Probably best if you start from the car-parking spot at Acrehowe, by taking the road up through Baildon village, across at the roundabout up Northgate and up onto the moor, then after a few hundred yards turn left on the Bingley Road. The Acrehowe parking spot is a half-mile up on your right. From here, cross the road and bear right to take the footpath that follows the contour at the edge of the hillside, walking past the Baildon Moor (184) carving on the way. About 250 yards past this carving, on the right-side of the track as you’re heading to Dobrudden, is this low-lying almost innocuous stone. Keep your eyes peeled and you’ll see it.
Archaeology & History
The carving looking WCup-marks clearly visible
This cup-marked stone was first unearthed by fellow rock art explorers Mike Short and Dave Spencer in 2012 after they’d been looking at some of the other carvings hereby. In peeling back the turf on the stone, otherwise hidden cups—perhaps nine in all—were uncovered that had been hidden for centuries. Most of them are quite distinct, but it seems that a couple of the cups may have been left unfinished, as their size isn’t consistent with the others on this and other carvings close by.
The carved stone—located on the northern edge of the Low Plain prehistoric cemetery—is one in a line of several low earthfast rocks that crosses the track hereby and it’s possible that it was part of some prehistoric walling. Linear remains of walls and ditches were reported here in the 19th century and some of them can still be seen in some places on this part of the hill, but much of it has been destroyed.
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?!
The King Stone of Rollright (photo by Sir Wilson III)
If you’ve reached the impressive Rollright Stone circle, simply cross the road, go through the gate and into the field, then up the gentle slope to your right. Y’ can’t miss it! If though, by any chance, you can’t find the Rollright Stones, get to Chipping Norton and ask a local!
Archaeology & History
An integral part of the Rollright Stones complex, this gnarled almost moth-eaten-looking standing stone, whose edges were cut away for medicinal properties in earlier centuries, still awakes each morning beside the small rise in the field, long thought to have been the remains of an ancient tomb — much to the archaeologist’s opinionated disdain in bygone years. Yet they had to swallow their pride…
This is an eight-foot-tall standing stone made from the same local oolitic limestone as the King’s Men and overlooks the village of Long Compton on the northern side of the ridge. It actually stands besides an artificial mound which has been identified as a Bronze Age cairn—known in times past as the ‘Archdruid’s Barrow’— and suggested by Lambrick to date from around 1800 BCE. More recently however, the world’s leading authority on stone circles, Professor Aubrey Burl, has given the King Stone a more probable construction date of 3000 BCE. The date is consistent with other Neolithic finds in the adjacent fields. This old standing stone has suffered much down the centuries, with bits of it being chipped away to such an extent that it has been reduced to the novel shape we see today.
Looking up at the King (photo by Sir Wilson III)The King in dance
A little-known but important piece of megalithic history took place here in the 1970s and ’80s. It centred around an idea to investigation so-called “mysterious events” that are commonly reported at standing stones—and the King Stone has its own CV when it comes to such things. Curious stories have been described by people from all walks of life. Down the years, a number of people have told me of feeling some strange and powerful ‘energy’ at these places and stories of such things have filled many volumes, along with being the subject of many a folktale. So one evening in November, 1977, the then editor of The Ley Hunter, Paul Devereux, convened a meeting where twenty people from differing backgrounds gathered. At this first meeting were people from a variety of professional backgrounds: archaeologists, dowsers, chemists, biochemists, biologists, electronic engineers, geochemists, geophysicists, zoologists—and ley hunters of course. It was time, they thought, to address this issue of anomalous energies at stone circles and other ritual sites.
After some discussion about what they should call their investigations, “the long association of the dragon with some kind of earth force made it a fitting symbol.” And so, the Dragon Project (DP) was born…
On the misty morning of Saturday, 24 October, 1978, research scientist Don Robins—in the company of his dog and young son—drove the hundred miles from London to the Rollright Stones armed with a simple ultrasound detector. He didn’t know what he would find there, and his scientific training told him there shouldn’t really be anything untoward.
