Filename,Caption,Description,ERA ID,SAM Ref,Beckensall ID,Local SMR/HER Ref,Subject Keyword 1,Subject Keyword 2,Subject Keyword 3,Period Term 1 (MIDAS),Period Term 2 (MIDAS),Period Term 3 (Other),Period Start Date (BC date should be prefixed using a minus symbol).,Period End Date (BC date should be prefixed using a minus symbol).,Creator First Name,Creator Last Name,Creator Organisation,Copyright Holder First Name,Copyright Holder Last Name,Copyright Holder Organisation,Location,Longitude (LL),Latitude (LL),Easting (OSGB),Northing (OSGB),Creation Date (dd/mm/yyyy),Software,Software Version,Language
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m001_BarninghamMoor101_ND_T5.jpg,Barningham Moor 101,"A large flat stone measuring 2 x 1.3 m, now mostly under turf.

This is an extremely difficult carving to describe, mainly because of the complexity of grooves and cups that have been incorporated into the design. In simple terms, the motifs consist of approx eighty three cups of varying size, distributed across the stone, with the northern end being the busier half. Of the eighty three, thirteen have rings, ten of which appear to have been carved in relief. For these particular features the un-carved ring attracts the eye.

By far the most noticeable design element, is the network of intricately carved grooves that incorporate approx forty six cups and nine rings. In some places, cups act as nodes with grooves branching out in different directions to join other cups, and elsewhere, grooves enclose other motifs. Only twenty one out of eighty three cups haven’t been included in the grooves or adorned with rings. Towards the south end, a natural depression has been enhanced (peck marks visible) and a groove leads into it from the main design. Several other areas also have peck marks visible.

The difference in complexity between this carving and every other known example on Barningham Moor is stark, as the majority are relatively simple in design with less than 15% displaying even a single ring. There are certain similarities between this stone and carvings found in the Feldom Range area a few miles east, where several examples of cup covered stones with complex interlinking grooves can be found.

Another point worthy of note, is its position close to one of two penannular carvings on Barningham, as both stones are ‘complex’ and show signs of possible later motifs being added.",ERA-904,30480,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,Durham,,,,,,,,
m002_BeanleyMoor1_BA.jpg,Beanley Moor 1,"An amazingly well-preserved panel which has been covered by turf and heather cover and little disturbed. As an example of detailed cup and penannular design in pristine condition it is almost without peer.

The stone displays a beautifully and precisely carved cup and duct motif with multiple penannulars (six) carved into softer sandstone through a thin layer of hard and flat, almost crystalline, surface material. There are also four large cups, one of which has a ring, and another is noticeably conical in formation.

The incisions into the stone appear in some places to be made by a broader implement than a pecking tool. Straight edge cuts may be seen on more than one penannular. Pecking in other places, the contained cup and other penannular grooves, shows the small holes of a pointed implement.

The main duct is crossed at right angles by another groove that captures between it and the main motif, a well formed and deep cup at one side of the duct and an area of possibly damaged surface with indentations, to the other. Beyond this groove and either side of the continuing duct are two large and deep cups. One has a ring and is noticeably flat bottomed but without any lip to suggest natural formation. The other is large and deep with a conical profile. Other small cups and shallow grooves are visible.

Views are excellent to the east, north to Ros Castle and also south toward Ringses hill fort. An ancient field wall of large boulders passes close by and there is much evidence of a substantial cairn field, likely to have contained burial cairns.",ERA-1097,,326,,Art on a portable stone,,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Hedgeley, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.848172,55.459337,,,,,,
m003_BeanleyMoor1_BA.jpg,Beanley Moor 1,"An amazingly well-preserved panel which has been covered by turf and heather cover and little disturbed. As an example of detailed cup and penannular design in pristine condition it is almost without peer.

The stone displays a beautifully and precisely carved cup and duct motif with multiple penannulars (six) carved into softer sandstone through a thin layer of hard and flat, almost crystalline, surface material. There are also four large cups, one of which has a ring, and another is noticeably conical in formation.

The incisions into the stone appear in some places to be made by a broader implement than a pecking tool. Straight edge cuts may be seen on more than one penannular. Pecking in other places, the contained cup and other penannular grooves, shows the small holes of a pointed implement.

The main duct is crossed at right angles by another groove that captures between it and the main motif, a well formed and deep cup at one side of the duct and an area of possibly damaged surface with indentations, to the other. Beyond this groove and either side of the continuing duct are two large and deep cups. One has a ring and is noticeably flat bottomed but without any lip to suggest natural formation. The other is large and deep with a conical profile. Other small cups and shallow grooves are visible.

Views are excellent to the east, north to Ros Castle and also south toward Ringses hill fort. An ancient field wall of large boulders passes close by and there is much evidence of a substantial cairn field, likely to have contained burial cairns.",ERA-1097,,326,,Art on a portable stone,,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Hedgeley, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.848172,55.459337,,,,,,
m004_Brackenheads3_ND_T3.jpg,Brackenheads 3,"This is a flat boulder with motifs concentrated at one end leaving large flat area unadorned. The decorated area does have layers of large quartz crystals which could make cutting the stone very difficult. Six large and deep cups are arranged at the eastern point of panel. Five cups are about 0.11 m in diameter and 0.06 m deep; the other is marginally smaller. Some are paired, linked by grooves. Many small voids in cup wall previously classed as peck marks are more likely to be erosion holes left by quartz crystal dropout. The markings are very deep and make this a very visually attractive panel. Large expanse of panel surface available for decoration - but untouched.

Five other cup marked panels are within 50 m of this panel, but are of poorer quality and with smaller cups.

Cups are well-defined, appear conical and are exceptional in this small site.
Cup dimensions: cup 1 - 0.07m by 0.06m by 0.025m, cup 2 - 0.10m by 0.08m by 0.04m, cup 3 - 0.11m by 0.09m by 0.05m, cup 4 - 0.11m by 0.09m by 0.05m, cup 5 - 0.11m by 0.09m by 0.05m, cup 6 - 0.11m by 0.09m by 0.05m.",ERA-2028,,,D6603,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Marwood, Teesdale, Durham",-1.976235,54.604622,,,,,,
m005_Buttony4_BA_ADM.jpg,Buttony 4,"Very attractive distinct pair of side by side cup and ring motifs, both with two distinct radial grooves that dominate this panel. The left hand motif has seven very distinct complete rings plus an outer incomplete penannular which terminates near its intersections with the radial grooves. The right hand motif also has seven distinct and complete rings but its two radial grooves are orientated differently. There is very faint third radial groove in the right hand motif. The bottom halves of both motifs were covered in composting pine needles

At the top of the panel there is a symmetrical domino pattern of six cups and a random cluster of three large cups.",ERA-80,ND218,64,N3889,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.972481,55.573016,,,,,,
m006_Buttony4_ND_T2.jpg,Buttony 4,"Very attractive distinct pair of side by side cup and ring motifs, both with two distinct radial grooves that dominate this panel. The left hand motif has seven very distinct complete rings plus an outer incomplete penannular which terminates near its intersections with the radial grooves. The right hand motif also has seven distinct and complete rings but its two radial grooves are orientated differently. There is very faint third radial groove in the right hand motif. The bottom halves of both motifs were covered in composting pine needles

At the top of the panel there is a symmetrical domino pattern of six cups and a random cluster of three large cups.",ERA-80,ND218,64,N3889,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.972481,55.573016,,,,,,
m007_CarrHillFrankhamFella_BA_ADM.jpg,Carr Hill a,"A carved area of outcrop with cup and four rings on W side with a groove running to the N. To the NE at a lower level is a cup and three rings with a faint groove running to the E. Erosion on S end away from motifs.

Beckensall Archive suggests the rock has been relocated but probing with a skewer suggests it may be bedrock.",ERA-1462,,737,,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Warden, Tynedale, Northumberland",-2.178845,55.018844,,,,,,
m008_Chatton1a_BA.jpg,Chatton 1a,"This is a gently sloping outcrop which is flush with surrounding turf (no edges). The surface has shallow undulations corresponding to erosion edges of bedding planes and natural erosion channels are present across entire surface. Motifs include two parallel domino-arrangements: ""double four"" and ""four, one"". There is also single cup with two penannulars, a multiple ring motif with five rings, a multiple penannular with three rings, and two keyholes each with two annuli. The most elaborate motif is a cup with seven rings, the outer two rings separate out on the west side to curve round and incorporate a cup. A groove leads from the central cup east down the stone. One of the motifs recorded is a new find, difficult to see except in good light. Graffiti is present. The sense of space, the use of the natural basin and channel are all important parts of the design. Unfortunately, the nineteenth century saw people trying to lay a claim to cheap immortality by bringing up tools to carve their names and the date on the rock.",ERA-121,ND147A-C,214,N3414A,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.880018 ,55.555105,,,,,,
m009_Chatton1a_BA.jpg,Chatton 1a,"This is a gently sloping outcrop which is flush with surrounding turf (no edges). The surface has shallow undulations corresponding to erosion edges of bedding planes and natural erosion channels are present across entire surface. Motifs include two parallel domino-arrangements: ""double four"" and ""four, one"". There is also single cup with two penannulars, a multiple ring motif with five rings, a multiple penannular with three rings, and two keyholes each with two annuli. The most elaborate motif is a cup with seven rings, the outer two rings separate out on the west side to curve round and incorporate a cup. A groove leads from the central cup east down the stone. One of the motifs recorded is a new find, difficult to see except in good light. Graffiti is present. The sense of space, the use of the natural basin and channel are all important parts of the design. Unfortunately, the nineteenth century saw people trying to lay a claim to cheap immortality by bringing up tools to carve their names and the date on the rock.",ERA-121,ND147A-C,214,N3414A,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.880018 ,55.555105,,,,,,
m010_Corbridge_BA_SB.jpg,Corbridge,"A stone block with rounded corners, currently sitting on top of walling within Coria / Corstopitum Roman museum.

The motifs consist of a groove enclosing 10 cups of varying size and depths, with one possibly incorporated into the enclosing groove and another is oddly keyhole shaped. Twelve further cups, again of varying size and depths have been placed outside the groove. The design covers the available surface of the stone and this could be its original shape.

The stone is extremely friable and sand grains can be seen in the bottom of most cups, whether this accounts for the depths of some is open to question. Peck marks may also be present, but these small indentations may be the result of pitting due to the stones friability.

A flat triangular stone with several circular artificial holes was initially recorded at NY9826764830, some 18 metres east-south-east. A later visit recorded these as being more Roman than prehistoric. A massive block of sandstone lies on the foundations of buildings to the north of Stanegate within the Roman settlement of Coria. It is not possible to say whether the Romans cut it from outcrop rock to incorporate in the building; it seems most likely that prehistoric people made the pattern on this flat-topped boulder, as the design has not been cut up. The site is a multi-phase one, with both Mesolithic and Iron Age represented.",ERA-715,ND23,751,N9043,Art in a structure,,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Corbridge, Tynedale, Northumberland",-2.027079,54.978,,,,,,
m011_DodLawExcavationSiteRockB_BA.jpg,Dod Law Excavation Site B,"The cups are quite pronounced but the rings are faint. Some surface damage, with erosion near southern cluster, and turf encroachment. This outcrop was uncovered during excavation, and has a spread of motifs (B1 - B3).",ERA-49,ND94,31,N3792A,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.993607,55.579615 ,,,,,,
m012_DodLawMainRockA_BK.jpg,Dod Law Main Rock A,"Almost rectangular and horizontal panel with three different levels - corresponding to three phases of quarrying. Divided by crack across middle which is now filled with turf. Several long curving grooves have been carved around the motifs. The discovery of this impressive rock is described by Tate (1865): ""It was almost entirely covered over with turf till 1855, when it was observed by Mrs Procter, who caused part of it to be cleared; another portion was cleared in the course of this present year, and now an area 16 feet by 8 feet is exposed, covered with figures. The overlying peat which has preserved these singular sculptures, was from a few inches to one foot in depth…Three other groups of figures, curved and irregular forms, are on the scalp of the same rock, but at some distance from each other- Plate VI, figs. 2,3,4. Twenty - four figures are traceable on these stones.""

Tate (1865) and Bruce (1869) drew the rock, and it is clear that part of it has been removed since then. The main difference from what we see today is that part of the western motifs have gone.

Another important observation is that there are three levels of the rock surface, and that the main motifs occupy the lowest level, well-preserved by peat and turf, and deeply pecked into the rock. The right corner of the drawing shows that some cups and partial rings have eroded considerably, or were pecked on lightly. A possible explanation for this is that some rock with older motifs was removed, and new motifs put on at a lower level in prehistoric times. Why? This happened at Fowberry Plantation and at Gayles Moor (Richmondshire). The Fowberry example is particularly striking, because a rectangular block has been removed and a motifs with every pick-mark fresh have been placed at the base of the space left, with eroded motifs on the old surface having similar designs of cups and rings. An explanation is that the rock slab with motifs was deliberately removed for incorporation in a monument.

This important, elaborate rock art panel, viewed from the east to appreciate its designs, gives only a limited view of the Milfield Plain, although the Cheviots and scarp edge are in sight. It occupies a place that has all-round views of the landscape.",ERA-53,ND94,35,N3972B,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.992132,55.579157,,,,,,
m013_DodLawMainRockA_BA_SB.jpg,Dod Law Main Rock A,"Almost rectangular and horizontal panel with three different levels - corresponding to three phases of quarrying. Divided by crack across middle which is now filled with turf. Several long curving grooves have been carved around the motifs. The discovery of this impressive rock is described by Tate (1865): ""It was almost entirely covered over with turf till 1855, when it was observed by Mrs Procter, who caused part of it to be cleared; another portion was cleared in the course of this present year, and now an area 16 feet by 8 feet is exposed, covered with figures. The overlying peat which has preserved these singular sculptures, was from a few inches to one foot in depth…Three other groups of figures, curved and irregular forms, are on the scalp of the same rock, but at some distance from each other- Plate VI, figs. 2,3,4. Twenty - four figures are traceable on these stones.""

Tate (1865) and Bruce (1869) drew the rock, and it is clear that part of it has been removed since then. The main difference from what we see today is that part of the western motifs have gone.

Another important observation is that there are three levels of the rock surface, and that the main motifs occupy the lowest level, well-preserved by peat and turf, and deeply pecked into the rock. The right corner of the drawing shows that some cups and partial rings have eroded considerably, or were pecked on lightly. A possible explanation for this is that some rock with older motifs was removed, and new motifs put on at a lower level in prehistoric times. Why? This happened at Fowberry Plantation and at Gayles Moor (Richmondshire). The Fowberry example is particularly striking, because a rectangular block has been removed and a motifs with every pick-mark fresh have been placed at the base of the space left, with eroded motifs on the old surface having similar designs of cups and rings. An explanation is that the rock slab with motifs was deliberately removed for incorporation in a monument.

This important, elaborate rock art panel, viewed from the east to appreciate its designs, gives only a limited view of the Milfield Plain, although the Cheviots and scarp edge are in sight. It occupies a place that has all-round views of the landscape.",ERA-53,ND94,35,N3972B,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.992132,55.579157,,,,,,
m014_EastLordenshaw4e_ND_T3.jpg,East Lordenshaw 4e,"A large area of steeply sloping bedrock outcrop of white sandstone.

Similar to East Lordenshaw 4f, this panel has large and small cups arranged at the highest section. This panel has, in addition, definitely enhanced drainage channels, some cups with definite rings, and grooves which cross the face of the panel to link cups and other grooves. A plant like stemmed appearance is obtained. All motif other than some deep cups are faint evidencing prolonged exposure to natural surface rounding by weather. The sandstone promontory on which Lordenshaw stands is to the north east of the Simonside --Dove Crags range of hills. Its north west and south east flanks drop respectively to Whitton Dean, a tributary of the Coquet and to a narrow glaciated valley overlooked to the east by another outlying sandstone hill that rises to the same height as Lordenshaw. There is a rise to the hillfort from the south west, then the land slopes away to the north east, finger-like, to the Whitton Burn.

This raised, prominent extension of the Simonside Hills reaches 268m.OD, and is made up of outcrop Fell sandstone, with only a thin layer of acidic soil. There are patches of bright orange soil thrown up by rabbits, and a dark grey soil elsewhere.

The whole area has archaeology of many different periods, one of the most recent and most significant being the clearance of much of the land to the east for ‘improvement’ for the growing of grain on a regular close-running rig and furrow system. This must have destroyed some surface archaeology, and may have resulted in some of the stone heaps that could also be prehistoric burial mounds.

Prominent on the hilltop is a ‘fort’, a ditched Iron Age enclosure that has been re-used as a Romano-British settlement. The slope southwards to the modern road and car park has many field walls, some of cobble and soil construction, and others of vertically--set sandstones. Some of these walls cross one another, and represent different episodes in the use of the land.

The oldest features belong to the late Neolithic period, represented by cup and ring marked rocks over a wide area. The motifs vary from simple cups to more complex ringed cups and grooves, but there is a characteristic regional phenomenon of long grooves or channels that follow the slope of the outcrop sheets on the east side of the hill.

It is impossible to date outcrop markings, but in this area three possible early bronze age cairns have been built on marked outcrop rock, showing that the latter are either contemporary or earlier, and also showing that the sites were already of great importance in the landscape before the cairns were added.

All the marked rocks in situ are at prominent viewpoints, some commanding many miles of territory. A few cupped rocks in the hillfort allow the possibility that some marked surfaces may have been destroyed during its construction, and the medieval Deer Park wall may account for others being broken up and reused.
Modern quarrying has certainly taken its toll, especially on the north west, where masses of freestone have been removed, leaving holes in the ground like bomb craters, and the main block of rock art (2c) bears every sign of the quarrying process. Add to that a network of other walls, including those for sheilings (temporary herds’ houses and gardens), and it is likely that we have lost a large proportion of rock art.",ERA-1276,,570,,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Hollinghill, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.910696,55.288633,,,,,,
m015_FowberryEnclosure1_BA_ADM.jpg,Fowberry Enclosure 1,"Coarse-grained pink-hued sandstone panel showing extreme erosion in exposed parts leading to pock-marked, lumpy surface. Some motifs under turf showing much less erosion. Multiple plough scratches across surface of panel",ERA-206,,203,N3347,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Lilburn, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.95616,55.530479,,,,,,
m016_FowberryEnclosure1_BA_SB.jpg,Fowberry Enclosure 1,"Coarse-grained pink-hued sandstone panel showing extreme erosion in exposed parts leading to pock-marked, lumpy surface. Some motifs under turf showing much less erosion. Multiple plough scratches across surface of panel",ERA-206,,203,N3347,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Lilburn, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.95616,55.530479,,,,,,
m017_GledLaw2a_BA_ADM.jpg,Gled Law 2a,"This panel has two large cup and ring motifs, one with maximum diameter of 1.1 m and eight rings with 'y'-shaped grooved through the centre. A smaller set, adjacent to the south east, comprises the remnants of five rings, maximum diameter 0.8m. The carved rock, which retains two sets of motifs, shares the largest number of concentric circles in northern England.

led Law is the continuation of the Dod Law scarp SW, with a similar view across the Till valley to the west, and sight of the river as it breaks through the scarp from the east to Weetwood Bridge. It is divided from the Buttony sites to the east by a small stream and valley.

Although motifs on it have disappeared, George Tate (1865) has left an account and drawings of them. He says, ""On the scalp of the rock where it dips into the hill, four figures are traceable; but from being very much defaced, it is difficult to make out these forms, even when viewed under a favourable light"". The figures that he draws are a cup and ring, a cup, ring, a second interrupted ring from which curved grooves extend, a cup and three concentric rings, and a cup and two concentric rings. On the perpendicular western face he found and drew some other designs which are not of the same type; he thought them more likely to be medieval. The importance of this place therefore continued, and from it the Milfield Plain and Cheviots are viewed.

The landscape has changed since then, in that some monuments have been cleared away. The most recent disturbance is the laying of a gas pipeline. The ritual significance of the area is suggested by reports of burials.

At NU 00570 30620 (Mill Lands), W Procter reported that "" In 1867 a cist was uncovered by the plough in a field near this (Gled Law) quite close to 'Cuddy's Cove'. Greenwell wrote, ""The cist was found on June 21, 1867, in a sandy knoll rising from the River Till and in close proximity to one of the rocks engraved with the circular markings"". This has gone.

Davison and Davison (1935-6) said that ""evidence still exists to show that Gled Law was used for burial purposes. It would be interesting to excavate at least two of the large mounds on the hill, either of which may be a barrow.""

It is likely that more archaeology has been destroyed or covered over. For example, Mr Davison also recorded ""One cup with a faintly discernible ring"" where it is now pasture.

Mr. Tate reported that by 1868 ""seven groups of inscriptions have recently been discovered. In this assemblage of sculptures, there are traceable thirty-six figures, mostly typical forms; yet in some cases, so varied and combined, as to present new figures."" Plate V shows them, drawn from rubbings made by Mr. William Procter, Jnr. Mr. Bruce also drew some of them.

The figures on Gled Law Site 2a in my illustration, with its three radial grooves, was discovered by Mrs. Procter. Mr. Tate says, "" The whole of these sculptures were rudely formed, the incisions are shallow, and the tool marks distinct; the circles are irregular and had evidently been drawn without instrumental aid."" He also noted that, ""About fifty yards from these sculptures, Mr. Procter has recently discovered the fragments of a sepulchral urn of the ordinary ancient British type."" His observations on how the motifs were made suggests that the rocks had been covered over for some time, leaving the motifs more or less in their pristine state. What Mr. Tate considered ""rudely formed"" means that no attempt had been made to deepen or smooth the cups and grooves; they were left with the pick marks clear.",ERA-95,ND154,48,N3797,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.985393,55.569945,,,,,,
m018_GledLaw2a_BA_ADM.jpg,Gled Law 2a,"This panel has two large cup and ring motifs, one with maximum diameter of 1.1 m and eight rings with 'y'-shaped grooved through the centre. A smaller set, adjacent to the south east, comprises the remnants of five rings, maximum diameter 0.8m. The carved rock, which retains two sets of motifs, shares the largest number of concentric circles in northern England.

led Law is the continuation of the Dod Law scarp SW, with a similar view across the Till valley to the west, and sight of the river as it breaks through the scarp from the east to Weetwood Bridge. It is divided from the Buttony sites to the east by a small stream and valley.

