Fowberry Mains Park Find

Hi rock friends,

I risked life and limb going back to Fowberry Mains Park today in a 60mph gale with blustery showers- though the light was wonderful - if you could stand upright. If Turner had been alive he would have been painting the Cheviots and that enormous sky.

I spoke to Lance Strother earlier in the morning and he was most welcoming - merely asked that I didn’t take a dog into the field as he has cows about to calve; as it turns out they were almost a mile away from the motifs. So I got much better photos at mid afternoon. I also paced out the distance from the main group of rock motifs - it is 30 paces ‘uphill’ (south-west) from the end of the rock outcrop and 15 paces ‘inland’ from the line of the outcrop. It is 50 paces in a direct line to where the ‘chicken’ motif and main motifs are. The rock is detatched but earthfast.

Here below is a photo looking North East to the North Plantation. The main group of motifs is on the highest edge near the top of the picture, where the bracken ends.

In the much better light it was obvious that there is only one ringed-cup - at the right hand end (eastern end) and it is linked to a triad of cups by a cruciform groove. There are nine cups in all on the rock and there are serpentine grooves linking the two most central large cups.

Here you can see a close-up of the ringed cup with a cruciform groove linking three small cups at the Eastern end of the rock panel.

Here you can see faint but clear serpentine grooves linking the two right hand cups.

Late light shot which reveals slightly more detail.

I find this whole experience quite remarkable - the fact that this rock has been lying here with most of the cups visible for decades - only 50 metres from the main rock art panel - and nobody stumbled upon it. Gives me hope that there are other small discoveries to be made out there.

Graham

Amerside Law

This was an expedition that had been long in the planning, and that’s why I’ve written such a right old lengthy load of waffle. I’m chuffed, and I can’t help it, I don’t get out much. Anyone who reads this entry right the way through, in one go, wins a packet of winegums.

The fact that these carvings were effectively lost had rankled for many a year. Since the area of Drakestruther Moss had been ploughed and planted, a number of attempts had been made to try and relocate the carvings, Ian Hewitt being the last person to find anything, namely the small enclosed cup motif which Stan Beckensall lists as being ‘Near’ panel 3b.

Previous to that, at some point in the 1980s Maarten Van Hoek tracked down panel 3a:

However, the ‘main’ panel, (On the Beckensall Archive here) is located in an area in which the trees thrived. The density of planting being that characteristic of the 1970s and early 1980s, when the idea seemed to be ‘cram as many in as you can’. The trees are less than 1m apart in places, and consequently, within a few years an impenetrable barrier of interlocking larch had formed, effectively scuppering any attempts to see the carvings. As Stan remarked, the it was impossible to find the carvings, even if one knew where to look. It must have been quite frustrating, but this would have maybe been ameliorated by the knowledge that the carved outcrop had at least been spared from planting and ploughing. The one nagging concern being that when the trees were one day felled, would the outcrop be recognised as such, to avoid the possibility of damage. Though the plantation looks to have a good few years of growth, In the 26 years since these carvings were last seen, it has changed hands, and the current landowner has widened the forest trail around the edge of the plantation. Satellite images available initially on CD-ROM and more latterly on the internet via Flash Earth, showed that the width of the trails indicated that some serious amounts of wood may be due to be shifted. This made the accurate relocation of the carved panels a tad more needful.

Fowberry Mains - New Find

Hi guys,

Had a great visit to Fowberry Mains and Weetwood Moor today - still learning to read maps and Stan Beckensall’s directions. It was a rather gloomy day but I found the Fowberry Mains motifs easily.

I took photos of all the main ones on the outcrop edge - which has been extensively quarried. Then I wandered uphill about 30 metres and found an earthfast rock with 8 cups on it. The rock is about 0.75 of a metre in length and the cups are very well defined - about 2 inches across and fairly deep. Six of them are in a dead straight line - and the fourth prominent one from the top has the remains of a circle around it - just visible in this shot. I will go back on a sunnier day and get a better shot. I can’t see this collection of cups on the BRAC gallery for Fowberry Mains and it doesn’t appear in Stan’s graphic record of the site. I apologise if this is just wishful thinking - but is this a new one?

Cheers

Graham

Gled Law - New Find

Hi rock people; I sent a bunch of photos to Jan the other day from my recent wind blasted afternoon on Gled Law near Doddington. To my amazement Jan responded to tell me that he thinks this is a ‘new find’ - which would be remarkable if it turns out to be so. I knew that this entire area has been curry combed for decades - so was not expecting to find anything new- moreover, I could not find any of the large sets of motifs anywhere on Gled Law - it is a very large area, Ended up going to Buttony where I found the main motifs in the wood behind the WWII Pillbox.

