burials

Lanyon Quoit, Madron, Cornwall

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Cromlech / Dolmen: OS Grid Reference – SW 42973 33681

Antiquarian Notes

William Borlase (1769), in his revised classic on the megaliths & antiquities of Cornwall, wrote:

“Since we are now considering these Stone-monuments, there is a very singular Monument in the Parish of Madern (Cornwall) which in this place, will naturally offer itself to our enquiry. In the Tenement of Lanyon stand three Stones-erect on a triangular Plan. The shape, size, distance and bearing, will best be discerned from the plan and elevation of them…

“The length of the area described by the supporters of Lanyon Quoit is seven feet; but it does not ſtand East and West, as at Molfra, but North and South… There is no Kist-vaen, that is, no area marked out by Side Stones, under this Quoit, which is more than 47 feet in girt, nineteen feet long; its thickness in the middle, on the Eastern edge, is sixteen inches, at each end not so much, but at the Western edge this Quoit is two feet thick. The two chief supporters…do not stand at right angles with the front line, as in other Cromlehs, but obliquely, being forced from their original position, as I imagine, by the weight of this Quoit, which is also so high that a man can fit on horseback under it. Under this Quoit I caused to be sunk a pit of four feet and half deep, and found it all black earth that had been moved, and should have sunk still deeper, but that the Gentleman in whose ground it is, told me, that a few years before, the whole cavity had been opened (on account of some dream) to the full depth of six feet, and then the faster appeared, and they dug no deeper; that the cavity was in the shape of a grave, and had been rifled more than once, but that nothing was found more than ordinary. This Cromleh stands on a low bank of earth, not two feet higher than the adjacent soil, about 20 feet wide, and 70 long, running North and South: at the South end has many rough Stones, some pitched on end, in no order; yet not the natural furniture of the surface, but designedly put there; though, by the remains, it is difficult to say what their original poſition was. Wet N. W. there is a high stone about 80 yards distance. By the black earth thrown up in digging here, nothing is to be absolutely concluded, there having happened so many disturbances. By the pit being in the shape of a grave, and six feet deep, it is not improbable that a human body was interred here, and by the length of the bank, and the many disorderly stones at the South end, this should seem to have been a burial place for more than one person.”

Antiquarian Notes

William Cotton, in 1827, told that:

“About a mile and a half north of the church, in the parish of Maddern, and close to the road side, is Lanyon Cromleh, so called from the name of the estate on which it stands. The covering stone, which is nearly flat, and of a triangular figure, measures 44 feet 10 inches in circumference, 18 feet 2 inches in its greatest length, and 9 feet in width, and weighs 15 tons. This Quoit, as it is usually called, was originally supported on four upright stones, describing an open area 7 feet in length, north and south, but not forming an enclosed Kistvaen, like Molfra and Chun Cromlehs. During a very violent storm in the year 1815, when the Delhi East Indiaman was wrecked in Mount’s Bay, it fell to the ground, and one of the supporting stones was then broken. It is probable that the earth beneath it, having been frequently loosened by excavations, was washed away by the heavy rains, and caused its downfal. In the year 1824 it was again set up, by subscription among the inhabitants, with the machinery used in replacing the Logging Rock, under the superintendence of Captain Giddy, R.N., whose zealous exertions overcame every difficulty, and merit the thanks of all topographical antiquaries. The Cromleh now stands as firm as ever: in putting it up, a piece was broken off the top stone, at A, (see the plan). It is supported on three upright stones, each 4 feet 10 inches in height, the tops having been made level, and their positions a little altered.

“This view represents Lanyon Cromleh as it now stands, and differs from all the prints I have seen of it, — which have been uniformly copied from Dr. Borlase’s book, and do not, by any means, give a correct representation. The doctor says, in his time a man on horseback could ride under the incumbent stone — now, its height from the ground is only 4 feet 10 inches. The figures 1824, to mark the year when it was re-erected, have been rudely inscribed on one of the supporting stones.

“Dr. Borlase caused an excavation to be made under this Cromleh, as well as under the last mentioned, but without discovering any human bones ; he was led, however, to conclude, by the appearance of the earth, that a body had been interred there.”

