The “Deershed Plantation” stone nicely labelled left of the “Stamfordham” stone in the Stone Room of NUM.
rockartuk
Stan Beckensall in “Prehistoric Rock Art in Northumberland”, Tempus 2001, page 162:
“The earlier name of Deershed Plantation may have been ‘Island Plantation’. If so, it is the place where in 1934 Mr davidson reported ‘an unrecorded camp’and ‘the vest pocket edition sculptured rock found by Mr Wake and given to the Black Gate Museum’. The rock is now in the Museum of Antiquities, Newcastle.”
We photgraphed the “Deershed Plantation” stone in the ‘Stone Room’ (not open to the public) of the museum during the FMD-crisis in May 2001.
Lordenshaw-3q, lower part; the basin with surrounding cups.
Lordenshaw-3q, middle part with ‘normal’ and miniature cups
Lordenshaw, site 3q, November 2004.
The yellow square marks the rare horseshoe-like motif (2 cups connected by a curving groove). Similar motifs are found on top of Goatscrag Hill.
This sloping panel is located on the East-side of the Hill fort among other decorated outcrop rock. The panel is roughly divided into three area’s; the lower part with the basin, cups and a horseshoe-like motif, a middle section with a faint cup-and-ring and a mass of small cups and an upper part with a cup and ring and grouped cups.
I visited this site in August 1998 and wasn’t aware of the fact that it actually consists of 6 sites along a ridge in the field. We visited the site again in May 2004. Parked the car in the parking lot of the Wooler Golf Club and walked East, along the Hill Fort. This is a place of peace and tranquility and great rock art motifs! We even found a new small panel along site 1. The pics are in sequence, starting with the large panel along the stone wall to the last one (nr 6), a very small panel, in the field.
A probable new panel unearthed between the main site and the wall
We visited this remote site on 11 May 2004. Cutting down the forest on the leftside of the road towards the farm was in full progress. The first report of this site regarded a sandstone slab with a cup and four rings, found in the farmyard by L. Main. We spoke to the current owner (not a farmer!) but he was unaware of that slab. He had redecorated the yard and garden and had not seen a decorated stone. Bad luck!
The main site is a ridge with nice carvings. We lifted some turf and found cups with very clear peck-marks.
A bit to the North lies the wooded outcrop rock with cups in line.
The owner told us that the name “Blarnaboard” came from Gealic and meant something like: “Gathering of the Bards”. The place survived the Highland clearances because the old barn was used as a market place for the area.
