Take the tiny long winding B8063 road that runs west off the A9 at Luncarty, meandering eventually to the entry of the Sma’ Glen. If you’re coming via Luncarty, after going west for 8 miles (12.9km) you pass the hamlet of Harrietfield and just a few hundred yards further a dirt-track on your right goes uphill to Milton. If you’re coming via Crieff/Sma’ Glen direction, along the B8063 road, cross the Bridge of Buchanty and after nearly 3 miles (4.7km) just past a bit of a hairpin, you’ll see the track up to Milton on your left. Walk up, past all the newly modernised houses and go through the gate, bearing right where, in the field on your right (thru another gate) you’ll see this big fella standing alone 200 yards to the east along the fence-line.
Archaeology & History
Looking N to Crochan Hill
This is a bit of a hidden beauty! Standing nearly ten feet tall on the crest of an elongated ridge with the land ever so gently declining either side of its proud stand, it beckons the impression of partners long since gone (or something truly olde)… and so it proved to be. Very little has been written about the place, despite its impressive stature. It seems to have been described firstly in J.W. Thomson’s essay on the local parish in April 1837 (subsequently published in the NSA in 1845) where, ascribing it as usual to the druids of olde, he told that,
“at the western extremity of Logiealmond, there is one remarkable block about 12 feet high and 18 feet in circumference, standing upon its narrow end, with three other stones in its immediate vicinity. It is commonly called the Kor Stone.”
Kor Stone, looking SEFred Coles’ 1911 sketch
William Marshall (1880) also mentioned these three additional standing stones, saying that they were “apparently part of a row.” But they are long gone and we know not what became of them. They were probably uprooted and included in some of the nearby walling or buildings (quite a lot of suspicious-looking stones scatter the edges of many fields around Logiealmond). If we look closely at the surface of our Kor Stone, in earlier times someone has fixed metal loops into the monolith to make it part of an early fence or gate.
The stone was highlighted on the 1867 OS-map of the area and described in the accompanying Name Book,
“Carse” Stone on 1867 map
“A stone about ten feet high, supposed by some people to be the remains of a Druidical Circle, by others to be a mark on a division of lands: in support of the latter supposition they bring forward the fact of a large stone at Dunkeld and one near Fowlis – both similar to this one – and The Carse Stane being in the same straight line.”
The great Fred Coles (1911) ALSO gave the place his attention, but apart from a brief description of its size and position, he found no additional lore about the other three stones, telling us simply:
“It is an imposingly large and erect block of rugged whinstone, 9 feet 9 inches in height, with a basal girth of 15 feet 10 inches, but at about midway of its height the girth increases to fully 17 feet. The view…shows the Stone as seen from the east.”
In truth, the location of this giant stone on the ridge strongly suggests it was once part of a much greater megalithic neolithic monument. But whatever that might have looked like, we may never know. It’s an awesome site though. Well worth checking out if you’re in the area.
Finlayson, Andrew, The Stones of Strathearn, One Tree Island: Comrie 2010.
Marshall, William, Historic Scenes in Perthshire, William Oliphant: Edinburgh 1880.
Thomson, J.W., “Parish of Moneydie,” in New Statistical Account of Scotland – volume X: Perth, William Blackwood: Edinburgh 1845.
