Panorama Stone
Bronze Age Rock Carvings (PRAWR 227, 228, 229)
Ilkley, West Yorkshire  OS Map Ref SE115473
OS Maps - Landranger 104 (Leeds & Bradford), Explorer 297 (Lower Wharfedale & Washburn Valley)


Panorama Stone -view of all three rocks
The three pieces of rock within their railings. The Panorama Stone is the rock furthest from the camera.
Just across the road from St. Margaret’s church in Ilkley in an iron fenced enclosure are three carved rocks the largest of which is known as the Panorama Stone. Originally these stones stood less than a mile away to the west in Panorama Woods at OS grid reference SE105470 but were found to be ‘in the way’ of the development of 19th century Ilkley and were bought and removed by a Dr. Fletcher Little in 1890 who paid the princely sum of £10 for them. They were then moved to their present positions around 1892 and at some point during one of the moves the largest stone was broken in two places.

Over the years the carvings on the rocks have badly deteriorated due to weather and vandalism and the marks are now becoming increasingly difficult to make out. On the Panorama Stones itself there are twenty-five cups, sixteen of which are surrounded by between one and five rings, some incomplete. Linking some of these cups and rings in complex designs are what has been termed 'ladders', which consist of parallel grooves joined by perpendicular lines, these ladders motifs are thought to be unique to this stone and the Barmishaw Stone which is still in situ on Ilkley Moor.

The next stone is smaller and has much simpler marks on its surface which consist of around forty cups with three incomplete or eroded rings and some linking grooves. The final smallest stone has about a dozen cups, one of which could have a partial ring and groove.


PRAWR = Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding (Boughey and Vickerman 2003)

See also Ilkley Moor & Rombalds Moor Introduction

Date: Bronze Age
Panorama Stone
Panorama Stone
Panorama Stone - plan of the carvings
Plan of the carvings on the Panorama Stone when the rock was still in one piece taken from 'Ilkley: Ancient and Modern' by R. Collyer and J. Horsfall Turner 1885. The photograph immediately above is the carving in the lower right quadrant of the plan, the photograph above that is part of the carvings in the lower left corner of the plan.

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