Scotland – Page 71

Tir Artair, Killin, Perthshire

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Standing Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 58870 34720

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 24205

Standing stone of Tir Artair — The standing stone of Tir Artair

This lovely standing stone can be a pain-in-the arse to get to! Unless you wanna clamber over the excess of increasingly stupid deer fences that are appearing all over the place (old locals aint happy), follow the directions to the Tir Artair cup-marking, then walk across to the fencing and follow it all the way down into the fields until you reach the stream on your right, running in front of the fenced woodland. There’s a large gate here into the trees. Go thru it. In front of you is some overgrown walling into the trees: follow this along, slowly, keeping your eyes peeled for the upright stone about 100 yards in. Good luck!

Archaeology & History

In this “land of Arthur”—as the place-name means—we find this beautiful moss and lichen-encrusted standing stone, living alone in remains of mainly birch woodland. It stands less than 5 feet tall, just in front of some old walling encircling one of the many rounded knolls in this area. The stone may have had some megalithic partners in bygone days, as we find, about 25 yards away sleeping amidst overgrown vegetation beside an old oak, a couple of other old stones laid on the ground that seem to have been placed here by human hands. Their antiquarian nature is unknown.

References:

Gillies, William A., In Famed Breadalbane, Munro Press: Perth 1938.

Tir Artair (01), Killin, Perthshire

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Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 59063 34807

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 289905

Getting Here

Single cup-marked stone — Solitary cup-mark

Take the A827 road out of Killin to Fearnan and Kenmore. A mile or so out of Killin, keep going go past the entrance to the Finlarig Power Station for just another 2-300 yards, keeping your eyes peeled for the small track on your right. Go down here. About 100 yards down the track bends, then another 50 yards it bends again – and just here there’s a small clump of trees, right by the bend. You’re looking for the large flat rock therein. You’ll see it!

Archaeology & History

Although listed by the lads at Canmore, I can find no previous literary reference to this stone — which is a simple thing to be honest: probably of little value to anyone unless you’re a real petroglyph fanatic! The large flat rock has a single large cup-marking on its northern edge, 3 inches across and nearly an inch deep. If you’re gonna visit here, you may as well check out the standing stone further down, in the trees on your right.

Clach na h’ Iobairte, Kinloch Rannoch, Perthshire

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Standing Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 61702 58975

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 24576
Chieftain’s Grave
Clach na h-Iobairte
Clach na h-Jobairte
Craiganour Stone
Craig-na-Odhar
Stone of Sacrifice
Stone of the Offering

Getting Here

From the gorgeous village of Kinloch Rannoch, take the road along the north side of Loch Rannoch for about 2½ miles. As you go along the road, for a good mile or so it is wooded. Where the woods stop and the first field appears on your right, stop! You’ll see the standing stone perched erotically at an angle above you.

Archaeology & History

A fascinating site in a quite beautiful setting, typical of the Highlands. This stone of many names is a curiously-shaped monolith: like an erect stone penis at the edge of the field when seen from the roadside, calling out to christians and pagans alike, to be castigated or rubbed—whatever the religious preference of the surveyor! Leaning over at a slight angle, the stone is still nearly six feet tall and lives upon a large and equally prehistoric stone cairn about 30 feet across. This cairn, it is said, has been added to by locals when the field was cleared of stone and piled on top of the old tomb. No excavations have been done here, nor at the large ‘hut circle’ in the same field about 50 yards away.

Folklore

So far I have only found a short narrative of this stone in the pages of T.R. Barnett’s (1944) loving account of the Perthshire hills, where he tells that, close by the stone at Aulich, was once

“a famous smith, said to be in league with the devil, and he made the finest claymores in Rannoch.”

References:

Barnett, T. Ratcliffe, The Road to Rannoch and the Summer Isles, John Grant: Edinburgh 1944.
Cunningham, A.D., A History of Rannoch, privately printed 2004.