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
Cup-and-Ring Stone (removed): OS Grid Reference – NT 1872 4072
Archaeology & History
Included in the standard catalogues by Ronald Morris (1967; 1969), this carving was brought to light fortuitously by the local farmer who, thankfully, recognized its archaeological importance. Etched into a small flat broken block of stone, he noticed a cup-marking and the remains of a triple-ring around it, with grooves running out from the central cup. It was described in detail by the Royal Commission (1967) lads in their county survey where they told:
R.W.B. Morris’ 1967 photoHallyne carving in Peebles Museum
“During the excavations at the Roman fort at Lyne…in June 1959, a stone bearing cup-and-ring markings was found lying beside the fence that crosses the North Annexe. According to local information it was found while ploughing in the field on the NE side of the fence. It is a sandstone block, measuring 1ft 5in by one foot, and with an average thickness of 8in. It is clearly a mere fragment of what must have been a larger slab, but it is impossible to estimate its original dimensions. The markings consist of a single well-formed cup, 2in in diameter and three-quarters of an inch in depth, now partly surrounded by the broken arcs of three rings, which, if complete, would measures about 4in, 7in and 10in in diameter respectively. The rings are all half an inch in width and one eighth of an inch in depth. From the innermost ring two radial grooves, set one inch apart, extend outwards for a maximum distance of 4in. They interrupt the two outer rings, which stop short on either side of them, leaving a gap of about half an inch. The grooves are slightly narrower and shallower than the rings. The whole symbol has been formed by the pecking technique and punchmarks are still remarkably fresh. Outside the outermost ring there is a very shallow depression, one inch in diameter, which may be another cup-mark; in addition there are several recent scars caused by the plough.”
It was moved to the museum in Peebles shortly after being found and remains there to this day, apparently. I’ve not seen it.
References:
Morris, Ronald W.B., “The Cup-and-Ring Marks and Similar Sculptures of South-West Scotland,” in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, volume 14, 1967.
Morris, Ronald W.B., “The Cup-and-Ring and Similar Early Sculptures of Scotland; Part 2 – The Rest of Scotland except Kintyre,” in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, volume 16, 1969.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Peeblesshire – volume 1, HMSO: Edinburgh 1967.
Holy Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NT 2611 7600
Also Known as:
Bonnington Mineral Well
Archaeology & History
Site shown on 1862 map
If we’d have lived 200 years ago and walked several miles downstream from St Bernard’s Well on the Water of Leith, we would have eventually come across this little-known sacred site, sadly destroyed in the 19th century. It was shown on the earliest OS-map on the south-side of the river, enclosed in a small square building with what looks like two entrances, and what appears to be a covering of the spring on the southeast side. Marked as a chalybeate, or iron-bearing well, this would have obviously have had repute amongst local people and would have worked as a tonic or pick-me-up, aswell as fortifying the blood and a having a host of other benefits.
The Ordnance Survey lads wrote short notes about St. Cuthbert’s Well in the Name Book of 1852-53, where they told:
“A Well Situated at Bonnington. Supposed to have been dedicated to St Cuthbert; about 34 years ago the proprietor repaired the well and at the same time erected a house over it, and fitted it up for Visitors who are charged one penny for a drink. The Water of the well has been analysed by Professor Jameson and Doctor Turner and it was found to Contain Salts of Iron; Soda, magnesia and Lime, also Iodine under the form of Hydrisdate of Potash.”
About the same time as Jameson & Turner’s analysis of St. Cuthbert’s waters, one Dr Edward Schweitzer (1845) wrote one of the most detailed chemical essays on wells, ever!—using Bonnington’s holy well as his primary focus. A near-thirty-page essay found that, along with an excess of iron, the medicinal aspects of the waters were due to the following compounds found, per grains, in each pint of water:
Sulphate of Potassa — 2.46554 gr
Sulphate of Soda — 1.51227 gr
Sulphate of Lime — 6.28816 gr
Iodide of Sodium — 0.00728 gr
Bromide of Sodium — 0.07886 gr
Chloride of Ammonium — 9.49939 gr
Chloride of Sodium — 3.82963 gr
Chloride of Magnesium — 3.12017 gr
Nitrate of Soda — 2.02154 gr
Carbonate of Magnesia — 1.70443 gr
Proto-Carbonate of Iron — 0.05807 gr
Proto-Carbonate of Manganese — 0.01535 gr
Ammonia (united to organic matter) — 0.42285 gr
Alumina — 0.02245 gr
