefully confirm or deny it with greater confidence (and if anyone else gets here in the meantime, have a look and see what y’ think).
Another one of those rare cup-marked stones from Cornwall, once again found in association with a burial— but once again destroyed, this time by having an airfield built over the tomb! This “cup-marked and perforated slab” was said by Paul Ashbee (1958: 192) to have been unearthed “by Mr C.K. Andrew” in 1941 when he was digging in the Nancekuke round barrow. Yet an earlier reference to the same site by Mr o’ Neil (1948: 26) told that “the grave was rifled c.1926, but in the ditch there were found traces of a Bronze Age wooden shovel and a perforated and cup-marked slate.” For any students studying this arena, the correct date would appear to be the earlier of the two.
I’ve not been able to locate any decent photos or diagrams of this small cup-marked stone and would truly appreciate an illustration of it if anyone could get hold of one.
References:
Ashbee, Paul, “The Excavation of Tregulland Burrow, Treneglos Parish, Cornwall,” in Antiquaries Journal, volume 38, 1958.
o’ Neil, B.H. St. John, “War and Archaeology in Britain”, in Antiquaries Journal, volume XXVIII, January-April 1948.
To get here, follow the same directions as you would to reach the curious Green Plain settlement; but just before you reach that, you’ll notice this rather large boulder known as the Eagle Stone right in front of you next to the ever-decreasing stream. Wander down and give it a fondle — you can’t really miss it!
Archaeology & History
Cupmarks on top (image by Graeme Chappell)
Curiously not included in Boughey & Vickerman’s rock-art survey (2003), this large boulder stands just below the ancient ford which crosses Sun Bank Gill and is pitted with a number of cup-marks on its top (though not the 38 we counted when Graeme Chappell and I in the early 1990s), plus a large “bowl”, not unlike the Wart Well on top of Almscliffe Crags and other such sites. Although some of the cups seem natural, others are artificial — as even an English Heritage rock art student could tell you! A small cluster of ‘cups’ are on top of the stone, but a number of them have been etched onto the sloping southern face; a curved line running across the rock-face towards these cups may be natural.
The straight track above you was known as Watling Street in bygone years and was the old Roman road running between Ilkley and Aldborough.
Legendary Rock (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SE 0728 0944
Archaeology & History
The Rocking Stone in 1720
Here we have the case of yet another rocking stone destroyed by a bunch of morons in bygone days. Although marked on the first Ordnance Survey of the region around 1850, the site had already been destroyed by then — but at least the surveyors had recorded its position in the landscape. And a dramatic and barren landscape it sat within!
It could be found high up in the middle of the moors above Brow Grains by the Wicken Stones, nearly 1400 feet above sea level, heading towards West Nab, and had lived here, safely, for untold thousands of years. But then, on Whitsun Monday morning in either 1827 or 1828, there came, wrote Joseph Hughes (1866),
“some half-dozen masons (who) planned and executed the work of destruction for a frolic. They first endeavoured to accomplish it by blasting it with gunpowder and, on the failure of this scheme, they fetched tools from Deer Hill, with which they drilled a hole and then wedged it, when the stone fell with a tremendous crash, hardly allowing the man on its summit who was drawing in the wedge to escape without injury.”
It’s a huge pity that the boulder didn’t crush him to death for his actions. At least it would have taught the halfwits a lesson (forgive me if I sound a bit harsh – but I have an increasingly lower opinion of selfish humans the older I get). Thankfully though, one hundred years before the stone was destroyed, Mr John Warburton of the Somerset Herald visited the region in 1720 and on one of the days here, took a long walk up to the Rocking Stone, from where we have this rare old drawing of the site. As Mr Ahier (1942) told us,
“His sketch plainly shows one stone superimposed upon another, and it is conceivable that the uppermost stone could be rocked on the lower one.”
There was also another Rocking Stone in the locale, it too destroyed, this time “by a former gamekeeper” no less, using the time-honoured excuse:
“because persons going to see it crossed the moor, and, in doing so during the nesting season, were liable to tread on eggs or upon young birds.”
This excuse is an even poorer one these days (as any honest ranger will tell you – which includes me in my former capacity as an assistant moorland ranger), as walking the moors causes much less damage than the moorland “management” of draining the bogs, dyke cutting, grouse-shooting, bracken control, letting the Snoots drive their vehicles over the heathlands, upgrading modern footpaths, etc. (God – I’m on a rant!)