Antiquarian Notes

James Orchard Halliwell wrote, in 1861:

“At a distance of some five miles from Penzance, on the road from Madron to Morvah, near the road, on the right-hand side, is the Lanyon Quoit or Cromlech, a fine specimen, and perfect in all essential particulars. The best way of reaching it, if walking, is to take the path to the left in the fields after passing the Madron Union, and keep as nearly in a straight line as possible until the cromlech appears. It is situated in a conspicuous situation in the midst of a wild moor, and is interesting in its Titanic grandeur and vast antiquity. The top covering consists of an enormous flab of granite, supported by three upright unhewn blocks of stone, but near there are three fallen stones, one of which at least was certainly at one time one of the supporters. The dimensions of the cap-stone are thus given by Borlase: —

“This quoit is more than forty-seven feet in girt, and nineteen feet long ; its thickness in the middle on the eastern edge is sixteen inches, at each end not so much, but at the western edge it is two feet thick.”

This cromlech is sometimes called by the country people the Giant’s Quoit, and occasionally the Giant’s Table. My measurement made the covering-stone forty-fix feet in circumference, with a thickness varying from ten to eighteen inches. It is not improbable that the stone has been chipped off at one or two of the corners since the time of Borlase. Between the cromlech and the road are the remains of a stone and earth circular barrow about eighteen feet in diameter. There is an odd tradition that the first battle fought in England was decided in the locality of Lanyon Quoit.”

Further Reading:

Barnatt, John, Prehistoric Cornwall, Turnstone: Wellingborough 1982.
Blight, J.T., A Week at the Land’s End, Longmans Green: London 1861.
Borlase, William, Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall, Bowyer & Nichols: London 1769.
Borlase, William Copeland, Nænia Cornubiæ, Longmans Green Reader: Truro 1872.
Colquhoun, Ithell, The Living Stones, Cornwall, Peter Owen: London 1957.
Cooke, Ian, Antiquities of West Cornwall – Guide 1, Cornwall Litho: Reduth 2002.
Halliwell, J.O., Rambles in Western Cornwall in the Footsteps of Giants, John Russel Smith: London 1861.
Jewitt, Llewellynn, Grave Mounds and their Contents, Groombridge: London 1870.
Redding, Cyrus, An Illustrated Itinerary of the County of Cornwall, How & Parsons: London 1842.
Russell, Vivien, West Penwith Survey, Cornwall Archaeological Society: Truro 1971.
Straffon, Cheryl, Megalithic Mysteries of Cornwall, Meyn Mamvro: Penzance 2004.

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.

Druim na Cille, Comrie, Perthshire

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Cairn: OS Grid Reference – NN 73759 24293

Also Known as:

Drum-na-Kil
Drumnakill

Getting Here

Along the A85 road between Comrie and St Fillans, just over a mile out of Comrie, on the right-hand side (north) of the road is the small farm-track into the fields where the ruined stone circle of Tullybannocher lives. Walk up this track (known as Maam Road), past the stones, and keep going uphill for more than a mile (literally 1 mile up, another track turns sheer right, but ignore it) where the track eventually levels-out; keep walking for another 600 yards, slightly downhill, until you reach a distinct fork in the track where you need to veer right, uphill, and keep walking up the track for ⅔-mile (1km) where you’ll see a cottage ahead of you. About 50 yards before the house, down the slope on your left, a large rounded mass covered in bracken is the site you’re after.

Archaeology & History

This is an odd site, in more ways than one. In the 18th and 19th century, local people told that it was “a very ancient churchyard, so old, indeed, that the grave-stones among the rank grass are scarcely discernible.” (Carment 1882) This lore was reinforced by the fact that, as James Gow (1888) put it,

“within living memory that a burial took place here, and the tradition is that people came to bury the “wee unchristened bairns” from long distances, such as Loch Tayside, Glendochart, Balquhidder, and Strathyre.”

That’s a lot of effort and a considerable distance for some people to travel! But the age and nature of this site is curious. It very name, Drum-na-kill derives from either “ridge of the burial ground” or the “hill of the chapel” (and variants thereof)—yet there are no records of any such early church or religious cell here. That doesn’t mean, of course, that there never was one. A wandering Culdee priest may have set up camp here more than a thousand years ago after doing his service with the fading druids of Dull, less than 20 miles to the north. Such things, never written down, will obviously have happened in these mountains and cannot be discounted merely due to a lack of scripts. But we simply don’t know. When Mr Gow described the place—as “a raised enclosure 25 to 30 feet in diameter, with, a turf-covered wall or rampart 3 or 4 feet high surrounding it”—he emphasized that “in former times (it) was used as a burying ground for unbaptised infants.” (large numbers of Highlanders weren’t in the slightest bit interested in the ways of the Church) So how far back in time did this tradition go…?