Silica — 0.18651 gr
In 1837, a Mr Robert Fergusson was known to be “the keeper of the Mineral Well, Bonnington,” but much of its traditions and history have fallen outside of memory. The site was soon to become another mid-Victorian ‘Spa Well’, where local people would have to pay for water they had always used as Nature intended. In truth, the waters and its well-house were to become a place where the rich Industrialists could heal their infirm mind-bodies, hoping that the destitution they lacked emotionally and spiritually would be washed away in the sacred waters. But it didn’t last long! What little is known about it historically was best described in John Russel’s (1933) essay on Bonnington in the Old Edinburgh Club journal. He wrote:
“Just where the Bonnington mill lade joins the Water of Leith once flowed St. Cuthbert’s Well, an ancient spring named after the patron saint of the once extensive parish of St. Cuthbert’s, and like the now forgotten mineral well of St. Leonard’s near Powderhall, a relic of a superstitious age. As to when this well was so designated history is silent but it was probably before 1606, when the Leith portions of Bonnington, Pilrig and Warriston were, by the Scots Parliament, included in the Parish of North Leith…
“In May, 1750 St. Cuthbert’s Well was found to be possessed of medicinal properties. The Scots Magazine of that year refers to many persons frequenting it. The Well formed part of a building which included a pump room and a reading room. From advertisements in the periodicals of 1819 we learn that it was open from 6 o’clock in the morning and that newspapers were to be found on the table all day. The tenant also issued handbills headed “St. Cuthbert’s Mineral Well, Bonnington”, giving a chemical analysis of the water and a list of the ailments for which it had been found beneficial. The Well disappeared with the re-construction of Haig’s Distillery in 1857. It now lies beneath the buildings immediately west of the chimney stack of Messrs John Inglis and Sons.”
St. Cuthbert’s feast day was March 20 (Spring Equinox) and September 4.
A half-mile southwest of here could once be seen the waters of St. Leonard’s Well, which Ruth & Frank Morris (1982) erroneously thought to have been this Well of St. Cuthbert.
If you can make your way to the Stroness (2) carving, then walk down the slope for less than 50 yards past quite a few other earthfast stones, you’ll eventually run into the stone shown here in the photos. You’ll find it easily enough.
Archaeology & History
This carving was found when I was heading down the hillside to meet up with my antiquarian colleague 500 yards lower down. The sun was just setting, so visibility wasn’t good, but as I rushed from stone to stone feeling each one in the hope of finding a carving, this one gave my fingers that distinct feedback of a cup-marking; then another; and what seemed like another. I had a small amount of water left in a bottle and quickly sprayed it over the surface of the stone and saw that there were indeed a number of cups on it. Two or three certainly – but possibly as many as five. I laid on the wet ground and looked across its even surface from several angles and caught what seemed to be a very faint semi-circle around one of the cups. But I wasn’t sure it was real. However, on a number of quick photos I took, several of them do appear to show such an arc around one of the cups. But I’m very cautious about it. Only when we (or you) go back up and have a look at it in good light will we be able to affirm or discount it.
One additional feature that needs mentioning is a small low arc of walling just above this stone. It’s man-made, it’s very old, but I couldn’t work out what it might be: hut circle, cairn (there’s one further up the hill), enclosure walling. I’m not sure, but it needs to be looked at when we have a full day.
The minor road that runs roughly north-south between the hamlets of Fowlis Wester and Buchanty is probably your best bet. Nearly 2 miles north of the village up the tiny winding lane, where the moorland at the roadside finishes and the fields begin – is where to take the track, left, up onto the hillside. But after just 75 yards, go left over the rickety-gate and follow the walling until your reach the burn. Follow this up all the way to its source (it’s boggy as hell) and, once you’re there, walk due north for 250 yards until you reach a cluster of rocks. Look around!
Archaeology & History
It’s a long way to come to see such a simplistic design —but for the real petroglyph researchers among you, it’s worth it the trek. It’s had scant attention. George Currie (2004) seems to have been the only person to mention this stone, giving the standard bland description typifying archaeology. He wrote:
“SE-facing slope, 1.2m long pointed rock aligned E-W; three shallow cups, 30-40 x 6-10mm.”