King Stone, looking W (photo by Sir Wilson III)Stukeley’s 1743 sketch showing the King Stone
Arriving around dawn, Robins took several background readings along some of the lanes a mile or so away and found the usual expected background levels (on a scale of 1-10, the background flickers between 0 and 1). When he eventually walked into the Rollright stone circle with his ultrasound monitor, no undue perturbations were found. He spent thirty minutes here, but at no time did he record anything other than background readings. So he crossed the road and tried the same at the King Stone—where a big surprise awaited him.
Switching on the detector he found an anomalously high reading, beating every minute or so, not unlike a heartbeat, more than five times above the background ultrasound!
“This was really peculiar,” he wrote, “in that the pattern was spread over about a minute and then commenced again after about 10 seconds, endlessly repeated.” Robins spent some time here and found that the strange ‘pulse’ wasn’t solely confined to the King Stone, but spread some distance around the old standing stone and onto the road itself.
Investigation of potential radiation anomalies was another avenue of enquiry explored by the Dragon Project, and although thousands of hours of monitoring were done at the three focal sites, there were few anomalies to write home about. Two however, were recorded in March and August, 1981, when radiation levels were twice the normal background rate for short periods of just a few minutes each. More puzzling was the finding—which can still be verified today—of radiation levels three and four times above background on the road between the circle and the King Stone.
Next on the list was an attempt to monitor the Rollright stones with infrared devices. This proved to be a potential goldmine, as there was the chance of photographic imagery. So early one morning in April, 1979, Paul Devereux readied himself at the King Stone. He took a number of photos at five minute intervals either side of sunrise. This time of day was chosen because of the repeated anomalous ultrasound emissions from the King and it was thought that this, if any, would be the best time to capture something on film.
“When the first roll of black-and-white IR film was professionally developed,” he wrote, “I was astonished to see a curious ‘glow’ effect around the King stone on the frame taken at sunrise.” His first account of it appeared in The Ley Hunter, where he described how “a hazy glow can be seen clinging to the sides and upper parts of the megalith. This glow becomes much stronger at the top of the stone where it looks like a cap of light.” Although the sun had risen, it was off to the left of picture and apparently no satisfactory explanation can be given to the effect on the plate. Research physicist Simon Hasler—who worked for Kodak—closely studied the negatives of this image and found the evidence for a simple explanation “weak.” A possible explanation of the mysterious glow was propounded by Don Robins, who suggested that an emission of microwaves from the stone may have been responsible, and although this sounds promising it has yet to be proven.
Folklore
(photo by Sir Wilson III)
Amidst the mass of modern lore, dowsed energy lines exceed here — although to be honest, most of them are little more than bullshit. Old school alignments in the form of leys that can be walked along are more credible, and one or two have been noted here. Dowser Laurence Main found a ley running between Broughton Church, “the old White Cross, the Victorian Cross and the old Bread Cross in Banbury. In the other direction the line led straight to the King Stone.” Although this line accurately links up these sites, other ‘ley points’ are utterly necessary between Broughton Church and the King Stone to give the alignment any real credibility. In a concise survey of the megalithic remains of this region made by Tom Wilson and myself, no other ley-points were found along the line.
In more traditional animist-based folklore, the creation myth here is well known. The famous, oft-repeated tale recites how a King and his men were marching across the land intent on conquering it when he came across an old hag, or witch near Rollright who offered the regal figure a magickal challenge. Some accounts name the witch as Mother Shipton—not the famous Yorkshire seer of the same name, but her less powerful (obviously!) southern counterpart. The old witch said to the King:
“Seven long strides thou shalt take, and
If Long Compton thou can’st see,
King of England thou shalt be.”
His majesty took this as a simple task and, with contempt, said to the old witch:
“Stick, stock, stone,
As King of England I shall be known.”
