For those who may not know, the terms ‘cairns’ and ‘tumuli’ are just prehistoric tombs. Another word we find as we move further north into Scotland is ‘cist’, which has a similar affiliation. A cairn is a pile of loose rocks and stones, which tends to be erected over a single or multiple burial or cremation – though without excavation we can never be sure which one it’s gonna be! A tumulus meanwhile (‘tumuli’ is the plural) is a heap of earth piled up over a burial or cremation. Small cairns and tumuli tend to cover single graves; whilst larger ones can have multiple burials therein. However we sometimes find that huge tombs have only one or two burials/ cremations inside. In such cases it’s likely that the people entombed there were of considerable importance: perhaps a tribal chief, a king, a queen, or powerful shaman. In many places across northern Britain, where there’s a profusion of cairns/tumuli we tend to find a good examples of prehistoric rock art, or cup-and-ring stones.
First described in the Object Name Book* of 1867 as being “the remains of a cairn in which D MacMillan of Glenbarr says a cist was found”, this prehistoric tomb was subsequently going to be destroyed in the 1950s by the farmer when local researchers Mr & Mrs J.G. Scott (1958) took to checking the place out before its demise. And it was a damn good job they did! The cairn still remains to this day—albeit in a very dilapidated state. The assistant editor of The Prehistoric Society journal, Ian Longworth (1959), wrote an account of the findings, telling:
“A small mound, apparently the remains of a cairn, was excavated on the farm of Glencreggan by Mr and Mrs J.G. Scott. The mound was roughly oval in shape, about 20 feet by 14 feet in size, and about 2 feet in height, with its longer axis lying almost E-W. A large stone slab, about 8 by 3 feet in size, lay against its N corner.
“The cairn was found to consist of a small and fairly compact core of stones intermixed with sand and clay, surrounded by a rather ill-defined outer ring of boulders, the intervening space being largely filled with earth. Remains of a cremated burial were found beneath the centre core, but there was no trace of a cist, and the bones seemed to be scattered, giving the impression that the cairn might mark the spot where the cremation took place. Apart from a flint flake, the only finds were two small boulders, each bearing a single cup-mark, which were incorporated in the material of the centre core.”
Of the two cup-marked stones found beneath the cairn, they’re presently living in some box somewhere in the Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow, who are very approachable when it comes to viewing them if you make an appointment. I have to say though, one of them may be natural, as it has the distinct look of being the creation of molluscs, who live in profuse numbers just off the coast hereby. Nonetheless, they were left in the tomb as offerings to the ancestral spirits here.
References:
Bede, Cuthbert, Glencreggan – 2 volumes, Longman Green: London 1861.
Longworth, Ian, “Notes on Excavations in the British Isles, 1958,” in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, volume 25, 1959.
Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Argyll – volume 1: Kintyre, HMSO: Edinburgh 1971.
* The Object Name Book website recently got “upgraded”, to make it better, smilier, user-friendly, and the usual buzzwords we all hear when things are just gonna get worse. The website is now a real pain-in-the-arse to use since those halfwit management-types upgraded the site, making it much more hard work to find anything. Fucking idiots! Who pays these morons?!
Your best starting point is from the Great Skirtful of Stones giant cairn. From here follow the fencing that runs down the slope to your left (south-east) for roughly 160 yards (148m) – past the Great Skirtful Ring – until you reach the gate. Go through it and keep walking down the same fence-line for 300 yards then walk south onto the moorland proper (there are no paths here). You’ll pass over several undulations in the heather (some of these are the edges of ancient trackways) and 55-60 yards south from the fencing you’ll walk over and into this overgrown prehistoric ring. It’s very difficult to see when the vegetation is deep, so persevere!
Archaeology & History
Site shown on 1851 map
This is an interesting site. Marked on the 1851 Ordnance Survey map as a “barrow” (right), it is shown with trackways on either side of it to the north and south, and with an opening or entrance on its northwestern side. Yet since that date, very little archaeological attention has been given to it and the site remains unexcavated, despite its location being repeated on all subsequent maps since then. The designation of the site as a barrow or burial site, without being excavated, was educated guesswork at the time as the place seems to be what we today define as a ring cairn. And whilst this seems likely, there are some oddities here.