Although motifs on it have disappeared, George Tate (1865) has left an account and drawings of them. He says, ""On the scalp of the rock where it dips into the hill, four figures are traceable; but from being very much defaced, it is difficult to make out these forms, even when viewed under a favourable light"". The figures that he draws are a cup and ring, a cup, ring, a second interrupted ring from which curved grooves extend, a cup and three concentric rings, and a cup and two concentric rings. On the perpendicular western face he found and drew some other designs which are not of the same type; he thought them more likely to be medieval. The importance of this place therefore continued, and from it the Milfield Plain and Cheviots are viewed.

The landscape has changed since then, in that some monuments have been cleared away. The most recent disturbance is the laying of a gas pipeline. The ritual significance of the area is suggested by reports of burials.

At NU 00570 30620 (Mill Lands), W Procter reported that "" In 1867 a cist was uncovered by the plough in a field near this (Gled Law) quite close to 'Cuddy's Cove'. Greenwell wrote, ""The cist was found on June 21, 1867, in a sandy knoll rising from the River Till and in close proximity to one of the rocks engraved with the circular markings"". This has gone.

Davison and Davison (1935-6) said that ""evidence still exists to show that Gled Law was used for burial purposes. It would be interesting to excavate at least two of the large mounds on the hill, either of which may be a barrow.""

It is likely that more archaeology has been destroyed or covered over. For example, Mr Davison also recorded ""One cup with a faintly discernible ring"" where it is now pasture.

Mr. Tate reported that by 1868 ""seven groups of inscriptions have recently been discovered. In this assemblage of sculptures, there are traceable thirty-six figures, mostly typical forms; yet in some cases, so varied and combined, as to present new figures."" Plate V shows them, drawn from rubbings made by Mr. William Procter, Jnr. Mr. Bruce also drew some of them.

The figures on Gled Law Site 2a in my illustration, with its three radial grooves, was discovered by Mrs. Procter. Mr. Tate says, "" The whole of these sculptures were rudely formed, the incisions are shallow, and the tool marks distinct; the circles are irregular and had evidently been drawn without instrumental aid."" He also noted that, ""About fifty yards from these sculptures, Mr. Procter has recently discovered the fragments of a sepulchral urn of the ordinary ancient British type."" His observations on how the motifs were made suggests that the rocks had been covered over for some time, leaving the motifs more or less in their pristine state. What Mr. Tate considered ""rudely formed"" means that no attempt had been made to deepen or smooth the cups and grooves; they were left with the pick marks clear.",ERA-95,ND154,48,N3797,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.985393,55.569945,,,,,,
m019_GledLaw2a_BA_SB.jpg,Gled Law 2a,"This panel has two large cup and ring motifs, one with maximum diameter of 1.1 m and eight rings with 'y'-shaped grooved through the centre. A smaller set, adjacent to the south east, comprises the remnants of five rings, maximum diameter 0.8m. The carved rock, which retains two sets of motifs, shares the largest number of concentric circles in northern England.

led Law is the continuation of the Dod Law scarp SW, with a similar view across the Till valley to the west, and sight of the river as it breaks through the scarp from the east to Weetwood Bridge. It is divided from the Buttony sites to the east by a small stream and valley.

Although motifs on it have disappeared, George Tate (1865) has left an account and drawings of them. He says, ""On the scalp of the rock where it dips into the hill, four figures are traceable; but from being very much defaced, it is difficult to make out these forms, even when viewed under a favourable light"". The figures that he draws are a cup and ring, a cup, ring, a second interrupted ring from which curved grooves extend, a cup and three concentric rings, and a cup and two concentric rings. On the perpendicular western face he found and drew some other designs which are not of the same type; he thought them more likely to be medieval. The importance of this place therefore continued, and from it the Milfield Plain and Cheviots are viewed.

The landscape has changed since then, in that some monuments have been cleared away. The most recent disturbance is the laying of a gas pipeline. The ritual significance of the area is suggested by reports of burials.

At NU 00570 30620 (Mill Lands), W Procter reported that "" In 1867 a cist was uncovered by the plough in a field near this (Gled Law) quite close to 'Cuddy's Cove'. Greenwell wrote, ""The cist was found on June 21, 1867, in a sandy knoll rising from the River Till and in close proximity to one of the rocks engraved with the circular markings"". This has gone.

Davison and Davison (1935-6) said that ""evidence still exists to show that Gled Law was used for burial purposes. It would be interesting to excavate at least two of the large mounds on the hill, either of which may be a barrow.""

It is likely that more archaeology has been destroyed or covered over. For example, Mr Davison also recorded ""One cup with a faintly discernible ring"" where it is now pasture.

Mr. Tate reported that by 1868 ""seven groups of inscriptions have recently been discovered. In this assemblage of sculptures, there are traceable thirty-six figures, mostly typical forms; yet in some cases, so varied and combined, as to present new figures."" Plate V shows them, drawn from rubbings made by Mr. William Procter, Jnr. Mr. Bruce also drew some of them.

The figures on Gled Law Site 2a in my illustration, with its three radial grooves, was discovered by Mrs. Procter. Mr. Tate says, "" The whole of these sculptures were rudely formed, the incisions are shallow, and the tool marks distinct; the circles are irregular and had evidently been drawn without instrumental aid."" He also noted that, ""About fifty yards from these sculptures, Mr. Procter has recently discovered the fragments of a sepulchral urn of the ordinary ancient British type."" His observations on how the motifs were made suggests that the rocks had been covered over for some time, leaving the motifs more or less in their pristine state. What Mr. Tate considered ""rudely formed"" means that no attempt had been made to deepen or smooth the cups and grooves; they were left with the pick marks clear.",ERA-95,ND154,48,N3797,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.985393,55.569945,,,,,,
m020_GledLawN01_ND_T1.jpg,Gled Law N01,"New panel found during NADRAP survey

Three single cup and ring motifs heavily peck marked with a large single penannular, totally under turf. Numerous scratch marks present",ERA-382,,,,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.986201,55.571806,,,,,,
m021_Hollinside_ND_T2.jpg,Hollinside Farm 1,"The panel was first discovered on a visit to a Tyneside farm by County Archaeologists. It had been unloaded from the JCB which had been its means of transport, onto an old sofa in the farm grounds. The current owner says it had been brought from a site near Belsay circa 2004 (where he was involved in contracted work) thus preventing it from destruction. It has now been placed as a feature on a gravel base outside the farmhouse. The actual find site is not known. It may have originally been outcropping rock or a detached slab, possibly from a cist.",ERA-578,,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Gateshead, Tyne and Wear",-1.707305,54.934269,,,,,,
m022_Hunterheugh1_ND_T2.jpg,Hunterheugh 1,"A large outcrop that was cleared of vegetation during the excavation by Clive Waddington in 2004. His interpretation was of at least two phases of carving. The older carvings appear more eroded and designed for the surfaces on which they were carved, with individual motifs interrelated and often connected. In general, the more pristine motifs are widely spaced, are seldom connected and have not been combined to make an artistic whole decorating the rock surface. Waddington's interpretation was that these motifs were probably more recent, and carved in a different tradition, maybe to replace older carvings that had been removed. They were probably covered soon after they were made by the building of a large Bronze Age burial cairn which had protected them from subsequent erosion.

Motifs Q and L, partially covered by the dispersed cairn, were originally described as Hunterheugh 1d by Beckensall (2001). Water flows in an interesting manner along the concentric rings and connecting grooves of motif Q from a deep cup at one end of the groove system, but whether this was ever the intention must be uncertain. The serpentine groove of motif L is, however, much more shallow and perhaps unfinished.

Large number of motifs including single cups, clusters of cups, cups with single and double rings and more complex variations. Some of the more pristine motifs which were previously covered show tool marks. Hunterheugh 1 was excavated by Clive Waddington together with Aron Mazel and Ben Johnson in March and April 2004. Clive Waddington has published a [http://rockart.ncl.ac.uk/interactive/documents/outreach/Hunterheugh_BAarticle.pdf,short report] on the excavation in British Archaeology (2004, vol 78), and together with Aron Mazel and Ben Johnson (2005, in press) has prepared a detailed report on the excavation that will be published in Archaeologia Aeliana.

Following a visit to Hunterheugh 1 after the excavation, Stan Beckensall prepared a short report on his observations. This report is presented below.

PREHISTORIC ROCK ART AT HUNTERHEUGH CRAGS

Stan Beckensall (April 2004)

1. Background exploration.

The first reference to rock markings at Hunterheugh is in the Northumberland County History, which says, ‘There are indications of plain cups on the wide expanse of rocks near the top of the hill, but in the absence of rings or ducts there remains an element of doubt about them.’ No precise location was given, and as the outcrop is extensive, this could refer to the excavated site or to an outcrop with cup marks to the NW by the public footpath to Eglingham.

Tim Gates’ discovery during the survey for a gas pipeline survey of decorated rock among cairns to the north of the excavated site was unpublished. Paul Frodsham showed me a slide of this site, which led to my investigation, recording and publication of rock art on that northern hill site. Another site that I discovered has now been excavated. Only those parts protruding from stone and vegetation were drawn: the rest was left for excavation. My recording (Beckensall, 1995) included the Gates’ discovery. New discoveries by the public footpath to the NW appeared in Beckensall (2001), but the whole rocks were not drawn – only those parts with motifs. This followed some very significant discoveries on Beanley Moor to the north that have been recorded for the Archive.

The potential of the Hunterheugh 1 site for significant new information lay in its being decorated outcrop on which a cairn was built. This links it with sites such as Lordenshaw, Fowberry, The Ringses and Dod Law, where the same phenomenon occurs (Beckensall 2001). The relationship between decorated outcrop and a cairn is best seen at Fowberry, where a double kerbed cairn with cup-marked kerbs and more elaborate cup and ring marked cobbles was excavated on top of a long decorated outcrop. There was no sign of a burial there, and the only diagnostic find was a flint scraper sealed under the edge of the cairn stones. Hunterheugh 1 provided an opportunity for more information on the relationship between cairns and outcrop. There have been many marked stones found in cairnfields recently, some embedded in cairn structures, throughout Northumberland.

2. The making of motifs

Much of the decorated rock surfaces had been recorded before the excavation, but new panels and motifs emerged.

There are two distinct features: motifs that appear faint and warn by weathering, and pristine motifs that show clearly how they were made, with tool marks visible. Such features appear at all rock art sites.
The ‘faintness’ of a motif may be the result of erosion; ridges and grooves become smoothed by water action as a result of long exposure. For how long, we do not know. The other reason is that the motifs were pecked on only lightly – tentative, unfinished sometimes.

The most important example in Northumberland of both erosion and fresh pecking is at North Plantation, Fowberry, where decorated outcrop incorporated into an Iron Age (?) enclosure has had a slab of its surface removed and a freshly-pecked motif made on the exposed base (Beckensall 2001). It has been suggested that such a removed slab might have been used as a cist slab or as a kerb.

‘Fresh’ motifs exhibit all the stages of their making; it is possible to deduce what kinds of tools were used. At Hunterheugh 1, as well as at other sites, the tool appears to be either a punch like a blunt nail or a wider chisel-shaped edge. In some cases both types have been used on the same motif, or by one tool that could do both. As these presumably belong to a pre-metal age, we assume the tool to be made of a rock harder than the Fell Sandstone sheets of outcrop, such as whinstone, and to have been impacted with a mallet or used as a hand tool with a pad to protect the palm. There have been recent experiments to produce such effects. What is strange is that no tool has been found on a site, with the possible exception of Dod Law (Beckensall 2001), although this has an uncertain context.

Motifs were not added to the rock without consideration of the form of the rock itself, and often the natural configuration would determine the arrangements of the motifs. The most satisfying designs (to the modern eye) are those that use to the full the surface irregularities and slopes. Slope is particularly important, as grooves running from cups follow the rock downwards, and the spacing of motifs may take into account the natural divisions formed by cracks.

At Hunterheugh 1 there are two kinds of surface: a fairly continuous smooth, sloping area with few natural irregularities, and rather lumpy surfaces. There are also hollows used to counter-sink motifs

3. Description of the motifs

The most complex motifs are those to the east on a step in the rock, and they face east. No new ones other than cups and a cup and ring were found further east, and they were on a step down, part of the same section of outcrop. The cairn lay on the continuation of the north complex motif, and there were a few other minor cups and cups and rings to the immediate west. All these motifs are ‘fresh’.

The two major motifs are distinctly different, although clearly arranged in the same direction, facing east in a slight flat hollow that today drains rain water from them. The southerly design has clear chisel-like and punched tool marks. At the centre is a cup towards which a radial groove runs but does not reach beyond the inner ring. The cup is the centre of two penannulars which are looped at their ends. A very thin groove from the cup reaches a bar running from one end of the inner penannular to the other, preventing the opening to the cup from being a complete ‘keyhole’ construction. The inner groove on the right runs further down the rock, and opposite to it some tooling has been placed to allow water to drain out of the motifs, left. An extra concentric outer arc was not meant to continue around the whole figure; it stops at a crudely-cut basin in which the chisel tool marks have cut into layered sedimentary rock. Outside this, left, are two cups, and above is a group of three. On the slightly raised rock to the west are three linked cups in a row and a pecked cup and ring,

The northern motif, although sharing some of these characteristics, is different. In the former, the tool marks are much more definite and heavy; here, although the serpentine grooves are a feature, they are made with a very fine pick, becoming fainter towards the north. A recessed cup and another cup form an asymmetric centre to a looped groove that encloses them, twisting to echo the linked penannulars of the first figure, but continuing fainter to loop around in a bisected circle with a faint cup.

The two motifs share sufficient characteristics to make it possible to assume that they were made at the same time, despite the contrast in picking techniques, and are aligned together. The north one has a made hollow in the same direction as the one to the south. On a slight rise there is a pristine pecked cup and ring and a cup. At a lower level on a step are two cups and a cup and ring.

The motifs are unusual and special even in a county that surprises by the variations that prehistoric people managed to get out of simple symbolism, but lie outside the cairn.

Further west on another level of rock is a deeply hacked motif discovered by excavation. It is a deep cup connected by an angular grove of the same depth to a cup with a thin ring around it. Its depth makes it stand out, on a north-south alignment, following the shape of the rock.

Also to the east on the north side is a roughly rectangular block that has much fainter, eroded cup and single ring motifs, those at the eastern edge in a line. Other small cup and single ring motifs appear on the same rock. These too were discovered by excavation. Why they should be fainter than the more complex motifs may be accounted for by their being on the outside of the cairn, and thus exposed.

Immediately west is a triangular shaped outcrop sandwiched between the cracks formed by lines of bedding, on which is a heavily-pecked cup and rings and a cup. There is some iron in the rock here, and the cutting of the motifs must have called for more strength and persistence. As all the pick marks are clear, it is possible that this part of the rock was covered over early in its history.

At the centre of the site is an already-recorded group of faint simple cup marks, with a deeper ‘new’ cup on its north edge.

The remaining decorated surfaces lie to the west. Most of these are recorded as rock 1a, b, and c. To the south a new series of motifs was excavated, all at a lower level than the others. In a long naturally sunken recess a cup surrounded by a pecked circle is the beginning of a heavily pecked, long groove like a stretched triangle. On either side the cup has two motifs of the cup and ring type, and other cups already drawn.

North of this, in the same alignment, is a panel of cups and linked cups already recorded (as 1b). A strong feature of this is the way the cups are clustered at the top of the rock, then linked like a necklace, running down the slope to link up with a cup and two concentric rings and a cup with a faint ring that is unfinished as an arc of small cups marks where the groove was planned to be.

The last area of rock to the north-west has been recorded at the top as 1e, with a packed cluster of cups. The newly exposed section on the slope to the north has cup and ring mark designs, some with grooves from the central cup, and all faint. The largest has a cup and two concentric rings.

4. Conclusion

The excavation has produced only a few additional cups and cup and ring marks, but this has completed the total picture of what is on the rock surfaces. My report, submitted with detailed drawings and photographs, has drawn attention to the fact that it is not possible to make any observations about chronology from the evidence of pristine and worn motifs, as erosion is bound to affect exposed rocks. It is up to the excavators to relate any other finds to a possible sequence of events. I am not confident from what I have seen at the site that this is going to be possible. Even the most preserved motifs are those not actually covered by the cairn, and their preservation will have to be accounted for by natural covering of, for example, wind-blown soil and vegetation.

Evidence of quarrying on the total mass of rock is ambiguous. Questions that I would ask are: what tools were available in Neolithic or early Bronze Age times (the possible age of the rock markings) to split rocks along their seams? The whole area has been re-used by generations after the rock art was put there, for there is a high concentration of enclosures for stock and for settlement, including a field wall that uses the outcrop and cairn as a guide.

The excavation is only a glimpse. More work will have to be done, for example on the cairns and rock art on the hill to the north and on the enclosures themselves to find some answers.

Drawing of enclosure marked rock

It is significant that the rock art extends into the Iron Age (?) enclosures themselves: a group of domino cups, similar to those on Chatton Park Hill and Dod Law have now been recorded among grooves that are partly natural and partly artificial enclosures. A considerable amount of stone has been quarried from the wider area to build stockades/enclosures, and one wonders whether the excavated rock may have provided some.

Our archive for rock art includes panels further to the east and to the north west. It now includes a panel on the outcrop edge of one enclosure to the west. It is possible that any future excavation that concentrates on the enclosures will find rock art that has been taken from elsewhere and used as building material or has been deliberately incorporated because it was recognised as a significant part of the past.",ERA-473,,337,N4402,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Hedgeley, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.814237,55.444794,,,,,,
m023_Hunterheugh1_BA.jpg,Hunterheugh 1,"A large outcrop that was cleared of vegetation during the excavation by Clive Waddington in 2004. His interpretation was of at least two phases of carving. The older carvings appear more eroded and designed for the surfaces on which they were carved, with individual motifs interrelated and often connected. In general, the more pristine motifs are widely spaced, are seldom connected and have not been combined to make an artistic whole decorating the rock surface. Waddington's interpretation was that these motifs were probably more recent, and carved in a different tradition, maybe to replace older carvings that had been removed. They were probably covered soon after they were made by the building of a large Bronze Age burial cairn which had protected them from subsequent erosion.

Motifs Q and L, partially covered by the dispersed cairn, were originally described as Hunterheugh 1d by Beckensall (2001). Water flows in an interesting manner along the concentric rings and connecting grooves of motif Q from a deep cup at one end of the groove system, but whether this was ever the intention must be uncertain. The serpentine groove of motif L is, however, much more shallow and perhaps unfinished.

Large number of motifs including single cups, clusters of cups, cups with single and double rings and more complex variations. Some of the more pristine motifs which were previously covered show tool marks. Hunterheugh 1 was excavated by Clive Waddington together with Aron Mazel and Ben Johnson in March and April 2004. Clive Waddington has published a [http://rockart.ncl.ac.uk/interactive/documents/outreach/Hunterheugh_BAarticle.pdf,short report] on the excavation in British Archaeology (2004, vol 78), and together with Aron Mazel and Ben Johnson (2005, in press) has prepared a detailed report on the excavation that will be published in Archaeologia Aeliana.

Following a visit to Hunterheugh 1 after the excavation, Stan Beckensall prepared a short report on his observations. This report is presented below.

PREHISTORIC ROCK ART AT HUNTERHEUGH CRAGS

Stan Beckensall (April 2004)

1. Background exploration.

The first reference to rock markings at Hunterheugh is in the Northumberland County History, which says, ‘There are indications of plain cups on the wide expanse of rocks near the top of the hill, but in the absence of rings or ducts there remains an element of doubt about them.’ No precise location was given, and as the outcrop is extensive, this could refer to the excavated site or to an outcrop with cup marks to the NW by the public footpath to Eglingham.

Tim Gates’ discovery during the survey for a gas pipeline survey of decorated rock among cairns to the north of the excavated site was unpublished. Paul Frodsham showed me a slide of this site, which led to my investigation, recording and publication of rock art on that northern hill site. Another site that I discovered has now been excavated. Only those parts protruding from stone and vegetation were drawn: the rest was left for excavation. My recording (Beckensall, 1995) included the Gates’ discovery. New discoveries by the public footpath to the NW appeared in Beckensall (2001), but the whole rocks were not drawn – only those parts with motifs. This followed some very significant discoveries on Beanley Moor to the north that have been recorded for the Archive.

The potential of the Hunterheugh 1 site for significant new information lay in its being decorated outcrop on which a cairn was built. This links it with sites such as Lordenshaw, Fowberry, The Ringses and Dod Law, where the same phenomenon occurs (Beckensall 2001). The relationship between decorated outcrop and a cairn is best seen at Fowberry, where a double kerbed cairn with cup-marked kerbs and more elaborate cup and ring marked cobbles was excavated on top of a long decorated outcrop. There was no sign of a burial there, and the only diagnostic find was a flint scraper sealed under the edge of the cairn stones. Hunterheugh 1 provided an opportunity for more information on the relationship between cairns and outcrop. There have been many marked stones found in cairnfields recently, some embedded in cairn structures, throughout Northumberland.

2. The making of motifs

Much of the decorated rock surfaces had been recorded before the excavation, but new panels and motifs emerged.

There are two distinct features: motifs that appear faint and warn by weathering, and pristine motifs that show clearly how they were made, with tool marks visible. Such features appear at all rock art sites.
The ‘faintness’ of a motif may be the result of erosion; ridges and grooves become smoothed by water action as a result of long exposure. For how long, we do not know. The other reason is that the motifs were pecked on only lightly – tentative, unfinished sometimes.

The most important example in Northumberland of both erosion and fresh pecking is at North Plantation, Fowberry, where decorated outcrop incorporated into an Iron Age (?) enclosure has had a slab of its surface removed and a freshly-pecked motif made on the exposed base (Beckensall 2001). It has been suggested that such a removed slab might have been used as a cist slab or as a kerb.

‘Fresh’ motifs exhibit all the stages of their making; it is possible to deduce what kinds of tools were used. At Hunterheugh 1, as well as at other sites, the tool appears to be either a punch like a blunt nail or a wider chisel-shaped edge. In some cases both types have been used on the same motif, or by one tool that could do both. As these presumably belong to a pre-metal age, we assume the tool to be made of a rock harder than the Fell Sandstone sheets of outcrop, such as whinstone, and to have been impacted with a mallet or used as a hand tool with a pad to protect the palm. There have been recent experiments to produce such effects. What is strange is that no tool has been found on a site, with the possible exception of Dod Law (Beckensall 2001), although this has an uncertain context.