Well, Gow thought the place to be an early christian site. But when Fred Coles came here more than thirty years later, during his massive survey of the Perthshire stone circles, he deemed it to be a much earlier construction. A “cairn circle” no less—which would give it a more Bronze Age footprint. And this definition has stuck. Coles (1911) told that,

Coles’ 1911 diagram

Raised ‘walling’ highlighted

“This Cairn-circle is about seventy yards east of the shepherd’s cottage, and it slightly resembles others already noticed in Perthshire. It measures from crest to crest of its circular ridge 44 feet 3 inches east and west by 37 feet 10 inches north and south. Several large blocks of stone lie exposed on the crest, and many others can be felt as one walks along it. The ridge is completely oval-circular, having no break or passage-way, and encloses a flattish, rather uneven space measuring about 34 feet in diameter. The height above the outside ground at the best-preserved portions is fully 4 feet.”

More than a century later, its not changed much—although if you were to believe the updated Trove website, “the cairn has been destroyed in the process of land improvement.” Which is untrue. As the albeit darkened photos here show (we visited it on a truly dark grey day), the raised cairn, despite being covered in a mass of deep bracken, is clearly in a condition similar to what Coles described. It looks like a typical example of this type of monument, of considerable size, with reasonably well-defined edges and comprising the usual scattered mass of stones in and around it. The large boulders that Coles described don’t seem to be in evidence, but these were apparently shifted a few decades back and added to the enclosure walling to the east. To honest, only the untrained eye would miss the place! Check it out when you’re looking at the cup-marked stone, less than a hundred yards to the east…

References:

Carment, Samuel, Scenes and Legends of Comrie, James P. Mathew: Dundee 1882.
Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire, Principally Strathearn,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.
Gow, James M., “Notes near St Fillans: Cup-Marked Stones, Old Burying Ground at Kindrochet and Drumnakill”, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, volume 22, 1888.
MacPherson, John, “At the Head of Strathearn”, in Chronicles of Strathearn (ed. W.B. MacDougal), David Philips: Crieff 1896.

Monzie, Bridge of Tilt, Blair Atholl, Perthshire

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Cairn: OS Grid Reference – NN 90266 68032

Getting Here

Along the B8079 road in Blair Atholl village, take the minor road signposted to the Bridge of Tilt. After half-a-mile, where the road splits, keep to the right and head further uphill and, where the almost-track-like road splits again another quarter mile up, bear to the right again and just keep going uphill for nearly two miles until your reach the large car-park on the left. Park here and then take the dirt-track to the farm (truly friendly helpful folk) where, in the field to the rear of the buildings, a large unmissable mound rises up!

Archaeology & History

This is a bit of a beauty! Hiding away on the southern edges of the Cairngorms we find this huge archetypal burial mound, 35 yards across and all but covered nowadays in deep layers of soil. But it looks good. When you walk onto its crown, about twelve feet up, you see and feel beneath you the scattered mass of small rocks and stones that comprise the monument as a whole, from top to bottom. On its south-western side, the cairn is lower and elongated: this is due, on the whole, to where field clearance stones were pushed up against the monument many decades ago, making that side of it look bigger than it originally was.

Curiously perhaps, no archaeological attention of any worth has been give to the site apart from the usual estimates of its size and a guesstimate of it being neolithic or Bronze Age in nature (an easy thing to suggest). On top, just beneath the grasses, is what may be the section of a small cist, but this may just be a fortuituous formation. Excavation is required! It’s one of a small number of old cairns and tombs in this locale, but this seems to be the biggest — unless, of course, the lost but legendary Carn Deshal, less than a mile to the south, stood larger…

Acknowledgements: To my awesome Naomi – for getting us up here.

Beadnell Caravan Park, Beadnell, Northumberland

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Cup-Marked Stone (lost): OS Grid Reference – NU 2299 2989

Archaeology & History

When the Beadnell Caravan Park was being constructed in 1970, in cutting into the Earth the workmen destroyed a couple of prehistoric tombs—but not before one of them (the northernmost one of the two) was thankfully excavated. It was looked at by John Tait (1971), who described the covering cairn as measuring “nineteen feet in diameter and four feet high”. Beneath it, within a cist that had been modified at two very different periods in time, were a large number of human remains that had been deposited over equally extended periods, suggesting it was a place of considerable importance to either one family lineage or the tribal lineage (unless it was just a dumping spot for any old Tom, Dick and Harry!). Outside of the cist itself, but within the rocky mass of the cairn, this cup-marked stone was found (illustrated). It had already been moved by the workmen before Tait came to excavate it, so he was unable to ascertain its precise position in the tomb. Carved into a piece of sandstone were a number of odd-sized cup-marks, smaller than usual. Tait wrote:

“It measures 38cm by 36cm and bears 29 small cup-marks and one slightly sinuous duct leading into what may be part of an earlier and larger cup. It also seems probable that additional cups were added in antiquity, since some are distinctly more shallow than others and, in one instance, two cups impinge upon one another. The stone had been broken in antiquity and may have come from a larger inscribed slab, as is perhaps the case with some other “portable” stones of burials or cairns and other monuments of the second this nature.”

