Approximate Location
OS Grid Reference: SJ 8560 7798
Latitude: 53.17.55N Longitude: 2.13.3W
A rock outcrop commanding magnificent views over the ground to the north-east of Alderley Edge. The landmark features as a location several times in The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, including when Fenodyree points out Grimnir’s lair at Llyn-dhu to the children (Chapter 7: Fenodyree), their reunion with Cadellin and, Colin and Susan’s decision to go to Lindow Moss (Chapter 8: Mist Over Llyn-dhu).
In Gomrath, Chapter 11: The Dale of Goyt Uthecar and Atlendor sit on a wooden bench supported by stone plinths whilst discussing how to track Pelis the False. Sadly, the bench has been removed although the stumps of the stone plinths do just about remain.
In the documentary The Writer’s Workshop: Places and Things, Alan Garner reveals that his grandfather, Joseph Garner, left a graffiti inscription on the northern face of Castle Rock. Robert was also responsible for constructing the Wishing Well, Druid’s Circle and Wizard’s Well.
Something of the formation of Castle Rock is revealed by Colin, to Meg Massey, in Boneland (2012, 70):
“It’s the most instructive part of the Edge. It shows the Permo-Triassic boundary clearly. Which is why it’s so remarkable. Here, where we are, the polychromatic sandstone has eroded because it’s a soft aeolian desert and the grains have lost their facets through being worked by the wind; hence all the graffiti. Then, above, a slow esturine feature has moved in, hard, with no inclusions. And above it is the conglomerate, withiout stratification but full of derived quartz pebbles, indicating high-energy flow, a torrential fluvial deposit.”
Garner, A., 2012, Boneland. Fourth Estate. London. p.70.
A scatter of Mesolithic worked flints was discovered at Castle Rock in 1905. Colin showed Meg microliths which he discovered under a nearby rock overhang in Boneland (2012, 71-72).