Motifs were not added to the rock without consideration of the form of the rock itself, and often the natural configuration would determine the arrangements of the motifs. The most satisfying designs (to the modern eye) are those that use to the full the surface irregularities and slopes. Slope is particularly important, as grooves running from cups follow the rock downwards, and the spacing of motifs may take into account the natural divisions formed by cracks.

At Hunterheugh 1 there are two kinds of surface: a fairly continuous smooth, sloping area with few natural irregularities, and rather lumpy surfaces. There are also hollows used to counter-sink motifs

3. Description of the motifs

The most complex motifs are those to the east on a step in the rock, and they face east. No new ones other than cups and a cup and ring were found further east, and they were on a step down, part of the same section of outcrop. The cairn lay on the continuation of the north complex motif, and there were a few other minor cups and cups and rings to the immediate west. All these motifs are ‘fresh’.

The two major motifs are distinctly different, although clearly arranged in the same direction, facing east in a slight flat hollow that today drains rain water from them. The southerly design has clear chisel-like and punched tool marks. At the centre is a cup towards which a radial groove runs but does not reach beyond the inner ring. The cup is the centre of two penannulars which are looped at their ends. A very thin groove from the cup reaches a bar running from one end of the inner penannular to the other, preventing the opening to the cup from being a complete ‘keyhole’ construction. The inner groove on the right runs further down the rock, and opposite to it some tooling has been placed to allow water to drain out of the motifs, left. An extra concentric outer arc was not meant to continue around the whole figure; it stops at a crudely-cut basin in which the chisel tool marks have cut into layered sedimentary rock. Outside this, left, are two cups, and above is a group of three. On the slightly raised rock to the west are three linked cups in a row and a pecked cup and ring,

The northern motif, although sharing some of these characteristics, is different. In the former, the tool marks are much more definite and heavy; here, although the serpentine grooves are a feature, they are made with a very fine pick, becoming fainter towards the north. A recessed cup and another cup form an asymmetric centre to a looped groove that encloses them, twisting to echo the linked penannulars of the first figure, but continuing fainter to loop around in a bisected circle with a faint cup.

The two motifs share sufficient characteristics to make it possible to assume that they were made at the same time, despite the contrast in picking techniques, and are aligned together. The north one has a made hollow in the same direction as the one to the south. On a slight rise there is a pristine pecked cup and ring and a cup. At a lower level on a step are two cups and a cup and ring.

The motifs are unusual and special even in a county that surprises by the variations that prehistoric people managed to get out of simple symbolism, but lie outside the cairn.

Further west on another level of rock is a deeply hacked motif discovered by excavation. It is a deep cup connected by an angular grove of the same depth to a cup with a thin ring around it. Its depth makes it stand out, on a north-south alignment, following the shape of the rock.

Also to the east on the north side is a roughly rectangular block that has much fainter, eroded cup and single ring motifs, those at the eastern edge in a line. Other small cup and single ring motifs appear on the same rock. These too were discovered by excavation. Why they should be fainter than the more complex motifs may be accounted for by their being on the outside of the cairn, and thus exposed.

Immediately west is a triangular shaped outcrop sandwiched between the cracks formed by lines of bedding, on which is a heavily-pecked cup and rings and a cup. There is some iron in the rock here, and the cutting of the motifs must have called for more strength and persistence. As all the pick marks are clear, it is possible that this part of the rock was covered over early in its history.

At the centre of the site is an already-recorded group of faint simple cup marks, with a deeper ‘new’ cup on its north edge.

The remaining decorated surfaces lie to the west. Most of these are recorded as rock 1a, b, and c. To the south a new series of motifs was excavated, all at a lower level than the others. In a long naturally sunken recess a cup surrounded by a pecked circle is the beginning of a heavily pecked, long groove like a stretched triangle. On either side the cup has two motifs of the cup and ring type, and other cups already drawn.

North of this, in the same alignment, is a panel of cups and linked cups already recorded (as 1b). A strong feature of this is the way the cups are clustered at the top of the rock, then linked like a necklace, running down the slope to link up with a cup and two concentric rings and a cup with a faint ring that is unfinished as an arc of small cups marks where the groove was planned to be.

The last area of rock to the north-west has been recorded at the top as 1e, with a packed cluster of cups. The newly exposed section on the slope to the north has cup and ring mark designs, some with grooves from the central cup, and all faint. The largest has a cup and two concentric rings.

4. Conclusion

The excavation has produced only a few additional cups and cup and ring marks, but this has completed the total picture of what is on the rock surfaces. My report, submitted with detailed drawings and photographs, has drawn attention to the fact that it is not possible to make any observations about chronology from the evidence of pristine and worn motifs, as erosion is bound to affect exposed rocks. It is up to the excavators to relate any other finds to a possible sequence of events. I am not confident from what I have seen at the site that this is going to be possible. Even the most preserved motifs are those not actually covered by the cairn, and their preservation will have to be accounted for by natural covering of, for example, wind-blown soil and vegetation.

Evidence of quarrying on the total mass of rock is ambiguous. Questions that I would ask are: what tools were available in Neolithic or early Bronze Age times (the possible age of the rock markings) to split rocks along their seams? The whole area has been re-used by generations after the rock art was put there, for there is a high concentration of enclosures for stock and for settlement, including a field wall that uses the outcrop and cairn as a guide.

The excavation is only a glimpse. More work will have to be done, for example on the cairns and rock art on the hill to the north and on the enclosures themselves to find some answers.

Drawing of enclosure marked rock

It is significant that the rock art extends into the Iron Age (?) enclosures themselves: a group of domino cups, similar to those on Chatton Park Hill and Dod Law have now been recorded among grooves that are partly natural and partly artificial enclosures. A considerable amount of stone has been quarried from the wider area to build stockades/enclosures, and one wonders whether the excavated rock may have provided some.

Our archive for rock art includes panels further to the east and to the north west. It now includes a panel on the outcrop edge of one enclosure to the west. It is possible that any future excavation that concentrates on the enclosures will find rock art that has been taken from elsewhere and used as building material or has been deliberately incorporated because it was recognised as a significant part of the past.",ERA-473,,337,N4402,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Hedgeley, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.814237,55.444794,,,,,,
m024_Hunterheugh1_BA_ADM.jpg,Hunterheugh 1,"A large outcrop that was cleared of vegetation during the excavation by Clive Waddington in 2004. His interpretation was of at least two phases of carving. The older carvings appear more eroded and designed for the surfaces on which they were carved, with individual motifs interrelated and often connected. In general, the more pristine motifs are widely spaced, are seldom connected and have not been combined to make an artistic whole decorating the rock surface. Waddington's interpretation was that these motifs were probably more recent, and carved in a different tradition, maybe to replace older carvings that had been removed. They were probably covered soon after they were made by the building of a large Bronze Age burial cairn which had protected them from subsequent erosion.

Motifs Q and L, partially covered by the dispersed cairn, were originally described as Hunterheugh 1d by Beckensall (2001). Water flows in an interesting manner along the concentric rings and connecting grooves of motif Q from a deep cup at one end of the groove system, but whether this was ever the intention must be uncertain. The serpentine groove of motif L is, however, much more shallow and perhaps unfinished.

Large number of motifs including single cups, clusters of cups, cups with single and double rings and more complex variations. Some of the more pristine motifs which were previously covered show tool marks. Hunterheugh 1 was excavated by Clive Waddington together with Aron Mazel and Ben Johnson in March and April 2004. Clive Waddington has published a [http://rockart.ncl.ac.uk/interactive/documents/outreach/Hunterheugh_BAarticle.pdf,short report] on the excavation in British Archaeology (2004, vol 78), and together with Aron Mazel and Ben Johnson (2005, in press) has prepared a detailed report on the excavation that will be published in Archaeologia Aeliana.

Following a visit to Hunterheugh 1 after the excavation, Stan Beckensall prepared a short report on his observations. This report is presented below.

PREHISTORIC ROCK ART AT HUNTERHEUGH CRAGS

Stan Beckensall (April 2004)

1. Background exploration.

The first reference to rock markings at Hunterheugh is in the Northumberland County History, which says, ‘There are indications of plain cups on the wide expanse of rocks near the top of the hill, but in the absence of rings or ducts there remains an element of doubt about them.’ No precise location was given, and as the outcrop is extensive, this could refer to the excavated site or to an outcrop with cup marks to the NW by the public footpath to Eglingham.

Tim Gates’ discovery during the survey for a gas pipeline survey of decorated rock among cairns to the north of the excavated site was unpublished. Paul Frodsham showed me a slide of this site, which led to my investigation, recording and publication of rock art on that northern hill site. Another site that I discovered has now been excavated. Only those parts protruding from stone and vegetation were drawn: the rest was left for excavation. My recording (Beckensall, 1995) included the Gates’ discovery. New discoveries by the public footpath to the NW appeared in Beckensall (2001), but the whole rocks were not drawn – only those parts with motifs. This followed some very significant discoveries on Beanley Moor to the north that have been recorded for the Archive.

The potential of the Hunterheugh 1 site for significant new information lay in its being decorated outcrop on which a cairn was built. This links it with sites such as Lordenshaw, Fowberry, The Ringses and Dod Law, where the same phenomenon occurs (Beckensall 2001). The relationship between decorated outcrop and a cairn is best seen at Fowberry, where a double kerbed cairn with cup-marked kerbs and more elaborate cup and ring marked cobbles was excavated on top of a long decorated outcrop. There was no sign of a burial there, and the only diagnostic find was a flint scraper sealed under the edge of the cairn stones. Hunterheugh 1 provided an opportunity for more information on the relationship between cairns and outcrop. There have been many marked stones found in cairnfields recently, some embedded in cairn structures, throughout Northumberland.

2. The making of motifs

Much of the decorated rock surfaces had been recorded before the excavation, but new panels and motifs emerged.

There are two distinct features: motifs that appear faint and warn by weathering, and pristine motifs that show clearly how they were made, with tool marks visible. Such features appear at all rock art sites.
The ‘faintness’ of a motif may be the result of erosion; ridges and grooves become smoothed by water action as a result of long exposure. For how long, we do not know. The other reason is that the motifs were pecked on only lightly – tentative, unfinished sometimes.

The most important example in Northumberland of both erosion and fresh pecking is at North Plantation, Fowberry, where decorated outcrop incorporated into an Iron Age (?) enclosure has had a slab of its surface removed and a freshly-pecked motif made on the exposed base (Beckensall 2001). It has been suggested that such a removed slab might have been used as a cist slab or as a kerb.

‘Fresh’ motifs exhibit all the stages of their making; it is possible to deduce what kinds of tools were used. At Hunterheugh 1, as well as at other sites, the tool appears to be either a punch like a blunt nail or a wider chisel-shaped edge. In some cases both types have been used on the same motif, or by one tool that could do both. As these presumably belong to a pre-metal age, we assume the tool to be made of a rock harder than the Fell Sandstone sheets of outcrop, such as whinstone, and to have been impacted with a mallet or used as a hand tool with a pad to protect the palm. There have been recent experiments to produce such effects. What is strange is that no tool has been found on a site, with the possible exception of Dod Law (Beckensall 2001), although this has an uncertain context.

Motifs were not added to the rock without consideration of the form of the rock itself, and often the natural configuration would determine the arrangements of the motifs. The most satisfying designs (to the modern eye) are those that use to the full the surface irregularities and slopes. Slope is particularly important, as grooves running from cups follow the rock downwards, and the spacing of motifs may take into account the natural divisions formed by cracks.

At Hunterheugh 1 there are two kinds of surface: a fairly continuous smooth, sloping area with few natural irregularities, and rather lumpy surfaces. There are also hollows used to counter-sink motifs

3. Description of the motifs

The most complex motifs are those to the east on a step in the rock, and they face east. No new ones other than cups and a cup and ring were found further east, and they were on a step down, part of the same section of outcrop. The cairn lay on the continuation of the north complex motif, and there were a few other minor cups and cups and rings to the immediate west. All these motifs are ‘fresh’.

The two major motifs are distinctly different, although clearly arranged in the same direction, facing east in a slight flat hollow that today drains rain water from them. The southerly design has clear chisel-like and punched tool marks. At the centre is a cup towards which a radial groove runs but does not reach beyond the inner ring. The cup is the centre of two penannulars which are looped at their ends. A very thin groove from the cup reaches a bar running from one end of the inner penannular to the other, preventing the opening to the cup from being a complete ‘keyhole’ construction. The inner groove on the right runs further down the rock, and opposite to it some tooling has been placed to allow water to drain out of the motifs, left. An extra concentric outer arc was not meant to continue around the whole figure; it stops at a crudely-cut basin in which the chisel tool marks have cut into layered sedimentary rock. Outside this, left, are two cups, and above is a group of three. On the slightly raised rock to the west are three linked cups in a row and a pecked cup and ring,

The northern motif, although sharing some of these characteristics, is different. In the former, the tool marks are much more definite and heavy; here, although the serpentine grooves are a feature, they are made with a very fine pick, becoming fainter towards the north. A recessed cup and another cup form an asymmetric centre to a looped groove that encloses them, twisting to echo the linked penannulars of the first figure, but continuing fainter to loop around in a bisected circle with a faint cup.

The two motifs share sufficient characteristics to make it possible to assume that they were made at the same time, despite the contrast in picking techniques, and are aligned together. The north one has a made hollow in the same direction as the one to the south. On a slight rise there is a pristine pecked cup and ring and a cup. At a lower level on a step are two cups and a cup and ring.

The motifs are unusual and special even in a county that surprises by the variations that prehistoric people managed to get out of simple symbolism, but lie outside the cairn.

Further west on another level of rock is a deeply hacked motif discovered by excavation. It is a deep cup connected by an angular grove of the same depth to a cup with a thin ring around it. Its depth makes it stand out, on a north-south alignment, following the shape of the rock.

Also to the east on the north side is a roughly rectangular block that has much fainter, eroded cup and single ring motifs, those at the eastern edge in a line. Other small cup and single ring motifs appear on the same rock. These too were discovered by excavation. Why they should be fainter than the more complex motifs may be accounted for by their being on the outside of the cairn, and thus exposed.

Immediately west is a triangular shaped outcrop sandwiched between the cracks formed by lines of bedding, on which is a heavily-pecked cup and rings and a cup. There is some iron in the rock here, and the cutting of the motifs must have called for more strength and persistence. As all the pick marks are clear, it is possible that this part of the rock was covered over early in its history.

At the centre of the site is an already-recorded group of faint simple cup marks, with a deeper ‘new’ cup on its north edge.

The remaining decorated surfaces lie to the west. Most of these are recorded as rock 1a, b, and c. To the south a new series of motifs was excavated, all at a lower level than the others. In a long naturally sunken recess a cup surrounded by a pecked circle is the beginning of a heavily pecked, long groove like a stretched triangle. On either side the cup has two motifs of the cup and ring type, and other cups already drawn.

North of this, in the same alignment, is a panel of cups and linked cups already recorded (as 1b). A strong feature of this is the way the cups are clustered at the top of the rock, then linked like a necklace, running down the slope to link up with a cup and two concentric rings and a cup with a faint ring that is unfinished as an arc of small cups marks where the groove was planned to be.

The last area of rock to the north-west has been recorded at the top as 1e, with a packed cluster of cups. The newly exposed section on the slope to the north has cup and ring mark designs, some with grooves from the central cup, and all faint. The largest has a cup and two concentric rings.

4. Conclusion

The excavation has produced only a few additional cups and cup and ring marks, but this has completed the total picture of what is on the rock surfaces. My report, submitted with detailed drawings and photographs, has drawn attention to the fact that it is not possible to make any observations about chronology from the evidence of pristine and worn motifs, as erosion is bound to affect exposed rocks. It is up to the excavators to relate any other finds to a possible sequence of events. I am not confident from what I have seen at the site that this is going to be possible. Even the most preserved motifs are those not actually covered by the cairn, and their preservation will have to be accounted for by natural covering of, for example, wind-blown soil and vegetation.

Evidence of quarrying on the total mass of rock is ambiguous. Questions that I would ask are: what tools were available in Neolithic or early Bronze Age times (the possible age of the rock markings) to split rocks along their seams? The whole area has been re-used by generations after the rock art was put there, for there is a high concentration of enclosures for stock and for settlement, including a field wall that uses the outcrop and cairn as a guide.

The excavation is only a glimpse. More work will have to be done, for example on the cairns and rock art on the hill to the north and on the enclosures themselves to find some answers.

Drawing of enclosure marked rock

It is significant that the rock art extends into the Iron Age (?) enclosures themselves: a group of domino cups, similar to those on Chatton Park Hill and Dod Law have now been recorded among grooves that are partly natural and partly artificial enclosures. A considerable amount of stone has been quarried from the wider area to build stockades/enclosures, and one wonders whether the excavated rock may have provided some.

Our archive for rock art includes panels further to the east and to the north west. It now includes a panel on the outcrop edge of one enclosure to the west. It is possible that any future excavation that concentrates on the enclosures will find rock art that has been taken from elsewhere and used as building material or has been deliberately incorporated because it was recognised as a significant part of the past.",ERA-473,,337,N4402,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Hedgeley, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.814237,55.444794,,,,,,
m025_Hunterheugh1_ND_T2.jpg,Hunterheugh 1,"A large outcrop that was cleared of vegetation during the excavation by Clive Waddington in 2004. His interpretation was of at least two phases of carving. The older carvings appear more eroded and designed for the surfaces on which they were carved, with individual motifs interrelated and often connected. In general, the more pristine motifs are widely spaced, are seldom connected and have not been combined to make an artistic whole decorating the rock surface. Waddington's interpretation was that these motifs were probably more recent, and carved in a different tradition, maybe to replace older carvings that had been removed. They were probably covered soon after they were made by the building of a large Bronze Age burial cairn which had protected them from subsequent erosion.

Motifs Q and L, partially covered by the dispersed cairn, were originally described as Hunterheugh 1d by Beckensall (2001). Water flows in an interesting manner along the concentric rings and connecting grooves of motif Q from a deep cup at one end of the groove system, but whether this was ever the intention must be uncertain. The serpentine groove of motif L is, however, much more shallow and perhaps unfinished.

Large number of motifs including single cups, clusters of cups, cups with single and double rings and more complex variations. Some of the more pristine motifs which were previously covered show tool marks. Hunterheugh 1 was excavated by Clive Waddington together with Aron Mazel and Ben Johnson in March and April 2004. Clive Waddington has published a [http://rockart.ncl.ac.uk/interactive/documents/outreach/Hunterheugh_BAarticle.pdf,short report] on the excavation in British Archaeology (2004, vol 78), and together with Aron Mazel and Ben Johnson (2005, in press) has prepared a detailed report on the excavation that will be published in Archaeologia Aeliana.

Following a visit to Hunterheugh 1 after the excavation, Stan Beckensall prepared a short report on his observations. This report is presented below.

PREHISTORIC ROCK ART AT HUNTERHEUGH CRAGS

Stan Beckensall (April 2004)

1. Background exploration.

The first reference to rock markings at Hunterheugh is in the Northumberland County History, which says, ‘There are indications of plain cups on the wide expanse of rocks near the top of the hill, but in the absence of rings or ducts there remains an element of doubt about them.’ No precise location was given, and as the outcrop is extensive, this could refer to the excavated site or to an outcrop with cup marks to the NW by the public footpath to Eglingham.

Tim Gates’ discovery during the survey for a gas pipeline survey of decorated rock among cairns to the north of the excavated site was unpublished. Paul Frodsham showed me a slide of this site, which led to my investigation, recording and publication of rock art on that northern hill site. Another site that I discovered has now been excavated. Only those parts protruding from stone and vegetation were drawn: the rest was left for excavation. My recording (Beckensall, 1995) included the Gates’ discovery. New discoveries by the public footpath to the NW appeared in Beckensall (2001), but the whole rocks were not drawn – only those parts with motifs. This followed some very significant discoveries on Beanley Moor to the north that have been recorded for the Archive.

The potential of the Hunterheugh 1 site for significant new information lay in its being decorated outcrop on which a cairn was built. This links it with sites such as Lordenshaw, Fowberry, The Ringses and Dod Law, where the same phenomenon occurs (Beckensall 2001). The relationship between decorated outcrop and a cairn is best seen at Fowberry, where a double kerbed cairn with cup-marked kerbs and more elaborate cup and ring marked cobbles was excavated on top of a long decorated outcrop. There was no sign of a burial there, and the only diagnostic find was a flint scraper sealed under the edge of the cairn stones. Hunterheugh 1 provided an opportunity for more information on the relationship between cairns and outcrop. There have been many marked stones found in cairnfields recently, some embedded in cairn structures, throughout Northumberland.

2. The making of motifs

Much of the decorated rock surfaces had been recorded before the excavation, but new panels and motifs emerged.

There are two distinct features: motifs that appear faint and warn by weathering, and pristine motifs that show clearly how they were made, with tool marks visible. Such features appear at all rock art sites.
The ‘faintness’ of a motif may be the result of erosion; ridges and grooves become smoothed by water action as a result of long exposure. For how long, we do not know. The other reason is that the motifs were pecked on only lightly – tentative, unfinished sometimes.

The most important example in Northumberland of both erosion and fresh pecking is at North Plantation, Fowberry, where decorated outcrop incorporated into an Iron Age (?) enclosure has had a slab of its surface removed and a freshly-pecked motif made on the exposed base (Beckensall 2001). It has been suggested that such a removed slab might have been used as a cist slab or as a kerb.

‘Fresh’ motifs exhibit all the stages of their making; it is possible to deduce what kinds of tools were used. At Hunterheugh 1, as well as at other sites, the tool appears to be either a punch like a blunt nail or a wider chisel-shaped edge. In some cases both types have been used on the same motif, or by one tool that could do both. As these presumably belong to a pre-metal age, we assume the tool to be made of a rock harder than the Fell Sandstone sheets of outcrop, such as whinstone, and to have been impacted with a mallet or used as a hand tool with a pad to protect the palm. There have been recent experiments to produce such effects. What is strange is that no tool has been found on a site, with the possible exception of Dod Law (Beckensall 2001), although this has an uncertain context.

Motifs were not added to the rock without consideration of the form of the rock itself, and often the natural configuration would determine the arrangements of the motifs. The most satisfying designs (to the modern eye) are those that use to the full the surface irregularities and slopes. Slope is particularly important, as grooves running from cups follow the rock downwards, and the spacing of motifs may take into account the natural divisions formed by cracks.