Corrycharmaig East (4), Glen Lochay, Perthshire

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Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 5311 3582 — NEW FIND

Getting Here

Follow the same directions as if you’re going to the Corrycharmaig East 3 carving. Walk off the rocky outcrop here, below the tree, and head diagonally across the boggy grasses back towards the River Lochay. After about 50 yards you’ll see a rocky promontory ahead of you that overlooks the very edge of the river, with trees around it. That’s the spot – right on the edge above the river!

Archaeology & History

Cup-markings on the Corrycharmaig East 4 stone

For me, this was the most intriguing of the newly-found Corrycharmaig East carvings. Intriguing because this is on the same geological ridge as that on which the brilliant Stag Cottage carvings are found, right across on the other side of the river. That singular rise of rock emerging from the field, heading to the river, continues on this side — though is much less conspicuous here, and is much smaller and covered with olde trees and Nature’s marshy greenery. It was this fact which led me to look at these rocks in the first place…wondering if our neolithic ancestors had continued etching their mythographies on the other side of the living waters. And so it turned out.

But don’t expect anything like as impressive as the Stag Cottage carvings. Here instead, as the photos show, are just five distinct cup-markings: three running along one line near the SE side of the stone, with another two on its NW side. The cups are all roughly the same size, being a couple of inches across; one is an inch deep. There may be more beneath the excess of mosses along this and the adjacent rocks, but I didn’t look.

Corrycharmaig East (2), Glen Lochay, Perthshire

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Cup-&-Ring Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 5294 3588

Getting Here

Faint cup-and-ring of Corrycharmaig East 2 — Faint cup-and-ring

Follow the directions as if you’re visiting the other Corrycharmaig carvings, but as you cross the bridge over the River Lochay, turn immediately left and follow the edge of the river down the field till you reach the fence. Go over here, but then head up the slope away from the river, over another fence up the small grassy hill ahead of you. As you near the very top of the hill, you’ll find the stone in question.

Archaeology & History

Found near to the famous Stag Cottage and Duncroisk carvings, this previously unknown example is found on a small rounded female stone, barely 2 feet by 2 feet across. The most notable feature is the large cup-marking, 2-3 inches wide and half-and-inch deep. When I first found the stone, twas a cloudy grey day and I wasn’t sure whether a small carved arc along one edge of the cup continued into a semi-circle — but as the photo here shows, the cup-mark seems to have a large faint ring going about three-quarters of the way round it. Hopefully I’ll get some better images of the stone when I visit again in the coming weeks.

The stone gave the impression that it belonged in a cairn of sorts, but a brief rummage in the grasses immediately around the rock showed nothing. However, barely 10 yards down the grassy slope there was a small overgrown cairn — though it didn’t seem to have that prehistoric pedigree about it. This carving is one in a group of at least four others—including Corrycharmaig East 3—not previously catalogued. It’s likely that more remain undiscovered on the many other rocks nearby.

Corrycharmaig East 03, Glen Lochay, Perthshire

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Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 53056 35877 — NEW FIND

Getting Here

Cup-marked rocks of E.Corrycharmaig 3 (with the green hill of CE02 behind)

Follow the directions from Killin, down Glen Lochay, as if you’re going to the other Corrycharmaig carvings; but as you cross the bridge over the River Lochay, turn immediately left and follow the edge of the river along the field, crossing the first fence, keeping close to the riverside and over and over another fence. Head across the boggy grassland and you’ll see a small green outcrop of rocks just above the tree-line above the river. That’s the spot!

Archaeology & History

Two of at least 6 cup-markings on these mossy rocks

Another carving that’s a short distance from the famous Stag Cottage carvings on the opposite side of the river. This lovely moss-covered rocky mass has two sections of cup-markings on it – both of which have proved difficult to photograph because of the vivid green primal cover. It’s found less than 100 yards from the CE04 carving and below the hillock of the CE02 cup-and-ring (as you can see in the photo above).

The rock itself has two carved sections: an upper and lower section, with at least three cup-markings on the lower section and three on the upper portion as well. Some natural geological marks on the lower part of the rock may have been added to, but this is by no means clear. There may well be other elements to this ancient carving, but I wasn’t about to strip all the lovely moss from the stone just to find out. It’s a truly beautiful stone in a gorgeous setting and, despite the day being grey and overcast, I wasn’t about to defile the greenery here. It’s one of a group of at least four carvings east of Corrycharmaig that have not previously been catalogued. Other carvings likely remain to be found close by.