From where he was standing (which is never told, but presumed by most as the stone circle) the King then took seven long strides in the direction of Long Compton. As he was taking his seventh step the witch made the ground in front of him rise up, hence blocking his view of the village in the valley below. The old hag then said:
“As Long Compton thou canst not see,
King of England thou shalt not be.
Rise up, stick, and stand still, stone,
For King of England thou shalt be none;
Thou and thy men hoar stones shall be
And I myself an eldern tree.”
Thereupon, the King’s men who were waiting behind their master, the five knights in the field who were said to be conspiring against his majesty, and the King himself, were all turned into stone where they stood. The elder tree that the old witch turned herself into, was said to have grown along the old boundary close to the roadside, but this can no longer be verified. The folklorist Arthur Evans described several spots where the famed elder tree was said to have grown: one in the field close to the Whispering Knights, and another in the same field as the King Stone, close by another large stone that has long since gone.
When William Stukeley visited the area in the 18th century and heard about the legendary origin of these great monoliths, he told how “the country people for some miles round are very fond of, and take it very ill if anyone doubts it,” telling later, “The people who live at Chipping Norton and all the country round our first described temple of Rowldrich affirm most constantly, and as surely believe it, that the stones composing this work are a king, his nobles, and Commons turned into stones.
Another piece of animistic lore tells how the King Stone and the Whispering Knights venture, at midnight, less than half a mile south to drink from a spring in the small woodland at Little Rollright Spinney—although it is difficult to ascertain precisely which of the two springs the stones are supposed to visit. In some accounts, the stones reputedly drink from the well every night, but others tell that they only go there at certain times of the year, or on saint’s days. When Arthur Evans wrote of these tales he described there being a “gap in the bushes… through which they go down to the water,” but the terrain has altered since his day.
A variation of the same tale was told by T.H. Ravenhill, who wrote:
The old King c.1945King Stone, c.1920
“The Lord of the Manor of Little Rollright desired to possess the King’s Stone in order to bridge Little Rollright brook. So he dug it up and tried to cart it away, but found that he had not enough horses. He hitched on more, and yet more, and still he found that he could not move the stone. Finally he succeeded and hauled the stone away to the Manor House. The same night he was alarmed by strange sounds about the house, which he attributed to the presence of the King’s Stone, and decided, therefore, to replace it on its mound. No sooner had he harnessed the first horse to the cart than it galloped away up hill with ease, taking with it the stone, which leapt to position on reaching its resting place.”
Evans also wrote about an eighty-year-old local woman who told that her mother visited the King Stone on Midsummer’s Eve, along with many other locals, when the elder was in full bloom and they would stand in a full circle around the tall monolith. Ritual of a sort was performed then the elder tree was cut and, as it bled, “the King moved his head.” This annual rite was said to partially disempower the witch of her magickal hold over the King when her blood trickled from the tree. Some locals believed that if but a pin-prick of the witch’s blood was drawn, she would lose her power for all eternity.
Beneath both the Rollright stone circle and the King Stone, legend reputes there to be such a cavern where the little people live. In some accounts they are said to dance around the old King.
Arthur Evans told how one local man, Will Hughes, actually saw the faerie dancing round the King.
“They were little folk like girls to look at,” he said.
Old postcard, c.1910Sketch from 1904
Will’s widow, Betsy Hughes, told Evans that “when she was a girl and used to work in the hedgerows, she remembered a hole in the bank by the King Stone, from which it is said the fairies came out to dance at night. Many a time she and her playmates had placed a flat stone over the hole of an evening to keep the fairies in, but they always found it turned over next morning.” This curious entrance was a neolithic burial mound. Mark Turner described how the little people were “supposed to come out and dance around the stones by moonlight.”