At Hunterheugh 1 there are two kinds of surface: a fairly continuous smooth, sloping area with few natural irregularities, and rather lumpy surfaces. There are also hollows used to counter-sink motifs

3. Description of the motifs

The most complex motifs are those to the east on a step in the rock, and they face east. No new ones other than cups and a cup and ring were found further east, and they were on a step down, part of the same section of outcrop. The cairn lay on the continuation of the north complex motif, and there were a few other minor cups and cups and rings to the immediate west. All these motifs are ‘fresh’.

The two major motifs are distinctly different, although clearly arranged in the same direction, facing east in a slight flat hollow that today drains rain water from them. The southerly design has clear chisel-like and punched tool marks. At the centre is a cup towards which a radial groove runs but does not reach beyond the inner ring. The cup is the centre of two penannulars which are looped at their ends. A very thin groove from the cup reaches a bar running from one end of the inner penannular to the other, preventing the opening to the cup from being a complete ‘keyhole’ construction. The inner groove on the right runs further down the rock, and opposite to it some tooling has been placed to allow water to drain out of the motifs, left. An extra concentric outer arc was not meant to continue around the whole figure; it stops at a crudely-cut basin in which the chisel tool marks have cut into layered sedimentary rock. Outside this, left, are two cups, and above is a group of three. On the slightly raised rock to the west are three linked cups in a row and a pecked cup and ring,

The northern motif, although sharing some of these characteristics, is different. In the former, the tool marks are much more definite and heavy; here, although the serpentine grooves are a feature, they are made with a very fine pick, becoming fainter towards the north. A recessed cup and another cup form an asymmetric centre to a looped groove that encloses them, twisting to echo the linked penannulars of the first figure, but continuing fainter to loop around in a bisected circle with a faint cup.

The two motifs share sufficient characteristics to make it possible to assume that they were made at the same time, despite the contrast in picking techniques, and are aligned together. The north one has a made hollow in the same direction as the one to the south. On a slight rise there is a pristine pecked cup and ring and a cup. At a lower level on a step are two cups and a cup and ring.

The motifs are unusual and special even in a county that surprises by the variations that prehistoric people managed to get out of simple symbolism, but lie outside the cairn.

Further west on another level of rock is a deeply hacked motif discovered by excavation. It is a deep cup connected by an angular grove of the same depth to a cup with a thin ring around it. Its depth makes it stand out, on a north-south alignment, following the shape of the rock.

Also to the east on the north side is a roughly rectangular block that has much fainter, eroded cup and single ring motifs, those at the eastern edge in a line. Other small cup and single ring motifs appear on the same rock. These too were discovered by excavation. Why they should be fainter than the more complex motifs may be accounted for by their being on the outside of the cairn, and thus exposed.

Immediately west is a triangular shaped outcrop sandwiched between the cracks formed by lines of bedding, on which is a heavily-pecked cup and rings and a cup. There is some iron in the rock here, and the cutting of the motifs must have called for more strength and persistence. As all the pick marks are clear, it is possible that this part of the rock was covered over early in its history.

At the centre of the site is an already-recorded group of faint simple cup marks, with a deeper ‘new’ cup on its north edge.

The remaining decorated surfaces lie to the west. Most of these are recorded as rock 1a, b, and c. To the south a new series of motifs was excavated, all at a lower level than the others. In a long naturally sunken recess a cup surrounded by a pecked circle is the beginning of a heavily pecked, long groove like a stretched triangle. On either side the cup has two motifs of the cup and ring type, and other cups already drawn.

North of this, in the same alignment, is a panel of cups and linked cups already recorded (as 1b). A strong feature of this is the way the cups are clustered at the top of the rock, then linked like a necklace, running down the slope to link up with a cup and two concentric rings and a cup with a faint ring that is unfinished as an arc of small cups marks where the groove was planned to be.

The last area of rock to the north-west has been recorded at the top as 1e, with a packed cluster of cups. The newly exposed section on the slope to the north has cup and ring mark designs, some with grooves from the central cup, and all faint. The largest has a cup and two concentric rings.

4. Conclusion

The excavation has produced only a few additional cups and cup and ring marks, but this has completed the total picture of what is on the rock surfaces. My report, submitted with detailed drawings and photographs, has drawn attention to the fact that it is not possible to make any observations about chronology from the evidence of pristine and worn motifs, as erosion is bound to affect exposed rocks. It is up to the excavators to relate any other finds to a possible sequence of events. I am not confident from what I have seen at the site that this is going to be possible. Even the most preserved motifs are those not actually covered by the cairn, and their preservation will have to be accounted for by natural covering of, for example, wind-blown soil and vegetation.

Evidence of quarrying on the total mass of rock is ambiguous. Questions that I would ask are: what tools were available in Neolithic or early Bronze Age times (the possible age of the rock markings) to split rocks along their seams? The whole area has been re-used by generations after the rock art was put there, for there is a high concentration of enclosures for stock and for settlement, including a field wall that uses the outcrop and cairn as a guide.

The excavation is only a glimpse. More work will have to be done, for example on the cairns and rock art on the hill to the north and on the enclosures themselves to find some answers.

Drawing of enclosure marked rock

It is significant that the rock art extends into the Iron Age (?) enclosures themselves: a group of domino cups, similar to those on Chatton Park Hill and Dod Law have now been recorded among grooves that are partly natural and partly artificial enclosures. A considerable amount of stone has been quarried from the wider area to build stockades/enclosures, and one wonders whether the excavated rock may have provided some.

Our archive for rock art includes panels further to the east and to the north west. It now includes a panel on the outcrop edge of one enclosure to the west. It is possible that any future excavation that concentrates on the enclosures will find rock art that has been taken from elsewhere and used as building material or has been deliberately incorporated because it was recognised as a significant part of the past.",ERA-473,,337,N4402,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Hedgeley, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.814237,55.444794,,,,,,
m026_Hunterheugh2_BA.jpg,Hunterheugh 2,"Only the most northerly part of the outcrop is generally visible due to turf covering. When uncovered, this is an impressive panel and forms an integrated design of cups with multiple or single rings, natural and artificial curving grooves and a large number of single cups. This panel is quite distinct from the scattered and generally unrelated motifs of panel 1. The covered parts have been well preserved from weathering and retain the impressions of tool marks in contrast to the uncovered parts. Curving grooves from multi-ringed cups flow down the rock surface, joining with other grooves and natural cracks. Single cups also seem to have been carved at the start of cracks and grooves.",ERA-474,,341,N4402,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Hedgeley, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.815152,55.445281,,,,,,
m027_Hunterheugh2_ND_T2.jpg,Hunterheugh 2,"Only the most northerly part of the outcrop is generally visible due to turf covering. When uncovered, this is an impressive panel and forms an integrated design of cups with multiple or single rings, natural and artificial curving grooves and a large number of single cups. This panel is quite distinct from the scattered and generally unrelated motifs of panel 1. The covered parts have been well preserved from weathering and retain the impressions of tool marks in contrast to the uncovered parts. Curving grooves from multi-ringed cups flow down the rock surface, joining with other grooves and natural cracks. Single cups also seem to have been carved at the start of cracks and grooves.",ERA-474,,341,N4402,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Hedgeley, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.815152,55.445281,,,,,,
m028_KetleyCragRockShelter1_BA_ADM.jpg,Ketley Crag Rock Shelter 1,"This rock art panel location is somewhat unusual. The crag is located about two-thirds down a north west facing, steep, bracken-covered slope of the Fell Sandstone Group. The decorated panel is the base of a small, shallow shelter formed from the crag.

See Beckensall Archive art description for details. To record this rock I (Stan Beckensall) spent hours at the site, and the accompaniment of the badgers under the earth the other side of the rockshelter wall was a unique experience: they sounded as though they were moving furniture and redecorating for the whole time, though they remained hidden!",ERA-97,ND147A,235,N3434,Art in the landscape,Cliff/shelter,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.881647,55.56181,,,,,,
m029_LartingtonTheRigg14_ND_T5.jpg,"Lartington, The Rigg 14","This carving is positioned on bedrock, within meters of many eroded panels to the south. This one has remained less eroded due to turf cover.

A number of motifs carved here are unusual for British rock art, with a single cup-less ring, a ‘V’ shaped groove, an apparent cross (utilising a fissure), three cups plus a short groove forming a pattern similar to a ‘face’, in addition to two other single cups. Large natural fissures also give the appearance that motifs have been ‘framed’ in sections.

All motifs are deep with tooling marks clearly visible, some fissures may have also been ‘enhanced’. Within the ‘V’ shaped groove, elongated narrow tooling marks form chevron patterns, the project team debated whether these were from metal tools.

Whilst there’s no doubt the motifs are artificial, the unusual style and preservation may suggest this area has been carved during different periods.",ERA-943,,,,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Lartington, Teesdale, Durham",-1.98907,54.543471,,,,,,
m030_MillstoneBurn2g_BA_SB.jpg,Millstone Burn 2g,"This rock juts out from the hillside, with bedding planes clearly visible on the side, and forms a 'shelf'. There at least 30 cups: about sixteen small cups arranged in a cluster on NW top face of rock; four faint cups grouped next to this cluster, lower down; and a third cluster of six or seven very small cups lower down to the east. The cluster of small cups is unusual and bears some resemblance to those on carved rocks near Kirkcudbright in south west Scotland. Corresponds to van Hoek (1991): No.56.",ERA-544,,396 ,N4226,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Longframlington, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.813005,55.340844,,,,,,
m031_MillstoneBurn2h_ND_T2.jpg,Millstone Burn 2h,"Design takes into account the shape and orientation of the boulder. Motifs include: two single cups; two cups with single rings; two cups with two rings and groove which run down the boulder towards natural cracks; one cup with three rings and a groove running to the edge of the boulder. The single cups, and cups with single rings, are about 5 cm in diameter, those with multiple rings being about 7 cm diameter. The largest motifs are about 22 cm in diameter and have grooves running from the central cup, or in the case of the central cup with two rings, from the central ring. The southernmost cup is probably eroded and its ring is faint. One of the single cups is on the otherwise uncarved south face.

SMR 4241 reports that a late prehistoric flint blade was found in a drainage ditch near here by Ian Hewitt in 1994. Corresponds to van Hoek (1991): No.55.",ERA-534,,397,N4226,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Longframlington, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.813352,55.341015,,,,,,
m032_MillstoneBurn3a_BA_ADM.jpg,Millstone Burn 3a,"Small intricately-carved boulder, flush with turf, in boggy ground near the boundary fence, just portable, although earth-fast, and probably unlikely to be in situ. The carving seems to have been made to decorate the small surface rather than to have been broken off from a larger outcrop. Three cups appear to use the natural contour of the rock to achieve 'height'.

Corresponds to van Hoek (1991): No.24.",ERA-523,,399,N4226,Art on a portable stone,,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Longframlington, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.81649,55.340975,,,,,,
m033_Morwick1b_BA_SB.jpg,Morwick 1b,"The motifs are very faint on a coarse rock surface. There is an oval groove on the E part which has a kidney-shaped inside it and other grooves between the two at the base. There are indications of a faint curved motif above. To the W of this is a double ringed motif around a faint central depression. Above is a likely S-shaped, running spiral.",ERA-605,24698,765,N5558,Art in the landscape,Cliff/shelter,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Warkworth, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.632545,55.333245,,,,,,
m034_NorthPlantationB_BA_ADM.jpg,North Plantation b,Large boulder-shaped outcrop located in ditch behind outer rampart of prehistoric settlement. Part covered in bracken/leaf mould. Well preserved cup plus two rings and a long groove descending rock 'steps' under thick mulch at corner to the east. Exposed motifs well weathered but peck marks clearly visible. Significant quarried edges.,ERA-169,,,N3314,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.966637,55.544303,,,,,,
m035_OldBewick1a_ND_AO.jpg,Old Bewick 1a,"A large 'car sized' and possibly glacially deposited sandstone block showing evidence on all sides of quarrying activity. The table like, slightly sloping, top surface also bears quarry marks in preparation for further splitting the block. Two of the near vertical sides east and south are also marked each with a linear row of many regularly sized and shaped cups. Previously attributed to prehistory they may not be so proven. The upper surface is extravagant in quantity and quality of motif which flow from the natural weathering features evident at the top and cover almost the entire available area. [refer to motif notes]. Views to and from the panel are extensive to the east, south and north. The west is blocked by rising ground to the hill fort. Undoubtedly marked and re-marked over time this panel shows sensitivity and complexity apparent only in very few other decorated panels.

East face
Clear straight line of eight cups at southern end - possibly continues shallower cups shallower cups at northern end of line. Heavily pock marked area with at least 12 possibles or may be natural. The clear line of cups at the left (southern) side merges into a knobbly/pocked surface which is hard to distinguish whether prehistoric man-made/natural/quarrying. This is the eastern ""wall"" of the boulder. Art on the upper surface is also on sloping ""roof"" set back from this section and higher.

South face
13 cup marks depicted across the width of the pane.

Top face
There are many separate and linked motifs across much of the top surface. The motifs include most of the motif cup and cup and ring repertoire, in a range of sizes. Many of the motifs are interlinked together, and seem to run down from the top, southern part of the stone where there are many natural depressions, basins and weathering grooves. The motifs can be separated into 22 single cups, 4 cup and grooves, 5 cup and single rings, and other mixed types. Many of the motifs have the characteristics of cup and rings, as well grooves going through the cups and rings. Some motifs appear to be very stylised, but appear on this panel alone. The block is not at the highest point of the hill. It was chosen because it was there and it was big. Its viewpoints are limited only by the rise to the hillfort; it overlooks Hepburn ridge, Blawearie cairns and the Corby Crags hillfort. The pasture reaches a stone wall that divide it from the moorland. Behind it, over the wire fence is another large block of marked stone. The east edge of the big hillfort has a low wall of disturbed material, among which is other rock art.",ERA-1087,Nd87a,298,N3604,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Bewick, Bewick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.876155,55.487918,,,,,,
m036_OldBewick1a_ND_T3.jpg,Old Bewick 1a,"A large 'car sized' and possibly glacially deposited sandstone block showing evidence on all sides of quarrying activity. The table like, slightly sloping, top surface also bears quarry marks in preparation for further splitting the block. Two of the near vertical sides east and south are also marked each with a linear row of many regularly sized and shaped cups. Previously attributed to prehistory they may not be so proven. The upper surface is extravagant in quantity and quality of motif which flow from the natural weathering features evident at the top and cover almost the entire available area. [refer to motif notes]. Views to and from the panel are extensive to the east, south and north. The west is blocked by rising ground to the hill fort. Undoubtedly marked and re-marked over time this panel shows sensitivity and complexity apparent only in very few other decorated panels.

East face
Clear straight line of eight cups at southern end - possibly continues shallower cups shallower cups at northern end of line. Heavily pock marked area with at least 12 possibles or may be natural. The clear line of cups at the left (southern) side merges into a knobbly/pocked surface which is hard to distinguish whether prehistoric man-made/natural/quarrying. This is the eastern ""wall"" of the boulder. Art on the upper surface is also on sloping ""roof"" set back from this section and higher.

South face
13 cup marks depicted across the width of the pane.

Top face
There are many separate and linked motifs across much of the top surface. The motifs include most of the motif cup and cup and ring repertoire, in a range of sizes. Many of the motifs are interlinked together, and seem to run down from the top, southern part of the stone where there are many natural depressions, basins and weathering grooves. The motifs can be separated into 22 single cups, 4 cup and grooves, 5 cup and single rings, and other mixed types. Many of the motifs have the characteristics of cup and rings, as well grooves going through the cups and rings. Some motifs appear to be very stylised, but appear on this panel alone. The block is not at the highest point of the hill. It was chosen because it was there and it was big. Its viewpoints are limited only by the rise to the hillfort; it overlooks Hepburn ridge, Blawearie cairns and the Corby Crags hillfort. The pasture reaches a stone wall that divide it from the moorland. Behind it, over the wire fence is another large block of marked stone. The east edge of the big hillfort has a low wall of disturbed material, among which is other rock art.",ERA-1087,Nd87a,298,N3604,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Bewick, Bewick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.876155,55.487918,,,,,,
m037_RoughtingLinn_BA_SB.jpg,Roughting Linn,"This is a huge dome of outcropping rock dominating surrounding ground. The recent removal of trees, a surrounding fence with gate and sign shows the whole dome to its advantage, gently domed along the line of the sandstone ridge and more sharply from west to east. It is a single outcrop at this level, from the west appearing as a large crag. The whole dome is in three sections; the central area is largely surviving outcrop falling away in all directions, with the flanking north and south portions largely quarried away, remaining as grass-covered edges and hollows.

The overall shape of the dome is similar to that of a large cairn with the rock art around as a decorated skirt, though no burial evidence has been recorded.

The quarrying of the rock is undated, though likely to be Post Medieval, with possible loss of rock art motifs. Early illustrations of the site show cut-out portions with ‘steps’ of straight and sheer edges where rock has been removed, and tool marks can be seen across all areas of the dome.

The surrounding trees and other vegetation which threatened the panel have recently been cleared as a result of an agreement between English Heritage and the landowner. The fence and signpost referred to in the Beckensall Archive notes (which pre-date the current notes) have also been removed and a new information board will be erected in due course.

See Beckensall Archive notes for detailed description. Roughting Linn is a huge natural, whaleback shape of sandstone outcrop, an elongated domed ridge, 20m long and 12m wide, slightly higher than the land to the NW that flattens out before plunging into a gully formed by two small streams that join before flowing towards the Milfield Plain. It is the largest decorated rock in northern England, and perhaps the most famous.

Roughting Linn was was discovered in 1852 by William Greenwell, who reported its discovery at the meeting of Archaeological Institute in Newcastle in the July of that year. Unfortunately, Greenwell’s report was not published in the two volumes that recorded the meeting. Tate (1865) drew it in the mid-19th century, and a more thorough survey was made by Elizabeth Shee Twohig in 1988. Richard Bradley has noted its similarity to a long barrow, and has commented on the way its motifs are arranged so that large concentric circles form a kerb. The western part has been quarried away, before 1850, and a large slab has been removed across its width. There is still one cup and multiple circle motifs on a surviving part to the west and although the south is gouged with mainly natural grooves, there are cups and rings there too, so this decorated kerb idea is sound. Apart from its size and the fact that it just happened to be there, natural erosion on the southern part may have attracted artificial additions, a factor seen also at sites like Old Bewick. The decorated kerb concept is one shared with Irish Passage Grave art, although the circumstances are different, for this is undisturbed outcrop rock and not panels arranged in an artificial structure.


In the area between the outcrop and the gully are the multiple ramparts and ditches of an enclosure that cuts off the promontory to the NW. The small waterfall is formed by the Broomridgedean Burn falling over a ledge. Where it falls into a pond is a place both sheltered and beautiful, with small cliffs rising on either side, one with an overhang. To any group of people who regarded water as an object of veneration, this could well have been a special place. Despite the tarmacadam road that cuts the triangular promontory, at its base, the area has a lingering timelessness. The rock, the enclosure and the burn look west to the valley that leads to the Milfield Plain. To the east the views are impeded by higher ground, and to the SE the land rises to Doddington North Moor. Goatscrag Hill may have been visible, as it is partially today, from the rock. Just before the water tumbles over the ledge to cascade into the pool, there is some substantial outcrop covered by grass, and it would be interesting to see if this is marked in any way.

The rock at Roughting Linn has another tale to tell, for it reflects the inexplicable reluctance of the archaeological establishment to look after it. Here we have one of the most important pieces of rock art in the world, and it has a crumbling, ancient, irrelevant notice board of remarkable ugliness. To my knowledge (Stan Beckensall), in over 20 years there has been only one visit to ascertain the problems of erosion on the site, and no report or action followed. There are small trees pushing roots into the rock. Of course the site is beautiful, but how safe is the rock and its motifs? If the site is to be accessible, which technically it is, why are there no finger posts to guide strangers there? So many people end up at the farm. If there should be some information about it, why not replace the present board with a new one, with a drawing? It is helpful for people who come when the light is poor to see what is on the rock, and this may well help to encourage them not to walk all over it looking for the motifs.

We have a real problem here of recording, evaluation of what might spoil this rock, and of presenting it to interested people. Compared with the amount of money that is, for example, spent on Hadrian's Wall, we are talking peanuts!

Access to the marked rocks is by public rights of way. Should you wish to examine the rock overhangs at Goatscrag Hill, it is a courtesy to ask permission at Roughting Linn Farm. You may approach from the Ford Moss site to the west or from Roughting Linn on the east.

The position is pivotal in the area, lying as it does at the head of the Broomridgedean valley, whose burn flows past the towering north scarp with its overhangs, burials, and the trail of rock art across the top of the ridge, to the now-removed round barrow cemetery at its west end before the Milfield Plain begins. It is linked with the next group of rock art at Hare Law, whose site today does not evoke such aesthetic pleasure, and which lies in a different kind of landscape: more levelled out as it moves east towards the sea.",ERA-12,ND65,11,N1943,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-2.025585,55.624167,,,,,,
m038_SnookBank5d_BA.jpg,Snook Bank 5d,"Oval shaped, rounded boulder, largely turf covered and sloping steeply into the ground on east side. Three prominent, large cups with deep, single rings on north west side and three single cups and other smaller cups possible. The highest of the cups and rings has a short groove running towards the exposed apex of the boulder. Two single cups lead to a third larger cup on the highest part of the rock although these could be natural. A curved groove runs along the east sloping face, doubling back on itself. There is a second, faint groove parallel to the south part of this groove, running down the slope. Peck marks are visible in the grooves and cup and rings, particularly where they are turf-covered.",ERA-427,,461,N4225,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Longframlington, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.803593,55.343732,,,,,,
m039_SnookBank5d_BA_ADM.jpg,Snook Bank 5d,"Oval shaped, rounded boulder, largely turf covered and sloping steeply into the ground on east side. Three prominent, large cups with deep, single rings on north west side and three single cups and other smaller cups possible. The highest of the cups and rings has a short groove running towards the exposed apex of the boulder. Two single cups lead to a third larger cup on the highest part of the rock although these could be natural. A curved groove runs along the east sloping face, doubling back on itself. There is a second, faint groove parallel to the south part of this groove, running down the slope. Peck marks are visible in the grooves and cup and rings, particularly where they are turf-covered.",ERA-427,,461,N4225,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Longframlington, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.803593,55.343732,,,,,,
m040_TheRingses1b_BA_ADM.jpg,The Ringses 1b,"The large northerly figure was known to Mr. Tate (1865, Plate 11), who might have cleared the turf off it.