References:
Ahier, Philip, The Legends and Traditions of Huddersfield and District, Advertiser Press: Huddersfield 1942.
Hughes, Joesph, The History of the Township of Meltham, John Russell Smith: London 1866.
An unusual cup-marked stone — not because it’s found in the grounds of the chapel, but because the design appears carved on a flat slab, as if it might have been used as a grave cover or perhaps stood upright in times gone by. First described in Rob Graham’s Carved Stones (1895) in the days when a few more cup-markings were visible; nearly a hundred years on it was included in the Royal Commission’s (1984) report as “a prone slab measuring 1.7m by 0.98m and 0.15m in greatest thickness; its upper surface bears at least nineteen plain cups up to 110cm in diameter and 40mm in depth. In addition, wear has caused a large deep cup, 180mm in diameter and 80mm deep, to penetrate the stone, and there is another circular, vertical-sided, perforation measuring 70mm in average diameter and expanding to 90mm at the upper surface on the stone” — meaning there’s a hole that’s been worn through the rock itself. This hole would seem to be accounted for by the folklore tradition of the site.
Folklore
It was reported by R.W.B. Morris (1969) that the cups here were “said to have been enlarged by a former ‘wishing’ rite” — a tradition echoed at another carving not far away where a pestle was used on the cup-marks and rotated 3 times, then a wish was made and an offering left to aid the wish. Morris suggests this could have been a faint relic of solar worship.
References:
Graham, Robert C., The Carved Stones of Islay, James Maclehose & Son: Glasgow 1895.
Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – SO 1576 5858
Also Known as:
Llanerch Stone
NPRN – 306082
Archaeology & History
Llanerch cup-marked stone (after Watkins, 1932)
A small and simple cup-marked boulder, hidden away in the Welsh hills, all-but unknown even to cup-and-ring fanatics! It’s nowt special to look at, reminding me somewhat of the numerous cup-marked rocks that scatter the edges of Baildon Hill in Yorkshire. Found close to a number of other prehistoric sites, the stone isn’t in its original position so we’re unable to tell whether it was associated with any tombs (as is probable). The carving consists of around 32 cup-marks, with some 18 of them visible on its upper face. It’s likely that there were more cups on it originally, for when it was first found (as shown in the photo here, taken soon after being discovered) one side of the stone had been split away, but the other section was nowhere to be seen. Alfred Watkins (1932) told how it was first discovered:
“Following a visit by the Woolhope Club in 1928 to that fine mound on Radnor Forest—Cruger Castle…a fellow member (Mr. Walter Pritchard), working on alignments, discovered a fine cup-marked stone, at Llanerch Farm, a little south of the mound. I visited and photographed the stone the same year, and took a rubbing of the cup-marks on it, also taking as careful a bearing as possible, and marking it on the paper while on the stone.”
Its isolation is a little unusual, but there are likely to be other carvings scattering the nearby hills and valleys awaiting discovery by enthusiastic explorers.
Folklore
The great ley-hunter himself, Alfred Watkins (1932) — following in the footsteps of some of his contemporaries it’s gotta be said — used this carving to add fuel to his notion of leys and aligned sites, thinking that the cup-markings on the stone were representative of such things, etched thousands of years back to be used by other travellers. Can’t see it misself — but then I did spend a few years looking at the potential relevance cup-and-rings had with alignment features when I was a boy, ruining many a-map and finding they had no relationship whatsoever to such things! But it seems that Mr Watkins was still going through the exploratory phase at the time, because, after taking a rubbing of the stone he told:
“I also (as soon as I got home) tested for alignments, and inked in those of four cups which I found, as I considered lines of three to be of no value as proof. I could not at that time see any tangible proof of anything, and put it down to this (broken) stone having probably been moved. The reproduction I give is of this crude rubbing exactly as I finished it (outlining then the rather indefinite edges of the cups) in 1928.”
References:
Sharkey, John, The Meeting of the Tracks: Rock Art in Ancient Wales, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch: Llanrwst 2004.
Watkins, Alfred, Archaic Tracks round Cambridge, Simpkin Marshall: London 1932.
