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Cup-marked stone near Lisburn is a Neolithic or Bronze Age rock art monument, consisting of a stone surface decorated with deliberately carved cup-shaped depressions. The monument lies on bedrock of the Gala Group formation, a wacke deposit laid down during the Telychian period, which provided the stone bearer itself. Such cup-marked rocks are found across Britain and Ireland and typically date to between 3500 and 1500 BCE, though precise dating without excavation remains uncertain. The shallow, rounded hollows may have held ritual, astronomical or practical significance to prehistoric communities.
The stone's position near Lisburn places it within Ulster's rich prehistoric landscape. The Gala Group wacke, a metamorphic rock of Ordovician origin, weathered over millennia but retains the carved cups made by stone or bone tools. The cups vary in depth and diameter, recording the efforts of unknown craftspeople whose motivations remain open to interpretation—whether territorial markers, ceremonial focal points or astronomical observatories.
The monument is protected by the Historic Environment Division under reference 7488, ensuring its preservation for future study. As one of relatively few recorded cup-marked stones in County Antrim, it contributes to understanding Neolithic and Bronze Age artistic expression and settlement patterns across the island of Ireland.
Cup-marked stone is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 7488. View the official record →
Cup-marked stone near Lisburn is a Neolithic or Bronze Age rock art monument, consisting of a stone surface decorated with deliberately carved cup-shaped depressions. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) under reference 7488.
Cup-marked stone dates from the neo/b.a. period, and is classified as a cup-marked stone. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Cup-marked stone is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Ni. The official designation reference is 7488.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Souterrain (6.7 km), Neolithic house (7 km), Graveyard with cross-inscribed pillar stone (7.3 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Cup-marked stone's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Cup-marked stone stands on Gala Group, bedrock that formed in the Telychian. The rock here is wacke.