I think if anyone has looked at the alignments of the little rows at Lordenshaw, it's likely to be the chaps who studied the holed stone. I think one of them is still working in Newcastle.

Here's a thing: Apparently 'Sow' was the term used to describe the wood and hide constructions used in the attack of fortified buildings during the middle ages. The kind of thing that would be built to stop the defenders pouring boiling pitch etc. Maybe this Black sow isn't a pig. Maybe it's something that was used to attack a peel tower somewhere in the area, or even, at a right stretch of the imagination, Edlingham castle.