As you can see from the photo this is an isolated boulder which sits right on the scarp edge at Gled Law, about 500 yards East of Cuddy’s Cave - on the same contour - more or less. There is a farm vehicle park in the field below with my car in it - which is directly in line with Cuddy’s Cave above it. There are a lot of isolated boulders and rocks on this scarp face but this was was close to an obvious line of ascent. Hope it really is ‘new’. Thanks to Jan for including it on BRAC.

Graham

RA Lecture in Bristol University

Hi Folks,

We received the above poster (click to enlarge) from George Nash about a lecture titled “Rock-art as a Statement of Power”, to be held on 31st May 2008 in the Department of Archaeology & Anthropology of the University of Bristol.

Cheers,

Jan

Cuddy’s Cave - Gled Law

Had a great time exploring Cuddy’s Cave and Gled Law today. Could not find any of the substantial motifs that were recorded in the 19thC but did find some deep cups on the top which looked to be genuine.

Another beginner’s question - are the dense black patches on the central surface of the rock here the result of centuries of fires here? I have found exactly the same blackening on the crags at Doddington Law and also at Kyloe crags. I thought it might be a specific algae or lichen but when I scraped some it seemed deeply ingrained into the actual stone. It also seems to be in places where smoke from fires would have risen. If it is the result of ancient cooking fires it would be a good indicator when looking at crags - as to where people were living?

Cleaning at Roughting Linn

I went back to Roughting Linn today - in the teeth of a howling gale - to try and find the unidentified motif I photographed on my first visit. I spent an hour there in glorious sunshine - leaning into the wind and taking photos. I could not find the errant motif! I just thought you should all know that someone has been there in the last week and they have extensively ‘cleaned’ many of the motifs on the main pavement.

I wanted to let you know that

1. this was not my doing and
2. is this considered ‘bad form’ ?

This image shows some of what I found at the site today, This is the ‘halo’ motif at Roughting Linn - the one with a corona of parallel lines radiating from the top of the outermost ring. As you can see a large area of moss has been scraped away from below the figure and a metre-long strip of turf has been torn away from above the figure - you can see where the exposed sandstone looks sugary white. Similar ‘clean-ups’ had been done to many of the figures on the rock - though this was I think the most ‘thorough’. For most of the other figures the green moss had simply been scraped away. The cleaning did make the images stand-out more but I was worried by the lengths of stripped turf that were lying around - it just didn’t feel quite right. So - just though you should all know - it wasn’t me! There HAS been ‘official’ work going on at the site - about a dozen birch trees have been felled all around the rock - but this ‘cleaning’ looked rather crude and impromptu to me. Would appreciate some guidance from you all as to whether this is ‘acceptable’?
The good thing about today was that I got there early - before 10am so the south Eastern edge of the rock was illuminated and I got super photos of those motifs - which were in deep shadow on my first visit.

I will send a selection to Jan for posting on BRAC if he thinks they are useful. My own collection can be seen on Flickr at

http://www.flickr.com/gp/51817363@N00/0Cu46C

Cheers

Graham

Motif from Roughting Linn

Hi Rock folk,

As a newcomer to this rock-hunting game I hope you will bear with me while I learn the ropes, acquire the terminology and undoubtedly ‘re-state the obvious’. Thanks to Brian and to Jan for inviting me to contribute to this long established group of very knowledgeable people. OK - about 2 weeks ago I visited Roughting Linn for the first time; this was my first ever visit to a Rock Art site - and I am still recovering from the shock of so much beauty, mystery and ancient culture in a single concentrated spot. The waterfall alone was worth the visit - and the Matthewson brothers - who farm at Roughting Linn were friendly and informative - told me much of the history of the early visits by Stan Beckensall and other academics from Newcastle and Durham universities. I spent an hour photographing the well-documented motifs on the main whaleback - which I then matched against Stan Beckensall’s expert drawings of the site. I was able to match all the motifs I photographed -except one - a small 3 inch motif which Jan characterised as ‘looking like a small swastika’. I thought it looked like an animal figure - but the main point is I can’t find it described in any of the various drawings or photos of the site.

The only photos I took that day were of the main rock and a few general ones of Goat Crag ( I could not find the ‘goat pictograms’) - so I am 99% certain this motif was on the main rock. I am going back again to double check.

Does anybody recognise this?
Borderglider

New Carvings at Achnabreck

Hi Folks,

Thought you might like to see the first images of the new carvings recently found after a storm three weeks ago at Achnabreck. The new carvings are only a short distance from the main carvings, and actually only 1meter from the cycle path that runs near the main carvings at Achnabreck. The carvings are rather faint, perhaps from an earlier period or have been exposed for a long time prior to the tree covering them over until the storm.

                    

 More of the photos will appear on BRAC soon.

Brian

Art before Art

Hi Folks,

Received the following from Linda Gordon:

There is an interesting article by Paul Devereux in the current issue of Resurgence Magazine.  http://www.resurgence.org/2008/devereux246.htm

Opens fascinating areas of speculation!

Linda