Jackson, Ian. Northumberland Rocks — 50 extraordinary rocky places that tell the story of the Northumberland landscape. Newcastle upon Tyne : Northern Heritage, 2021.
The richly illustrated and accessible book series of Northumberland, Cumbria and Durham Rocks are available to purchase from Northern Heritage.
Theme: Ancient rivers, seas and life
North of Hadrian’s Wall. You can reach it by hiking from Housesteads Visitor Centre.
At the western end of the Crags is a very large angular sandstone boulder that has become detached from the rock face just to the south of it. The boulder looks like a giant tooth, or rabbit’s ear and you can see it from miles away.
The sandstone is Carboniferous and about 320 million years old. The separation of the boulder from the crag probably happened as the last ice sheet melted away 15,000 years ago.
Just a few metres east of the boulder, along the crag and under an overhang, there is a Roman inscription. Two Centurions and an Optio (an “under-centurion”) carved their names in the rock, possibly while sheltering from the weather.
Sandstones produce acidic soils. Bracken is growing on the top of the crags, and in front is a mixture of heather and purple moor-grass. The grass is our only deciduous one, losing leaves and blowing around in winter.