Standing Stone (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NS 8435 4799
Also Known as:
Archaeology & History
1864 OS-map, showing the stone
Illustrated on the 1864 Ordnance Survey map, right by the roadside a hundred yards or so east of Braidwood House, once stood a proud standing stone – but sadly there are no remains of the monument today. It was said by Mr Groom (1882), in his encyclopaedic Gazetteer of Scotland, that the stone was “supposed to have been a milestone on Watling Street,” but we have no way of verifying this with any certainty. However, a similar association was conferred upon the stone by local people when the site was visited by the reverend John Wylie in 1839, when it was still standing. Writing in the Statistical Account of Carluke, Wylie told,
“It is supposed to have stood at the side of a Roman Road, passing from Lanark, across the bridge of the Mouse beneath Cartland Crags, through Lee Valley, across Fiddler’s Burn at Chapel, and thence by Braidwood into the main street.”
The last record we have of the stone still being in position is from the 1898 OS-map, but sometime thereafter it was uprooted and destroyed. Any further information about the stone would be gratefully welcomed.
References:
- Groom, Francis H. (ed.), Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland – volume 1, Thomas C. Jack: Edinburgh 1882.
- Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historic Monuments of Scotland, Lanarkshire: An Inventory of the Prehistoric and Roman Monuments, HMSO: Edinburgh 1978.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
