Up on Simonside

Still on Day Two!

Mark and I walked up Simonside which is a big hill overlooking Rothbury town. We met a group of archeology enthusiasts in the car park below and as we made our ascent on the newly laid stone pathway we watched them gathering on a smaller hillside below us in order to look at Iron Age remains. I remembered the cup and ring marks that are dotted all over the north of Northumberland and I think I had stones and stone carving (or markings) on the brain as we walked up and along the ridge.

Mark must have tuned into this because he took me off the path to show me a particularly touching piece of modern stone graffiti. Someone carved their proposal of marriage in stone and must have taken their beloved up onto the tops to pop the question in front of a truely majestic backdrop. One can only hope its a story with a happy ending.

Graffiti aside I was also intrigued by the stones that the NNPA had used to make a long lasting pathway on the hillside. The big flagstones had come from the floor of a Derbyshire Mill. Each seemed loaded with its own history, but I couldn't help seeing the landscape I saw around me reproduced in minature through the layered surface of the flagstones.

I think I'd like to try my hand at stone carving, the work I've been making recently might well translate into relief carving very nicely!

I'd also like to make some rubbings of the flagstones.