From Hebden Bridge, take the Heptonstall road and go past the legendary Slack Bottom (no lies!), until a few hundred yards further on at Slack Top, take the Widdop road on the right. Amble the long and winding road for a mile – mebbe a bit more – until the valley on your right runs out of trees! (on the OS-map this is called Hebden Dale, but it’s generally known as Hardcastle Crags [after the name of the rock outcrop halfway up]). Just about here there’s a track to your left, by the rather desolate bus-stop! If you hit the wibbly hair-pin bend by the Blake Dean scout-hut, you’ve gone too far. Walk along the track for a coupla hundred yards and take the first opportunity you have to cross the deep dike on your immediate left. Then just walk along the edge of the stream itself until you reach the large rocks another few hundred yards along.
Archaeology & History
As Richard Stroud’s photo above shows, this is a beautiful spot — when the weather is good anyway! Much of the landscape around you is scattered with occult history and folklore: boggarts, witches, corpse routes, spirit animals, old stone crosses, standing stones and more! A damn good day out can be had in this area by any enthusiastic antiquarian or enquiring heathen.
Cups and faint rings
The carving we have here is an almost typical cup-and-ring stone, but it’s pretty isolated with no other ringed companions anywhere on these hills. It was first described in David Shepherd’s (2003) survey of prehistoric remains of the region — although I was initially a little cautious about the veracity of David’s findings, as some cup-marked stones in his survey are probably natural and some “standing stones” he cites nearby are simply natural earthfast rocks. But this particular carving seems man-made with large faint rings encircling at least one of the cup-marks, as you can see in Richard Stroud’s photo here. In Mr Shepherd’s survey, he said of this site:
“A prominent double boulder. On the top surface are two eroded cup marks by the south edge and one by the north edge. Two eroded cup marks with rings are on the northwest segment.”
References:
Shepherd, David, “Prehistoric Activity in the Central South Pennines,” in Transactions of the Halifax Antiquarian Society, new series, volume 11, 2003.
Acknowledgements: With thanks to Richard Stroud for use of his photos in this site profile.
This small, simple cup-marked stone is found close to the small Mudbeck stone circle. Consisting of just four shallow cup-marks almost running in an arc formation, the site was first discovered by Tim Laurie in the late 1990s. I’ve not been to this place so rely on the photos kindly sent me by Richard Stroud, and the description of the place by Paul Brown (2008), where he told:
Close-up of 4 cups (courtesy Richard Stroud)Mudbeck 2 in the landscape (courtesy Richard Stroud)
“On the crest of a ridge some 50m south-west of Mudbeck a scatter of small boulders form an indistinct ring-shape and a cup-marked boulder with four cups was discovered here by Tim Laurie. It was suggested that the stone scatter represented the possible remains of a cairn that had at some point in its past been stripped of its stone for the construction of walling and sheepfolds in the area. ”
The only other cup-mark close by is one alleged to be on one of the small uprights in the Mudbeck circle (known as MUD S1 in Brown’s survey) – though I have to say that the “carving” is somewhat dubious to me.
References:
Brown, Paul and Barbara, Prehistoric Rock Art in the Northern Dales, Tempus: Stroud 2008.
Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Richard Stroud for use of the photos in this site profile.
From Silsden, take the moorland road up to Brunthwaite (ask a local if you’re in doubt). As you get near the top of the moorland road, take the right turn (east) on the track past the Doubler Stones, until you reach the last cottage before the woodland called Black Pots. Go onto the moorland behind the cottage, walking north, crossing the stream and you’ll see a large boulder stuck on its own close by. That’s it!
Archaeology & History
Stuart Feather’s 1964 image
On another wander on these moors t’other day, we ventured to the Doubler Stones and whilst there I had a vague recollection of another decent-looking carving west of them, just above the hidden house at Black Pots, when I was a teenager. When I got home I rummaged through some of my old notebooks and found the drawing I made of it all those years ago. Tis a decent carving consisting of 3 distinct cups encircled, though not completely, in an elongated arc. A cup-and-ring is just above this, and Boughey & Vickerman (2003) highlight another couple of cups which I didn’t manage to see when I was there as a kid. Nor for that matter did Stuart Feather, who was the first person to write about it in the Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin in 1964. Itis a good carving in a good spot, with excellent views to the south and west.
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Leeds 2003.
