Alnham Northfield

This panel now appears as an upright stone. The decorated face, not the highest part, slopes east to west. It bears five crude cup marks placed loosely in an arc. There is no definite patterning observable, but there is a group of three in the centre of the face. The cup marks are all about 0.03 m to 0.05 m diameter and all quite shallow. Geologically a mixed sandstone - igneous rock with a number of large crystals (of quartz?). This may be a conglomerate (as at Roddam Dene) or a Cementstone. The panel appears as an upright, but this is of little importance as a number of other similarly plough-scarred and tumbled stones moved in field clearance are also close by. This assemblage is too loose and tumbled to be a clearance cairn, rather a clearance scatter. It might be supposed that it was found at or near the top of the field as there are similar wide verges elsewhere along field margins. If this is so, then a wide view might be obtained into the valleys of the Aln and Coquet, in the distance Chirnells and Lordenshaw, and closer Scrainwood rock art sites are visible.