Measuring roughly 25 yards (SE – NW) by 21 yards (NE – SW), this overgrown oval ‘ring’ is a similar architectural structure to the more famous Roms Law circle more than half-a-mile northwest of here—but bigger! And, unlilke Roms Law, this overgrown circle seems to have been untouched for many centuries. The oval surrounding ‘ring’ itself is composed of thousands of small packing stones between, seemingly, a number of much larger upright stones, reaching a maximum height of more than three feet high at the northernmost edge. The ‘ring’ ostensibly looks like a wide surrounding wall which measures two yards across all round the structure.
Track running into the ringRaised line into the ring
Internally, there seems little evidence of a burial — although our recent visits here, as the photos indicate, took place when the moorland vegetation was deep and covered almost the entire site. The outline of the site is obviously visible, even in deep heather, but the smaller details remain hidden. But in addition to the main ring, another very distinct ingredient here is the existence of an extended length of man-made parallel walling, probably a trackway, that runs into the circle from the southeast all the way through the circle and out the other side and then continuing northwest heading roughly towards the Great Skirtful giant cairn on the horizon 500 yards to the northwest.
Stone at NE arc of walling
Due to the landscape being so overgrown, it’s difficult to ascertain where this ‘trackway’ begins and ends. Added to this, we find that there are additional ‘trackways’ that run roughly parallel to the one that runs through the circle—and these ‘trackways’ are very old indeed, some of them likely have their origins way back in prehistory. The one that runs through the middle of this ring cairn may be a ceremonial pathway along which, perhaps, our ancestors carried their dead. If we follow it out from here and keep walking along the track 300 yards to the southeast, we eventually run right to the edge of the Craven Hall (3) circle. Parallel to this is another ancient trackway that runs northwest to the edge of the Roms Law circle. It seems very much as if we have ceremonial trackways linking sites to each other: ancestral pathways, so to speak.
Have a gander at this when you’re next in the area. There are many other sites nearby that are off the archaeological radar. In recent years, a number of northern antiquarians wandering over this landscape are finding more and more ancient remains: walling, circles, cairns, trackways. It’s a superb arena—but sadly, most of it is hidden beneath deep moorland vegetation.
References:
Faull, M.L. & Moorhouse, S.A. (eds.), West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Guide to AD 1500– volume 1, WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
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.
Along the A84 road as you’re heading into Callander, just 300 yards before you reach the the Keltie Bridge caravan park, take the tiny road on your left (north) and barely 100 yards along where a small crossroads can be said to exist, go straight forward up the tiny single-track road ahead of you. Keep all the way up for a mile until you reach Bracklinn Farm (when you meet a split in the road, keep left – and make sure you have parked way further down track of here). Walk up the track past Bracklinn Farm for just over a mile (1.85km), until where the track and the large burn runs roughly alongside each other (past the small Eas Uilleam cairn up to your right) and go through the gate. From here, go immediately left (SW) and walk alongside the dead straight fence for just over 300 yards, then slowly zigzag up the sloping hill. If you reach the derelict walling, you’ve gone too far.
Archaeology & History
West Bracklinn from below
For a site marked as ‘Chambered Cairn’ on the OS-maps, you might be expecting a little bit more when you get here. Sadly, it’s not what it once was. Much of the covering stones from the cairn have been severely robbed and obviously used in the old and curiously-named ruin of Bothan na Plaighe below, and the large sheep-fold structures barely 50 yards to the north. All that’s really left to see here is the internal chamber, aligned roughly east-west, which seems to have originally been split into two sections. The remaining overgrown edges of the monument, barely two feet high at the most, measures roughly 8 yards by 9 yards, but is much denuded and can really only be noticed when you’re almost stood on top of it!
The landscape reaching out from here takes the eyes way way into the distance along the fading horizon, from north-east to south-east. This expansive view, this reaching landscape, may have been an important element in the placement of the tomb – and it’s certainly something to behold on a good day. It might be a bit of a walk to get here, but if you want some good countryside, scenery and a bit of ancient history, this is one helluva good place to go!
References:
Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Braes of Doune: An Archaeological Survey, RCAHMS: Edinburgh 1994.