Boiling Springs, Cambusbarron, Stirlingshire

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Healing Wells (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NS 77 91

Archaeology & History

Boiling Springs sm — Old drawing of the lost wells

The old line drawing here is all that remains of a pair of healing wells that once bubbled up within their ancient stone well-houses, close to each other, in the middle of the old woods west of Stirling in the massive quarries at Gillies Hill. It’s possible that the large pools of water that are now in the overgrown quarries are thanks to these ancient wells; although one of them was close to the old building of Fir Park, whose overgrown remains are within the woods at grid-reference NS 7787 9124. Very little has been written about these wells, but thankfully the local historian Mr Fleming (1898) captured their demise in his lovely antiquarian work, saying:

“The sketch, opposite (taken in 1850) of the picturesque wells, then situated in a marshy dell and surrounded by a dense pine wood near to the ancient ‘Boiling Springs’, now dried up by the sinking of the lime pits, and immediately off the old bridle road from Stirling to Glasgow by Murrayshall, shows very ancient remains of wells connected with the original water supply of Stirling by lead pipes from ‘Lessfeerie Springs’, situated in the Touch Hills. This supply was begun in 1774, and thus antiquity and interest are given to the sketch. These wells, with their fringes of mosses and ferns and bramble bushes, are now, with the pine wood, demolished, and the whole face of the district changed by the operations in a quarry recently opened up in Gillies Hill crag, causing the locality to be now unrecognizable.”

References:

Fleming, J.S., Old Nooks of Stirling, Delineated and Described, Munro & Jamieson: Stirling 1898.

Hawk Hill Cairn, Alloa, Clackmannanshire

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Cairn: OS Grid Reference – NS 8911 9282

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 47168

Getting Here

Hawk Hill cairn038 — The Hawk Hill cairn, Alloa

From the railways station, walk to the dual carriageway (crossing the road) and walk on the A907 road to your left; cross the next road & walk round the corner, crossing the next road by the zebra crossing. OK, walk to your right, bearing immediately left down Devon Road, then just 20 yards on take the footpath up the side of the house on your left, and keep walking until you go into the trees. Then keep your eyes peeled for the fairy mound with a rock on top of it!

Archaeology & History

Hawk Hill cairn040 — Overgrown cairn, looking NE

This is a large rounded, almost archetypal tumulus, sitting just a couple of minutes walk out of Alloa town centre, sandwiched between streets in the remaining copse of trees running east-west along Hawk Hill. Although the mound is of considerable size—with a large curious block of stone plonked on top—it hasn’t always been like that and has evidently been rebuilt sometime in the 20th century, for when the Royal Commission (1933) lads visited the site in July 1927, they reported only a bare trace of the old tomb, saying:

“The site of the cairn at Hawk Hill lies about 100 yds SSE of the lodge gate. The position is marked by a setting of young trees, but the ground has been cultivated and no definite outline of any structure can now be traced. A few loose stones of no great size, lying scattered about, are the only signs of a cairn.”

But the site is quite large, being more than 4 feet high and about 18 yards across, with a large flattened circular top. Nearby there was reported to have been another cairn, but this turned out to be little more than some recent debris.

Folklore

Local folklore tells that this monument is along a ley line that links it with the Hawk Hill Cross and destroyed stone circle east of here and the remains of a little-known standing on the outskirts of Alloa, to the west. I’ve not checked the precision of this alignment, but a quick scan of it looks pretty decent!

References:

Arabaolaza, Iraia, “Hawk Hill, Alloa,” in Discovery & Excavation in Scotland, New Series volume 10, 2009.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1933.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, The Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Clackmannan District and Falkirk District, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 1978.