As we have already seen, people used to take chippings off some of the old stones here—primarily the King—supposedly for luck, protection and good fortune. Local people used to blame Welsh workers more than anyone, but they wouldn’t be the only ones! Although those who took such chippings believed the pieces brought them luck, more often than not it was the opposite that happened. One local woman told Evans about her son who went to India as a soldier in the 19th century with a piece of the King Stone in his possession, but it did him no good whatsoever. He died of typhus! The Oxford archaeologist George Lambrick (1988) highlights in his book on the Rollright stones the extent of damage that has been done to the King Stone since 1607.
References:
Anonymous, The Rollright Stones: Theories and Legends, privately printed, n.d.
Bennett, Paul & Wilson, Tom, The Old Stones of Rollright and District, Cockley: London 1999.
Bloxham, Christine, Folklore of Oxfordshire, Tempus 2005.
Cowper, B.H., ‘Oxfordshire Legend in Stone,’ Notes & Queries (1st series), 7, January 15, 1853.
Devereux, Paul, ‘Is This the Image of the Earth Force?’ in The Ley Hunter 87, 1979.
Devereux, Paul, ‘Operation Merlin,’ in The Ley Hunter 88, 1980.
Devereux, Paul, ‘Operation Merlin 2,’ in The Ley Hunter 89, 1980.
Devereux, Paul, ‘The Third Merlin,’ in The Ley Hunter 92, 1981.
Devereux, Paul, Places of Power, Blandford: London 1990.
Devereux, Paul, The Sacred Place, Cassell: London 2000.
Evans, Arthur J., ‘The Rollright Stones,’ in Trans. Bristol & Glouc. Arch. Soc., 40, 1892.
Evans, Arthur J., ‘The Rollright Stones and their Folklore (3 parts),’ in Folklore Journal, 1895.
Lambrick, George, The Rollright Stones: The Archaeology and Folklore of the Stones and their Surroundings, Oxford Archaeology Review 1983. (Reprinted and updated in 1988.)
Michell, John, Megalithomania, Thames & Hudson: London 1982.
Pennick, Nigel & Devereux, Paul, Lines on the Landscape, Hale: London 1989.
Ravenhill, T.H., The Rollright Stones and the Men Who Erected Them, Little Rollright 1926.
You can walk up from Menston, up Moor Lane north-west towards the moor, then turning left when you hit the moorland road of Hillings Lane. Nearly 350 yards along, turn right up the track known as Occupation lane onto the moor. More than half-a-mile up, past the gate at the Bee Stone, where the track splits, keep to the left and head further uphill, roughly parallel with the fence on your left. Literally ¼-mile (0.4 km) up from the split, you’re looking almost straight down at the reservoir; but to your left, walk towards the fence. Zigzag about! You can also approach it from the Grubstones and Great Skirtful area, by following the Occupation Lane track eastwards down the slope until you’re roughly level with the same reservoir.
Archaeology & History
On this somewhat isolated stone on the northern sloping edge of Craven Hall Hill we find a small cluster of shallow cup-marks, first noted in the 1980s and eventually mentioned in a survey by Boughey & Vickerman (2003) where they described it as a,
“Low, medium striated rock lying in slope of hill. SE end carries possibly up to eleven cups, possibly two sets grouped in arcs running into natural striations of rock, one of which may have been artificially enhanced by pecking.”
Shallow cup-marks
The view from here is quite something: gazing east to the heathen hilltop of Otley Chevin (Beltane rites and rock art — albeit not much), north-east to the far uplands of the White Horse of Kilburn, then across the northern panoramas of Askwith and Denton Moors, and beyond. Some archaeologists have started to believe that such vistas may have had relevance with such carvings, sometimes. They’ve caught up at last! 🙂 Anyhow, the carving itself is pretty simplistic and probably only of interest to the real petroglyph nuts amongst you – although it’s mebbe worth checking out if you’re visiting the Great Skirtful giant cairn and its very impressive hengi-form neighbour.
References:
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding, WYAS: Wakefield 2003.
Boughey, Keith & Vickerman, E.A., Prehistoric Rock Art of the West Riding – Supplement, YAS 2018.
