Kirkdale House 4

Date Fieldwork Started: 22/02/2018

Compiled by: ScRAP Team

Location Notes: The panel has been removed from its original context and is now located in a shelter in private garden ground at Kirkdale House.

Panel Notes: This is a panel of a roughly rectangular shape with the carved surface measuring approximately 0.9 x 1 m across, and 0.1m at its heighest (please note, in these measurements the length indicates the longest axis across the panel face and the width the other axis across its face. The 'height' therefore is an indicator of the 'thickness' of the panel).

The panel is profusely decorated. The largest motif is cup with six rings and a radial which is formed of two parallel grooves. Some of the rings are incomplete, apparently because of the loss of part of the panel surface through erosion, although an attempt appears to have been made to re-complete the motif on the fresh surface. The outside ring appears to describe only a partial circle, extending past the radial but then terminating beside a single cup mark. Close to this there is a further cupmark partially encircled by an arc.

On one side the large motif, and close to the panel edge, there are two cups, each partially enclosed within a curved groove. One of these grooves is attached to two smaller cups. There whole set of marks is partially enclosed within a further curved groove which itself ends in a cupmark.

Beside these motifs there is another, smaller cup-and-ring motif, also with a radial formed of two parallel grooves, which extend to join a large single curving groove. Beside this there is a cup with a partial ring which also extends to join the same longer groove. The groove continues to meet a longer, curving groove formed of rough peckmarking, and marking an elonged ellipse. At one end of the ellipse the curve joins a cupmark, and there are a further two cupmarks contined within it and one just outside it. The 'open' end of the elipse joins the outside circle of a further motif - this appears to be a cup with three rings, with the outside two rings containing a set of cupmarks aligned with the curve of the ring. This motif is truncated by loss of the rock surface and only a half-circle area remains with the central cupmark also halved. The outside ring is made up of fairly large peckmarks.

On the other side of the large cup-and-six ring motif, there is a further cup with irregularly-shaped partial rings, and a radial formed of two parallel grooves. Beside this motif there are two single cup marks - one smaller and one larger - and on the other side of the cup-and-ring motif there is a undulating curve containing two areas of peck-marking. Just beside this there is a smaller undulating curve, close to the panel edge and beside the large cup-and-six ring motif.

At one end of the panel, there is an area of rock where the surface has been eroded, but where decoration has been added thereafter. This comprises a large cup with a partial ring, and a radial formed of a single groove which then joins a cupmark before extending further as a single groove. There are four further grooves in this area, as well as two single cupmarks