but what *can you do to prevent this? short of removing the stones and replacing them with replicas. If some fwit wants to go to the bother of going up there armed with a can of paint, short of sitting there 24 hrs a day waiting to smash their tiny skulls on the rock carvings, what can you do?
rhetorical question but all suggestions welcome.

A'rite Moth... hope all went well with the great journey south. See you've got your computer sorted any'ow!

This sort of thing has been a problem on the moor for as long as I can remember..... but more so over the last few years. As you know, I wrote to Bradford Council regarding the damage to Willy Hall's Wood Stone, n' never even got an acknowledgement! EH don't seem to be in too much of a rush to find a way of cleaning it up either.

All that seems to happen is that there's a bit of a guffaw whenever something happens... then nothing till the next time. All too little, too late!

Although this may not stop graffiti on the moor, I'm sure that more education in schools on local historic culture may help to at least instill some pride in local monuments. Also, info boards on the main entrance points onto the moor, pointing out how rare and important the rock art is.... and how they are legally protected, may be a step in the right direction.

What gets me is that the council want to paint over the graffiti with stone paint!!! What about the bloody lichens that are considered so important at the Rollrights? Surely there's got to be a better way than stone paint.

Football yob culture - in the Neolithic they would have been outcast. But painting stones - with limewash, for one, burnt ochre for two, is as old as the stones themselves.

Setting up decoys helps to deflect the mindless ones, I've found. Also, and it may seem distasteful, a thriving market in Rock Art would help. If a carved stone were known to be worth '2', say, then the owner would take adequate steps to protect it - barbed wire fence, zero public access etc.

When I found the first cupmarked rocks at Knarsdale the landowner's kid uprooted a couple of dozen boulders and made them into three heaps. Now I've asked them to return them to their holes 'before Stan arrives'. A more likely outcome is getting my basecamp anonomously trashed.

The last time I was at the Swastika stone (end of May) I noticed it was littered with those round foil things from 'tea-light' candles.

And it looked like someone had encircled the image with a white substance. It appeared to be gradually fading... still apparent though :-(

Bastards.