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.
Take the A816 out of Lochgilphead and head north as if you’re going to Kilmartin. Nearly 2 miles along, take the left turn along the B841 Crinan road. A few hundred yards along, go over the canal bridge and about 70 yards along there’s a left turn onto the track into the Knapdale Forest. Go along here (there’s a parking spot) for 200 yards until your reach the grasslands on your left. If you walk into this bit of scrubland, you’ll see the rounded fairy-mound over the fence in the adjacent field, almost overlooking the canal. Y’ can’t really miss it.
Archaeology & History
Carn ban, or the White Cairn, from which the hamlet of Cairnbaan gets its name, is a good-sized round cairn, now much overgrown in vegetation, though is still accessible and easy to see. Just above the water-line of the Crinan Canal, the mound is about ten yards across and more than six feet high and is in a good state of preservation. Originally, according to J.H. Craw (1930), the tomb was 12 feet high and 40 feet across!
Carn Ban on 1873 mapCarn Ban, looking NE
In the 1850s, the site was examined by a Dr Hunter of Lochgilphead, and Mr Richardson Smith of Achnaba, and a cist that had been built straight on top of the bare rock was uncovered near the centre of the cairn, nearly four feet long and aligned northeast to southwest. Inside it a thin slab of stone—“2 feet long, 17 inches broad, and 2½ inches thick”—had been slid up against the western end of the chamber and on it was a curious petroglyph design comprising “several incised diamond-shaped figures, one within the other”—five altogether, and the commencement of a sixth—similar to ones found at Newgrange in Ireland. This carving was removed and given to the Scottish National Museum where it still resides. Inside the cist, Hunter and Smith found a deposit of some “yellow sand with some black charcoal and several burnt bones lying upon its bottom”, and a subsequent search unearthed some flint fragments.
The Carn Ban is a good site—but if you’re wanting something bigger, something more impressive, I suggest heading just a few miles north…
References:
Beckensall, Stan, The Prehistoric Rock Art of Kilmartin, Kilmartin Trust: Kilmartin 2005.
Simpson, James, Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, etc., Upon Stones and Rocks in Scotland, England and other Countries, Edmonston & Douglas: Edinburgh 1867.
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.
From Bainbridge, take the A684 road east to Aysgarth. Just out of the town, 200 yards over the bridge, take the right turn down Blean Lane. Nearly ½-mile along, take the minor road on your left and go along here for 1½ miles where, a few hundred yards before the solitary farm of Carpley Green (lucky buggers!), you can park up. (keep plenty of room for a tractor to get in the fields) Walk down the track past the farm and 250 yards along, where the first field ends, a gate leads you into the hills on your left. Go through here and then the next gate 120 yards on, then walk straight along th elong geological ridge ahead of you, veering to the top-side until it meets the walling. You’ll see the giant Stoney Raise cairn on the other side.
Archaeology & History
Stony Raise from above
The remains we find here are nigh-on immense! If giant cairns get you going (like the Great Skirtful of Stones or the denuded Devil’s Apronful near Pendle, etc), this one will blow you away! Along its widest axis, to this day it’s nearly 40 yards across and nearly 7 feet high! But in earlier times it was even bigger—much bigger! The first known description of the site was made by one Charles Fothergill, a Yorkshire-born politician and ornithologist, who wrote a diary of his walking excursions to various places in North Yorkshire at the beginning of the 19th century. (Romney 1984) His account of it was a good one for that period and thankfully he recorded information that would otherwise have been forgotten. After his visit here in September 1805, he told about this,
“wonderful tumulus called Stone raise which is a great curiosity: it is formed entirely of large stones piled up without earth or gravel, differing in that respect from any I have seen. Notwithstanding that upwards of a thousand, nay ’tis said several thousand, loads of stones have been led away from it to build walls with, it yet remains a stupendous monument of this species of antiquity: we measured the base of it as well as we could by our strides and made it 369 feet in circumference and of such an height as to be seen for a considerable distance. It has been most completely rifled…and it now presents a number of small craters formed by the investigations of the money searchers. It is situated upon a hill about half a mile south of Addlebrough. In addition to the particulars I formerly mentioned, I may say the men who first opened it about 50 years ago worked incessantly for 33 days. It stands on Thornton moor, and tho’ the Thornton men would not assist in the labour, they intended to share in the profit if there was any; but the adventurers who had all the work resolved they should not and they carried a large sword with them every day to defend the treasure in case they found any; the wise man who read ’till the stones shook and rattled was a schoolmaster at Bainbridge: the teeth they found were deposited in a hollow place in the bottom of the tumuli formed long and narrow like a coffin by a walling of stones. Tho’ the tumulus has apparantly been compleatly rifled, I do not believe the whole base has been sufficiently searched, but if it was to commemorate one great individual, which appears to have been the case, perhaps nothing more may be found.”
