Images

Image of Middleton Bank Top (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by Jon Hills

While looking for ( and not finding) these panels, I found these cup marks, I’m pretty good at spotting the natural erosion here and these are too close together and in a non exposed place surrounded by bare rocks so I’m saying they are man made.

Image credit: Me
Image of Middleton Bank Top (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by Hob

Panel 1a with the crescent moon setting above the distant silhouette of Simonside.

Image credit: IH
Image of Middleton Bank Top (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by Hob

The view north, towards Simonside, from Middleton Bank Top. The silhouette of this hill may or may not have been a factor in the placement of this patch of rock art. But it keeps cropping up again and again, I reckon there’s something going on.

Image credit: IH
Image of Middleton Bank Top (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by Hob

Showing 2c in reference to 2a, which is just by the rucksack at the top. As you can see from the photo, there’s been a lot of quarrying around here, bits of rock art turn up in walls in a few of the farms around Shaftoe Crags.

Image credit: IH
Image of Middleton Bank Top (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by Hob

This paltry pair of cups nd a groove are not on the online archive, but if they were, they’d be Middleton Bank Top 2c.

Image credit: IH
Image of Middleton Bank Top (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by Hob

Water to impose an interpretation of what’s there.

Image credit: IH

Articles

Middleton Bank Top

The grid ref given in ‘Prehistoric rock art in Northumberland’ is incorrect. Presumably it’s a typo, as it’s exactly 1km out. The book says NZ0587 8395, the Beckensall Archive says NZ 05835 82943 for panel 1a and NZ 05713 82995 for panel 2a. A good tromp for exactly a kilometre in the wrong direction has proven to me that the Online archive is telling the truth. A subsequent trek about the same distance to the North west has proven to me that it’s a good idea to verify your co-ordinates after you’ve entered them into a gps in a hurry. The irony of the whole thing being, that when I finally found the darn things, I didn’t use a gps, the book, or the map. By that time I knew the area quite well, and there was only one outcrop I hadn’t checked, the one with the carvings. Bah!

Havings said all this, Neither are spectacular examples, being quite seriously eroded. The stone is soft around here. But both panels are a lot clearer than the one at the nearby Hallion’s rock . They’re reasonably accessible, especially when the vegetation is low, both are just off the footpath, one either side. Look out for the feeding trough.

Whilst not fantastically inspiring bits of rock art, they add to the general loveliness of the Shaftoe Crags area. Especially neat is the cleft of the ‘Long Byres’ just to the south west of these panels, which I defy anyone to deny as being a prime spot for any self-respecting hunter-gatherers to bed down for the night.

As usual for the area, there is an obligatory view of Simonside, silhouetted against the horizon, but this potentially significant view is annoyingly obscured by trees from panel 2a.

Sites within 20km of Middleton Bank Top