"The Calder Stones near Liverpool afford an interesting and remarkable example of these cup and ring carvings upon this variety of stones—or, in words, upon the stones of a small megalithic circle. Some of the Calder Stones afford ample evidence of modern chiselling as marked by the sharpness and outray figurings. But in addition to these there are cut upon them, though in some parts greatly faded away, sculpturings of cups and concentric rings similar to those found in various parts of England and Scotland, remarkable for not only their archaic carvings, perfect and entire similarity to those found elsewhere, but still more from the fact that we have here presented upon a single circle almost every known and recognised type of these cuttings.
The Calder circle is about six yards in diameter, consists of five stones which are still upright and one that is fallen. The stones consists of slabs and blocks of red sandstone, all different in size and shape. The fallen stone is small, and shows nothing on its exposed side, but possibly if turned over some markings might be discovered on its other surface. Of the five standing stones the largest of the set, No. 1, is a sandstone slab between 576 feet in height and in breadth. On its outer surface, or the surface turned to the exterior of the circle, there is a flaw above from disintegration and splintering of the stone: but the remaining portion of the surface presents between 30 and 40 cup depressions varying from 2 to 3 and a half inches in diameter, and at its lowest and left-hand corner is a concentric circle about a foot in diameter, consisting of four enlarging rings, but apparently without any central depression. The opposite surface of this stone (No. 1) is that directed to the interior of the circle, has near its centre a cup cut upon it, with the remains of one surrounding ring. On the right side of this single-ringed cup are the faded remains of a concentric circle of three rings. To the left of it there is another three-ringed circle with a central depression, but the upper portions of the ring are broken off. Above it is a double-ringed cup, with this peculiarity, that the external ring is a volute leading from the central cup, and between the outer and inner ring is a fragmentary line of apparently another volute making a double-ringed spiral which is common on some Irish stones, as on those of the great archaic mausoleum at New Grange, but extremely rare in Great Britain. At the very base of this stone towards the left are two small volutes, one with a central depression or cup, and the other seemingly without it. One of these small volutes consists of three turns, the other of two.
The cup and ring cuttings have been discovered in a variety of relations and positions. Some are sculptured on the surface of rocks in situ—on large stones placed inside and outside the walls of old British cities and camps, on blocks used in the construction of the olden dwellings and strongholds of archaic living man, in the interior of the chambered sepulchres and kistvaens of the archaic dead, on monoliths and on cromlechs, and repeatedly in Scotland on megalithic or so-called "Druidical" circles.
The name Calder Stones is derived from Norse Calder or Caldag, the calf-garth or yard enclosed to protect young cattle from straying.
Norse and Danish Grave Mounds.
Amongst the ancient monuments of Britain the well-known remains called Druidical Circles hold a foremost place, though their use, and the people by whom they were erected, are questions which still remain matters of dispute. The Stone enclosures of Denmark, which resemble the Circles of Cumbria in many respects, mainly differ from them, in that they are found in connection with burial chambers, whilst the latter are generally situated on the flat surface of moors, with nothing to indicate that they have ever been used for sepulchural purposes. Therefore wherever no urns or other remains have been found, we have negative evidence that the place was not intended for a place of sepulture.
CALDER STONE No 1
OUTER SURFACE.
