Hunterheugh 1. View SE from cup and ring marked outcrop. The sea is just visible in the far distance.
Image credit: Rockandy
R
rockandy
Massively carved outcrop near the Settlement at Hunterheugh Crags. Possibly, more ‘kitchen utensil’ than ‘rock-art’.
Massively carved outcrop near the Settlement at Hunterheugh Crags. Possibly more ‘kitchen utensil’ than ‘rock-art’.
Image credit: Rockandy
Location of rock basin W of ruin on Jenny’s Lantern.
Image credit: Rockandy
Large, carved rock basin near the hill top (NU 11847 15321). I wouldn’t like to guess at the archaeology but it appears to be on the edge of a rock-built platform of some kind of structure.
Image credit: Rockandy
View N from hilltop of Jenny’s Lantern towards the Hunterheugh area with its many panels of rock-art.
Image credit: Rockandy
Midstead 2. Close-up of cup-marked panel. View SW.
Image credit: Rockandy
Midstead 2. View SE from cup-marked panel towards Cloudy Crags above Alnwick.
Image credit: Rockandy
Midstead 2. Many cups on the flat surface of an outcrop.
Image credit: Rockandy
Midstead 5. Stan B. sees 9 cups, some pairs linked by grooves. I’m not sure I could interpret it in the same way but clearly something going on!
Image credit: Rockandy
Midstead 1. View S from the carved panel across the River Aln. Lamp Hill and Corby’s Crags just visible on the far horizon to the right.
Image credit: Rockandy
History of Northumberland Vol. 14 (1935)
A short distance north-east of the probable site of St. Edmund’s chapel and on the north side of Chatton Park Hill, or Chatton Law, as it is more commonly called, is a miniature corrie or dell scooped out of the hillside by diggers for sand or lead ore or by storm water rushing down the hill. A spring, now buried in sand, may once have flowed here and in the days of ‘the king’s wood of Chatton’ there can have been few better hidden or more secluded hollows in the district. The entrance is guarded by two rock buttresses rather like the abutments of a bridge, on one of which is a small post hole about seven inches deep and of unknown date and purpose. A little way further out where the dell begins to die away, two weather-worn blocks of freestone project from its eastern bank, and the top of one of them has been roughly hewn down so as to leave partly in relief the stone bowl shown below. The vessel is nearly circular and is two feet in external diameter and six and a quarter inches deep, with a nearly flat bottom and a surrounding groove, half of which has been deepened with a sharp pointed chisel at a later date. On the nearly flat top of the boulder, east of the basin, are two rough depressions which appear to be part artificial and which afford comfortable footholds to a person standing so as to face westwards over it. very diverse opinions have been expressed as to the date and purpose of this nameless and legendless monument and in the present state of our knowledge it is best to leave these as open questions. The name Ketley or Kettley applied to this side of Chatton law has been said to be a corruption of cat Law (which occurs as a place-name in Chatton in 1616, see above) but some have seen in it an allusion to the stone bowl or ‘kettle’ while others think that it is related to the Scots word caterthun.
Image credit: History of Northumberland (1935) vol.14 p.204
Provides a readable interpretation of the sequence of rock carving on the outcrop arising from an excavation by Clive Waddington in 2004.
Rock surfaces carved in the early Neolithic (Phase 1) were later partially quarried and new symbols applied to the exposed surfaces. The Phase 2 carvings are more varied but more crudely executed and take less account of the rock surface. Shortly after they were made, it is likely that they were covered by a cairn incorporating an Early Bronze Age burial cist positioned in a cleft between massive slabs of quarried rock, some with the ancient cup and ring markings. At a much later stage, the outcrop and cairn was embedded into field boundaries of the Iron Age or Romano-British period which may have been partly protective from more extensive quarrying.
The changes in carving between the two phases may imply that the original significance had been lost by the Bronze Age but the power of an already ancient place was adopted to provide a ceremonial monument for the dead.