Inspiring stuff, ey?! Anyhow… As usual, there’s more to it than that. If we assume that the carving described above is the same one I visited yesterday (Mr Currie’s grid-ref is slightly different), even despite the poor daylight, it was obvious there was more than three cup-marks on this.
Lower cups & upper cups
Cups on top
When I got to this stone, the evening sun was literally touching the horizon and so the light cutting across half the rock highlighted very little indeed. I was rushing, trying to fondle and see as much as I could before the darkening sky clouded everything, and as I almost frenetically sprayed showers of water across its surface, the two or three cups that I could see near the crown of the stone suddenly doubled in number. Two cups along one edge became three; whilst the sloping surface above these that had one cup suddenly seemed to have a companion. On the highest part of this gently sloping stone, the form of one of the two distinct cup-marks that first caught my eye seemed to slowly morph into one of the carved “footprint” designs, akin to those clustered on the Ardoch (2) carving 1½ miles south-west of here. However, this element needs looking at again, as it may have been a curious playful trick between stone and light showing me something that wasn’t there! Things like that happen with stones.
Altogether there are at least six cup-marks on here, but perhaps as many as eight. Obviously, if we (or you) visit the site when the light is much better, an even larger design might emerge from this old rock.
I spent perhaps just five minutes here, before heading back down to meet my companion 500 yards below in the midst of the boggy moorland. Usually a carving gets my fondles for a an hour or two, but conditions weren’t good for us to form a healthy relationship. And so, as I headed downhill, another unrecorded cup-marked stone appeared beneath my rushing feet (Stroness [3] carving)— and I spoke with that for only a couple of minutes. We need to come back up here and zigzag to find other companions that lay sleeping, forgotten for countless centuries…
References:
Currie, George, ‘Buchanty Hill (Fowlis Wester parish): Cup-marked Rocks’, in Discovery & Excavation Scotland, volume 5, 2004.
This curiously-named and barely frequented Megget Stane has seen better days. Found in the middle of a veritable nowhere, when Duncan Fraser (1901) first wrote about it there was only a solitary pathway running between these uninhabited glens, with this old stone standing as a solitary sentinel—albeit a not very grand one! It’s present position at the roadside was given it following a forced removal into a nearby ditch, when the old Edinburgh District Water authority who built the Talla Reservoir a couple of miles away all but destroyed it! On one of Mr Fraser’s many visits, in August 1899, he found what he called his “old friend…lying among the heather broken into three pieces.”
“I frankly confess that this wanton act of vandalism filled me with the deepest indignation,” he wrote—and so he sought to redress the situation and find out who’d damaged the old stone. It transpired that,
“The Edinburgh District Water Trust had a few months before this time purchased from Lord Wemyss the ground at the head of Meggat, which slopes down to Talla. In marking off their new possession, the Trust had run a strong five-barred wire fence along the march, and as Meggatstane stood on the line, why, Meggatstane was bound to go!”
He contacted a local farmer and, between them, they protested to the water company who, eventually, fixed the pieces of the stone back together and erected it in the position that we see today, very close to its original spot. Prior to it being damaged, Fraser told that it stood four feet tall, but when cementing it all back together again, some of its original size was lost.
Its history and legends had been forgotten even in his day and despite enquiries with other local wanderers, all that was ever told of it were variants on it standing hereby since time immemorial. For my part, I’m somewhat sceptical about it having a prehistoric provenance, despite the Royal Commission (1957) lads suggesting a Bronze Age origin—but that’s just my own feeling on the place. I’m more inclined to see this as an early mediaeval stone—but would love to be wrong. It may, perhaps, even date from Viking times…..
Fraser told us an intriguing note when the stone was eventually re-assembled,
” I was interested to learn that when they dug to the bottom of the stone, they found the part underground covered with certain runic-like characters.”
These don’t appear to have been seen since.
References:
Fraser, Duncan, “Meggatstane – An Incident in a Riverside Ramble,” in Border Magazine, volume 6, no.70, November 1901.
