The outer face of the south western stone.
This is the third most highly decorated stone to be found in any RSC.
Some of the cups had been highlighted by previous visitors using what we think
is the local brown earth but may be chalk.
The
illustrators missed
quite a few cups however, and we have ringed the extra ones we spotted. We found
a total of 22 cups,
not as good as Ritchie's 1917 count below, but once again the dreaded lichen
growth proved to be
excellent camouflage
for the shallower indentations. As is usual for cupmarked stones in RSCs,
the situation of this stone has astronomical
significance
being aligned to the minor moonset (5).
Ritchie's photo (6) of the
SW stone.
A grand total of 24 cups are visible in this photo, Ritchie seems to have marked
them in some way to make
them more visible. The field seems to be given over to pasture at the time of
the photo and it is likely that
livestock using the stone as a rubbing post will have kept the surface lichen
growth down.
The lower group of cups on the SW stone.
The two extra cups we spotted in this area are ringed and the depressions
themselves are only just visible in this photo
due to the dreaded lichen.