Images

Image of Rough Castles / Roughley Wood (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

View SW over the Roughley Wood landscape from the Settlement site, just W of A697. The prominent outline of Coe Crags and Long Crag lie above the southerly part of Thrunton Wood.

Image credit: Rockandy
Image of Rough Castles / Roughley Wood (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

Rough Castles 1; cup surrounded by a faint double ring cut through by quarrymen’s chisel holes on steeply-sloping west face of boulder. Another possible cup and ring to its left and two cups above. Grooves and basins on the upper part are probably the result of natural erosion.

Image credit: Rockandy
Image of Rough Castles / Roughley Wood (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

Rough Castle 1; west face of boulder showing sharply quarried N side, split S side and chisel marks. View towards A697 and wood behind.

Image credit: Rockandy
Image of Rough Castles / Roughley Wood (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

Rough Castles 1; cups and grooves on lower part of west face. Cup and likely double ring near the top are cut by the quarrymen’s chisel marks.

Image credit: Rockandy
Image of Rough Castles / Roughley Wood (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

Rough Castles 1; large extensively-quarried boulder from the south. View N down valley of the Coe Burn towards the prominent scarp of Titlington Pike (near Hunterheugh) and Bewick Hill in the far distance.

Image credit: Rockandy
Image of Rough Castles / Roughley Wood (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

Rough Castles 4; a large cup in the centre of a flat-topped boulder 1.5 by 1.0m . Smaller cups at S’most end possibly natural.

Image credit: Rockandy
Image of Rough Castles / Roughley Wood (Cup and Ring Marks / Rock Art) by rockandy

Rough Castles 4; view to N. The boulder lies 2m NE of a recently erected pylon line and 3.5m W of a marshy watercourse.

Image credit: Rockandy

Articles

Rough Castles / Roughley Wood

This area lies between Thrunton Wood and the main A697 roads which bounds it on the E side. Its location is north west of the Millstone Burn rock art site and west of Corby Crags and Caller Crags which are hidden by intervening high ground. It is effectively a poorly drained large sheep field with a few marshy streams feeding north into the Coe Burn which, further north joins the River Aln. Two Iron Age Enclosures are known on the ridge of Rimside Moor just west of the minor road, and adjacent to the main road, just north of the rock art, are another Enclosure and Settlement of undetermined age. There is no outcropping bed-rock but a large number of sandstone boulders of all sizes, several showing signs of quarrying.
The Beckensall Archive shows 5 marked boulders in this area, although even rock art enthusiasts would only get excited by two of them, Rough Castles 1 and 4. The former must have been a much larger boulder which has been cut by quarrying on two sides. The south side slice appeared to have broken when extracted and the central part removed. A series of wedge cuts have also been made from the top through the westerly face and carve straight through the main cup and ring motif. It is possible that a second ring is also present, although highly eroded. Clearly a large amount of carving has been lost both from this rock and possibly from others in the vicinity.

Sites within 20km of Rough Castles / Roughley Wood