Castleton 12

Date Fieldwork Started: 27/04/2021

Compiled by: ScRAP Team

Location Notes: The panel is situated in mature mixed woodland and rough grazing on the southern part of a large rocky ridge rising from a flat surrounding area, 460m SE of Castleton farmhouse. Currently it is covered by vegetation, but it would have been quite noticeable in the landscape. The outcrop has been heavily quarried, which resulted in a steep drop towards the south. As such, the carvings are currently almost on the edge of this outcrop, but this could have not been the case in the past. Dense gorse grows on top and around the carved outcrop.

Panel Notes: This is an exposed area of fine grained sandstone outcrop measuring roughly 3.98 x 1.69m and is flat with a slight inclination towards W on its western side. The S edge of the outcrop has been extensively quarried and drops steeply for about 4m to ground level. The exposed surface has a number of deep fissures and large natural hollows. Most of the carved motifs on this panel are extremely weathered and very hard to observe. In the field we were able to identify 3 cup-and-ring motifs and a few cupmarks, but the 3D model revealed 3 further circular motifs. On the western side of the panel a cup with 3 rings was carved on the side of the natural hollows that are quite dominant on the panel. This is the most visible carving on the rock surface, with deeper grooves. A cup-and-3 ring and a cup-and-4 ring motifs, both with radials pointing W, were carved in a central position of the exposed surface of the outcrop. The grooves of these circles are very weathered and shallow. In between these two, on their western side, a very small cup-and-1 ring, which was only identified through the 3D model. In line with this group, about 20 cm further to the N, is a very faint cup-and-2 ring motif. Finally, a few cms to the E of the this group there is another cup-and 3 ring motif, with the particularity of having just a small dot as a central mini-cup. This motif is enclosed between two long fissures cutting across the outcrop surface in a N - S orientation. On the edge of the outcrop to the S (which was quarried), there are 4 cupmarks in a line, and on the northern edge of the exposed rock face, another 2 weathered cupmarks. There is a possible other cup-and-ring motif to the N of the central group, converging with the cup-and-4 ring motif, which is perceptible in the 3D model, however its advanced weathering condition means that it has almost completely disappeared.