Rock Carvings on the North York Moors
The North York Moors National park encloses around 600 square miles of open moorland and upland valleys, where much of the area remains uninhabited, with the villages and small towns generally situated in the sheltered valleys and around the edges of the moors.
Scattered across the region are an estimated 10,000 burial mounds and small cairns, some dating back to Britain's Neolithic period (approx 5000 years ago), and it is during the excavation of some of these cairns and tumuli that the majority of the NYM's rock carvings have been found. Carvings on exposed rock surfaces are comparatively rare and where these do occur they tend to be in the vicinity of burial mounds.
In most cases the carved stones found during excavations have either been removed to local museums or re-buried onsite, so in fact there are relatively few places where the moors rock carvings can be seen in situ.
The map on the right shows the general distribution of the rock carvings, black dots indicate stones found within burial mounds while the numbered red dots denote carvings on exposed rock surfaces.
(Moving the cursor over the red and black dots on the map will bring up a label with the name of the site. Clicking on the red dots will bring up the web page for that site).
Red Dot sites
- Aislaby Moor, Aislaby.
- Brow Moor, Howdale Moor, Hawsker/Fylingdales.
Raven Hall, Ravenscar
Pickering lost" rock carving found in garden! - Allan Tofts, Goathland.
- Eston hills, Guisborough.
- Wain Stones, Bilsdale Midcable
- Warren Moor, Kildale.
- Westerdale Moor, Westerdale.
- Holiday Hill, Baysdale.
- Near Moor, Whorlton.
- Thimbleby Moor, Thimbleby.
- Purse Moor, Egton.
- Urra Moor, Bilsdale
Black Dot sites
-
Kemplah Top, Guisborough.
-
Spa Wood, Guisborough.
(Some of the web pages have a smaller photo at the top of the page with a larger picture or a different view at the foot of the page. Scale shown in all images : 0.1m)
Many of these rock carvings remain unrecorded except for a vague description and approximate 6 figure grid reference which were noted at the time of their discovery.As part of an on going personal project (ie. as my spare time allows!) these sites are now being located again, the carvings are being photographed and their condition assessed.
(Update 2005- times have moved on!- see North York Moors rock Art book completed)