Monument record 16060/1 - Cupmarks and Serpentine Groove on Sandstone outcrop at at Keckwick Hill, Daresbury

<1> Cockrell, T, 2025, Carved stones at Keckwick Hill, Daresbury, Cheshire (Unpublished Report). SCH9743.

"….In January 2023 the author recorded cupmarks at two locations on sandstone outcropping at Keckwick Hill, Daresbury, Cheshire. One of the cupmarked panels featured a serpentine groove protruding from the edge of the cupmark. Other more eroded markings were present that might be archaeological and of earlier date. Overlying all the aforementioned were clusters of peck marks. Later markings, including modern graffiti, were also present in profusion. The serpentine is a motif that has affinities with megalithic rock-art from chambered cairns in north Wales and Ireland, as well as published rock-art in the Wirral and Liverpool from disturbed contexts. The Keckwick Hill panels are unique for being in situ examples in a region that has very few recorded panels at all…."


"…Panel one, consists of a sub-rectangular slab of outcropping bedrock geology with a north northwest-south southeast orientation. The panel measures approximately
three metres along its long axis by two metres wide and protrudes from ground level by approximately one metre at its maximum extent. The panel occupies a narrow isthmus between two large quarry pits and has sides that are distinctly vertical and probably truncated by quarrying. The carvings are located on its smoothly undulating and eroded upper surface, most of which has an approximately 30˚ incline from south to north, with a narrow band at the south end which is almost horizontal (The carvings therefore face the escarpment edge, upper Mersey Estuary and the river