Royal Commission Ancient & Historic Monuments, Scotland, An Inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Selkirkshire, HMSO: Edinburgh 1957.
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
Stone Circle (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NO 0015 2411
Also Known as:
Skelfie
Archaeology & History
Sometime between the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a Perthshire architect by the name of Thomas Ross was informed by a farm-worker called John Lawson who lived at Meckphen, that a stone circle had existed at Bachilton, but which had been destroyed when he was young. The information was gained by the great Fred Coles (1910) during his extensive survey work in and around Perthshire, but all trace of the site had gone when he came to write about it. He told us simply:
“Many years ago, several Stones of a Circle stood here, upon what appeared to be an artificial, and quite distinct mound which is still visible. The Stones were, however, undermined and buried, so as to be out of the reach of the plough, close to their respective sites.”
All subsequent searches for the site have proved fruitless and the circle’s long gone.
Make a day out for this one! You could, of course, go barely half-a-mile straight up the hill (southwest) from Ossian’s Stone in the Sma’ Glen below – but it’s steep as fuck and I know that most of you wouldn’t do it. So, park-up and take the gradual 3 mile walk into the mountains. Coming via Crieff, along the A85 road east, turn left up the A822 Dunkeld road at Gilmerton. 2½ miles on, you reach the Foulford golf course on the right-hand side of the road, whilst directly across the road a dirt-track leads you into the fields, past the large Foulford cup-and-ring stone. Keep along this track, bearing right just before Connochan Lodge and follow this dirt-track uphill on and on for another 2 miles where you’ll eventually see the cairn-peak in the distance. Another shallow track leads uphill after about 2 miles: we walked up to where the ground levels out, walked across the dodgy swamp-land and up again to the tomb. It’s well worth it!
Archaeology & History
Visible for many miles round here from the surrounding hills, this somewhat mutilated giant cairn, highlighted on the earliest Ordnance Survey map of the area in 1867, hasn’t fared well in archaeology tomes. Apart from a passing note in Margaret Stewart’s (1966) summary article on prehistoric remains in central Perthshire—where she erroneously told it to be 400 feet lower down that it actually is—almost nothing has been said of this place. Most odd.
Cairn spoil, looking SE
New cairn atop of the old
Despite it being ransacked over the centuries, it was obviously of some considerable size in its early days. Today, surmounting it, is a very large walker’s cairn which, no doubt, has accrued some of its own foundations from the prehistoric tomb on which it sits. To the side of this recent cairn, another one is growing, thanks to stones brought from near and not-too-far. But the original creation can still be seen in outline and mass all around. Indeed, as you walk all round the modern cairn, you’re walking over much of the early collapsed stonework sleeping gently beneath the moorland vegetation, and once you walk away and below the cairn mass itself, looking back up at it you’ll notice the very ancient raised plinth of stone on which our modern one now lives.
Low walling on NW side
Its amorphous shape is somewhat amoeboid, measuring more than 22 yards across east-west, by 15 yards north-south, with a curious arc of low walling, very old indeed, on its northwestern side. Whether this walling outlines the original edge of the tomb, only an excavation will tell. The most notable remaining mass of ancient cairn material reaches out on its south-east to eastern edges, where some of it is beginning to fall away down the edge of the mountain slope.
Folklore
Local tradition assigns this cairn to be where the bones of the great hero-figure Ossian was removed to, when they were disturbed by the unruly mob of General Wade and his cohorts in the middle of the 18th century. Notes of the event were written at the time by one of Wade’s mob, a Captain Edward Burt, who told,
“the Highlanders, they assembled from distant parts, and having formed themselves into a body, they carefully gathered up the relics, and marched with them, in solemn procession, to a new place of burial, and there discharged their fire-arms over the grave, as supposing the deceased had been a military officer.”