Hunterheugh 1. View form the outcrop S towards the Tittlington Burn and the hills of Jenny’s Lantern. The outcrop was carved, quarried, some surfaces adorned with newer carvings (including the double figure visible in the foreground) and surmounted by a cairn and burial cist during the Bronze Age. A natural rock basin contains water at the back. There is an extensive view from the site; from the hills to the W, to the valley of the Eglingham Burn (which joins the River Aln at Alnwick) and the coast to the E.
Image credit: Rockandy
Hunterheugh 1. Cup and ring marked rock with strings of cups linked by grooves running down the rock surface, probably representing the early phase of rock carving at the site. This surface was illustrated by Stan Beckensall (2001) as Hunterheugh 1b. There is a cluster of cups on the higher (right) side. Linked cups run down the slope of the rock towards an heavily eroded cup with a faint double ring and a deep cup surrounded by a faint ring partly made up from an arc of small cups on its left-hand side. An arc of three cups runs towards the eroded motif from a higher boss of the rock surface, each cup getting shallower and equally spaced.
Image credit: Rockandy
Hunterheugh 1. Small punch marks are found on parts of the same outcrop. Other groups of similar markings are also present. What is their significance and are they from the same period as the rock carvings or were they made in more recent times. The patterns don’t appear wholly random and look very fresh.
Image credit: Rockandy
Hunterheugh 1. Heavily eroded cup and ring motifs from the earliest phase of rock carving, some of which was subject to later quarrying. Some of the quarried surfaces were adorned in a later phase of carving with new and more crudely-made motifs before being covered by a burial cairn dated to the Bronze Age.
Image credit: Rockandy
Hunterheugh 1. N’most of the two motifs shown in a previous photograph and illustrated by Stan Beckensall as Hunterheugh 1d. The figure has two cups around which a freshly-pecked, shallow groove winds getting fainter to the W (right) side where it appears to end in a weakly-made rectangular shape. The motif was, before excavation, partially covered by a dispersed Bronze Age cairn.
Image credit: Rockandy
Hunterheugh 1. Southerly of the two motifs shown in a previous photograph and illustrated by Stan Beckensall as Hunterheugh 1d.
Image credit: Rockandy
Hunterheugh 1. Heavily eroded cup and ring motifs probably from the first phase of rock carving at this site. The figure on the left has a cup surrounded by two closed, pennanular rings; that on the right has a faint, pecked groove running down the rock surface. Other, eroded cup and rings can be seen above. A similar photograph appears in the British Archaeology article linked from the Beckensall Archive site.
Image credit: Rockandy
Hunterheugh 1. Two large motifs delicately picked on a previously quarried rock surface and partially covered by the Bronze Age cairn removed during excavation. Both motifs are arranged in the same direction showing some similarities but also clear differences in design. That on the left (N’most) is much finer with a faint serpentine groove showing many individual pick marks and apparently incomplete. A prsistine but weakly made cup and ring can be seen above the left hand figure and more heavily eroded (?older) motifs on the rock surface below.
Image credit: Rockandy
Hunterheugh 1. A deeply hacked cup and ring motif uncovered by excavation in 2004. It is interpreted as being from the second phase of rock carvings on the outcrop, made on a previously quarried surface where older carvings may have been removed. Pick marks are clearly visible in the deep cup, inner and partial-outer rings.
Image credit: Rockandy
Situation of the large (possibly cup-marked) boulder situated on the N bank of the Fallowlees Burn (NZ 01277 93129). View from the bridle-path on the S side of the valley with the rock just below centre of the photograph, close to the forest edge.
Image credit: Rockandy
Group of three ?cup marks on the top surface of a prominent, rounded boulder situated on the N bank of the Fallowlees Burn close to the edge of Harwood Forest (NZ 01277 93129). There are probably natural erosion features. The rock must be in its natural position and in winter hardly catches sunlight in the depths of the stream valley.
Image credit: Rockandy
Large perched boulder on the N bank of the Fallowlees Burn close to the edge of Harwood Forest (NZ 01277 93129) with two groups of possible cup-marks.