Feather, Stuart, “Mid-Wharfedale Cup-and-Ring Markings: no.24 – Black Pots, Silsden, near Keighley,” in Cartwright Hall Archaeology Group Bulletin, 9:7, 1964.
Hedges, John, The Carved Rocks on Rombald’s Moor, WYMCC: Wakefield 1986.
An excellent passage grave tomb that’s been described by many historians over the last two hundred years, and was subject to a fine excavation in the first half of the 20th century. Ascribed as neolithic in origin, recent finds of human activity on the edge of the surrounding henge indicates people have been “up to things” hereby since at least 6000 BC. Deriving its name from “the mound of the black grove,” the site as we see it today has been much restored and is so different to when it was visited by Thomas Pennant and other antiquarians.
According to an anonymously written essay in Archaeologia Cambrensis in 1847, the site was first described by Henry Rowlands (1723) where, in relation to another site, he told were,
“the remains of two carnedds, within a few paces of one another: the one is somewhat broken and pitted into on one side, where the stones had been carried away; the other having had its stones almost all taken away into walls and hedges, with two standing columns erected between them.”
A somewhat more detailed description came from Thomas Pennant a few years later. He wrote:
“A few years ago, beneath a carnedd similar to that at Tregarnedd, was discovered, on a farm called Bryn-celli-ddu…a passage three feet wide, four feet two or three inches high and about nineteen feet and a half long, which led into a room about three feet in diameter and seven in height. The form was an irregular hexagon, and the sides composed of six rude slabs, one of which measured in its diagonal eight feet nine inches. In the middle was an artless pillar of stone, four feet eight inches in circumference. This supports the roof, which consists of one great stone near ten feet in diameter. Along the sides of the room was, if I may be allowed the expression, a stone bench, on which were found human bones, which fell to dust almost at a touch: it is probable that the bodies were placed on the bench… The diameter of the incumbent carnedd is from ninety to a hundred feet.”
Ground-plan
But the main excavation work at Bryn Celli Ddu was done in the late-1920s by W.J. Hemp (1930) and his team, who, as usual following such digs, ended up with just as many questions about the site as they had answers! One of the best descriptions of Hemp’s excavation work was by W.F. Grimes (1932) in an essay he wrote for the East Anglian Prehistoric Society where he gave the following detailed description of the finds:
“The cairn here was circular, with a chamber of some 160ft and an original maximum height of at least 12ft. The chamber is a polygonal structure of large stones augmented…with dry-stone walling, entered on the northeast side by a long passage built in the same way. Many of the stones had been dressed and in the chamber stood a single pillar which had been artificially rounded and smoothed, but which had never actually supported the capstone.
“These features had been more or less apparent for many years. But the reparation work soon showed that this was by no means all. In the first place, it was found that the chamber had been surrounded by four circles of standing stones. The first of these, around the outside of the mound at its base, had disappeared, although early accounts and a single hole found in the course of the work of excavation, are evidence of its existence. The second and third circles were found when the entrance to the passage wall was being cleared. Here the walls of the passage were found to merge into an outer circle of large stones and an inner of smaller, set close together and elaborately packed and sunk in a ditch six feet deep and eighteen wide, enclosing the chamber in such a way that passage, chamber and circles together form a gigantic unbroken spiral, with the chamber itself as an unbroken loop in it. The fourth and innermost circle was in the area enclosed by the ditch (which is represented on the plan by the shaded portion). This consisted of a number of stones of various sizes, irregularly placed and in some cases inclined outwards. Under some of them were deposits of burnt human bones. Lines connecting these stones diametrically were found to intersect at the centre of the monument, directly behind the chamber, and here was found a slab-covered pit which contained an elaborate filling whose purpose is unexplained. Beside the cover-stone of the pit was a second larger slab of grit, lying flat, the faces of which were covered with an elaborate and continuous pattern of spirals, scrolls and zig-zags. The position of this stone is shown beside the central stone on the plan. Of it purpose it can only be said that it was probably magical…
“As if the elaborate features already described thus badly were not enough, a uniform floor of purple clay was found to cover the old natural surface within the area enclosed by the ditch, and there were on the floor, in the ditch, and in many other places extensive traces of fire in the form of burnt patches, blackening and quantities of charcoal. In addition there were outside the entrance, a line of post-holes and remains of walls suggesting the former existence of some kind of forecourt crossed by a temporary barrier. Here also were traces of fire and of elaborate ritual. It must be emphasized of course, that all these features, with the exception of the outer circle of stones and the forecourt, had been completely concealed by the mound, so that they were not visible once the monument was completed… Moreover…the entrance to the chamber had been closed with an elaborate blocking which suggested that once closed the chamber had not been intended to be re-opened.”
