These are certainly decent sized cup marks and larger than I was expecting, in fact the peppering of tennis ball sized cups across two faces and the top of the stone make it look like some giant piece of fossilised cheese. Don't overlook the cairn though, it's quite impressive in itself. Marked on the map as a ring cairn English Heritage record it as a flat-topped round cairn which is apparently fairly rare in this area. The jumble of stones in the middle seems to be the result of robbing with the whole structure being between 15-18 metres in size, the carved rock sits towards the outer edge of this mound with some smaller stones nearby suggesting some kind of kerb.
There are some great views from the site, Sir William Hill rises ominously just to the southeast with Hathersage Moor away to the northeast while to the northwest there's the weird Abney Low hill and the Smelting Hill / Offerton Moor area.
Leaving the car at the right-angled bend in Sir William Hill road (SK224780), it took 20 minutes to find the cairn. Follow the path alongside the wall until Gotherage Plantation comes into view on the left. Windago's 2 upright stones act as clear markers for where to head west.
I was surprised how big the cup marks are: ca. 2 inch wide and 2 inch deep. I was expecting something similar to Schalensteine in north Germany where the cups are half the width and much shallower, similar in fact to the Holymoorside stone.
A ruined but sharply defined cairn, like a pulpit on the steep heath. Rewarding if only for the carved stone. From the mainpath to the East the site is about 100m west from where 2 upright stones suggest a gate in the old stone wall.
Returning to the wall, hop over [it's lower the higher you go], Wet Withens is easily reachable: Follow what appears to be a natural dyke/bank for 200m [defined by the merciful absence of gorse, fern & heather], the site is atop the highest western point on the Moor.
I have to say the cup marks on both these stones look fairly convincing to me, the decorated upright nearby and the cup marked stone in the Wet Withens cairn demonstrates that there was certainly some tradition of carving stones in this area. I wonder if a thorough investigation of the moor would turn up more marked rocks?
Perhaps 20m NNW of the Stanage Cairn is a rock with a possible 10 cup marks on it's top, 5 of them are hidden under a carpet of heather.
There is a stone close-by that also has 'hollowed' marks but these are thought to be natural. Because of this second stone Barnatt and Chums are still debating whether the 10 cup marks are natural or not.
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