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Amazingly this carved
rock located in a public wood popular with dog walkers and close to houses was only discovered
in 1981 and is the most eastern example of rock
art in the Yorkshire area. There are three deep ovals containing cups and linked by deep grooves and a further long groove that follows the line of the rock along one edge. There are also several fainter cups and shallow grooves. One of the ovals has been cut away at the sides to emphasis and raise the feature, this has been described as a 'boss' and it is also suggested that it may be a unique feature. Because of the rock's position within a wooded area the lack of direct sunlight makes seeing the designs clearly difficult. The tree cover also makes trying to determine the original layout of the landscape and the possible views from the site problematic too, but it is possible to see that the land is starting to slope away northeast downhill towards Nether Edge and the River Sheaf. In this respect the rock has a broadly similar aspect to many of the carved stones further north around the Ilkley area that also stand above river valleys and like those stones this carving is thought to date from the late Neolithic or the Bronze Age. |