It is thought that the carving was laid back in the ground whence it was found.

References:

Beckensall, Stan, Prehistoric Rock Motifs of Northumberland – volume 1, Abbey Press: Hexham 1991.
Beckensall, Stan, Prehistoric Rock Art in Northumberland, Tempus: Stroud 2001.
Tait, J. & Jobey,G., “Romano-British burials at Beadnell, Northumberland,” in Archaeologia Aeliana (4th series), volume 49, 1971.

Carron Hill, Stenhousemuir, Stirlingshire

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Cist (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NS 872 825 (approximation)

Antiquarian Notes

Writing in the “Transactions of the Stirling Natural History & Archaeological Society” in 1882, Mr Thomson told:

“About the middle of last month I was informed by Mr Bruce that the Council of the Field Club had asked the rector and myself to go and examine a cist alleged to have been discovered in a field near Stenhousemuir. I arranged with the rector to go the following Saturday. As he was suffering from cold, and it was stormy, he was unable to go. I thought I would risk cold and storm, and at the station met Mr Taylor of Morrison & Taylor, who was just returning to Larbert. Learning my errand he kindly promised me every assistance. During tea Miss Taylor procured for me the account of the opening of the cist which had appeared in the Falkirk Herald. It ran as follows:

“‘Discovery of Human Remains – On Tuesday last, the workmen employed by the Carron Company in excavating the Sand Hills, about a quarter of a mile to the south of the village of Stenhousemuir, made a discovery which has caused some excitement in the district. At the depth of four feet from the surface the workmen came in contact with a stone coffin or grave, 3 feet 9 inches long by 2 feet broad, very substantially built, and containing the remains of a human body. When the discovery was made, parts of the skull were in good preservation, but soon after being exposed to the air they crumbled away. The remains have been carefully collected, and are now in possession of the workmen at the hut at the Sand Quarry. On Wednesday a great many people visited the place, prompted by a natural curiosity to see these relies thus suddenly brought to light, the history of which, it is to be feared, must ever remain a mystery. ’”

“After tea, Mr Taylor and I went to the place where the cist was railed off. It is in the middle of a field acquired by the Carron Company to take sand for their castings from, and the excavation that revealed the cist had been made with a view of getting a new bed of sand. About 200 yards west of the gate of Carron Park House, and close by a railway for waggons, where the workmen had been digging pits, partly with a view to find, as I understood, the lie of the sand, and partly also to arrange the course of a waggon railway for the new sand pit, they came upon traces of a disturbance in the sand. On digging down they came upon some large stones. On lifting them they found some bones, among the rest the top of the skull. The latter was injured somewhat by the spade, and it seems soon to have crumbled away.

“When I went along with Mr Taylor to the spot, which, as we have said, had been railed off by the kindness of Mr Cowan, the manager, we found that the cist had been somewhat dismantled, the upper large stones were lying about the side of the cist, and along with them several smaller ones. We noted that the depth below the surface had been exaggerated in the Falkirk Herald, from the reporter having failed to notice that the earth had been heaped up on the spot when the present waggon railroad was made. We measured the cavity carefully: the length was 3 feet 8 inches, the greatest breadth 16½ inches, and the least 14 inches, the greatest depth to the bottom of the stones still standing was 15 inches. There were three large stones, each about 2 feet by 16 inches, which had been the roof of the cist. A young man who had watched our movements with some curiosity, went and brought an old man who had been present when the cist was opened — he told us strange tales of how these three large stones had all been one but were “jist fair rotten.” The fact that the stones showed no signs of ever having been one, and that their thicknesses being different — one being 5 inches, another 7½ inches, and a third 2½ inches — did not unduly disconcert him when questioned by Mr Taylor in cross-examination, but brought out from him the somewhat irrelevant information that he was seventy-nine and had been under “sax managers in Carron, and he should ken a’ aboot it.” He further declared that the smaller stones had been one stone also. This was even more difficult to believe, and when he proceeded to tell of a layer of fine powdered lime being laid between the stones we suspected his years had brought dotage, not increase of knowledge. I learned that the bones had been removed from the hut, and were in the keeping of the manager, so Mr Taylor kindly took me to see him in his house some two miles or so from the place where the cist was found. He told us that he had arranged for their safe custody, but had never seen them, and asked me to come some other day, not a Saturday.