Acknowledgements: With thanks to Tom Cleland for help in relocating the site on a recent visit.
Numerous ways to get here: probably the easiest (direction wise) is if you’re coming from Dick Hudson’s public house on the southern road surrounding Rombalds Moor. From the pub, head left (east) along Otley Road (passing Weecher reservoir) for 1.9 miles (3.1km) until you reach Reva reservoir where a track leads you to the waters. A small parking spot is on the left-side of the road. From here, go through the gate and along the footpath across the field for nearly 300 yards to the next gate. Go through here and immediately follow the walling down to your left for about 135 yards to the edge of the rushes. It’s there!
Archaeology & History
Single cupmark nr the top
On a recent visit to the Fraggle Rock carving, Tom Cleland foraged about at the edge of what was, in centuries gone by, a good flowing stream below the west slope of Reva Hill. An old pathway cut across one section of it near where the walling now runs, covered these days in the mass of Juncus reeds, typical of mashy grounds. And here, just where folk would cross the waters, Tom found a good sized stone with a single deep cup-mark on its crown, calling through a feast of lichens to be seen once more. There may be a second cup-mark by its side, but the light wasn’t good when we were here, so that’ll be worked out some other day. Anyhow, this one’s probably only for the crazy petroglyph hunters out there. It’s the Fraggle Rock and its companios that you’re gonna be looking for, nearby….
Cup-and-Ring Stone (removed): OS Grid Reference – NX 550 520
Archaeology & History
This impressive-looking carving was brought to the attention of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries by Sir Herbert H. Maxwell (1900), who thereafter moved it to the National Museum where, I presume, it still lives, in a box somewhere, sleeping gently. Maxwell’s brief resumé of the stone was as follows:
“Cup and Ring-marked Slab…found in a dyke on the farm of Mossyard, Anwoth, Kirkcudbrightshire. This cup-and ring-sculpturing is peculiar in having five rings round the central cup crossed by a gutter which ends in another cup from which gutters also proceed to right and left, each terminating in a cup.”
In Ron Morris’s (1979) survey he erroneously told how the carving had been found in a wall instead of the dyke from whence it came; but, that triviality aside, he described it as,
Morris’ 1979 photoMaxwell’s 1900 drawing
“A cup-and-five-rings, the rings slightly flattened where a radial groove from the cup passes through them. 23cm (9½in) diameter, grooves connecting this with 3 other cups. Carving depths up to ½cm (¼in). The rings are rather lightly pecked though quite wide and well preserved. All gapped, except the inner ring.”
If anyone is able to get any good photos of the carving, out from its museum hideaway, it would be good to see how it’s coping therein….
References:
Maxwell, Herbert R., “Donations to the Museum and Library,” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 35, 1901.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway and the Isle of Man, Blandford: Poole 1979.
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.
Cup-and-Ring Stone (removed): OS Grid Reference – NX 546 530
Archaeology & History
A.E. Truckell’s 1961 photo (TGDNHAS, 1961)
A small multiple-ringed archetypal design consisting of a central cup-mark with seven consecutive rings emerging from it, with a second outlying, incomplete cup-and-double-ring that nearly touches the outer edge of the seven-rings, was found by a Mr Sproat “in the bed of a shallow stream on Laggan farm” in 1960. The design, as the old photo (right) shows, is very well preserved, suggesting that it cannot have been in the stream for too long, as the erosion on the carving isn’t in anyway excessive. In all likelihood it originally came from a nearby prehistoric tomb: of which, there are several upstream from the farm.
Described by A.E. Truckell (1961) as “a particularly fine example”, the carving is on a particularly small and thin piece of stone, measuring 18 inch by 8 inch amd just 2 inches thick, with one edge of it snapped-off. It’s obviously no longer in situ and, I presume, is still resting somewhere in the Kirkcudbright museum.
References:
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway and the Isle of Man, Blandford: Poole 1979.
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.