The rosettes on The Ringses 1a and b link them stylistically with Buttony and with Hare Crags. Perhaps one of the most interesting features, though, is the apparently experimental quality ( if that is what it means ) of the motifs at the top of the rock at The Ringses 1a. - check with Stan that it is 1a and not 1b",ERA-26,,102,N3817,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.974056,55.589471,,,,,,
m041_TodCrag1a_ND_T3.jpg,Tod Crag 1a,"An elaborate 'designed' motif with six cups with rings formed into an arc (association with the rising sun / moon are unavoidable but unproven). Two cups within arc of cup and rings possible pennanular; three cups on south end of panel freshly exposed. Panel seen in low angle light reveals one very faint cup and ring.

Motif 1 and 2 on sketch are possible penannulars, though noted as single cups. The ring on motif 1 is not concentric with the cup. In certain light conditions motif 3 appears to be penannular also. Motif 4 has a more pronounced outer ring. The main motif is some 5 m from the edge of outcrop and significant quarrying has occurred. Motif is best in low angle light conditions.

There are excellent all round views from this high point. On Tod Crag Moss is a large marked outcrop recorded by Mr E Newbigin. Until recently it was covered with forest in a rectangular plantation, which has now been felled, and the ground is rough. The main rock lies on the north boundary of this enclosure, which is bounded to the south by Wolf Crag. Mr Newbigin (1929) thought that the site lay on a prehistoric route, and found ‘another low rounded hill with no less that ten, typical burial mounds of stone on and close by it. This is ¼ mile-1/2 mile west of the crag.’",ERA-1581,25037,700,N9708,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Elsdon, Alnwick, Northumberland",-2.04385,55.196426,,,,,,
m042_Wandylawg_ND_T3.jpg,Wandylaw g,"Boulder was embedded in bank of stream with vertical cup marked face just visible. The carvings showed a surprising lack of erosion given location in moving water.

A large number of very clear and regular cups in a random pattern.",ERA-391,,,,Art on a portable stone,,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Ellingham, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.781398,55.519589,,,,,,
m043_WeetwoodMoor3a_BA.jpg,Weetwood Moor 3a,"Motifs clearly visible in all lighting conditions. Natural cracks are present on the panel; nearly all run south to north along the long axis.

Two single cups to south of panel are not present on the Beckensall Archive drawing and additional rings and grooves have been identified. A number of shallow grooves connect the motifs. Rings are not circular - some widening is evident and some edges are almost straight in places. Cup and ring motifs (penannulars?) also present.",ERA-142,,154,N3313?,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964748,55.547556,,,,,,
m044_WeetwoodMoor3a_BA.jpg,Weetwood Moor 3a,"Motifs clearly visible in all lighting conditions. Natural cracks are present on the panel; nearly all run south to north along the long axis.

Two single cups to south of panel are not present on the Beckensall Archive drawing and additional rings and grooves have been identified. A number of shallow grooves connect the motifs. Rings are not circular - some widening is evident and some edges are almost straight in places. Cup and ring motifs (penannulars?) also present.",ERA-142,,154,N3313?,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964748,55.547556,,,,,,
m045_WeetwoodMoor3a_BA_ADM.jpg,Weetwood Moor 3a,"Motifs clearly visible in all lighting conditions. Natural cracks are present on the panel; nearly all run south to north along the long axis.

Two single cups to south of panel are not present on the Beckensall Archive drawing and additional rings and grooves have been identified. A number of shallow grooves connect the motifs. Rings are not circular - some widening is evident and some edges are almost straight in places. Cup and ring motifs (penannulars?) also present.",ERA-142,,154,N3313?,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964748,55.547556,,,,,,
m046_WeetwoodMoor3a_ND_T2.jpg,Weetwood Moor 3a,"Motifs clearly visible in all lighting conditions. Natural cracks are present on the panel; nearly all run south to north along the long axis.

Two single cups to south of panel are not present on the Beckensall Archive drawing and additional rings and grooves have been identified. A number of shallow grooves connect the motifs. Rings are not circular - some widening is evident and some edges are almost straight in places. Cup and ring motifs (penannulars?) also present.",ERA-142,,154,N3313?,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964748,55.547556,,,,,,
m047_WeetwoodMoor3a_ND_T2.jpg,Weetwood Moor 3a,"Motifs clearly visible in all lighting conditions. Natural cracks are present on the panel; nearly all run south to north along the long axis.

Two single cups to south of panel are not present on the Beckensall Archive drawing and additional rings and grooves have been identified. A number of shallow grooves connect the motifs. Rings are not circular - some widening is evident and some edges are almost straight in places. Cup and ring motifs (penannulars?) also present.",ERA-142,,154,N3313?,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964748,55.547556,,,,,,
m048_WeetwoodMoor3a_ND_T2.jpg,Weetwood Moor 3a,"Motifs clearly visible in all lighting conditions. Natural cracks are present on the panel; nearly all run south to north along the long axis.

Two single cups to south of panel are not present on the Beckensall Archive drawing and additional rings and grooves have been identified. A number of shallow grooves connect the motifs. Rings are not circular - some widening is evident and some edges are almost straight in places. Cup and ring motifs (penannulars?) also present.",ERA-142,,154,N3313?,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964748,55.547556,,,,,,
m050_WestLordenshaw2c_BA.jpg,West Lordenshaw 2c,"This is a huge piece of rock bearing many prehistoric motifs. This is despite the determined efforts of quarrymen to remove portions of it in more recent times. The shape and size of the original panel is unknown – though the appearance of truncated motifs to the very edge of the panel implies the quarried sections were carved. The remaining portion has sheer and sharp faces on the northeastern, southern and western sides. It tilts unevenly across the whole surface from west to east, with continual undulations and localised higher areas. There is a large natural bowl at the northern end. The surrounding loose stones and lower portions attached to the main rock are the result of the quarrying and are undecorated, with one exception.

Much of the tilted surface of the rock has many rock art motifs across it. Two further carvings are of note – an apparent cup and ring outline, and the inscription “ROCK MAP” appear to be graffiti of comparatively recent date.

A range of motif types is also echoed by the variety of motif positions; some occupy prominent positions at the top, others nearer the base. Various levels of the rock have been inscribed with various motifs; in some cases it is possible that differential weathering has meant the loss of motifs. A number of natural basins and grooves have been used with the motifs. Traces of pronounced weathering can also be seen at the highest parts of the rock.

No specific details of the size and decoration of the panel are known from the 19th century records of the stone. These note only the bulk and decoration of the stone generally. The panel is situated at the crest of one of the higher terraces to the southwest of Lordenshaw Hill, with other rocky outcrops along the ridge. The ground slopes off the terrace to give views to further terraces and valleys to western aspects, and along the inner, steeper and crag-broken, arc of the Fell Sandstone Group. These views include other rock panels on the same terrace edge, the Birky Hill and Horseshoe rock art panel group areas on the first terrace below, before more distant rock art areas of West Hills, Chirnells Moor and the Football Cairn areas on the other side of the Coquet. Further afield the more distant Cheviot Hills can be seen across the valley.

Evidence of the quarrying that took place of the terrace edge can be found as quarrying hollows and loose blocks, sheer and sharp faces of rock, are all near this panel. Further elements of the Medieval and Post Medieval landscape are also nearby. West Lordenshaw 2c still has a small metal plate put there by the Ministry of Works, and itself an ancient monument to mark its position. It is a dominant viewpoint, with the whole range of Simonside and Cheviots visible, and to the north east the land rises gently to the hillfort.

It is unlikely to have been the only marked outcrop along this ridge, for just to the north is a massive quarry hole from which a similar sized block has been removed. Wedge marks in a line on the western edge and broken motifs show one technique involved in breaking off pieces of rock, for wooden wedges were inserted, water poured on, and the resulting stress of expansion split the rock.

This impressive rock has been vandalised, a rare occurrence in modern times, by someone chipping a design and the words 'Rock Map', a misguided and arrogant assumption that this is what it was. It was done over thirty years ago. Mr Newbigin refers in 1931 to this rock being discovered 'a number of years ago in the course of quarrying.'

General introduction to Lordenshaw:

The sandstone promontory on which Lordenshaw stands is to the north east of the Simonside --Dove Crags range of hills. Its north west and south east flanks drop respectively to Whitton Dean, a tributary of the Coquet and to a narrow glaciated valley overlooked to the east by another outlying sandstone hill that rises to the same height as Lordenshaw. There is a rise to the hillfort from the south west, then the land slopes away to the north east, finger-like, to the Whitton Burn.

This raised, prominent extension of the Simonside Hills reaches 268m.OD, and is made up of outcrop Fell sandstone, with only a thin layer of acidic soil. There are patches of bright orange soil thrown up by rabbits, and a dark grey soil elsewhere.

The whole area has archaeology of many different periods, one of the most recent and most significant being the clearance of much of the land to the east for ‘improvement’ for the growing of grain on a regular close-running rig and furrow system. This must have destroyed some surface archaeology, and may have resulted in some of the stone heaps that could also be prehistoric burial mounds.

Prominent on the hilltop is a ‘fort’, a ditched Iron Age enclosure that has been re-used as a Romano-British settlement. The slope southwards to the modern road and car park has many field walls, some of cobble and soil construction, and others of vertically--set sandstones. Some of these walls cross one another, and represent different episodes in the use of the land.

The oldest features belong to the late Neolithic period, represented by cup and ring marked rocks over a wide area. The motifs vary from simple cups to more complex ringed cups and grooves, but there is a characteristic regional phenomenon of long grooves or channels that follow the slope of the outcrop sheets on the east side of the hill.

It is impossible to date outcrop markings, but in this area three possible early bronze age cairns have been built on marked outcrop rock, showing that the latter are either contemporary or earlier, and also showing that the sites were already of great importance in the landscape before the cairns were added.

All the marked rocks in situ are at prominent viewpoints, some commanding many miles of territory. A few cupped rocks in the hillfort allow the possibility that some marked surfaces may have been destroyed during its construction, and the medieval Deer Park wall may account for others being broken up and reused.
Modern quarrying has certainly taken its toll, especially on the north west, where masses of freestone have been removed, leaving holes in the ground like bomb craters, and the main block of rock art (2c) bears every sign of the quarrying process. Add to that a network of other walls, including those for sheilings (temporary herds’ houses and gardens), and it is likely that we have lost a large proportion of rock art.",ERA-1318,,541,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Whitton and Tosson, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.917756,55.286401,,,,,,
m051 BackstoneBeck05_CSIRM.jpg,Backstone Beck 05,,ERA-2546,25334,,PRN 218,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.804787,53.911502,,,,,,
m052_RV22 10_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 22,,ERA-2311,,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Keighley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.874164,53.89208,,,,,,
m053_LS08_CSIRM.jpg,Lanshaw 08,,ERA-2702,25309,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.787314,53.907419,,,,,,
m054_IdolStone_CSIRM.jpg,Idol Stone 01,,ERA-2579,25333,,"PRN 249, PRN 7217",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.798053,53.909271,,,,,,
m055_Barmishaw02_CSIRM.jpg,Barmishaw 02,,ERA-2333,25365,,PRN184,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.829595,53.913599,,,,,,
m056_GSF06_CSIRM.jpg,Glovershaw Farm 06,,ERA-2657,,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.799031,53.861056,,,,,,
m057_LP01_CSIRM_MS.jpg,Low Plains 01,,ERA-2480,25410,,"PRN7202, PRN343",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.791419,53.856666,,,,,,
m058_GR01_CSIRM.jpg,Grubstones Ridge,,ERA-2357,,,PRN308,Art on a portable stone,,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.794067,53.899439,,,,,,
m059_HR01_CSIRM.jpg,Hangingstones Rock 01,,ERA-2630,,,PRN211,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.807931,53.916469,,,,,,
m060_GS04_CSIRM.jpg,Glovershaw 04,,ERA-2370,25270,,PRN331,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.801378,53.856709,,,,,,
m061_BBH05_CSIRM.jpg,Black Beck Hole 05,,ERA-2317,25392,,PRN7235,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.846886,53.915114,,,,,,
m062_PW05_CSIRM.jpg,Panorama Woods 05,,ERA-2665,25358,,PRN161,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.841815,53.919269,,,,,,
m063_SH08_CSIRM.jpg,Stanbury Hill 08,,ERA-2520,25259,,PRN177,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.832234,53.885881,,,,,,
m064_SH12_CSIRM.jpg,Stanbury Hill 12,,ERA-2524,,,,Art on a portable stone,,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.829106,53.884186,,,,,,
m065_SH07_CSIRM_MS.jpg,Stanbury Hill 07,,ERA-2519,25260,,PRN174,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.83275,53.886133,,,,,,
m066_SST01_CSIRM.jpg,Swastika Stone 01,,ERA-2234,25388,,PRN 146,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.854517,53.918566,,,,,,
m067_TS05_CSIRM.jpg,Todmor Stones 05,,ERA-2512,25265,,PRN320,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.830144,53.87972,,,,,,
m068_RV22_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 22,,ERA-2296,25325,,PRN120,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.885512,53.899319,,,,,,
m069_WW03_CSIRM.jpg,White Wells 03,,ERA-2346,25375,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.820226,53.914726,,,,,,
m070_RH01_CSIRM.jpg,Rough Holden 01,,ERA-2265,,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.901133,53.903737,,,,,,
m071_RE01_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock Edge 01,,ERA-2278,,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Keighley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.881579,53.89082,,,,,,
m072_PC01_CSIRM.jpg,Piper's Crag 01,,ERA-2242,,,,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Addingham, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.86793,53.919427,,,,,,
m073_RV05_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 05,,ERA-2283,25319,,PRN105,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.887922,53.897586,,,,,,
m074_RV21_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 21,,ERA-2295,25322,,PRN119,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.885731,53.897009,,,,,,
m075_PR01_CSIRM.jpg,Pancake Ridge 01,,ERA-2571,25343,,PRN 227,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.802662,53.913351,,,,,,
m076_SH04_CSIRM.jpg,Stanbury Hill 04,,ERA-2516,25260,,"PRN7210, Group PRN7219",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.832886,53.886223,,,,,,
m077_SH13_CSIRM_MS.jpg,Stanbury Hill 13,,ERA-2525,,,185,Art in a structure,,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.829106,53.884195,,,,,,
m078_WH01_CSIRM.jpg,Weary Hill 01,,ERA-2329,25397,,PRN7236,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.839038,53.912866,,,,,,
m079_WB19_CSIRM.jpg,Woofa Bank 19,,ERA-2728,25301,,"PRN 297, PRN 2556 (Group)",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.786477,53.904451,,,,,,
m080_IS01_CSIRM.jpg,Idol Stone 01,,ERA-2579,25333,,"PRN 249, PRN 7217",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.798053,53.909271,,,,,,
l001_BarninghamMoor101_ND_T5.jpg,Barningham Moor 101,"A large flat stone measuring 2 x 1.3 m, now mostly under turf.

This is an extremely difficult carving to describe, mainly because of the complexity of grooves and cups that have been incorporated into the design. In simple terms, the motifs consist of approx eighty three cups of varying size, distributed across the stone, with the northern end being the busier half. Of the eighty three, thirteen have rings, ten of which appear to have been carved in relief. For these particular features the un-carved ring attracts the eye.

By far the most noticeable design element, is the network of intricately carved grooves that incorporate approx forty six cups and nine rings. In some places, cups act as nodes with grooves branching out in different directions to join other cups, and elsewhere, grooves enclose other motifs. Only twenty one out of eighty three cups haven’t been included in the grooves or adorned with rings. Towards the south end, a natural depression has been enhanced (peck marks visible) and a groove leads into it from the main design. Several other areas also have peck marks visible.

The difference in complexity between this carving and every other known example on Barningham Moor is stark, as the majority are relatively simple in design with less than 15% displaying even a single ring. There are certain similarities between this stone and carvings found in the Feldom Range area a few miles east, where several examples of cup covered stones with complex interlinking grooves can be found.

Another point worthy of note, is its position close to one of two penannular carvings on Barningham, as both stones are ‘complex’ and show signs of possible later motifs being added.",ERA-904,30480,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,Durham,,,,,,,,
l002_BarninghamMoor6_ND_T5.jpg,Barningham Moor 6,"A rectangular flat stone, with the western half covered by turf.

The motifs consist of rectilinear grooves at the stone's eastern edge, with a bisecting groove forming two separate enclosures, each of which contains two cups. On the western side of this groove a small irregular ring with a central cup has been incorporated into the design. Directly west, in a central position, eight cups of varying size and depth are randomly scattered about the exposed part. Underneath the turf, eight cups and a single cup with an irregular ring have been carved. Tooling marks are evident within most of the motifs, particular at the western, turf-covered end.

Within the Scale Knoll area, 3 of the 4 ringed carvings are positioned close to water, in this case approximately 5 meters east.

This stone is referenced 13a in the Barningham Moor section of the 1998 publication, ‘Prehistoric Rock Art of County Durham, Swaledale and Wensleydale’.",ERA-805,30496,,D5619,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Barningham, Teesdale, Durham",-1.929598,54.472266,,,,,,
l003_DodLaw_ND_TB.jpg,Dod Law Main Rock A,"Almost rectangular and horizontal panel with three different levels - corresponding to three phases of quarrying. Divided by crack across middle which is now filled with turf. Several long curving grooves have been carved around the motifs. The discovery of this impressive rock is described by Tate (1865): ""It was almost entirely covered over with turf till 1855, when it was observed by Mrs Procter, who caused part of it to be cleared; another portion was cleared in the course of this present year, and now an area 16 feet by 8 feet is exposed, covered with figures. The overlying peat which has preserved these singular sculptures, was from a few inches to one foot in depth…Three other groups of figures, curved and irregular forms, are on the scalp of the same rock, but at some distance from each other- Plate VI, figs. 2,3,4. Twenty - four figures are traceable on these stones.""

Tate (1865) and Bruce (1869) drew the rock, and it is clear that part of it has been removed since then. The main difference from what we see today is that part of the western motifs have gone.

Another important observation is that there are three levels of the rock surface, and that the main motifs occupy the lowest level, well-preserved by peat and turf, and deeply pecked into the rock. The right corner of the drawing shows that some cups and partial rings have eroded considerably, or were pecked on lightly. A possible explanation for this is that some rock with older motifs was removed, and new motifs put on at a lower level in prehistoric times. Why? This happened at Fowberry Plantation and at Gayles Moor (Richmondshire). The Fowberry example is particularly striking, because a rectangular block has been removed and a motifs with every pick-mark fresh have been placed at the base of the space left, with eroded motifs on the old surface having similar designs of cups and rings. An explanation is that the rock slab with motifs was deliberately removed for incorporation in a monument.

This important, elaborate rock art panel, viewed from the east to appreciate its designs, gives only a limited view of the Milfield Plain, although the Cheviots and scarp edge are in sight. It occupies a place that has all-round views of the landscape.",ERA-53,ND94,35,N3972B,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.992132,55.579157,,,,,,
l004_EastLordenshaw4b_ND_T3.jpg,East Lordenshaw 4b(i),"A very large bedrock outcrop of white sandstone, prominent and highly visible in the landscape.

Cup marks, bowls, cups with rings and grooves are scattered mainly along the upper section near turf but also randomly elsewhere over this broad 'whaleback' of rock. An exceptionally long and deep serpentine channel, appears water formed but much enhanced in depth and width, traverses the panel and extends down the steep eastern slope. Cup marks appear paired on the vertical face. General introduction to Lordenshaw:

The sandstone promontory on which Lordenshaw stands is to the north east of the Simonside --Dove Crags range of hills. Its north west and south east flanks drop respectively to Whitton Dean, a tributary of the Coquet and to a narrow glaciated valley overlooked to the east by another outlying sandstone hill that rises to the same height as Lordenshaw. There is a rise to the hillfort from the south west, then the land slopes away to the north east, finger-like, to the Whitton Burn.

This raised, prominent extension of the Simonside Hills reaches 268m.OD, and is made up of outcrop Fell sandstone, with only a thin layer of acidic soil. There are patches of bright orange soil thrown up by rabbits, and a dark grey soil elsewhere.

The whole area has archaeology of many different periods, one of the most recent and most significant being the clearance of much of the land to the east for ‘improvement’ for the growing of grain on a regular close-running rig and furrow system. This must have destroyed some surface archaeology, and may have resulted in some of the stone heaps that could also be prehistoric burial mounds.

Prominent on the hilltop is a ‘fort’, a ditched Iron Age enclosure that has been re-used as a Romano-British settlement. The slope southwards to the modern road and car park has many field walls, some of cobble and soil construction, and others of vertically--set sandstones. Some of these walls cross one another, and represent different episodes in the use of the land.

The oldest features belong to the late Neolithic period, represented by cup and ring marked rocks over a wide area. The motifs vary from simple cups to more complex ringed cups and grooves, but there is a characteristic regional phenomenon of long grooves or channels that follow the slope of the outcrop sheets on the east side of the hill.

It is impossible to date outcrop markings, but in this area three possible early bronze age cairns have been built on marked outcrop rock, showing that the latter are either contemporary or earlier, and also showing that the sites were already of great importance in the landscape before the cairns were added.

All the marked rocks in situ are at prominent viewpoints, some commanding many miles of territory. A few cupped rocks in the hillfort allow the possibility that some marked surfaces may have been destroyed during its construction, and the medieval Deer Park wall may account for others being broken up and reused.
Modern quarrying has certainly taken its toll, especially on the north west, where masses of freestone have been removed, leaving holes in the ground like bomb craters, and the main block of rock art (2c) bears every sign of the quarrying process. Add to that a network of other walls, including those for sheilings (temporary herds’ houses and gardens), and it is likely that we have lost a large proportion of rock art.

East Lordenshaw 4a-d notes:

The outcrops so far seen along the ridge prepare us for the massive series to come, spectacular when they are whitened by the sun. The predominant motifs are large cups (or small basins) and long artificial grooves that run down the slopes into the ground. They begin to the north of the wall that joins the Deer Park wall above it.

