Blackshaw

This site was included within the RCAHMS Emergency Survey (1942-3), an unpublished rescue project. Site descriptions, organised by county, vary from short notes to lengthy and full descriptions and are available to view online with contemporary sketches and photographs. The original typescripts, manuscripts, notebooks and photographs can also be consulted in the RCAHMS Search Room.

Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 10 December 2014.

A desk-based assessment and reconnaissance field survey have been carried out for the Proposed Development Site. Seventeen cultural heritage assets (sites and features) have been identified within the Proposed Development Site. These range in date from the early prehistoric (Neolithic/Bronze Age) to the post-medieval period and include a well-preserved cup and ring marked rock, which is a Scheduled Monument, several prehistoric artefact find-spots, a possible prehistoric enclosure and later post-medieval settlement and agrarian activity.

Funder: Community Windpower Ltd.

CFA Archaeology Ltd

OASIS ID: cfaarcha1-260699

The Inventory of Scheduled Monuments (Historic Scotland 2014) records that this monument comprises a flat outcrop of rock, decorated with cup and ring markings. The decoration on the rock includes about 300 cups, 40 half cups, 27 cups with one ring, 11 cups with two rings, 3 cups with three rings and 3 spirals. Some rings are gapped, with a radial groove from the cup. The greatest ring diameters and the greatest depth of carving are 28 cm and 5 cm respectively. It is one of the most complex and one of the best preserved cup and ring marked rocks in southwest Scotland.

Canmore and the HER record that the rock has been fenced-off and de-turfed. It measures 5.2 m east to west and 3.2 m north to south. Adjacent to the southeast limit of the rock, on the other side of a field wall, is another flat rock surface (exposed area roughly 5 m by 2 m) bearing at least two cup marks.

Boyd and Smith (1887) records that parts of shale rings were found when cleaning soil from crevices in the rock in the 19th century.

Field survey for this assessment, identified the cup and ring marked rock which is located in an area of grassland on the edge of forestry. The main part of the bedrock outcrop is located to the north of a stone built field wall. There was no evidence for any fence surrounding the rock as noted by Canmore (see above). The cup and ring marks were still visible, although some moss cover has started to grow on the rock. The bedrock outcrop noted to the south of the field wall by the HER and Canmore (see above) has been subsumed by grass, and the cup marks previously recorded are no longer visible.

Information from OASIS ID: cfaarcha1-260699 (M Hastie) 2015

Date Fieldwork Started: 16/04/2021

Compiled by: ACFA West Glasgow

Location Notes: The panel is situated on a hillside with a SE aspect beside a stone dyke which runs from the NE to the SW. The panel is reported to continue under the dyke to the SE but is currently covered with turf. A track runs along the opposite side of the dyke from the panel. The panel lies within an area of rough grass but is surrounded by several conifer plantations with new planting taking place. It is possible that the Firth of Clyde and Arran were visible to the west but there is a forestry plantation in the way today. The panel is situated approximately 200m N of an enclosure marked on the OS map (Canmore ID 41010). A cup and ring marked stone (Canmore ID 41022), currently in the Hunterian Museum, was found 30m ESE of the panel.

Panel Notes: The exposed area of the panel exposed measures 11.8 x 5.6m and is flush with the surrounding grass. Its long axis lies NE-SW. It is made of sandstone and there are quartz pebbles included in it. There are numerous fissures which appear to have been used to demarcate the areas of rock art. The panel is heavily eroded. There are 12 cups with 1 ring, 3 cups with partial rings, 6 cups with 2 rings, 3 spirals and 154 cupmarks (one with a radial) visible on the 3D models. A radial from a cupmark joins at right angles to a radial from a cup with 2 partial rings. The 3 spirals are on a sloping piece of rock unlike the other motifs. They are not normally visible in daylight but appeared clearly in the 3D model.

3D models were built for the areas of the panel that were depicted in figures 10 to 26 of Smith's 1895 book, as well as for the entire panel, which was depicted in the plan by Smith in Boyd and Smith (1887). Comparison of the original plan and individual figures with the 3D models show both the accuracy of the plan and figures, and also how much has been lost through weathering in the last 134 or so years. Most of the radials and a large number of rings and cups recorded by Smith are no longer visible. In particular, the motifs in figures 21, 23 and 25 are no longer visible. Some of the 'hoof-markings' mentioned by Smith are still visible but it is unclear now if they were designed as such.

References

Boyd, D.A. and Smith, J. (1887) 'Notice of a rock surface with cup-marks and other sculpturings, at Blackshaw, West Kilbride, Ayrshire', Proc Soc Antiq Scot, vol. 21, 1886-7. Page(s) 143-151

Smith, J. (1895) Prehistoric Man in Ayrshire