Fothergill’s description of “upwards of a thousand” cartloads of stone being removed from Stony Raise has been doubted by some archaeologists, but this claim should not be dismissed so lightly without evidence. There are immense tombs from northern Scotland to the unholy South that have remained untouched by the hand of industrialists that easily enter the category of such giants and this may have had equal stature.
A few years after Fothergill’s visit, Thomas Whitaker (1823) briefly described the site in his magnum opus, but added very little, simply telling that on the hills behind Addlebrough,
“there is still on that elevated spot a cairn, called Stone Raise, about 120 yards in circumference at the base, to which the usual tradition of its containing a treasure of gold having been attached, two persons were several years ago induced to make the experiment; but having penetrated to the centre, found, to their great disappointment, what an antiquary would have prepared them to expect, namely, a kist vaen of flag stones, with the remains of a human skeleton, the teeth of which were still pretty perfect.”
To this day the site remains unexcavated, so we don’t know too much about the place. It’s likely to have been constructed in neolithic times and its ancestral nature quite obviously venerated. It may have been re-used during the Bronze Age, but without excavations we may never know. A decent dig into this site is long overdue!
Folklore
This gigantic tomb is, not surprisingly, said to be haunted. Strange sounds and visions have been encountered here in bygone times. But the most well-known tale is that it was the site of a great treasure—perhaps hinted at by Fothergill. There are variations on the theme, but this is overall story:
Structured stonework
The tomb was said to be where a local giant had fallen and with him was buried a great chest of gold which he had dropped before he died. Some say that the ‘giant’ was a Brigantian chief – others a great warrior. The great treasure chest beneath the cairn is said to looked over by a fairy who lived by the giant’s tomb. It was this tale which gave the site its local name, the ‘Golden Chest on Greenber’. Several attempts made to find the treasure have all failed to uncover it.
However, by the time Edmund Bogg came to write of the place in 1908, the giant had by all accounts been found within! He told that,
The giant’s cist cover?
“this Kist-vaen was opened, many years back, and the skeleton of a chieftain of great stature was unearthed; the treasure chest of that or some other primal savage was not, and has not yet been discovered – for, take heed ye matter-of-fact money hunters, it is said the lucky one must first see the wraith of the ancient warrior to whom it belonged, who will then shew under which part of the immense Raise it is hidden! May this help any reader who is imaginative enough to find it – having seen the wraith he must keep silence – he has then but to stretch out his hand, and draw it forth.”
There are variations on this tale that have subsequently been penned by a number of Yorkshire folklorists, but this is the general lore. There was also a short rhyme told of toney Raise, that speaks of its apparent use through history by various races:
Druid, Roman, Scandinavia,
Stone Raise in Addlebro’.
References:
Bogg, Edmund, Wensleydale and the Lower Vale of the Yore, E. Bogg: Leeds 1906.
Bogg, Edmund, Richmondshire, James Miles: Leeds 1908.
Elgee, F. & H.W., The Archaeology of Yorkshire, Methuen: London 1933.
Gutch, Mrs E., Examples of Printed Folklore Concerning the North Riding of Yorkshire, David Nutt: London 1899.
Lofthouse, Jessica, Countrygoer in the Dales, Hale: London 1964.
Parkinson, Thomas, Yorkshire Legends and Traditions – volume 2, Elliot Stock: London 1889.
Pontefract, Ella, Wensleysdale, J.M. Dent: London 1936.
Romney, Paul (ed.), The Diary of Charles Fothergill, 1805, Yorkshire Archaeological Society: Leeds 1984.
