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In the pasture on the eastern bank of the Louther, In the way to Clifton, are several cairns, or carracks, as the Scotch call them, made of dry stones heaped together; also many other monuments of stones, three, four, five set upright together. They are generally by the country people said to be done by Michael Scot, a noted conjuror in their opinion, who was a monk of Holm abbey in Cumberland: they have a notion too that one Turquin, a giant, lived at Brougham castle; and there is a tower there, called Pagan tower; and Sir Lancelo de Lake lived at Mayborough, and flew him. Near Clifton is a famous spring, where the people go annually on May-day to drink, by custom beyond all remembrance: they hold it an earnest of good luck the ensuing year, to be there and drink of the water before sun-rise. This no doubt has been continued from British times, and is a remain of the great quarterly festival of the vernal equinox. William Stukeley, Iter Boreale (northern tour of 1725) p45
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Observations after a long overdue revisit in August 2008:-
After recently managing to see a sunset and a sunrise here, I found enough time to linger for long enough for some good pondering about this lovely lump of prehistoric stuff. It struck me that whilst the main panel has no views of the Cheviots (which it would have if the carvings had been on the outcrop on top of the hill), it's actually one of the subset of Northumbrian prehistoric sites that may have been placed with some reference to the hill of Simonside. You can't see Simonside when you're standing at ground level, but if you step up to the natural shelf on the south east side (which you can do without compromising the carvings, as the shelf has turf), you can see the distinctive profile of Simonside quite clearly.
Now this could be overactive associative neuronal stuff in my head, but even if that is the case, I'll claim that if you visit here, you can picture this stone as a nice spot for a bit of 'ritual activity' by some prehistoric spirit botherer, using the water from the natural basin for libatory purposes over the ancestral carvings, making invocations to some sky thingy or other as it descended to the sacred hill on the horizon. All the while casting a good dramatic silhouette to the audience on the pallisade of the strange double hillfort a few yards away.
Despite some effort, I can't manage to suss out any connection with the mysterious Cateran Hole on nearby Cateran Hill. Not even a very tenuous one. Obviously some more exploration of the bleaker bits of Bewick Moor are called for in order to evoke some imagination stimluation.
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There's a grainy, two tone image in a local guide to Columbkille that shows what really looks like a cup with a single ring and duct. The text implies it's a cross, but it really doesn't look like one. The slab is part of the roof of the souterrain which runs below the churchyard.
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I don't know who was responsible for the recent alterations, but well done whoever you are. The removal of the dodgy old sign did make me slightly wistful, as even though it was a bit of a vile old relic, it had a certain gravitas that seemed appropriate.
The removal of the fence and trees has improved the site in my opinion. Access is easier, there is now no impediment to getting to the outcrop from the road, and the removal of the tree has taken away the possibility of damage from it's roots. It also makes it possible to see the whole whaleback in one go, so visually, it's an unqualified success. It would be even better if the view had been restored, but the rest of the trees ain't doing no harm, if anything, they probably provide a bit of protection against the scouring effects of the Northumbrian Climate. The carvings have only been exposed for about 150 years, as Canon Greenwell reported removing 9 inches of turf, so it's probably for the best if the surrounding trees are left to do their own thing.
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Nice views of Cheviot, and before the trees, it would have been probably intervisible with Roughting Linn. Good access (we managed to get a 3 wheeler buggy up there, but a wheelchair wouldn't work) with public footpaths making it quite easy to get to from Roughting Linn, via Goatscrag.
The outcrops known as 1 and 2 are fairly easy to spot if the bracken isn't too high. I didn't get to panel 3, but there is only one conspicuous outcrop in the right area, so it's probably not too tricky either. In direct mid-day sun, the motifs of both 1 and 2 are almost invisible. I'd say anyone wanting to see the carvings would be well advised to time their visit to early morning or late evening, preferably earlier in the year when the bracken won't be a problem.
The carvings are quite eroded, and I found it tricky to reconcile what I saw with the complexity of the drawings by Beckensall, Tate and Bruce.
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The ideal spot for a rock shelter. South facing, with the ridge as a great barrier to the north winds, with a nice platform to lean logs against the cliff, could have made this a des-res in the days when rockshelters were the height of fashion. It's also got the obligatory excellent views of Cheviot and I think it would have been intervisible with the goings on at Roughting Linn. Though the carving of the outcrop at Roughting Linn most likely occurred a good while after Goatscrag was being used, there's a strong chance that the Roughting Linn outcrop had significance for long before it was chosen as a rock that needed to be marked with cups and rings.
One other interesting feature of the outcrop is the way that the dep fissures which are home to nesting birds channels the sound of hungry chicks, so that you can stand in one spot, moving your head from side to side, and whilst leaning left, silence, then when leaning to the right, loud chirruping. It gave me quite a start when walking past, there was a sudden blast of noise that vanished in a second. It probably hints at this having once been a good spot to go hunting for extra protein in the form of hidden eggy comestibles.
The deer carvings are so basic, and so anomalous. there have been doubts about their antiquity, but the crudity, and the definite weathering do give them a high likelihood of ancientness. Their anomalous nature, being one of the rare examples of representative rock carvings in not just Northumberland (where they are the only example of such), but in Britain and Ireland also, makes this a significant place. It's possible that the orientation of the cliff face which makes it so sheltered, it the reason why the carvings may have survived. it's equally possible that other similar surfaces once bore similar marks, but that the more exposed surfaces have long since been sandblasted by the elements, so that no trace of carvings remains. There are a few patches on the vertical surfaces of the Bowden Doors that would be good candidates for such unprovable claims.