This was essential, said Burt, as
Site shown on 1867 map
New cairn on old, looking W
“they (the Highlanders) firmly believe that if a dead body should be known to lie above ground, or be disinterred by malice, or the accidents of torrents of water, &c. and care was not immediately taken to perform to it the proper rites, then there would arise such storms and tempests as would destroy their corn, blow away their huts, and all sorts of other mis-fortunes would follow till that duty was performed. You may here recollect what I told you so long ago, of the great regard the Highlanders have for the remains of their dead…”
Oral tradition tells us that this cairn, high above Ossian’s Stone, is where the rites occurred. It makes sense too.
References:
Finlayson, Andrew, The Stones of Strathearn, One Tree Island: Comrie 2010.
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
Holy Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SP 4506 4055
Archaeology & History
Well highlighted, in 1730
The holy well of Banbury seems to have been destroyed sometime in the second-half of the 19th century, when the industrialists built over the area. When the historian Alfred Beesley (1841) wrote about it, the waters were still running. He told it to be, “a chalybeate spring, well-known and still often visited, situated on the west side of the town, a little north of the footway leading to North Newington.”
The footpath is obviously long gone—as is the well. It’s iron-bearing (chalybeate) properties would have given the waters good fortifying properties, perhaps of some renown to local people yet, according to Mr Beesley, it was a slow-flowing spring. In his brief history of the site, he also gave us the results of a chemical examination of its healing waters, telling us:
“This is called St. Stephen’s Well in a plan of Sir John Cope’s property at Banbury made in 1764. It also appears prominently as “A Well ” in an unfinished view of Banbury made in 1730 (illustrated above)….
The water of this spring is perfectly clear and colourless, having a brisk and slightly chalybeate taste. The stone channel is coated with a light red deposit, and a scum of the same colour appears on the water in parts where stagnant. The spring discharges from half a gallon to one gallon in a minute. In 32 oz. of the water at 60° are,
Carbonic Acid gas, 5 cubic inches
Hydrochlorate Magnesia, 0.21 grains.
Chloride Sodium or common Salt, 0.54
Sulphate Lime, 1.5
Carbonate Lime, 3.8
Protoxide Iron, 0.024
Silica a trace
Total weight of solid contents – 6.074″
Folklore
St. Stephen is an odd character. His annual celebration or feast day in Britain is December 26. (in eastern countries it’s a day later) Rites connected to this character are decidedly heathen in nature. From the 10th century, in England, St Stephen’s Day has been inexorably intertwined with horses, bleeding them on his feast days, apparently for their own health. Water blessed by priests on this day would be kept for the year and used as a medicine for horses during that time. Also on this day, young lads would “hunt the wren” and, once caught, impale it on top of a long pole and take it from house to house. Despite this curious motif being a puzzle to folklore students, Mircea Eliade (1964) explained how this symbolism is extremely archaic and “the bird perched on a stick is a frequent symbol in shamanic circles.”
Eliade, Mircea, Shamanism – Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Princeton University Press 1964.
Harte, Jeremy, English Holy Wells – volume 2, Heart of Albion press: Wymeswold 2008.
Johnson, William P., The History of Banbury, G. Walford: Banbury 1860.
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
Cup-and-Ring Stone (lost): OS Grid Reference – NU 013 264
Also Known as:
Cairnfold Field
Archaeology & History
In James Hardy’s (1889) essay describing new archaeological finds from the Lilburn area, he told of seeing a triple-ringed petroglyph that seems to have been cast up from one of the cairns in the adjacent field. I can find no other reference to this. He wrote:
“On a wall top, near a gate not far from the Cairn-fauld’s field, lies a detached stone, supposed to have come from a cairn, with three circles and a hollow central cup incised on it, which no one seems to care for.”
Does anyone know what has become of it? Mr Hardy also described a series of other carvings a few fields away to the east, some with quite ornate cup-and-ring designs. These have never subsequently been seen and remain hidden.
References:
Hardy, James, “Further Discoveries of Pre-Historic Graves, Urns and other Antiquities, on Lilburn Hill Farm,” in Archaeoogia Aeliana, volume 13, 1889.
Acknowledgements:Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