East Lordenshaw 4a-d are really all part of the same rock, split, with grass growing among the spaces.
Mr. Newbigin describes its discovery:

""On first examination only a very small portion was visible, the bulk being completely filled in with turf. The lower portion ran into ground."" It was excavated, and left open. He found a channel 30' (9m.) long, maximum depth 6"" (0.15m.), maximum width 8""(0.20m), the bottom generally rounded and smooth. Its character was ""regularly maintained."" He recorded 39 cups around the channel head, one being directly at the channel head and connected with it. He mentions the other 26 scattered cups, and one with a single ring. In all, he recorded 66 cups.

He counted 27 cups on the vertical face, mostly arranged in vertical rows, and four ducts in addition to the big channel, with some cups on the line of the ducts. He added, ""There are six steps or slashes 7""-9"" long (0.18m-0.23m) in a horizontal line along the steep slope which appeared when soil was taken away from the lower part of the rock.

He mentions a ringed cup with ""faintly marked ducts running into each other at right angles, apparently unconnected with any of the cups"".

It is very important to have such information, and particularly to know that much of the rock was buried, the turf acting as a protection from erosion.

The vertical part, for example, was buried, and it is here where we see the unique device of making lines of cups like rows of buttons, some linked with grooves that start higher up the rock, or flanking these grooves. Cups predominate, and the large channel begins with one and is surrounded by them.",ERA-1283,,567,,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Hollinghill, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.91046,55.288552,,,,,,
l005_HareLaw4_ND_T3.jpg,Hare Law Crags 4,"Carvings include a cup with four complete rings and faint arcs, perhaps remnants of fifth outer ring and faint impression of radial groove extending from cup.

Grass is encroaching on all sides of the panel - touching the motif at one edge. Found in 1998.

The Hare Law Crags 1-7 area has been extensively quarried and mined, but is now pasture and used for timber plantations, so much archaeology may have been removed or buried. The rock art has survived on an elongated outcrop ridge aligned roughly SE-NW, partly tree-covered, highest at its SE end. The view from the ridge is widest and furthest towards Dod Law, an area of major rock art that rises from a valley between it and the Hare Law land, although the view of the Doddington Dean valley is obscured by land that rises to 130m. The view to the W is limited by the ridge of Doddington North Moor. To the E lies the Devil's Causeway, a major Roman road, but the view from the marked rocks to the east is blocked by a slight rise in the outcrop ridge. To the N the fields rise gently, and include the site of the English camp at Barmoor before the Battle of Flodden in 1513. To the NW is Roughting Linn, and to the NE the sea is reached via some undulating ground. This N-NE landscape is extensive, and today is mainly pasture.

Tate (1865) tells us, ""At intervals along the range, Mr. Charles Rea of Doddington discovered several inscriptions which had been covered over by turf. There are five groups of these inscriptions, and thirteen figures are traceable; all are of the common types; and one is somewhat angular in the lower part of the circles.""
His drawings of the motifs do not have much resemblance to what we see today, and he does not mention the impact of quarrying.",ERA-16,ND153A,17,N3684,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.979614,55.613286,,,,,,
l006_HareLaw5_ND_T3.jpg,Hare Law Crags 5,"Motifs are present on a fairly smooth, flat surface of outcrop sloping towards NNE. Cups and rings quite shallow. Turf encroaching on lower edge and ends. Found just inside the wood in March, 1991, by Paul Sellers, when a new fence, now removed, was being erected.

The Hare Law Crags 1-7 area has been extensively quarried and mined, but is now pasture and used for timber plantations, so much archaeology may have been removed or buried. The rock art has survived on an elongated outcrop ridge aligned roughly SE-NW, partly tree-covered, highest at its SE end. The view from the ridge is widest and furthest towards Dod Law, an area of major rock art that rises from a valley between it and the Hare Law land, although the view of the Doddington Dean valley is obscured by land that rises to 130m. The view to the W is limited by the ridge of Doddington North Moor. To the E lies the Devil's Causeway, a major Roman road, but the view from the marked rocks to the east is blocked by a slight rise in the outcrop ridge. To the N the fields rise gently, and include the site of the English camp at Barmoor before the Battle of Flodden in 1513. To the NW is Roughting Linn, and to the NE the sea is reached via some undulating ground. This N-NE landscape is extensive, and today is mainly pasture.

Tate (1865) tells us, ""At intervals along the range, Mr. Charles Rea of Doddington discovered several inscriptions which had been covered over by turf. There are five groups of these inscriptions, and thirteen figures are traceable; all are of the common types; and one is somewhat angular in the lower part of the circles.""
His drawings of the motifs do not have much resemblance to what we see today, and he does not mention the impact of quarrying.

Quarrying may have destroyed others before 1860, with stone taken off the scarp edge.",ERA-15,ND153A,23,N3684,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.979709,55.613331,,,,,,
l031_IS01_gal_2_CSIRM.jpg,Idol Stone 01,,ERA-2579,25333,,"PRN 249, PRN 7217",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.798053,53.909271,,,,,,
l032_GCS08_con_08_CSIRM.jpg,Green Crag Slack 08,,ERA-2585,25333,,"PRN 252, PRN 7217",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.79778,53.909064,,,,,,
l033_DH01_con_06_CSIRM.jpg,Dene Hole 01,,ERA-2371,25413,,PRN144,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Keighley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.857367,53.87758,,,,,,
l034_BM10_con_06_CSIRM.jpg,Burley Moor 10,,ERA-2603,,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.783518,53.89978,,,,,,
l035_BB03_con_06_CSIRM.jpg,Backstone Beck 03,,ERA-2544,25386,,"PRN 214, PRN 2555",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.806352,53.912224,,,,,,
l036_BadgerStone_CSIRM.jpg,Badger Stone,,ERA-2336,25367,,PRN181,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.831405,53.910284,,,,,,
l037_BB06_con_07_CSIRM.jpg,Backstone Beck 06,,ERA-2548,25334,,"PRN 220, PRN 7223",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.804636,53.911277,,,,,,
l038_GS06_con_08_CSIRM.jpg,Glovershaw 06,,ERA-2385,25271,,PRN333,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.80115,53.856736,,,,,,
l039_BST01_pan_N_01_CSIRM.jpg,Badger Stone,,ERA-2336,25367,,PRN181,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.831405,53.910284,,,,,,
l040_AddinghamCrag01_CSIRM.jpg,Addingham Crag 01,,ERA-2595,25355,,PRN 2077,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Addingham, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.880122,53.921264,,,,,,
l007_KingsCrag1Site_ND_T2.jpg,King's Crag (cup marked and pecked stones) 1,Several searches were made for this referenced panel in what is an interesting and remote area N of Hadrian's Wall. Unfortunately it could not be located by NADRAP.,ERA-1428,,,N6961,,,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,Northumberland,,,,,,,,
l008_MorwickRockShelterSite_ND_T2.jpg,Morwick Rock Shelter site,"Sandstone cliffs at Morwick, rising from the River Coquet at a fording place, have some of the most unusual motifs in Britain. They were discovered in the nineteenth century and drawn, but closer investigation has led me to find many more on the same surface. They are atypical, as a glance at the drawings shows, for they are based mainly on spiral motifs. Some others may have tumbled from the rock face into the river, where parts of the cliff have collapsed.

The site has a shut--in feel, despite the fact that the land opens up on the north part of the river. The sun seldom reaches the north--facing motifs, which are liberally distributed. Many are beyond easy reach, which suggests that either equipment was needed to reach them or the river was higher. To record some of them, I (Stan Beckensall) had to have a ladder lodged in the river bed when the water was at its lowest. Locally the site has been known as the ‘Jack Rock,’ with one design seen as a lion’s face.

The motifs were first recorded in the History of the Berwick Naturalists’ Club, Volume X (1882-4) by James Hardy after their discovery by Mr Middleton Dand of Hauxley.

Apart from their obvious context at an important fording place across a river that must have been a major food source and vital means of communication, there is a hint that there may have been burials nearby. Mr Dand wrote:
There are several mounds running from north to south on the north side of the river on Warkworth Moor…they are not unlike barrows…or…they may be merely owing to tracks worn at different ages to Pomfret’s Ford.

However, we have to accept that these motifs lie in isolation from any definite prehistoric sites. The spiral motifs are quite different from cups and rings. The only other examples in Northumberland are at Lilburn and West Horton. If we are looking for sea--borne sources of influence (and I don’t see why we should), the obvious direction is not from Ireland, where spirals are frequent in decoration of passage graves. Further north, at Hawthornden in Scotland are similar spirals on cliffs, but that does not link them except stylistically. More obvious parallels would be in Galloway, to the west. So why are they here, who put them there and why? I don’t know. Spirals of any kind are rare in Britain. Their contexts, spread widely, include stone circles, pottery, carved stone balls, maceheads, reused slabs in early Bronze Age graves, and in passage graves in Ireland, Anglesey and Orkney. Some are on rock outcrops. They are not all alike: the horned spiral occurs, for example, only at Morwick and Lilburn, and in Scotland at Temple Wood, Achnabreck, Lamancha, Gilnockie Tower and Orkney. It occurs too on a Grooved Ware vessel from Radley. ‘Triple spirals’ occur only at Morwick, Achnabreck, and New Grange (Ireland), but they are joined in different ways.

This is what makes Morwick so special, for it has single, S-shaped, horned and triple spirals as well as a unique design of three spirals linked to concentric circles and a spiral surrounded by a ring of cups. All this is to be set against the great rarity of spirals of any kind in Britain. Its position in the landscape makes it one of only 11 open-air sites in northern England and southern Scotland. Unlike the more usual cup and ring motifs this is on a vertical cliff rather than on near-horizontal rock. Its position is in a very important river valley, with many prehistoric sites along the course of the river, close to access from and egress to the sea. There is no man--made monument there, but its position is naturally striking as an important river crossing, so to travellers, hunters, settlers and fishermen it would act as a reference point, taking on perhaps a ritual significance of such importance that it inspired a unique art form. No one had to teach the people to do that; we do not have to look for sources of this art; it may even have been the source. I believe that many motifs can be produced by many different people in different parts of the world instinctively. (Young children are particularly good at discovering spirals for themselves, and I have seen people who are bored in committee meetings forming them on their note pads and agendas.)

In Galloway the majority of spirals are not used in association with cup and ring motifs, but are on rocks by themselves, despite the latter being widely distributed.

The places where spirals have the most significance in England and Scotland are on stone circles, such as Long Meg and Castlerigg (Cumbria), in the passage graves of the Boyne valley (Eire), Anglesey and Orkney. At Newgrange Eire) they are at particularly important places in the grave; as many are inside, only a few people at a time could view them; others are placed on the decorated kerbstones. Such placement gives us a rare dating possibility, but for that site only: later Neolithic. It is just possible that the re-excavation of the pit at Lilburn could provide more information by using modern methods of excavation. It has been said that the horned spiral at Achnabreck is earlier than the cup and ring motifs on the same rock; as it is in exactly the same condition as the best of them, I can see no reason for saying so.

Despite many attempts to explain them, much speculation remains in a world of fantasy-- at least, it doesn’t convince me! What we cannot deny is that they were very important to the people who made and used them; the motifs had a meaning that may continue to elude us. The danger is that we read ourselves into them - a natural response that brings many answers.",ERA-2047,,1114,,,,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Warkworth, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.632577,55.333272,,,,,,
l009_OldBewick1a_ND_AO.jpg,Old Bewick 1a,"A large 'car sized' and possibly glacially deposited sandstone block showing evidence on all sides of quarrying activity. The table like, slightly sloping, top surface also bears quarry marks in preparation for further splitting the block. Two of the near vertical sides east and south are also marked each with a linear row of many regularly sized and shaped cups. Previously attributed to prehistory they may not be so proven. The upper surface is extravagant in quantity and quality of motif which flow from the natural weathering features evident at the top and cover almost the entire available area. [refer to motif notes]. Views to and from the panel are extensive to the east, south and north. The west is blocked by rising ground to the hill fort. Undoubtedly marked and re-marked over time this panel shows sensitivity and complexity apparent only in very few other decorated panels.

East face
Clear straight line of eight cups at southern end - possibly continues shallower cups shallower cups at northern end of line. Heavily pock marked area with at least 12 possibles or may be natural. The clear line of cups at the left (southern) side merges into a knobbly/pocked surface which is hard to distinguish whether prehistoric man-made/natural/quarrying. This is the eastern ""wall"" of the boulder. Art on the upper surface is also on sloping ""roof"" set back from this section and higher.

South face
13 cup marks depicted across the width of the pane.

Top face
There are many separate and linked motifs across much of the top surface. The motifs include most of the motif cup and cup and ring repertoire, in a range of sizes. Many of the motifs are interlinked together, and seem to run down from the top, southern part of the stone where there are many natural depressions, basins and weathering grooves. The motifs can be separated into 22 single cups, 4 cup and grooves, 5 cup and single rings, and other mixed types. Many of the motifs have the characteristics of cup and rings, as well grooves going through the cups and rings. Some motifs appear to be very stylised, but appear on this panel alone. The block is not at the highest point of the hill. It was chosen because it was there and it was big. Its viewpoints are limited only by the rise to the hillfort; it overlooks Hepburn ridge, Blawearie cairns and the Corby Crags hillfort. The pasture reaches a stone wall that divide it from the moorland. Behind it, over the wire fence is another large block of marked stone. The east edge of the big hillfort has a low wall of disturbed material, among which is other rock art.",ERA-1087,Nd87a,298,Nd87a,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Bewick, Bewick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.876155,55.487918,,,,,,
l010_OldBewick1a_ND_AO.jpg,Old Bewick 1a,"A large 'car sized' and possibly glacially deposited sandstone block showing evidence on all sides of quarrying activity. The table like, slightly sloping, top surface also bears quarry marks in preparation for further splitting the block. Two of the near vertical sides east and south are also marked each with a linear row of many regularly sized and shaped cups. Previously attributed to prehistory they may not be so proven. The upper surface is extravagant in quantity and quality of motif which flow from the natural weathering features evident at the top and cover almost the entire available area. [refer to motif notes]. Views to and from the panel are extensive to the east, south and north. The west is blocked by rising ground to the hill fort. Undoubtedly marked and re-marked over time this panel shows sensitivity and complexity apparent only in very few other decorated panels.

East face
Clear straight line of eight cups at southern end - possibly continues shallower cups shallower cups at northern end of line. Heavily pock marked area with at least 12 possibles or may be natural. The clear line of cups at the left (southern) side merges into a knobbly/pocked surface which is hard to distinguish whether prehistoric man-made/natural/quarrying. This is the eastern ""wall"" of the boulder. Art on the upper surface is also on sloping ""roof"" set back from this section and higher.

South face
13 cup marks depicted across the width of the pane.

Top face
There are many separate and linked motifs across much of the top surface. The motifs include most of the motif cup and cup and ring repertoire, in a range of sizes. Many of the motifs are interlinked together, and seem to run down from the top, southern part of the stone where there are many natural depressions, basins and weathering grooves. The motifs can be separated into 22 single cups, 4 cup and grooves, 5 cup and single rings, and other mixed types. Many of the motifs have the characteristics of cup and rings, as well grooves going through the cups and rings. Some motifs appear to be very stylised, but appear on this panel alone. The block is not at the highest point of the hill. It was chosen because it was there and it was big. Its viewpoints are limited only by the rise to the hillfort; it overlooks Hepburn ridge, Blawearie cairns and the Corby Crags hillfort. The pasture reaches a stone wall that divide it from the moorland. Behind it, over the wire fence is another large block of marked stone. The east edge of the big hillfort has a low wall of disturbed material, among which is other rock art.",ERA-1087,Nd87a,298,Nd87a,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Bewick, Bewick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.876155,55.487918,,,,,,
l011_OldBewick1a_ND_AO.jpg,Old Bewick 1a,"A large 'car sized' and possibly glacially deposited sandstone block showing evidence on all sides of quarrying activity. The table like, slightly sloping, top surface also bears quarry marks in preparation for further splitting the block. Two of the near vertical sides east and south are also marked each with a linear row of many regularly sized and shaped cups. Previously attributed to prehistory they may not be so proven. The upper surface is extravagant in quantity and quality of motif which flow from the natural weathering features evident at the top and cover almost the entire available area. [refer to motif notes]. Views to and from the panel are extensive to the east, south and north. The west is blocked by rising ground to the hill fort. Undoubtedly marked and re-marked over time this panel shows sensitivity and complexity apparent only in very few other decorated panels.

East face
Clear straight line of eight cups at southern end - possibly continues shallower cups shallower cups at northern end of line. Heavily pock marked area with at least 12 possibles or may be natural. The clear line of cups at the left (southern) side merges into a knobbly/pocked surface which is hard to distinguish whether prehistoric man-made/natural/quarrying. This is the eastern ""wall"" of the boulder. Art on the upper surface is also on sloping ""roof"" set back from this section and higher.

South face
13 cup marks depicted across the width of the pane.

Top face
There are many separate and linked motifs across much of the top surface. The motifs include most of the motif cup and cup and ring repertoire, in a range of sizes. Many of the motifs are interlinked together, and seem to run down from the top, southern part of the stone where there are many natural depressions, basins and weathering grooves. The motifs can be separated into 22 single cups, 4 cup and grooves, 5 cup and single rings, and other mixed types. Many of the motifs have the characteristics of cup and rings, as well grooves going through the cups and rings. Some motifs appear to be very stylised, but appear on this panel alone. The block is not at the highest point of the hill. It was chosen because it was there and it was big. Its viewpoints are limited only by the rise to the hillfort; it overlooks Hepburn ridge, Blawearie cairns and the Corby Crags hillfort. The pasture reaches a stone wall that divide it from the moorland. Behind it, over the wire fence is another large block of marked stone. The east edge of the big hillfort has a low wall of disturbed material, among which is other rock art.",ERA-1087,Nd87a,298,Nd87a,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Bewick, Bewick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.876155,55.487918,,,,,,
l012_ScargillLowMoor5_ND_T5.jpg,Scargill Low Moor 5,"This panel has a busy design of seventy three cup marks, some of which may be natural. Multiple thin bedding layers are evident on the stone with cups covering the whole surface. Towards the SW end are two grooves, which could be either natural or artificial.",ERA-954,,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Barningham, Teesdale, Durham",-1.992434,54.494343,,,,,,
l013_SwinburneStandingStone_ND_T2.jpg,Swinburne Standing Stone,"Swinburne Standing Stone is the largest standing stone in the county. Many of the cups are elongated, possibly by water erosion, which is extensive.

Scatter of 10-12 cups mostly on the SE face, about 8 of them in a loose cluster.",ERA-1478,20936,736,N9290,Art in a structure,Standing stone monument,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Chollerton, Tynedale, Northumberland",-2.097794,55.065256,,,,,,
l014_SwinburneStandingStone_ND_T2.jpg,Swinburne Standing Stone,"Swinburne Standing Stone is the largest standing stone in the county. Many of the cups are elongated, possibly by water erosion, which is extensive.

Scatter of 10-12 cups mostly on the SE face, about 8 of them in a loose cluster.",ERA-1478,20936,736,N9290,Art in a structure,Standing stone monument,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Chollerton, Tynedale, Northumberland",-2.097794,55.065256,,,,,,
l015_WestLordenshaw2c_ND_T3.jpg,West Lordenshaw 2c,"This is a huge piece of rock bearing many prehistoric motifs. This is despite the determined efforts of quarrymen to remove portions of it in more recent times. The shape and size of the original panel is unknown – though the appearance of truncated motifs to the very edge of the panel implies the quarried sections were carved. The remaining portion has sheer and sharp faces on the northeastern, southern and western sides. It tilts unevenly across the whole surface from west to east, with continual undulations and localised higher areas. There is a large natural bowl at the northern end. The surrounding loose stones and lower portions attached to the main rock are the result of the quarrying and are undecorated, with one exception.

Much of the tilted surface of the rock has many rock art motifs across it. Two further carvings are of note – an apparent cup and ring outline, and the inscription “ROCK MAP” appear to be graffiti of comparatively recent date.

A range of motif types is also echoed by the variety of motif positions; some occupy prominent positions at the top, others nearer the base. Various levels of the rock have been inscribed with various motifs; in some cases it is possible that differential weathering has meant the loss of motifs. A number of natural basins and grooves have been used with the motifs. Traces of pronounced weathering can also be seen at the highest parts of the rock.

No specific details of the size and decoration of the panel are known from the 19th century records of the stone. These note only the bulk and decoration of the stone generally. The panel is situated at the crest of one of the higher terraces to the southwest of Lordenshaw Hill, with other rocky outcrops along the ridge. The ground slopes off the terrace to give views to further terraces and valleys to western aspects, and along the inner, steeper and crag-broken, arc of the Fell Sandstone Group. These views include other rock panels on the same terrace edge, the Birky Hill and Horseshoe rock art panel group areas on the first terrace below, before more distant rock art areas of West Hills, Chirnells Moor and the Football Cairn areas on the other side of the Coquet. Further afield the more distant Cheviot Hills can be seen across the valley.

Evidence of the quarrying that took place of the terrace edge can be found as quarrying hollows and loose blocks, sheer and sharp faces of rock, are all near this panel. Further elements of the Medieval and Post Medieval landscape are also nearby. West Lordenshaw 2c still has a small metal plate put there by the Ministry of Works, and itself an ancient monument to mark its position. It is a dominant viewpoint, with the whole range of Simonside and Cheviots visible, and to the north east the land rises gently to the hillfort.

It is unlikely to have been the only marked outcrop along this ridge, for just to the north is a massive quarry hole from which a similar sized block has been removed. Wedge marks in a line on the western edge and broken motifs show one technique involved in breaking off pieces of rock, for wooden wedges were inserted, water poured on, and the resulting stress of expansion split the rock.

This impressive rock has been vandalised, a rare occurrence in modern times, by someone chipping a design and the words 'Rock Map', a misguided and arrogant assumption that this is what it was. It was done over thirty years ago. Mr Newbigin refers in 1931 to this rock being discovered 'a number of years ago in the course of quarrying.'

General introduction to Lordenshaw:

The sandstone promontory on which Lordenshaw stands is to the north east of the Simonside --Dove Crags range of hills. Its north west and south east flanks drop respectively to Whitton Dean, a tributary of the Coquet and to a narrow glaciated valley overlooked to the east by another outlying sandstone hill that rises to the same height as Lordenshaw. There is a rise to the hillfort from the south west, then the land slopes away to the north east, finger-like, to the Whitton Burn.

