Buttony

Nearest town:
Coldstream (20km W)
OS reference:
NU017310
OS sheet:
75
Latitude:
55° 34' 21.11 N
Longitude:
1° 58' 22.93 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Buttony (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by Jon Hills

Buttony double cup and ring as I found it today (eventually)!

Image credit: Me
Jon Hills
Jon Hills Mar 6, 2025
Image of Buttony (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockartwolf

Buttony Rock Art Carvings, Northumberland.

All Rights Reserved

Image credit: © Brian Kerr Photography
rockartwolf
rockartwolf Mar 2, 2012
Image of Buttony (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by Hob

Gratuitous CnR on roof slate, with boot polish.

Image credit: IH
Hob
Hob Mar 4, 2006
Image of Buttony (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

Buttony 4. Close-up of E’most motif (smaller cup with 7 concentric rings and 2 radial grooves).

Image credit: Rockandy
R
rockandy Feb 1, 2006
Image of Buttony (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

Buttony 4. Close-up of W’most motif (cup with 8 concentric rings and 3 radial grooves).

Image credit: Rockandy
R
rockandy Feb 1, 2006
Image of Buttony (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

Buttony 1c; 4 elements on a near vertical surface joined below by a long groove.

Image credit: Rockandy
R
rockandy Feb 1, 2006
Image of Buttony (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

View SW towards Wooler and Cheviot from just outside Buttony plantation.

Image credit: Rockandy
R
rockandy Feb 1, 2006
Image of Buttony (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockartwolf

Buttony 2 i think... if not 2 then 7.

looking at archive and book..seems more like panel 2.

Image credit: Brian Kerr
rockartwolf
rockartwolf Jan 4, 2006

Articles

Buttony

Jon Hills
Jon Hills Mar 6, 2025

6th March 2025.
Heading from Newcastle in 4’ light frost on the high ground but good unseasonably warm day forecast. Steady wind from SW.
I’m going to assume you own and can use a map because you will want one. There is a lot to see in a small area and not all of it is obvious. Boots too, as in decent and waterproof, you may get away with sturdy trainers in summer. Bring water, no, more than that! Like 2lt min per person. You will know why on the way back!
Ok that’s the health and safety talk done. This is my second attempt to find Buttony rock art, the first, last October, on the hottest day for weeks, with insufficient water.
I parked in Doddington by the cross and water trough in the lay by. There are other lay bys and the golf club says it has parking and welcomes walkers, so if you are golf club material it might be worth a look. Anyway I headed up the lane past the first footpath sign (made that mistake last time, near vertical climb to start) and along the gently rising lane, past a bungalow with a fine carved bear in the front garden, and on past a woods to the clearly marked turn up to the golf club. Up you go, keep looking to the top and one foot in front of another. At the club car park you will see an obvious track heading up, there is a sign, it has a phone app thing for rock art Northumberland if that is something you could use (I was in signal the entire walk). As soon as it seemed decent (male 58, overweight, heavily tattooed), I ditched my Norge shirt due to warmth and it joined my woolly jumper in my bag for the rest of the day I got by in a base layer and wind proof anorak.
Onward and upwards you leave the golf land via a gate and turn left up again. Immediately in front of you in the rough beside the track is the “Main Stone” witch is riven with cups and lines, there is a hill fort in front of you towards the Cheviots. Up through the ramparts of the higher hillfort (lots of hut circles) you reach the trig point. Take your map (see intro) and orientate yourself. (OS 340) . I headed down towards the “stone circle (remains of)”, then through the gate and along the footpath beside the wire fence towards the copse with ww2 pill box to left, then across the field to the Buttony plantation. Now the fun starts. On the map the cup and ring marked stone is written outside the plantation to the South. This is a big lie. So best I can explain it, head for the gate near a shallow angle in the wall and follow the light track through the overgrown jumble of fallen pines and associated brambles etc, don’t wear your best clothes, gortex life expectancy in there 3 minutes, think Barbour jacket or army coat from back in the days when the army crashed through the woods scaring the bejesus out of us everyday folk when they emerged in full camouflage, but I digress, last time I gave up, due to hydration issues but must have walked within metres of the art. I noticed the first panel because I was searching for ANY rocks and saw some freshly cleaned rings under a less freshly fallen tree. Even then it took a while to find the double rings and other panel. Pine needles are the villains, a light dusting on the moss and it is the perfect camouflage. Point of fact, I stashed my bag to make searching easier, and a) had trouble finding my bag and b) had trouble finding the stones again. And I’m pretty handy in the woods. Note to self, camouflage bags have their drawbacks.
Basically you need to stay in the top third of the woods best you can for the fallen timber and stay in the right third of the woods but before the pheasant rearing contrivance and assorted plastic barrels nonsense.
Once I retrieved my bag and hand brushed and wetted the double rings I got some nice pictures, remember the water in the intro, I used 3/4 lt to get pictures. The panel next door was very mossy and I’m not that guy who goes round pulling it off for fun.
I feel it is a shame that this holy grail of Northumberland rock art is so lost in a smashed pine wood. I looked at the pictures on here from 20 odd years ago and it was lovely.
I headed back via the other pill box and skirted the high side of the hill fort with spectacular views and another cup marked panel, then back to the golf course gate and left just before it leading to another cup and ring panel then the steep decent back to Doddington joining the lane at the footpath sign I told you to walk by on the way. A great day, I saw several hares, some big hooked beak hovering birds, several ravens and had a really good day of it. Preparation and luck with the weather made it one to remember. This is no “ park up and gentle stroll” like Lordenshaws and I can’t stress enough that suitable footwear and plenty of water are needed, I nearly came unstuck in October when I didn’t believe the weather forecasts optimism and found myself getting heatstroke on a barren, windless moor a long way from my car, but that’s another story.

Buttony

pebblesfromheaven
pebblesfromheaven Apr 28, 2003

The outcrop of Buttony is now covered by trees, inhabited by deer (I heard one but couldn’t see it).
To find it from the southerly part of Gled Law look to the east, you can see a Pill Box on a hill. The Wooded area behind it contains the Rock Art. My OS map shows it as open countryside but the trees are quite mature.
To the southern edge of the wood is a gate, the rock art is up towards the north-west of the area.
The largest slab is open to the sky so is “spotlit” on a bright day; the two intertwined carvings are towards the top end of the outcrop.
Well worth stooping through the trees :-)

.o0O0o.

Miscellaneous

Buttony
Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art
rockartwolf
rockartwolf Feb 17, 2008

It has been two years since i took those last pictures of Buttony, so decided that the weather was perfect, conditions were perfect. This was the ideal time to try the side flash and it seems to have worked, after a few tries i managed to get the exact angle on the carvings that i needed. I was unlucky not to have caught a couple of stoats in shot, both ran right in front of us, one of them stopped on the panel, looked at us for a couple of seconds then ran off, just missed that shot.

Topics

Nice one Hob;-) 1
wolfnighthunter
wolfnighthunter
Mar 2006
Unfinished? 24
FourWinds
FourWinds
Jan 2006

Sites within 20km of Buttony

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