Ferntower carving, Crieff, Perthshire

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 87415 22626

Getting Here

From Crieff central, take the A85 road east out of town where the golf club is on your left.  Park up and ask the helpful lads who work in the shop, who’ll direct you to the standing stones on the golf course.  The cupmark is on the second stone along the row of stones from the direction you’ve approached from.

Archaeology & History

Here’s another one of those petroglyphs only of interest to those with the madness in their bloodstream!  Found within the ruins of the Ferntower megalithic ring is a distinct single cupmark on what John Coles (1911) called ‘Stone D’ in his survey:

The stone in question
Cupmark, lower centre

“Stone D, a boulder of whinstone also containing seams of quartz, 5 feet 6 inches in length and breadth, and 2 feet 3 inches above ground.  At some period the intention of blasting this block must have been considered, for there is the beginning of a jumper-hole near the centre of its upper surface.  Close to this unmistakably modern hole there is one single genuine cup-mark about 1¼ inch in diameter.”

A note of this was also made when Aubrey Burl (1988) surveyed the site, who pointed out that in accordance with a characteristic found at other ‘four poster’ stone circles, the carving is “another example of a decorated stone on the eastern side” (my italics) of such a ring.

Folklore

Although we have nothing specifically relating to the carving, it’s worth noting that when we visited the stone circle, the groundsman told us that it had been a place where local people gathered at summer solstice.

References:

  1. Burl, Aubrey, Four Posters, BAR: Oxford 1988.
  2. Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire, Principally Strathearn” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.

© Paul BennettThe Northern Antiquarian

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