This raised, prominent extension of the Simonside Hills reaches 268m.OD, and is made up of outcrop Fell sandstone, with only a thin layer of acidic soil. There are patches of bright orange soil thrown up by rabbits, and a dark grey soil elsewhere.

The whole area has archaeology of many different periods, one of the most recent and most significant being the clearance of much of the land to the east for ‘improvement’ for the growing of grain on a regular close-running rig and furrow system. This must have destroyed some surface archaeology, and may have resulted in some of the stone heaps that could also be prehistoric burial mounds.

Prominent on the hilltop is a ‘fort’, a ditched Iron Age enclosure that has been re-used as a Romano-British settlement. The slope southwards to the modern road and car park has many field walls, some of cobble and soil construction, and others of vertically--set sandstones. Some of these walls cross one another, and represent different episodes in the use of the land.

The oldest features belong to the late Neolithic period, represented by cup and ring marked rocks over a wide area. The motifs vary from simple cups to more complex ringed cups and grooves, but there is a characteristic regional phenomenon of long grooves or channels that follow the slope of the outcrop sheets on the east side of the hill.

It is impossible to date outcrop markings, but in this area three possible early bronze age cairns have been built on marked outcrop rock, showing that the latter are either contemporary or earlier, and also showing that the sites were already of great importance in the landscape before the cairns were added.

All the marked rocks in situ are at prominent viewpoints, some commanding many miles of territory. A few cupped rocks in the hillfort allow the possibility that some marked surfaces may have been destroyed during its construction, and the medieval Deer Park wall may account for others being broken up and reused.
Modern quarrying has certainly taken its toll, especially on the north west, where masses of freestone have been removed, leaving holes in the ground like bomb craters, and the main block of rock art (2c) bears every sign of the quarrying process. Add to that a network of other walls, including those for sheilings (temporary herds’ houses and gardens), and it is likely that we have lost a large proportion of rock art.",ERA-1318,,541,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Whitton and Tosson, Alnwick, Northumberland",-1.917756,55.286401,,,,,,
l016_AC01_gal_01_CSIRM.jpg,Addingham Crag 01,,ERA-2595,25355,,PRN 2077,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Addingham, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.880122,53.921264,,,,,,
l017_PR05_con_08_CSIRM.jpg,Pancake Ridge 05,,ERA-2567,25342,,"PRN 231, PRN 7224",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.801661,53.912567,,,,,,
l018_WC02_gal_02_CSIRM_RS.jpg,Woodhouse Crag 02,,ERA-2237,25364,,PRN 143,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.858613,53.918859,,,,,,
l019_CravenHallHill01_CSRIM.jpg,Craven Hall Hill 01,,ERA-2358,25289,,PRN301,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Leeds, West Yorkshire",-1.77742,53.892929,,,,,,
l020_PST01_con_09_CSIRM.jpg,Pancake Stone 01,,ERA-2560,25360,,"PRN 259, PRN 7232",Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.795925,53.911829,,,,,,
l021_Rivock16_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 16,,ERA-2290,25315,,PRN115,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.88619,53.896209,,,,,,
l022_RV05 07_CSIRM_MS.jpg,Rivock 07,,ERA-2635,,,PRN108,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.887389,53.897658,,,,,,
l023_RV15 06_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 06,,ERA-2284,25319,,PRN106,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.887906,53.897595,,,,,,
l024_RV05 11_CSIRM_MS.jpg,Rivock 11,,ERA-2639,25321,,PRN112,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.886932,53.89754,,,,,,
l025_PR05_con_07_CSIRM.jpg,Pancake Ridge 05,,ERA-2567,25342,,"PRN 231, PRN 7224",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.801661,53.912567,,,,,,
l026_PC01_gal_02_CSIRM_PB.jpg,Piper's Crag 01,,ERA-2240,25354,,PRN2078,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Addingham, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.870624,53.919726,,,,,,
l027_PC01_gal_03_CSIRM.jpg,Piper's Crag 01,,ERA-2241,25355,,PRN2079,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Addingham, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.870625,53.919727,,,,,,
l028_PC01_gal_04_CSIRM_RS.jpg,Piper's Crag 01,,ERA-2242,25356,,PRN2080,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Addingham, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.870626,53.919728,,,,,,
l029_PR02_con_07_CSIRM.jpg,Pancake Ridge 02,,ERA-2570,25335,,PRN 7215,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.802206,53.913251,,,,,,
l030_RV15_con_08_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 15,,ERA-2289,25314,,PRN116,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.886115,53.896011,,,,,,
s001_Buttony4_BK.jpg,Buttony 4,"Very attractive distinct pair of side by side cup and ring motifs, both with two distinct radial grooves that dominate this panel. The left hand motif has seven very distinct complete rings plus an outer incomplete penannular which terminates near its intersections with the radial grooves. The right hand motif also has seven distinct and complete rings but its two radial grooves are orientated differently. There is very faint third radial groove in the right hand motif. The bottom halves of both motifs were covered in composting pine needles

At the top of the panel there is a symmetrical domino pattern of six cups and a random cluster of three large cups.",ERA-80,ND218,64,N3889,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.972481,55.573016,,,,,,
s002_Chatton1a_ND.jpg,Chatton 1a,"This is a gently sloping outcrop which is flush with surrounding turf (no edges). The surface has shallow undulations corresponding to erosion edges of bedding planes and natural erosion channels are present across entire surface. Motifs include two parallel domino-arrangements: ""double four"" and ""four, one"". There is also single cup with two penannulars, a multiple ring motif with five rings, a multiple penannular with three rings, and two keyholes each with two annuli. The most elaborate motif is a cup with seven rings, the outer two rings separate out on the west side to curve round and incorporate a cup. A groove leads from the central cup east down the stone. One of the motifs recorded is a new find, difficult to see except in good light. Graffiti is present. The sense of space, the use of the natural basin and channel are all important parts of the design. Unfortunately, the nineteenth century saw people trying to lay a claim to cheap immortality by bringing up tools to carve their names and the date on the rock.",ERA-121,ND147A-C,214,N3414A,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.880018,55.555105,,,,,,
s003_Chatton1a_ND.jpg,Chatton 1a,"This is a gently sloping outcrop which is flush with surrounding turf (no edges). The surface has shallow undulations corresponding to erosion edges of bedding planes and natural erosion channels are present across entire surface. Motifs include two parallel domino-arrangements: ""double four"" and ""four, one"". There is also single cup with two penannulars, a multiple ring motif with five rings, a multiple penannular with three rings, and two keyholes each with two annuli. The most elaborate motif is a cup with seven rings, the outer two rings separate out on the west side to curve round and incorporate a cup. A groove leads from the central cup east down the stone. One of the motifs recorded is a new find, difficult to see except in good light. Graffiti is present. The sense of space, the use of the natural basin and channel are all important parts of the design. Unfortunately, the nineteenth century saw people trying to lay a claim to cheap immortality by bringing up tools to carve their names and the date on the rock.",ERA-121,ND147A-C,214,N3414A,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.880018,55.555105,,,,,,
s004_Chatton1a_BK.jpg,Chatton 1a,"This is a gently sloping outcrop which is flush with surrounding turf (no edges). The surface has shallow undulations corresponding to erosion edges of bedding planes and natural erosion channels are present across entire surface. Motifs include two parallel domino-arrangements: ""double four"" and ""four, one"". There is also single cup with two penannulars, a multiple ring motif with five rings, a multiple penannular with three rings, and two keyholes each with two annuli. The most elaborate motif is a cup with seven rings, the outer two rings separate out on the west side to curve round and incorporate a cup. A groove leads from the central cup east down the stone. One of the motifs recorded is a new find, difficult to see except in good light. Graffiti is present. The sense of space, the use of the natural basin and channel are all important parts of the design. Unfortunately, the nineteenth century saw people trying to lay a claim to cheap immortality by bringing up tools to carve their names and the date on the rock.",ERA-121,ND147A-C,214,N3414A,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.880018,55.555105,,,,,,
s005_DodLawMainRockA_BA_IH.jpg,Dod Law Main Rock A,"Almost rectangular and horizontal panel with three different levels - corresponding to three phases of quarrying. Divided by crack across middle which is now filled with turf. Several long curving grooves have been carved around the motifs. The discovery of this impressive rock is described by Tate (1865): ""It was almost entirely covered over with turf till 1855, when it was observed by Mrs Procter, who caused part of it to be cleared; another portion was cleared in the course of this present year, and now an area 16 feet by 8 feet is exposed, covered with figures. The overlying peat which has preserved these singular sculptures, was from a few inches to one foot in depth…Three other groups of figures, curved and irregular forms, are on the scalp of the same rock, but at some distance from each other- Plate VI, figs. 2,3,4. Twenty - four figures are traceable on these stones.""

Tate (1865) and Bruce (1869) drew the rock, and it is clear that part of it has been removed since then. The main difference from what we see today is that part of the western motifs have gone.

Another important observation is that there are three levels of the rock surface, and that the main motifs occupy the lowest level, well-preserved by peat and turf, and deeply pecked into the rock. The right corner of the drawing shows that some cups and partial rings have eroded considerably, or were pecked on lightly. A possible explanation for this is that some rock with older motifs was removed, and new motifs put on at a lower level in prehistoric times. Why? This happened at Fowberry Plantation and at Gayles Moor (Richmondshire). The Fowberry example is particularly striking, because a rectangular block has been removed and a motifs with every pick-mark fresh have been placed at the base of the space left, with eroded motifs on the old surface having similar designs of cups and rings. An explanation is that the rock slab with motifs was deliberately removed for incorporation in a monument.

This important, elaborate rock art panel, viewed from the east to appreciate its designs, gives only a limited view of the Milfield Plain, although the Cheviots and scarp edge are in sight. It occupies a place that has all-round views of the landscape.",ERA-53,ND94,35,N3972B,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.992132,55.579157,,,,,,
s006_DodLawMainRockA_BA_SB.jpg,Dod Law Main Rock A,"Almost rectangular and horizontal panel with three different levels - corresponding to three phases of quarrying. Divided by crack across middle which is now filled with turf. Several long curving grooves have been carved around the motifs. The discovery of this impressive rock is described by Tate (1865): ""It was almost entirely covered over with turf till 1855, when it was observed by Mrs Procter, who caused part of it to be cleared; another portion was cleared in the course of this present year, and now an area 16 feet by 8 feet is exposed, covered with figures. The overlying peat which has preserved these singular sculptures, was from a few inches to one foot in depth…Three other groups of figures, curved and irregular forms, are on the scalp of the same rock, but at some distance from each other- Plate VI, figs. 2,3,4. Twenty - four figures are traceable on these stones.""

Tate (1865) and Bruce (1869) drew the rock, and it is clear that part of it has been removed since then. The main difference from what we see today is that part of the western motifs have gone.

Another important observation is that there are three levels of the rock surface, and that the main motifs occupy the lowest level, well-preserved by peat and turf, and deeply pecked into the rock. The right corner of the drawing shows that some cups and partial rings have eroded considerably, or were pecked on lightly. A possible explanation for this is that some rock with older motifs was removed, and new motifs put on at a lower level in prehistoric times. Why? This happened at Fowberry Plantation and at Gayles Moor (Richmondshire). The Fowberry example is particularly striking, because a rectangular block has been removed and a motifs with every pick-mark fresh have been placed at the base of the space left, with eroded motifs on the old surface having similar designs of cups and rings. An explanation is that the rock slab with motifs was deliberately removed for incorporation in a monument.

This important, elaborate rock art panel, viewed from the east to appreciate its designs, gives only a limited view of the Milfield Plain, although the Cheviots and scarp edge are in sight. It occupies a place that has all-round views of the landscape.",ERA-53,ND94,35,N3972B,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The Beckensall Archive,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.992132,55.579157,,,,,,
s007_GledLaw3_BK.jpg,Gled Law 3,"Panel quarried on east. Motifs only visible in good light.

Very poorly defined grooves. Gled Law is the continuation of the Dod Law scarp SW, with a similar view across the Till valley to the west, and sight of the river as it breaks through the scarp from the east to Weetwood Bridge. It is divided from the Buttony sites to the east by a small stream and valley.

Although motifs on it have disappeared, George Tate (1865) has left an account and drawings of them. He says, ""On the scalp of the rock where it dips into the hill, four figures are traceable; but from being very much defaced, it is difficult to make out these forms, even when viewed under a favourable light"". The figures that he draws are a cup and ring, a cup, ring, a second interrupted ring from which curved grooves extend, a cup and three concentric rings, and a cup and two concentric rings. On the perpendicular western face he found and drew some other designs which are not of the same type; he thought them more likely to be medieval. The importance of this place therefore continued, and from it the Milfield Plain and Cheviots are viewed.

The landscape has changed since then, in that some monuments have been cleared away. The most recent disturbance is the laying of a gas pipeline. The ritual significance of the area is suggested by reports of burials.

At NU 00570 30620 (Mill Lands), W Procter reported that "" In 1867 a cist was uncovered by the plough in a field near this (Gled Law) quite close to 'Cuddy's Cove'. Greenwell wrote, ""The cist was found on June 21, 1867, in a sandy knoll rising from the River Till and in close proximity to one of the rocks engraved with the circular markings"". This has gone.

Davison and Davison (1935-6) said that ""evidence still exists to show that Gled Law was used for burial purposes. It would be interesting to excavate at least two of the large mounds on the hill, either of which may be a barrow.""

It is likely that more archaeology has been destroyed or covered over. For example, Mr Davison also recorded ""One cup with a faintly discernible ring"" where it is now pasture.

Mr. Tate reported that by 1868 ""seven groups of inscriptions have recently been discovered. In this assemblage of sculptures, there are traceable thirty-six figures, mostly typical forms; yet in some cases, so varied and combined, as to present new figures."" Plate V shows them, drawn from rubbings made by Mr. William Procter, Jnr. Mr. Bruce also drew some of them.

The figures on Gled Law Site 2a in my illustration, with its three radial grooves, was discovered by Mrs. Procter. Mr. Tate says, "" The whole of these sculptures were rudely formed, the incisions are shallow, and the tool marks distinct; the circles are irregular and had evidently been drawn without instrumental aid."" He also noted that, ""About fifty yards from these sculptures, Mr. Procter has recently discovered the fragments of a sepulchral urn of the ordinary ancient British type."" His observations on how the motifs were made suggests that the rocks had been covered over for some time, leaving the motifs more or less in their pristine state. What Mr. Tate considered ""rudely formed"" means that no attempt had been made to deepen or smooth the cups and grooves; they were left with the pick marks clear.",ERA-89,ND154,54,N3798,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.980856,55.571463,,,,,,
s008_GledLaw3_BK.jpg,Gled Law 3,"Panel quarried on east. Motifs only visible in good light.

Very poorly defined grooves. Gled Law is the continuation of the Dod Law scarp SW, with a similar view across the Till valley to the west, and sight of the river as it breaks through the scarp from the east to Weetwood Bridge. It is divided from the Buttony sites to the east by a small stream and valley.

Although motifs on it have disappeared, George Tate (1865) has left an account and drawings of them. He says, ""On the scalp of the rock where it dips into the hill, four figures are traceable; but from being very much defaced, it is difficult to make out these forms, even when viewed under a favourable light"". The figures that he draws are a cup and ring, a cup, ring, a second interrupted ring from which curved grooves extend, a cup and three concentric rings, and a cup and two concentric rings. On the perpendicular western face he found and drew some other designs which are not of the same type; he thought them more likely to be medieval. The importance of this place therefore continued, and from it the Milfield Plain and Cheviots are viewed.

The landscape has changed since then, in that some monuments have been cleared away. The most recent disturbance is the laying of a gas pipeline. The ritual significance of the area is suggested by reports of burials.

At NU 00570 30620 (Mill Lands), W Procter reported that "" In 1867 a cist was uncovered by the plough in a field near this (Gled Law) quite close to 'Cuddy's Cove'. Greenwell wrote, ""The cist was found on June 21, 1867, in a sandy knoll rising from the River Till and in close proximity to one of the rocks engraved with the circular markings"". This has gone.

Davison and Davison (1935-6) said that ""evidence still exists to show that Gled Law was used for burial purposes. It would be interesting to excavate at least two of the large mounds on the hill, either of which may be a barrow.""

It is likely that more archaeology has been destroyed or covered over. For example, Mr Davison also recorded ""One cup with a faintly discernible ring"" where it is now pasture.

Mr. Tate reported that by 1868 ""seven groups of inscriptions have recently been discovered. In this assemblage of sculptures, there are traceable thirty-six figures, mostly typical forms; yet in some cases, so varied and combined, as to present new figures."" Plate V shows them, drawn from rubbings made by Mr. William Procter, Jnr. Mr. Bruce also drew some of them.

The figures on Gled Law Site 2a in my illustration, with its three radial grooves, was discovered by Mrs. Procter. Mr. Tate says, "" The whole of these sculptures were rudely formed, the incisions are shallow, and the tool marks distinct; the circles are irregular and had evidently been drawn without instrumental aid."" He also noted that, ""About fifty yards from these sculptures, Mr. Procter has recently discovered the fragments of a sepulchral urn of the ordinary ancient British type."" His observations on how the motifs were made suggests that the rocks had been covered over for some time, leaving the motifs more or less in their pristine state. What Mr. Tate considered ""rudely formed"" means that no attempt had been made to deepen or smooth the cups and grooves; they were left with the pick marks clear.",ERA-89,ND154,54,N3798,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.980856,55.571463,,,,,,
s009_KetleyCragRockShelter1_BK.jpg,Ketley Crag Rock Shelter 1,"This rock art panel location is somewhat unusual. The crag is located about two-thirds down a north west facing, steep, bracken-covered slope of the Fell Sandstone Group. The decorated panel is the base of a small, shallow shelter formed from the crag.

See Beckensall Archive art description for details. To record this rock I (Stan Beckensall) spent hours at the site, and the accompaniment of the badgers under the earth the other side of the rockshelter wall was a unique experience: they sounded as though they were moving furniture and redecorating for the whole time, though they remained hidden!",ERA-97,ND147A,235,N3434,Art in the landscape,Cliff/shelter,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.881647,55.56181,,,,,,
s010_MatfenStandingStone_BK.jpg,Matfen Standing Stone,"Also known as 'The Stob Stone'. Minimum of 26 cups at the base of E, N and W faces. Upper surfaces badly affected by weathering. It may have been moved from its original position. On three sides of its base, close to the ground, are many cup marks. Whether they were put there before or after the stone was erected we do not know. The stone is naturally fluted, which makes it impressive. The cup marks are best seen in oblique sunlight. There are 29 cups and three fainter ones on one side, five cups and an arc around a fainter cup on another, and 23 cups of various sizes on the third side.",ERA-1477,25179,659,N10306,Art in a structure,Standing stone monument,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Matfen, Castle Morpeth, Northumberland",-1.947964,55.028491,,,,,,
s011_PainesBridgeWallingtona_BK.jpg,"Paines Bridge, Wallington a","A small unshaped boulder reused in construction of Paines Bridge foundation and sunk into concrete. Of reddish shiny material it may be of iron-based stone. There are two complex motifs: one with a broad single ring, well-defined with part obscured by mortar and cement; the other motif has two definite rings and a third broken ring (not thought penanular), and a further arc of about 130 degrees. The cup and multiple rings dominate the upper surface of the small stone. The linear marks are probably plough marks. An inscription is noted on the bridge dated 1927 which may relate to some reconstruction or to record river height. Carved in 1927 it provides a loose guide to deterioration through weathering. The Paines Bridge, Wallington discoveries are linked with the finding of decorated cobbles at Old Deanham to the south, and may be from the same source.",ERA-1591,,683,,Art in a structure,Bridge,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Wallington Demesne, Castle Morpeth, Northumberland",-1.947446,55.149403,,,,,,
s012_RoughtingLinn_ND.jpg,Roughting Linn,"This is a huge dome of outcropping rock dominating surrounding ground. The recent removal of trees, a surrounding fence with gate and sign shows the whole dome to its advantage, gently domed along the line of the sandstone ridge and more sharply from west to east. It is a single outcrop at this level, from the west appearing as a large crag. The whole dome is in three sections; the central area is largely surviving outcrop falling away in all directions, with the flanking north and south portions largely quarried away, remaining as grass-covered edges and hollows.

The overall shape of the dome is similar to that of a large cairn with the rock art around as a decorated skirt, though no burial evidence has been recorded.

The quarrying of the rock is undated, though likely to be Post Medieval, with possible loss of rock art motifs. Early illustrations of the site show cut-out portions with ‘steps’ of straight and sheer edges where rock has been removed, and tool marks can be seen across all areas of the dome.

The surrounding trees and other vegetation which threatened the panel have recently been cleared as a result of an agreement between English Heritage and the landowner. The fence and signpost referred to in the Beckensall Archive notes (which pre-date the current notes) have also been removed and a new information board will be erected in due course.

See Beckensall Archive notes for detailed description. Roughting Linn is a huge natural, whaleback shape of sandstone outcrop, an elongated domed ridge, 20m long and 12m wide, slightly higher than the land to the NW that flattens out before plunging into a gully formed by two small streams that join before flowing towards the Milfield Plain. It is the largest decorated rock in northern England, and perhaps the most famous.

Roughting Linn was was discovered in 1852 by William Greenwell, who reported its discovery at the meeting of Archaeological Institute in Newcastle in the July of that year. Unfortunately, Greenwell’s report was not published in the two volumes that recorded the meeting. Tate (1865) drew it in the mid-19th century, and a more thorough survey was made by Elizabeth Shee Twohig in 1988. Richard Bradley has noted its similarity to a long barrow, and has commented on the way its motifs are arranged so that large concentric circles form a kerb. The western part has been quarried away, before 1850, and a large slab has been removed across its width. There is still one cup and multiple circle motifs on a surviving part to the west and although the south is gouged with mainly natural grooves, there are cups and rings there too, so this decorated kerb idea is sound. Apart from its size and the fact that it just happened to be there, natural erosion on the southern part may have attracted artificial additions, a factor seen also at sites like Old Bewick. The decorated kerb concept is one shared with Irish Passage Grave art, although the circumstances are different, for this is undisturbed outcrop rock and not panels arranged in an artificial structure.


