Rock Art Hunt - St John Lee, Corbridge Roman Site and Wallington

Yesterday we ventured out to find three pieces of Rock Art in three very different and unusual settings.

The first was to be found just inside the door of the parish church of St. John of Beverley, St. John Lee, near Hexham in Northumberland. The church is easy to find, just off the roundabout on the main A69 road.

The outside of the church is quite plain and Victorian in style, although its origins are in the 14th century. There are some carved gargoyles, a war memorial, and pretty standardised gravestones towards the front. So far, so normal. Inside however, the ceiling has some impressive wooden carved features and its obvious that there has been some serious money poured into it over the last 150 years. One of the most interesting things to me was the marble-carved tomb of a dead Great War soldier, his head lying on a saddle and his hat at his feet. The stained glass windows were OK, again mostly dedicated as memorials, from the Victorian era to the 1940's. I learned all about hatchments, heraldic wooden plaques made in memory of the dead, while waiting patiently for B to take photographs of the rock art!

Outside, we explored the churchyard in search of possible older gravestones, because there must be some if the place is so much older than the architecture... sure enough, I quickly found some old 18th century gravestones, placed against the wall of the church; probably unlikely to be in their original position. My eye was drawn to one for Robert Forester, complete with winged and wigged angel. The graveyard was quite overgrown and my explorations were hampered by possible bare ankle / nettle contact!

Then - bingo! "Memento Mori" (Remember you must die) - a gorgeous stone with skull and crossbones (the skull had a tooth missing)- I set B on the case immediately with tripod and flash to get the best from it. The other side of the stone was carved with wonderful 18thC lettering, as follows:

In memory
of Robert dixon
who died the 26th
may 1761 aged 32
Confide not reader in thy
youth or strength
But more than both thy
present moment prize
Graves here surround the
of each breadth and length
And thou may be perhaps
the next that dies

I loved this!

There was quite a few more similar-aged stones, most had the angel (with various hairstyles) and sometimes egg-timers, snakes eating their own tails, bones and books - all symbols of course representing either everlasting life, or death.

After we left here we drove the short distance to Corbridge Roman site - again just off the A69/A68 and well sign-posted (as with all things Roman around here). We flashed our English Heritage members cards and onwards, to find the Rock Art boulder sat on a wall here.

The site is quite impressive - bigger than I was expecting. The squared grid layout undulates pleasantly, thanks to subsidence into an earlier fort! (I thought this may have been iron-aged but apparently it was a turfed Roman affair). Again, B took pics of the single rock while I wandered about.

The weather was starting too a little bit ropey and during our drive to Wallington, the were a few spits but nothing to get wet about. We'd been to Wallington before, a couple of years ago before I started this blog.

We had a poke about the farm shop and had a cuppa and scone, then headed down to the walled garden. The interior of the house will have to wait to another visit; we'd been before and it would be closed by the time we got back up hill anyway.

We followed the path down the eastern side of the site, across the stepping stones and past the fat couple fondling on the riverbank, up through the trees and back towards the road. The bridge was our target - there is a small "portable" rock art boulder concreted into the inside of the bridge's legs - rendering it not portable anymore. We missed it the first time so crossed over and no it wasn't there - started to panic but found it when returning to the first, southern side of the river.

B took some pics while I listened to the cars honking their various horns (there's a roadsign which commands it!) and watched a strange bob-tailed yellow-blobbed bird pecking amongst the reeds (since identified as a grey wagtail)

Then, back up the hill to the car, stopping to take pics of the Griffin Heads (it's the law).

On the way home, saw a hot air balloon taking off at Chollerford, before following the Hadrian's Wall route towards home.

B's photos of St Johns Lee on Flickr

Overhead view of St Johns Lee on googlemaps

St John's Lee Rock Art on themodernantiquarian

Beckinsall Archive details for St John Lee Rock Art

St John Lee website

Corbridge Roman Site overhead view on googlemaps

Corbridge Roman Site on English Heritage site

Wallington overhead view on googlemaps

Wallington National Trust site


St Johns Lee:




















Corbridge Roman Site:






Wallington: