Apologies to Baz for jumping in at a question directed to him, but I've got to point out that up in the RA zone of Northumberland, it's common to find areas which cry out for RA to be totally free of the things, even though there are other BA bits and bobs nearby. Often, it's the parts with the funny rock formations that are suspiciously free from adornment, which has led some to postulate that these areas were so special it was deemed inappropriate to carve upon them. Of course this is total speculation, and even if true wouldn't help much in supporting the idea of a prehistoric provenance for the Rowtor carvings.

I can't easily buy the idea that Rev. Eyre would have decided to put Irish Passage grave inspired carvings on an open air site in Derbyshire, but I guess it is theoretically possible. Then I wonder why if they are modern(ish) they look like they were pecked with a fairly blunt tool, not the kind of thing I'd associate with people who use iron tools, which anyone trying to implicate Druids in the 18thC would have probably used, as I am under the impression that even proto-druid-revivalists would have imagined something a bit more like the Rocky Valley carvings at Tintagel. But that's all just me filtering the stuff through my own bias. I loved Rowtor, didn't get to spend anywhere near enough time there.

On the subject of the strangeness of the larger motif, it had crossed my mind that the thing looks a bit like a flower with a cross. Like a rose and a cross? Rosy-cross - Rosicrucian. But I honestly can't place Rosicrucians in any sort of meaningful timeframe. When were they kicking about? And would they have carved something crudely onto a rock?