In the area between the outcrop and the gully are the multiple ramparts and ditches of an enclosure that cuts off the promontory to the NW. The small waterfall is formed by the Broomridgedean Burn falling over a ledge. Where it falls into a pond is a place both sheltered and beautiful, with small cliffs rising on either side, one with an overhang. To any group of people who regarded water as an object of veneration, this could well have been a special place. Despite the tarmacadam road that cuts the triangular promontory, at its base, the area has a lingering timelessness. The rock, the enclosure and the burn look west to the valley that leads to the Milfield Plain. To the east the views are impeded by higher ground, and to the SE the land rises to Doddington North Moor. Goatscrag Hill may have been visible, as it is partially today, from the rock. Just before the water tumbles over the ledge to cascade into the pool, there is some substantial outcrop covered by grass, and it would be interesting to see if this is marked in any way.

The rock at Roughting Linn has another tale to tell, for it reflects the inexplicable reluctance of the archaeological establishment to look after it. Here we have one of the most important pieces of rock art in the world, and it has a crumbling, ancient, irrelevant notice board of remarkable ugliness. To my knowledge (Stan Beckensall), in over 20 years there has been only one visit to ascertain the problems of erosion on the site, and no report or action followed. There are small trees pushing roots into the rock. Of course the site is beautiful, but how safe is the rock and its motifs? If the site is to be accessible, which technically it is, why are there no finger posts to guide strangers there? So many people end up at the farm. If there should be some information about it, why not replace the present board with a new one, with a drawing? It is helpful for people who come when the light is poor to see what is on the rock, and this may well help to encourage them not to walk all over it looking for the motifs.

We have a real problem here of recording, evaluation of what might spoil this rock, and of presenting it to interested people. Compared with the amount of money that is, for example, spent on Hadrian's Wall, we are talking peanuts!

Access to the marked rocks is by public rights of way. Should you wish to examine the rock overhangs at Goatscrag Hill, it is a courtesy to ask permission at Roughting Linn Farm. You may approach from the Ford Moss site to the west or from Roughting Linn on the east.

The position is pivotal in the area, lying as it does at the head of the Broomridgedean valley, whose burn flows past the towering north scarp with its overhangs, burials, and the trail of rock art across the top of the ridge, to the now-removed round barrow cemetery at its west end before the Milfield Plain begins. It is linked with the next group of rock art at Hare Law, whose site today does not evoke such aesthetic pleasure, and which lies in a different kind of landscape: more levelled out as it moves east towards the sea.",ERA-12,ND65,11,N1943,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-2.025585,55.624167,,,,,,
s013_RoughtingLinn_ND.jpg,Roughting Linn,"This is a huge dome of outcropping rock dominating surrounding ground. The recent removal of trees, a surrounding fence with gate and sign shows the whole dome to its advantage, gently domed along the line of the sandstone ridge and more sharply from west to east. It is a single outcrop at this level, from the west appearing as a large crag. The whole dome is in three sections; the central area is largely surviving outcrop falling away in all directions, with the flanking north and south portions largely quarried away, remaining as grass-covered edges and hollows.

The overall shape of the dome is similar to that of a large cairn with the rock art around as a decorated skirt, though no burial evidence has been recorded.

The quarrying of the rock is undated, though likely to be Post Medieval, with possible loss of rock art motifs. Early illustrations of the site show cut-out portions with ‘steps’ of straight and sheer edges where rock has been removed, and tool marks can be seen across all areas of the dome.

The surrounding trees and other vegetation which threatened the panel have recently been cleared as a result of an agreement between English Heritage and the landowner. The fence and signpost referred to in the Beckensall Archive notes (which pre-date the current notes) have also been removed and a new information board will be erected in due course.

See Beckensall Archive notes for detailed description. Roughting Linn is a huge natural, whaleback shape of sandstone outcrop, an elongated domed ridge, 20m long and 12m wide, slightly higher than the land to the NW that flattens out before plunging into a gully formed by two small streams that join before flowing towards the Milfield Plain. It is the largest decorated rock in northern England, and perhaps the most famous.

Roughting Linn was was discovered in 1852 by William Greenwell, who reported its discovery at the meeting of Archaeological Institute in Newcastle in the July of that year. Unfortunately, Greenwell’s report was not published in the two volumes that recorded the meeting. Tate (1865) drew it in the mid-19th century, and a more thorough survey was made by Elizabeth Shee Twohig in 1988. Richard Bradley has noted its similarity to a long barrow, and has commented on the way its motifs are arranged so that large concentric circles form a kerb. The western part has been quarried away, before 1850, and a large slab has been removed across its width. There is still one cup and multiple circle motifs on a surviving part to the west and although the south is gouged with mainly natural grooves, there are cups and rings there too, so this decorated kerb idea is sound. Apart from its size and the fact that it just happened to be there, natural erosion on the southern part may have attracted artificial additions, a factor seen also at sites like Old Bewick. The decorated kerb concept is one shared with Irish Passage Grave art, although the circumstances are different, for this is undisturbed outcrop rock and not panels arranged in an artificial structure.


In the area between the outcrop and the gully are the multiple ramparts and ditches of an enclosure that cuts off the promontory to the NW. The small waterfall is formed by the Broomridgedean Burn falling over a ledge. Where it falls into a pond is a place both sheltered and beautiful, with small cliffs rising on either side, one with an overhang. To any group of people who regarded water as an object of veneration, this could well have been a special place. Despite the tarmacadam road that cuts the triangular promontory, at its base, the area has a lingering timelessness. The rock, the enclosure and the burn look west to the valley that leads to the Milfield Plain. To the east the views are impeded by higher ground, and to the SE the land rises to Doddington North Moor. Goatscrag Hill may have been visible, as it is partially today, from the rock. Just before the water tumbles over the ledge to cascade into the pool, there is some substantial outcrop covered by grass, and it would be interesting to see if this is marked in any way.

The rock at Roughting Linn has another tale to tell, for it reflects the inexplicable reluctance of the archaeological establishment to look after it. Here we have one of the most important pieces of rock art in the world, and it has a crumbling, ancient, irrelevant notice board of remarkable ugliness. To my knowledge (Stan Beckensall), in over 20 years there has been only one visit to ascertain the problems of erosion on the site, and no report or action followed. There are small trees pushing roots into the rock. Of course the site is beautiful, but how safe is the rock and its motifs? If the site is to be accessible, which technically it is, why are there no finger posts to guide strangers there? So many people end up at the farm. If there should be some information about it, why not replace the present board with a new one, with a drawing? It is helpful for people who come when the light is poor to see what is on the rock, and this may well help to encourage them not to walk all over it looking for the motifs.

We have a real problem here of recording, evaluation of what might spoil this rock, and of presenting it to interested people. Compared with the amount of money that is, for example, spent on Hadrian's Wall, we are talking peanuts!

Access to the marked rocks is by public rights of way. Should you wish to examine the rock overhangs at Goatscrag Hill, it is a courtesy to ask permission at Roughting Linn Farm. You may approach from the Ford Moss site to the west or from Roughting Linn on the east.

The position is pivotal in the area, lying as it does at the head of the Broomridgedean valley, whose burn flows past the towering north scarp with its overhangs, burials, and the trail of rock art across the top of the ridge, to the now-removed round barrow cemetery at its west end before the Milfield Plain begins. It is linked with the next group of rock art at Hare Law, whose site today does not evoke such aesthetic pleasure, and which lies in a different kind of landscape: more levelled out as it moves east towards the sea.",ERA-12,ND65,11,N1943,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Doddington, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-2.025585,55.624167,,,,,,
s014_TodCrag1a_ND_T2.jpg,Tod Crag 1a,"An elaborate 'designed' motif with six cups with rings formed into an arc (association with the rising sun / moon are unavoidable but unproven). Two cups within arc of cup and rings possible pennanular; three cups on south end of panel freshly exposed. Panel seen in low angle light reveals one very faint cup and ring.

Motif 1 and 2 on sketch are possible penannulars, though noted as single cups. The ring on motif 1 is not concentric with the cup. In certain light conditions motif 3 appears to be penannular also. Motif 4 has a more pronounced outer ring. The main motif is some 5 m from the edge of outcrop and significant quarrying has occurred. Motif is best in low angle light conditions.

There are excellent all round views from this high point. On Tod Crag Moss is a large marked outcrop recorded by Mr E Newbigin. Until recently it was covered with forest in a rectangular plantation, which has now been felled, and the ground is rough. The main rock lies on the north boundary of this enclosure, which is bounded to the south by Wolf Crag. Mr Newbigin (1929) thought that the site lay on a prehistoric route, and found ‘another low rounded hill with no less that ten, typical burial mounds of stone on and close by it. This is ¼ mile-1/2 mile west of the crag.’",ERA-1581,25037,700,N9708,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,,,The NADRAP Project,,,,"Elsdon, Alnwick, Northumberland",-2.04385,55.196426,,,,,,
s015_WeetwoodCairnKerbstone_BK.jpg,Weetwood Cairn Kerbstone,"A standing stone at edge of destroyed and rebuilt cairn, motifs on south facing vertical face.

A cup with four rings and radial grooves (outer incomplete) and detached cup near outer ring near the base. By chance, I (Stan Beckensall) was living nearby when the land around the Weetwood sites was bulldozed and cleared of heather and stone, ready for grass planting. I had seen the low mound between the public path and the road, with a large stone projecting on the south side with two apparently natural cups on top. The low mound, no higher than the large stone, oval in shape, had not been recorded, and had presumably gone unnoticed when permission was given for the field clearance to go ahead in May, 1982.

Boulders were removed from the area, and dumped beside the public footpath and at the edge of the outcrop hill, where some remain. The mound was bulldozed, and the large stone lifted and dumped with other clearance, north of the footpath. It was then that I saw the large stone, with its remarkable pattern of cup, concentric rings, and radial grooves. The shallow hole from which it had been taken was just about visible in disturbed soil. The farmer, David Murray, not only agreed to halt work at my (unofficial) request, but got his men to search the area for more decorated cobbles. He also agreed to my excavating the site, and to its reinstatement after excavation. He saved all the cobbles in a heap that had been removed from the site of the mound.

An examination of sparse documentation revealed that Canon Greenwell had investigated six possible burial cairns, two of which had cists with no bodies remaining. These did not have precise locations, and only one is still visible, outside the area of rock art on the public footpath leading west from site 6. I regarded the bulldozed site as a possible burial cairn, and set out my excavation grid in an area surrounded by recent ploughing. Field walking in the disturbed ground did not produce any flints or other artefacts.

About three-quarters of the mound had been bulldozed away, and what was left was carefully trowelled to base. At the same time, marked cobbles were being recovered and saved.

A team of eight people was involved in the excavation and recording. Every stone left at base level in situ was recorded, and the area carefully examined for evidence of burial (a cist pit, for example). There were no signs of burial.

The natural base of the field had a compact pebble layer, and the soil among the stones included pebbles. Most of the cairn stones were of the cobble type, rounded, and they included volcanic rock brought down by ice. The stones left in situ were not quarried, but were of the type found on the surface during clearance. Only one edge of the oval-shaped mound retained any kind of integrity. There was no kerb of larger stones, but the periphery was made up of cobbles, with the exception of the large, rounded sandstone boulder the motifs of which originally faced inward. Its base was flat and had been sunk in a shallow hole, its flat base giving it sufficient stability to stand upright.

The drawing shows the disposition of the undisturbed stones in the mound, but there was nothing more to report other than the extraordinary number of marked cobbles found in the mound's structure. 21 were found in situ, mostly face-down. I had found 4 in the spoil heaps before the excavation began, and the rest of the 'loose' marked stones were picked up by the farmers. All the marked stones were sandstones, and no markings were found on volcanic rocks.

It was impossible to distinguish between recent and ancient disturbance at the centre of the mound, and there was no sign of a cist pit. Had the mound been built over a body, there would be no survival. There was no evidence of cremated remains or burning.

The large marked boulder could have been on the site as a standing stone, and the oval mound constructed with it as a kerb marker. The fact that the motifs face into the mound and were not meant to be seen is important. Even as a standing stone it is unlikely that its pattern would have faced north, for it was more likely to be viewed on the approach to the panels of rock art on the hill to the north. The deliberate obscuring of uneroded motifs means that the motifs were a private and not a public gesture - not meant to be seen- and more concerned with the dead than the living. They are different in concept from motifs in the landscape: it is as though they have been deliberately turned into the earth instead of facing the sky, and therefore more concerned with the dead than the living. Even though the mound may not have been used either primarily or exclusively as a burial, it had an important ritual function in the landscape. It does not lie among the markings on the hill, but stands on the edge of the concentration.

The placing of marked cobbles in a mound, a deliberate, calculated placement in the case of those turned face down, makes nonsense of the idea that they just happened to be a convenient building material lying around. The cobbles had been selected for size, shape, and surface area, probably held on the lap, and chipped with a hard stone tool to produce cups and grooves. All these pick marks are visible and uneroded, and some are marked on two sides. Not all the motifs are completed, and it seems that the act of putting some basic symbols on the rocks was sufficient for the ritual purpose.

The presentation of the mound as an oval shape is largely conjectural, but it has the effect of allowing us to gather the loose stones together in one place, and of highlighting the position of the standing kerb stone. It will also keep machinery clear of this stone. Most of the marked cobbles are at Berwick Museum, but one was requested by the Science Museum, London. One was left, sentimentally, on the mound.

This site, together with the one close by at Fowberry, has given us a new dimension on the use of rock art in monuments. Mounds incorporating marked cobbles are very rare, but the discovery of similar cobbles in walls and field clearance heaps suggests that other destroyed mounds might have contained them. When we excavated the massive cairn at Blawearie, we examined every cobble within the mound, and not one was marked. The reason why some mounds were chosen for this ritual is unknown. One may put forward the idea that the marked cobbles were rather like wreaths at a funeral: that people made them and placed them in the burial mound.

Since the excavation and reinstatement of the mound there have been other finds of small marked cobbles in the area, one of which is at Fowberry Cottage.",ERA-766,,1101,N3300,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964115,55.546657,,,,,,
s016_WeetwoodCairnKerbstone_BK.jpg,Weetwood Cairn Kerbstone,"A standing stone at edge of destroyed and rebuilt cairn, motifs on south facing vertical face.

A cup with four rings and radial grooves (outer incomplete) and detached cup near outer ring near the base. By chance, I (Stan Beckensall) was living nearby when the land around the Weetwood sites was bulldozed and cleared of heather and stone, ready for grass planting. I had seen the low mound between the public path and the road, with a large stone projecting on the south side with two apparently natural cups on top. The low mound, no higher than the large stone, oval in shape, had not been recorded, and had presumably gone unnoticed when permission was given for the field clearance to go ahead in May, 1982.

Boulders were removed from the area, and dumped beside the public footpath and at the edge of the outcrop hill, where some remain. The mound was bulldozed, and the large stone lifted and dumped with other clearance, north of the footpath. It was then that I saw the large stone, with its remarkable pattern of cup, concentric rings, and radial grooves. The shallow hole from which it had been taken was just about visible in disturbed soil. The farmer, David Murray, not only agreed to halt work at my (unofficial) request, but got his men to search the area for more decorated cobbles. He also agreed to my excavating the site, and to its reinstatement after excavation. He saved all the cobbles in a heap that had been removed from the site of the mound.

An examination of sparse documentation revealed that Canon Greenwell had investigated six possible burial cairns, two of which had cists with no bodies remaining. These did not have precise locations, and only one is still visible, outside the area of rock art on the public footpath leading west from site 6. I regarded the bulldozed site as a possible burial cairn, and set out my excavation grid in an area surrounded by recent ploughing. Field walking in the disturbed ground did not produce any flints or other artefacts.

About three-quarters of the mound had been bulldozed away, and what was left was carefully trowelled to base. At the same time, marked cobbles were being recovered and saved.

A team of eight people was involved in the excavation and recording. Every stone left at base level in situ was recorded, and the area carefully examined for evidence of burial (a cist pit, for example). There were no signs of burial.

The natural base of the field had a compact pebble layer, and the soil among the stones included pebbles. Most of the cairn stones were of the cobble type, rounded, and they included volcanic rock brought down by ice. The stones left in situ were not quarried, but were of the type found on the surface during clearance. Only one edge of the oval-shaped mound retained any kind of integrity. There was no kerb of larger stones, but the periphery was made up of cobbles, with the exception of the large, rounded sandstone boulder the motifs of which originally faced inward. Its base was flat and had been sunk in a shallow hole, its flat base giving it sufficient stability to stand upright.

The drawing shows the disposition of the undisturbed stones in the mound, but there was nothing more to report other than the extraordinary number of marked cobbles found in the mound's structure. 21 were found in situ, mostly face-down. I had found 4 in the spoil heaps before the excavation began, and the rest of the 'loose' marked stones were picked up by the farmers. All the marked stones were sandstones, and no markings were found on volcanic rocks.

It was impossible to distinguish between recent and ancient disturbance at the centre of the mound, and there was no sign of a cist pit. Had the mound been built over a body, there would be no survival. There was no evidence of cremated remains or burning.

The large marked boulder could have been on the site as a standing stone, and the oval mound constructed with it as a kerb marker. The fact that the motifs face into the mound and were not meant to be seen is important. Even as a standing stone it is unlikely that its pattern would have faced north, for it was more likely to be viewed on the approach to the panels of rock art on the hill to the north. The deliberate obscuring of uneroded motifs means that the motifs were a private and not a public gesture - not meant to be seen- and more concerned with the dead than the living. They are different in concept from motifs in the landscape: it is as though they have been deliberately turned into the earth instead of facing the sky, and therefore more concerned with the dead than the living. Even though the mound may not have been used either primarily or exclusively as a burial, it had an important ritual function in the landscape. It does not lie among the markings on the hill, but stands on the edge of the concentration.

The placing of marked cobbles in a mound, a deliberate, calculated placement in the case of those turned face down, makes nonsense of the idea that they just happened to be a convenient building material lying around. The cobbles had been selected for size, shape, and surface area, probably held on the lap, and chipped with a hard stone tool to produce cups and grooves. All these pick marks are visible and uneroded, and some are marked on two sides. Not all the motifs are completed, and it seems that the act of putting some basic symbols on the rocks was sufficient for the ritual purpose.

The presentation of the mound as an oval shape is largely conjectural, but it has the effect of allowing us to gather the loose stones together in one place, and of highlighting the position of the standing kerb stone. It will also keep machinery clear of this stone. Most of the marked cobbles are at Berwick Museum, but one was requested by the Science Museum, London. One was left, sentimentally, on the mound.

This site, together with the one close by at Fowberry, has given us a new dimension on the use of rock art in monuments. Mounds incorporating marked cobbles are very rare, but the discovery of similar cobbles in walls and field clearance heaps suggests that other destroyed mounds might have contained them. When we excavated the massive cairn at Blawearie, we examined every cobble within the mound, and not one was marked. The reason why some mounds were chosen for this ritual is unknown. One may put forward the idea that the marked cobbles were rather like wreaths at a funeral: that people made them and placed them in the burial mound.

Since the excavation and reinstatement of the mound there have been other finds of small marked cobbles in the area, one of which is at Fowberry Cottage.",ERA-766,,1101,N3300,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964115,55.546657,,,,,,
s017_WeetwoodMoor3a_BK.jpg,Weetwood Moor 3a,"Motifs clearly visible in all lighting conditions. Natural cracks are present on the panel; nearly all run south to north along the long axis.

Two single cups to south of panel are not present on the Beckensall Archive drawing and additional rings and grooves have been identified. A number of shallow grooves connect the motifs. Rings are not circular - some widening is evident and some edges are almost straight in places. Cup and ring motifs (penannulars?) also present.",ERA-142,,154,N3313?,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964748,55.547556,,,,,,
s018_WeetwoodMoor3a_BK.jpg,Weetwood Moor 3a,"Motifs clearly visible in all lighting conditions. Natural cracks are present on the panel; nearly all run south to north along the long axis.

Two single cups to south of panel are not present on the Beckensall Archive drawing and additional rings and grooves have been identified. A number of shallow grooves connect the motifs. Rings are not circular - some widening is evident and some edges are almost straight in places. Cup and ring motifs (penannulars?) also present.",ERA-142,,154,N3313?,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964748,55.547556,,,,,,
s019_WeetwoodMoor3a_BK.jpg,Weetwood Moor 3a,"Motifs clearly visible in all lighting conditions. Natural cracks are present on the panel; nearly all run south to north along the long axis.

Two single cups to south of panel are not present on the Beckensall Archive drawing and additional rings and grooves have been identified. A number of shallow grooves connect the motifs. Rings are not circular - some widening is evident and some edges are almost straight in places. Cup and ring motifs (penannulars?) also present.",ERA-142,,154,N3313?,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.964748,55.547556,,,,,,
s020_WeetwoodMoor5a_BK.jpg,Weetwood Moor 5a,,ERA-127,,160,,Art in the landscape,Outcrop,Rock art,,,,,,Brian,Kerr,,,,,"Chatton, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland",-1.965889,55.547817,,,,,,
s021_IdolStone_CSIRM_RS.jpg,Idol Stone 01,,ERA-2594,25360,,"PRN 253, PRN 7232",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Ilkley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.797767,53.911787,,,,,,
s022_RV22_23 mono_CSIRM_MS.jpg,Rivock 23,,ERA-2312,,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Keighley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.872542,53.890083,,,,,,
s023_RV22 11_CSIRM_MS.jpg,Rivock 22 and Rivock 11,,"ERA-2296, ERA-2639","25325, 25321",,"PRN120, PRN112",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.885512,53.899319,,,,,,
s024_RV23_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 23,,ERA-2312,,,,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Keighley, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.872542,53.890083,,,,,,
s025_RV22_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 22,,ERA-2296,25325,,PRN120,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.885512,53.899319,,,,,,
s026_RV21_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 21,,ERA-2295,25322,,PRN119,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.885731,53.897009,,,,,,
s027_RV18_CSIRM.jpg,Rivock 18,,ERA-2292,,,PRN117,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.886093,53.898402,,,,,,
s028_RV06_CSIRM_MS.jpg,Rivock 06,,ERA-2284,25319,,PRN106,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.887906,53.897595,,,,,,
s029_RV22_CSRIM.jpg,Rivock 22,,ERA-2296,25325,,PRN120,Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.885512,53.899319,,,,,,
s030_RV06_05_CSIRM_MS.jpg,Rivock 05 and Rivock 06,,"ERA-2283, ERA-2284",25319,,"PRN105, PRN106",Art in the landscape,Boulder,Rock art,,,,,,,,CSIRM,,,,"Silsden, Bradford, West Yorkshire",-1.887922,53.897586,,,,,,