St. Corbet’s Well, Touch, Stirlingshire

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Holy Well: OS Grid Reference – NS 738 925

Archaeology & History

This little-known holy well on the northeastern edges of the Touch Hills is another part of our ancient heritage that may well have been lost. All that now remains are the literary remnants telling of this once important site, around which local socio-religious elements occurred from time to time. When the local historian J.S. Fleming (1898) wrote about the site, it had already disappeared, and was himself fortunate to recover information relating to its former existence. He told:

“My attention has been drawn to an article which appeared in the Stirling Journal of 31st October, 1834, describing what is claimed to be a Holy Well dedicated to Saint Corbet, or probably Saint Cuthbert. The well was situated in Touch Glen, not far from Gilmour’s Lynn, and was, even at that time, reduced to a spring one foot deep and three or four feet in circumference, surrounded by boggy ground. The writer states that there were people then alive who had resorted to this Well in their younger days. Its virtues were restricted to one hour in the year, and that the hour of sunrise on the first Sabbath of May; the supposition being that by drinking of its waters at the Well by the adventurous pilgrims to such a wild and lonely spot at early sunrise, the devotee was assured of the preservation of his life during that year. We have never come across this Saint’s name, but Saint Cuthbert had an altar in the Rude Kirk (High Church of Stirling) and, as for the Well, from its diminishing condition in 1834, its site no doubt has long been obliterated.”

It is possible that some remnant of the waters here can still be found, or are known about, by dedicated local practitioners—but without their aid, this sacred site may be forever lost…

Folklore

In Thomas Frost’s (1899) essay on the holy wells of Scotland, he echoed what Mr Fleming had told, saying:

“Of St. Corbet’s Well, on the top of the Touch Hills…it was formerly believed that whoever drank its water before sunrise on the first Sunday in May was sure of another year of life, and crowds of persons resorted to the spot at that time, in the hope of thereby prolonging their lives.”

This restorative folklore element, implicit in the nature of water itself, was obviously related to the cycles of renewal in the social activity of our peasant ancestors, as found in every culture all over the world. (Eliade 1959; 1989)

One account relating to the disappearance of St. Corbet’s Well told that it fell back to Earth as the spirit of the site was insulted by profane practices. Janet & Colin Bord (1985) told that:

“This theme, of real or imagined insult to the well causing it to lose its power, move its location, or cease flowing altogether, is widespread. St. Corbet’s Well on the Touch Hills (Stirling) was said to preserve for a year anyone who drank from it on the first Sunday in May, before sunrise, and it was visited by great crowds at the height of its popularity. But the drinking of spirits became more popular than the drinking of well water, so St. Corbet withdrew the valuable qualities of the water, then eventually the water itself stopped flowing.”

References:

Andrews, William (ed.), Bygone Church Life in Scotland, W. Andrews: London 1899.
Bord, Janet & Colin, Sacred Waters, Granada: London 1985.
Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, Harcourt, Brace & World: New York 1959.
Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return, Arkana: London 1989.
Fleming, J.S., Old Nooks of Stirling, Delineated and Described, Munro & Jamieson: Stirling 1898.
Frost, Thomas, “Saints and Holy Wells,” in Bygone Church Life in Scotland (W. Andrews: Hull 1899).
Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1982.
“W.H.”, “St Corbet’s Well,” in The Stirling Antiquary, volume 3, 1904.

Acknowledgements: With thanks to Ray Spencer for pointing out the Sacred Waters reference. Cheers Ray!

Standing Stone, Linlithgow, West Lothian

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Standing Stone (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NS 99 77

Archaeology & History

Not included in the Canmore listings, nor that of the Scottish Royal Commission (1929), this lost standing stone once stood somewhere in Linlithgow town itself. It was referred to in the huge but obscure Registrum Magni Sigili Regum Scotorum from 1586 through to 1614 as one of the street-names in the town, written several times as ‘Standandstane’ — which, as MacDonald (1941) told in his fine survey, means literally a “Standing Stone.” The place was also referred to several times in other local accounts, dating from 1664, but was last mentioned in 1699 and, it appears, disappeared soon afterwards.

Perhaps some record of the site may be available in local witchcraft or folklore accounts. Does anybody know?

References:

MacDonald, Angus, The Place-Names of West Lothian, Oliver & Boyd: Edinburgh 1941.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Midlothian and West Lothian, HMSO: Edinburgh 1929.