Whitaker, Thomas Dunham, An History of Richmondshire – volume 1, Longman Hurst: London 1823.
White, Robert, A Landscape through Time, Great Northern: Ilkley 2002.
Park up at the singular dusty car-park on the east-side of Askwith Moor Road. If you walk to the sloping eastern edge of the car-park and then go down and over the collapsed fence onto the moorland immediately east, walk in the direction of the Tree of Life Stone to the north-east (be aware that there’s no footpath here and it’s boggy as fuck in places) . Just over halfway towards the carving, nearly 400 yards from where you’ve parked, you’ll begin to see various ruinous piles and scatters of stone. You can’t really miss them!
Archaeology & History
Cairn, looking north
In a region teeming with prehistoric sites, the great Eric Cowling (1937) seems to have been the person who stumbled across this “barrow group”, as he called it, during one of his rock art forays in this neck o’ the woods. Little has been written of them since. Not to be confused with the Snowden Moor cairnfield more than 350 yards to the north, at this place we find at least a dozen quite distinct cairns scattered around the grid-reference cited, most of them much larger in size than the cairns to the north, ranging between five to twelve yards across and up to three feet high. They have all been opened and robbed, with considerable disturbance on the largest of the ‘barrows’. We know not who may have done this, but there’s been a history of quarrying close by and it may have been some of the workmen who did the damage, knowingly or otherwise.
Large scatter of cairn-spoilCairn covered in bilberries!
As far as I’m aware, no burial or funerary remains have been found here—but there’s been negligible archaeological attention given to any of the sites on this moorland, meaning that we can draw no real conclusions about the nature of the cairns. They seem to be far too large to be clearance cairns; and the proximity of large scale prehistoric settlements and rock art all round here would strongly suggest they possessed a funerary nature. Several impressive petroglyphs exist right at the edge of this group, literally yards away from them. Check them all out out the next time you see the Tree of Life stone…
References:
Cowling, Eric T., ‘Cup and Ring Markings to the North of Otley,’ in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, volume 33 (part 131), 1937.
Cowling, Eric T., Rombald’s Way: A Prehistory of Mid-Wharfedale, William Walker: Otley 1946.
From Kirkmichael village take the A94 road 2 miles south to the Balnabroich standing stone and another 100 yards past it, on the left (east) take the dirt-track uphill, following the directions to reach the Balnabroich hut circles. You’ll see the large prehistoric rock pile of the Grey Cairn on the near skyline just above the huts and roughly on the same level, 50 yards away to the south, you’ll see this scruffy lumpy dump of a cairn, all overgrown.
Archaeology & History
The cairn, looking S
Amidst the veritable scatter of a thousand clearance cairns (yes, that’s the estimate), there are a few up here that had more funerary functions than the rest. This being one of them. When Allan Stewart (1795) wrote about them all in the Statistical Account, he couldn’t have missed this one—and yet he made no mention of it. We had to wait another seventy years before the outside world became aware of its existence. Then, along with “a band of between twenty and thirty workmen,” John Stuart (1865) set out to see what lay beneath the rocky pile. In truth, much more attention was given to the huge Gray Cairn close by (understandably so), but at least some attention was given here. Stuart described this cairn as,
“about 9 yards across, defined by large boulders, with a raised ridge around, and a cup in the centre. The raised ridges and centre were all formed of small stones and earth. A trench was cut through it from the southeast, which showed that in the centre, at a depth of 2 feet, a deposit had been made, of which the remains were charred wood and fragments of charred bone, with traces of blackish matter, which had filtered into the yellow subsoil, as in the case of the graves at Hartlaw.’ Many fragments of white quartz pebbles appeared near the centre, as in other cairns to the east.”
Indeed, at least one of the “cairns to the east” is made entirely of quartz stones! Since Mr Stuart’s dig into the tomb, it has widened out slightly as rummaging cattle and other damage has been inflicted, and the grasses have coloured the tomb with their life. Check it out when you’re up here!
References:
MacLagan, Christian, The Hill Forts, Stone Circles and other Structural Remains of Ancient Scotland, Edmonston & Douglas: Edinburgh 1875.