Image credit: Rockandy
Managed to follow-up my exploring around the Fontburn Reservoir area. These findings are in the area S of the Fallowlees Burn, W of the main cup-marked boulder described by Beckensall as Fontburn b. There is little surface rock on much of the moorland and there also appears to be some limestone in the SE which may account for natural erosion patterns on some rocks, the presence of sink holes in some areas, and the location of the reservoir.
Hob’s grooved boulder, at the centre of a denuded cairn, is located further E of his reference within the enclosure that is crossed by the wall. The grid reference is approximately NZ 027 936. It lies just below a prominent double knoll E of the bridlepath which turns from a junction to run (largely invisible on the ground) in a NW direction.
Further W, a rock with clear cup-marks (see photo) lies within the rectangular improved field at grid reference NZ 01667 93254, close to the line of bridlepath, about 60m S of a gate in the NW fence. This small, flat rock is, I think, previously undescribed. It bears 2 deep and up to 3 shallow cups. It may also have come from a cairn, now dispersed. The field contains other small cairns (which may be from field clearance) and enclosure banks.
Near to the point that the Fallowlees Burn emerges from the gloom of the conifers of Harwood Forest there is, about 10m N from a prominent bend in the stream, a large, rounded boulder perched on a bed of what looks like horizontal limestone (NZ 01277 93129). It is probably a stone perched by glacial action. Markings on the top surface are probably natural erosion.
If these new markings are confirmed, the cup-marked stones in the Fallowlees/Fontburn region appear to lie on both banks of the Burn marking its course from the W. Marked rocks appear again SW of the Forest in the intricate cup and ring markings of Tod Crag which has been suggested may lie on the course of an old routeway.
A new cup-marked rock from the area S of the Fallowleas Burn. The small rock lies within the rectangular improved field at approximate grid reference NZ 917 932, close to the bridlepath.
Image credit: Rockandy
Fontburn d; view E from cup-marked boulder (in site of denuded cairn) towards the site of another cairn and Fontburn Reservoir. The main cup-marked rock (Fontburn b) is adjacent to the conifer plantation on the far right.
Image credit: Rockandy
Image credit: Rockandy
Image credit: Rockandy
View NE towards Alnwick from the Millstone Burn rock-art site.
Photo taken 05/03/2004
Image credit: Rockandy
Aron & Stan baffled
The “Picasso” face carving. Knew I’d seen it somewhere.
“... it is believed that the newly-discovered mystery marks could be much younger, with the heart and the face shapes potentially as little as 100-250 years old.”
View S towards the Simonside Hills from West Hills Fort, Thropton. Ditches of the Iron Age Hillfort are in the foreground. Phot taken 06/02/2004.
Image credit: Rockandy
View N towards Cheviot from West Hills Iron Age Hillfort, Thropton
06/02/2004
Image credit: Rockandy
Image credit: Rockandy
I took this in February 2004 at West Hills Cairn and took it to be modern vandalism? Stan and Aron were baffled – see posted link.
Image credit: Rockandy
Image credit: Rockandy
Image credit: Rockandy
This photo was taken in February 2004 from a location on Chirnells Moor. The nearest match I can find from the position I remember, and by comparison of images in the Beckensall archive, is to the panel, Chirnells h.
Image credit: Rockandy
Chirnells Moor n; a cup and ring marked boulder almost hidden in the heather just NE of the wall bounding the main Chirnells site, SW of Football Cairn.
Image credit: Rockandy
Can’ t add much to the pictures already posted of this marvellous site but felt we had to record the prehistoric Ministry of Works sign that provides interpretation. We perhaps won’t be able to read it for much longer and it might (should) be replaced with something much more worthy of this, one the best sites of rock art in the country. The markings are clearly very susceptible to wear and environmental damage.
Image credit: Rockandy
Another possibly cup-marked boulder on S side of Fallowlees Burn, I think nearer to the wall than the one described by Hob, but I failed to get an exact location.
Image credit: Rockandy