“I went again on Friday week, and saw another of the workmen, and a gentleman from Carron works. This other workman had not his friend’s great age, and admitted that the stones were not one originally, and that the small ones formed part of the sides. If those small stones were built up on the existing walls of the cist, their height would be brought up to about 2 feet in all.

“I noted carefully that the joints were not filled up with clay, and that neglecting the variation of the compass, the cist lay due north and south. The gentleman who had been sent by Mr Cowan, when asked about the bones, took out of his pocket what seemed a box for holding twelve gross of pens, and opened it; it was filled with a mass of small fragments of bone quite friable and utterly indistinguishable…”

Balnabroich, Kirkmichael, Perthshire

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Cairn: OS Grid Reference – NO 1008 5695

Getting Here

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

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.

Black Park (3), Callander, Perthshire

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Cairn: OS Grid Reference – NN 66885 07447

Getting Here

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.

Black Park (2), Callander, Perthshire

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Cairn: OS Grid Reference – NN 6672 0735

Getting Here

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.

Black Park (1), Callander, Perthshire

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Cairn: OS Grid Reference – NN 66612 07349

Also Known as:

Black Wood
Sruth Geal

Getting Here

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

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!

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.

Wilson Scar, Shap, Cumbria

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Stone Circle (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NY 549 182

Archaeology & History

This site has been completely destroyed by the huge eyesore of a quarry that we all see when we’re travelling up the M6 north, above Shap. John Waterhouse (1985) told that “a rescue excavation” was carried out here with help from the kids at Penrith Queen Elizabeth School, shortly before its destruction in 1952, but now there is no trace left of it. When it was first described by J.E. Spence (1935), the circle had already been damaged by a wall that cut right through its centre. He told:

Spence’s 1935 plan

“The circle, which is 6o feet in diameter, is composed of 35 stones, 20 being on the west and 15 on the east side of the boundary wall running through the circle from north to south. The stones of which the circle is composed are Borrowdale erratics, a large number of which are scattered over the adjoining ground on both sides of the wall but more thickly in Sweet Holme Pasture. The stones, which vary up to 5 feet 9 inches by 3 feet, are larger and more numerous in the north-west quadrant where the tallest stands 1 foot 8 inches above the level of the turf. The ground within the circle is level, but to the south and west it slopes gently down from the edge of the circle in such a manner as to suggest that the area within the circle has been levelled.”

Spence told that an ancient “sunken trackway” led outwards from the circle to the south-west in the direction of Rosgill, but when the 1952 excavation occurred, no remains of such a track were found; nor was the wall that had cut through it; and the north-easterly section of the circle had been cut into and re-laid, presumably by the quarrymen. It was quite plain, wrote G.G. Sieveking (1984), “that this portion of the monument was encroached upon in the summer of 1952, and hastily reconstructed for the benefit of the archaeologists.”

Their excavation found that some internal sections of this ring had been paved with thin limestone slabs and they also uncovered two small cairns, neither of which possessed anything. However, they did find four funerary deposits within the monument: one at the northeastern section of the circle (no.1); another near the centre (no.4); and remains of a cremation west of centre (no.3); but the most complete find was at the western side of the ring, where a “disarticulated inhumation burial was lying immediately beneath the turf line in a shallow grave 1.35 m long, surrounded by a setting of small boulders.” It was a near complete human skeleton. This place was obviously, at times, used in ceremonies for the dead.

Shortly after the archaeological examination of the site, it was blasted away by quarrying. Gone!

References:

Barnatt, John, Stone Circles of Britain – volume 2, BAR: Oxford 1989.
Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
Farrah, Robert W.E., A Guide to the Stone Circles of Cumbria, Hayloft: Kirkby Stephen 2008.
Seton, Ray, The Reason for the Stone Circles in Cumbria, privately published: Morecambe 1995
Sieveking, G.G., “Excavation of a Stone Circle at Wilson Scar, Shap North 1952,” in Transactions Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society, volume 84, 1984.
Spence, J.E., “A Stone Circle in Shap Rural Parish,” in Transactions Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society, volume 35, 1935.
Waterhouse, John, The Stone Circles of Cumbria, Phillimore: Chichester 1985.