Ramsay, John S., Highways and Byways of Strathmore and the Northern Glens, Blairgowrie Advertiser 1927.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, North-East Perth: An Archaeological Landscape, HMSO: Edinburgh 1990.
Stewart, Allan, “Parish of Kirkmichael,” in Statistical Account of Scotland – volume 15, 1795.
Stuart, John, “Account of Excavations in Groups of Cairns, Stone Circles and Hut Circles on Balnabroch, Parish of Kirkmichael, Perthshire,” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 6, 1865.
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.
From Callander head east along the main A84 road and nearly 300 yards past the entrance to the Keltie Bridge caravan park, take the tiny road on your left (north) and barely 100 yards along turn right and go up here for exactly 1 mile. Walk up the track from here and follow the directions to find the Black Park (1) cairn; and then the nearby small Black Park (2) cairn. From here you need to walk north-east round the small rounded hillock in front of you, and cross a small burn (stream) up to the next small grassy rise. Altogether this is about 200 yards from the Black Park (2) cairn. On this grassy rise lives the Black Park (3) cairn!
Archaeology & History
As with its compatriot Black Park (2) cairn 200 yards southwest, this can be hard to see. It’s an overgrown small singular cairn (it looks like a tumulus now) of no great note to look at: probably the resting spot of an individual or just a small family. Measuring some 5-6 yards across and less than a yard high at the most, its easily missed unless you’re really mean to find it. More impressive are the ones on the hill immediately above you to the east. Head there next!
References:
Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Braes of Doune: An Archaeological Survey, RCAHMS: Edinburgh 1994.
Take the same directions as if you’re going to visit the large Black Park (1) cairn, and from here look down the slight boggy slope to your right (east) and, across the other side of a small burn (stream) you’ll see a slightly raised grassy knoll. A curved dyke is to its left (west) side. You’re there!
Archaeology & History
This small cairn, barely two feet high at the most, and five yards across, is deemed as a possible Bronze Age cairn on Canmore and in the Royal Commission (1994) report of the area. There is certainly a pile of small stones here, but it may be a clearance cairn (I hope I’m wrong). Only an excavation will tell us for sure.
References:
Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Braes of Doune: An Archaeological Survey, RCAHMS: Edinburgh 1994.
Less than a mile east of Callander on the main A84 road, nearly 300 yards past the entrance to the Keltie Bridge caravan park, take the tiny road on your left (north) and barely 100 yards along turn right and go up here for excatly 1 mile (give or take a few yeards) where track goes into the forest on your left and you can park-up here. Walk up the track into the silence for just under a mile where, as the track splits and you kink to the right, a gate appears. On the other side of the gate, turn immediately left, almost walking back on yourself, just above the curving waters of a burn, through boggy reeds, keeping to the fence-line until, less than 300 yards along, you’ll reach what you’re looking for.
Archaeology & History
Black Park (1), looking W
This reasonably large cairn and its neighbours (Black Park [2], [3], [4] and [5]) would appear to be relatively new discoveries as I can find nothing about it prior to the Royal Commission’s 1994 survey. They are even absent from Moray MacKay’s (1953) excellent work on the area! Hence, descriptions of it are scant and visitors to the place are few indeed (we did meet a local who knew about the old tomb, but said that nothing was known about it); but it is, nonetheless, a fine, albeit denuded and very overgrown cairn, living today amidst a quiet mass of reeds and surrounded by boggy ground—so make sure you’ve got your boots on!
Internal line of stoneworkBlack Park (1), looking SE
At its height, today, it stands less than four feet tall and measures roughly 16 yards across at its widest. Through one section of the tomb there runs a raised line of stonework that almost looks like internal walling, which may have been where a chamber once existed. It’s been hollowed out by someone in the not-too-distant past but, as I said, there are no records of such a thing, so whether or not that was a chamber or merely a fortuituous collapse of stone in a straight line, we can’t really say. Along its more northern edges there seems to be a small raised wall of stone defining its edge, although once again it requires a more discerning examination to work out whether this is part of its original facade, or is a result of some of the stone mass falling to the edges.
Visit the old place and sit with its silence for a while…
References:
Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Braes of Doune: An Archaeological Survey, RCAHMS: Edinburgh 1994.
