Corstorphine Hill Cup Marked Stone View all content for Corstorphine Hill

Corstorphine Hill Cup Marked Rock Friday 4/1/02 It's a glorious Winters morning as me, Aed and H-dog head up Corstorphine Hill for our mornings walk and in search of this cup marked rock. Due to the large boulders and tree roots the path's a bit bumpy for Aed's off-road buggy, but we all manage to get up to the main path along the crest of the Hill. I'm trying to use the OS map and a Corstorphine Hill map to find this site, but there are so many paths heading off through the trees- we head in the general direction of south and hope for the best. The other problem is that there are so many rock outcrops and glacial pavements up here. Thankfully, there are a couple of buildings on the west side of the Hill and working out their position realised that we've actually gone past the site. Using instinct and following H-dog we head back along a lower path and through the gorse bushes a huge stone pavement area opens up before us, covered in snow, ice and frost. We slowly make our way across this and I almost walk straight over the top of the cup marks! The rock they are on has been cleared of frost n snow, and the markings are fairly shallow, but small amounts of snow remain in the depressions picking out a pattern of 10 cup marks almost forming a circle with 8 markings on the diameter and 2 in the middle. The views from here are inspiring indeed and especially on a bright and bitterly cold day such as today. From the Pentlands to the left right round to the hills of Fife in the distance, just able to make them out through the frosty air. These cup marks were only rediscovered in 1991 and I would be very surprised if these are the only sacred markings on this hill- we passed literally hundreds of rock outcrops on the way up here, many of which are almost now covered in vegetation.

Posted by Martin 4th January 2002ce

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