Another thing that makes me lean towards the idea of the Goatscrag deer being prehistoric is the nature of the more standard abstract carvings on the outcrop above the shelter. The small cups with their horseshoe linking arcs remind me of Australian Aborigine motifs which are said to represent humans sitting in camps. It's a highly tenuous link, and it's supposed to be bad form to make anthropological comparison across space and time (for many good reasons), but hey, the pondering of improbables is a large part of the fun of going to look at ancient carvings.
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The carvings are on the very southernmost chunk of the ridge of outcrop. It's pretty easy to find, just off to the left of the path from the road. The trees have been thinned so it's not too difficult to get there, though it's steep when you get to the actual utcrop, so not suitable for anything with wheels, or those unsteady on the feet.
I got the distinct impression that the people who added the runes may have slightly enhanced the cup and ring, as the inner parts of the grooves look to have traces of metal tooling. I think they may have added the hotizontal line bistecting the motif, as it's very thin, doesn't look picked out, and seems to be an enhancement of a natural features on the surface of the rock. It's also unlike anything in any other RA in this part of the world.
It was nice to bump into the landowner who chatted for a couple of minutes explaining his awareness an interest in the carving, and he seemed quite chuffed to hear that it's the only one with runes next to it. Not quite a rosetta stone, but as close as we get.
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The last time I visited here, it was a very short visit, as it's tantalisingly close to a very picturesque parking spot on the road from Alnwick to Edlingham, and the short hop up to the outcrop only takes a minute or two, up the trackway past the remains of bell pits. It's not the best track in the world, a pushbike could make it, or a 3-wheeled buggy, but not a wheelchair. The incline isn't steep, but there is a need for hitching through or over a low wire fence, as the gate between the track and the outcrop seemed to be fixed shut.
The rock art is rather sub-standard, but the rock shelter and the outcrop itself are quite nice. The position in the landscape is unarguably the best aspect of the site. The view is very good.
I'm not sure what to make of the line pecked into the floor of the shelter. It's definitely pecked out, and looks very much like the kind of thing you'd see emerging from a cup and ring. Stan Beckensall has it as emerging from a 'shallow basin'. I'm not 100% with the basin idea. The presence of iron tool marks in the basin, combined with the fact that it's not convex, and is on a slope would make it a poor basin. It'd not hold water. There is a chance that the basin like area is the remains of a patch where the original surface has been removed. This raises the possibility that there was once a more cup and ring like motif here, removed in later years by whoever carved the rudimentary chair and the post slots under the overhang.
Between the shelter and the lovely view of Cheviot, is the standing stone. At first glance, I was a bit dismissive, as it's not overlarge, and there are larger boulderrs nearby that are just as upright. But closer inspection shows that it's out of place, and has a much higher than usual amount of quartz in it, making it look to me as it it could have been chosen as a suitably snazzy stone, then lugged here to mark the site as somewhere special.
The thing on the top of the outcrop does look like rock art, being one of those 'enhanced natural features' that can be so perplexing. But it must be an artificial groove around the basin. I did wonder why this basin was chosen for enhancement, when there are a couple of others that look like they'd do the job (whatever that is...) just as well. Maybe it's because of the direction of the natural groove, pointing down into the valley below. This valley looks intriguing. It's a bit reminiscent of the rockforms at Ketley Crag, full of jaggedy anthropomorphic outcrops, festooned with tumbled boulders, with many nooks and crannies that could easily be gateways to the underworld.
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Page mostly describes directions for a walk from 2004, but also includes a nice old photo before the modern mound was added.
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Ancient Sculpturings In Tiree. By Ludovic Maclellan Mann. From the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Vol. 56
February 13, 1922.
The article mentions (with illustrations) cup marked stones at Gott Bay, Cornaigmore, Cuigeas, including some on a Standing-stone at Balinoe and others on the natural rock surface of floor of Kirkapoll Chapel.
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I can't help but wonder if the following description of a stone by John Hodgson might be somehow connected with Fitz's cup marked stone:
In passing over Moor-Duvvoch in 1800 I had observed a stone which I then supposed had some characters upon it with which I was unacquainted. In walking from Askham to Pooleybridge on 3 May, 1811, in company with the Rev. John Collinson, rector of Gateshead, and the late Mr. Matthew Atkinson, I was anxious to have a second sight of it, but sought it in vain...
...I did not, in this search, forget to look for the stone that attracted my attention in 1800, and reached it soon, when I found it to be a large detached mass of grauwacke, shewing its conglomerate origin in several rings and segments of circles eaten by the weather into its surface as sharply as if they had. been cut with a sculptor's chisel; and thus the long-encouraged vision of a Saxon or Latin inscription in Runic, or some other antique characters, vanished in a moment. This stone is upon the side of an old road or cast a little south of the south end of Lord Lonsdale's fir plantations on Moor-Duvvoch.
The Rev H seems to be describing inscribed circles. Bear in mind he was writing a decade before the first recognition of Cup and ring marks as ancient artifacts.
Maybe there is hidden Rock Art out there on Moor Divock.
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