Current location: Countryside

Parish: Chatton CP, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, England   

Panel type:

• Rock Shelter

Legal status: Private

Nature of access: Seek Landowner Permission

Wheelchair access: Impossible

General notes:

 
To record this rock I (Stan Beckensall) spent hours at the site, and the accompaniment of the badgers under the earth the other side of the rockshelter wall was a unique experience: they sounded as though they were moving furniture and redecorating for the whole time, though they remained hidden!
 

Motifs:  

Art description:

This description is based on recording made by Stan Beckensall in January, 2001. Since then more carvings have been uncovered; this can be seen by comparing the two drawings that are presented.

The quality of the decoration is stunning, and this is one of the most sensitive uses of the shape and variations of any rock panel that I know.

The floor of the overhang is 2.5m long and 1.60 m at its widest. There is certainly a prime case for calling the decoration of this outcrop ‘art', for the people who pecked the motifs onto the rock were sensitive to the whole surface that they wished to use, taking into account all the slight variations that were presented to them.

Variations in slope have determined the direction of grooves running from cups that are mostly central to concentric rings. These grooves were most likely the first use of the rock, for they occupy natural depressions and enhance them. Cups begin some of these grooves; concentric rings stop at some of these grooves and others cut through them. One long groove is drawn across the surface parallel to the width of the floor and to the straight west edge of the outcrop, almost reaching the back wall of the overhang and ending at its north edge. It is an important part in the design, dividing the motifs into two parts (referred to as right and left in this account).

All the grooves run down the slope of the rock in a direction determined by slight variations in slope, except the linear groove that runs roughly parallel to the rock overhang for about 1.70m. The wide groove to the right of the main division has good examples of pick marks, although the marks on the rest of the surface seem either to have been smoothed by grinding or by water running down them (if the floor had been exposed for a long time). The motifs furthest south, up-slope are more worn than those at the bottom, and this suggests a soil accumulation at the bottom to protect them.

There is an unattached groove in the right hand section, well made and deep, flanked by a cup and short groove with a slightly elongated ring. To the right are two sets of three penannulars one above the other with their cups linked by a deep groove that ends at the north edge. Between them and the central groove are to faint motifs: a cup and arc and an oval groove surrounding two small cups. Above, joined to the linear groove by its outer ring is a cup at the centre of two penannulars. At the very limit of the shelter wall is a cup and angular groove. To the right of this string of motifs is a similar parallel arrangement beginning with a cup at the centre of two rings linked by a groove from the cup to a lower cup at the centre of three broken rings; A groove from the inner ring of the lower figure almost meets the outer ring of motifs consisting of two penannulars around a large central cup, the groove from which reaches the north end of the rock.
The depth of the cups is enhanced in many cases by their being in natural hollows so that they are counter-sunk.
The decoration on the right hand side, apart from some faint arcs and a cup, ends on the almost vertical thin edge to the west, where there is a ring and two concentric arcs. It does not appear to have been cut through.

To the left of the central division a long groove begins with a cup, passes a faint cup and arc on its left and a cup, to the centre of the deepest and clearest motif: a cup at the centre of a ring and three concentric penannulars. The groove continues to the rock edge diametrically, and another groove runs from the same cup radially. At the lowest part of the rock, which naturally comes to a point, the small triangle has become a focus of a most elaborate treatment where packed motifs flow into one; The outer penannular of the largest figure runs in to the outer deep oval surrounding a cup and groove. Between it and the central division is a faint cup and diametric groove at the centre of two ovoids.

Below it is a cup and another two ovoids around a cup and short groove. To the east of the long dividing groove are four large motifs of three and two well-spaced rings united by the grooves from the central cups as they flow down the rock. One other cup completes the motifs on this triangle.
The most easterly group of motifs is more complicated, perhaps because the surface was more irregular to begin with. At the top a cup and arc has a looped groove around it from the end of which loop and the central cup a groove curves down the rock. It becomes an outer ring of a motif of two concentric rings surrounding a cup from which a groove runs, parallel to another groove from the inner ring. Below is ac cup with an arc below it. The most easterly motifs are a cup at the centre of two rings from which a curved groove runs to meet the outer arc of an irregular figure of cup and ring, concentric arc, and arc. From the lateral groove at the top is a vertical groove

There is a distinct design about this; in any age this is the work of an artist.

The way the motifs flow into each other, taking every advantage of the natural slopes and irregularities of the rock surface is similar to the concept on the main rock on Old Bewick Hill. Fluidity and inter-connection, the spacing of grooves, and the use of what the rock had to offer in the first place must make this one of the world's greatest sites.
What significance the rock shelter had for the people who decorated it in this way is not known. The absence of anything funerary today does not preclude it from having been used in that way, but we cannot speculate any further. What we can admire is the great wide stretch of landscape that this site dominates. It is truly a very significant viewpoint. That it has been chosen for special and skilled treatment, lying in an area of similar high quality decoration, makes on e wonder what went on there.