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Wallington Hall

Wallington stone

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fitzcoraldo F
fitzcoraldo Apr 27, 2005 08:37:00
Replying to StoneLifter

Caves are generally formed by erosion, carved by the elements.

S StoneLifter
StoneLifter Apr 27, 2005 08:48:06
Replying to fitzcoraldo

There is erosion by many 'agencies'. Caves are formed by water movement, slowly, yet the hypothesised weathered grooves would likely be formed by freeze-thaw - which you wouldn't expect to see an enormous amount of in a cave. It's much easier to suppose that our ancestors were carving these gashes into stones, which were then set vertically, for a good symbolic reason. There's one of them among the Far House stones. One face is covered with cupmarks, two with grooves and the fourth with a teardrop-shaped figure. Although there are several teardrop-shaped cupmarks in the parish the archaeologists consider them natural erosion. They have no problem with the hundred and fifty simple 'ordinary' cupmarks on the other side of the stone, but the teardrop hollow is 'erosion'. Just daftness.

S StoneLifter
StoneLifter Apr 27, 2005 10:28:56
Replying to fitzcoraldo

Here's a nice stone. Half way up the groove - an artificially widened bedding joint - are two or three marks that look like the scars from a wedge or chisel. We know the people around here were carving stone moulds for copper or bronze casting (a mould was found in Croglin two miles away) so the stonecarvers must have been good, if not the best. This rock is Millstone Grit, the hardest sandstone, so it weathers well and the mark defines the stone so perfectly (I guess it was formerly upright) that natural forces shouldn't be suspected. Not far from it is a tall stone with a hole through the top, two Megalithic inches in diameter - but sadly no photographs of it yet. I'll post a picture of the Wogglestone, also part of this cluster, in two secs. It's cute (and entirely unvisited).