Although many questions emerged following the excavation, perhaps that relating to the chronology and evolution of the site (after its ritual use) was most important. The site as we see it today sits within the confines of a henge monument (which should also be given an independent entry account) and once a stone circle. And although present day field evidence is inconclusive about which came first, archaeologists like Richard Bradley, Clare o’ Kelly and others are not without opinion. Bradley (1998) told:
“O’ Kelly argued that there had been two successive monuments on the site. The earlier one was a stone circle, enclosed by the earthworks of the henge. In a later phase this was replaced by a passage grave which was built over the surviving remains of the stone circle, its outer kerb being bedded in the ditch of the older monument.”
But Bradley himself doubts this for various reasons, himself interpreting,
“the sequence at Bryn Celli Ddu is to suggest that in its first phase it consisted of a circular unrevetted mound about 15m in diameter, containing a passage grave. Around the edge of this structure was a stone circle, and beyond that there was a quarry ditch. When the monument was enlarged, not on one occasion but twice, the passage was extended as far as the earlier ditch and a significantly larger mound was bounded by kerbstones.”
Though adding himself that there is also a trouble with this idea! As with many other sites, Bryn Celli Ddu appears to have been aligned to the summer solstice. This notion was first propounded by astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer (1909) in his hugely revised work on the astronomical function of megalithic sites. It was nearly 100 years before any archaeologist got off their backside and tested Lockyer’s original proposal and found the scientist to have been way ahead of them at their own discipline. Not unsurprisingly, archaeologist Mike Pitts (2006) was a bit slow in his gimmicky headline in British Archaeology, where he deemed Steve Burrow’s personal observation as “sensational.” Oh how common this theme seems to be in archaeology. Twenty years previously Miranda Green (1991) posited that the chamber alignment from Bryn Celli Ddu aligned towards “May Day sunrise” — which doesn’t seem to work. And on a similar astronomical note, archaeologist Julian Thomas (1991) thought that five post-holes found some five yards beyond the entrance were somewhat reminiscent of the “A” holes at Stonehenge and related to some lunar alignments, thinking that:
“It seems likely that (they) record a series of observations upon the rising of some heavenly body in order to ascertain its standstill position.”
A point that Clive Ruggles (1999) explored with a little scepticism, pointing out:
“The only possibility is the northern minor limit of the moon, and while the adjacent posts are ranged on the correct side to record the position, say, of the midwinter full moonrise in years before and after the minor standstill, many other interpretations of these posts are doubtless possible.”
There’s been lots written about this place and lots more could be added with various archaeologists showing their relative opinions about the place. But perhaps more worthwhile is a visit to the place, later on, when the tourists have fallen back under a starlit sky…
References:
Anonymous, “Cromlech at Bryn Celli Ddu, Anglesey,” in Archaeologia Cambrensis, volume 2, 1847.
Barber, Chris & Williams, John G., The Ancient Stones of Wales, Blorenge: Abergavenny 1989.
Bradley, Richard, “Stone Circles and Passage Graves – A Contested Relationship,” in Prehistoric Ritual and Religion, edited by Alex Gibson & Derek Simpson (Sutton: Stroud 1998).
Green, Miranda, The Sun Gods of Ancient Europe, Batsford: London 1991.
Grimes, W.F., “Prehistoric Archaeology in Wales since 1925,” in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia, 7:1, 1932.
Hemp, W.J., “The Chambered Tomb of Bryn Celli Ddu, Anglesey,” in Archaeologia, volume 80, 1930.
Lockyer, Norman, Stonehenge and other British Stone Monuments Astronomically Considered, MacMillan: London 1909.
Lynch, Frances, Prehistoric Anglesey, Anglesey Antiquarian Society 1991.
o’ Kelly, Clare, “Bryn Celli Ddu: A Reinterpretation,” in Archaeologia Cambrensis, volume 118, 1969.
Ruggles, Clive, Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland, Yale University Press 1999.
Thomas, Julian, Rethinking the Neolithic, Cambridge University Press 1991.
