Comrie – Page 4

Dunruchan Enclosure, Muthill, Perthshire

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Enclosure: OS Grid Reference – NN 7874 1676

DunruchanEnclosure081 — Large arc of vegetation highlighting southern section of wall

From Comrie town centre take the road south across Dalginross Bridge over the river, heading towards Braco, up the winding B827 road for 3 miles, past the tiny crossroads that would take you to the Craigneich standing stone, and past the farmhouse of Middleton as you go uphill. As you go round a bittova large bend in the road, take the next gate uphill, over the field and onto the moor. Follow the walling up a few hundred yards until it bends round and you see the Dunruchan monoliths ahead of you on the moor. From here, walk east into the heather, up a slight grade for 100 yards or more, keeping your eyes peeled for a large oval change in vegetation, covering a mass of small stones with several large ones at its NW sides. Your damn close!

Archaeology & History

I can find no previous reference to this large oval walled enclosure, either on the internet, PSAS or other local history texts, so assume for the time being that it is a new find (someone please lemme know if there’s owt written about it). But it’s existence here is not surprising, considering the presence of the giant standing stones of Dunruchan rise a few hundred yards to the east.

DunruchanEnclosure071 — The sloping faint oval of vegetation across the centre of the photo outlines the main enclosure

The ‘enclosure’ is a large one and would seem to be prehistoric at first glance. I’d appreciate someone with greater local knowledge have a look at the place to see if they can contextualize it in relation to other local monuments of similar type. Paul Hornby and I approached it from the Duncruchan megaliths and, as the vegetation here was low, noted an overgrown rocky rise in the heather and moorland grasses. This turned out to be the northern line of walling and is nearly 3 feet high in places, though very overgrown. Typically comprising of many hundreds of small rounded stones and the occasional large ones, the walling took on an elliptical form – giving the impression of an early Iron Age to Bronze Age structure – roughly 79 yards in circumference, 29 yards across at its longer axis and 23 yards wide at the shortest. The average width of the walling itself was 2-3 yards all round the entire structure.

My initial impression was that this may have been a very large robbed-out cairn, and the presence of many small rocks scattering inside the enclosure didn’t help! But the more I walked round the site, the more it seemed obvious that this was a large enclosure, or possible settlement. Unfortunately the site has proved very difficult to photograph due to the excess of vegetation. Further visits are needed to this site by those more competent than I, to ascertain the real nature of these antiquarian remains…

Craigneich Farm, Muthill, Perthshire

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Standing Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 79225 17870

Also Known as:

Blar an Rodhar
Blarinroar

Getting Here

Craigneich027 — Craigneich standing stone, looking west

From Comrie town centre take the road south across Dalginross Bridge over the river, heading towards Braco, up the winding B827 road for 2-3 miles until you reach a small crossroads (you can easily miss it, so watch out!). Turn left and, about a mile on, keep your eyes peeled – either for the standing stone in the field on your left, or the dirt-track to Craigneich Farm 100 yards further on.

Archaeology & History

Craigneich028 — …and again, looking east

This is a large standing stone in a truly beautiful setting. More than six-feet tall, it stands amidst a gorgeous atmosphere just off the quiet roadside and has been all-but neglected by most archaeological surveys. Thankfully it was one of the many impressive monoliths in this district that was described in one Fred Coles’ (1911) fine surveys. Described in conjunction with the even more massive standing stones on the slopes to the south, he told:

“This Stone is one mile and a furlong SSE of the last, on the north side of the road between Straid and Shillinghill, at 514 feet above sea-level. The locality lies to the north of Aodan Mohr, which is the name given to the upper portion of Dunruchan. .. Its base is of an extremely irregular four-sided shape, having a jutting-out ledge on the south (see drawing). In basal girth it measures 15 feet 9 inches, and in height 6 feet 4 inches. The longest axis points N. 33° E.. by S. 33° W .”

Others may have once stood in close attendance, as the Chronicles of Strathearn (1896) tells how at Blarinroar (the name of the fields here) there were standing stones twenty feet tall! Cole thinks this to be an error based on the megaliths of Dunruchan, half-a-mile to the south. On the other side of the road from here, in the hedgerow, lies a fallen stone covered in ages of moss.

The now singular upright has been linked, albeit tentatively, to the Dunruchan megaliths as part of a possible stone row (Burl 1993; Thom 1990), but this seems very unlikely.

In Edward Peterson’s (1996) survey of Pictish monuments, he thought the Craigneich stone may have been important to the Seal tribe in ages gone by, as he says there are some Pictish carvings on the stone:

“The heads of two seals are relatively clear, positioned near the centre of this stone. Not so clear is the head of a cat at the top right hand corner, and to the immediate left is another seal head. These are only a few of the animal heads appearing on this sea/seal-god standing stone.”

More antiquarian research is obviously required here. It’s a truly superb spot!

References:

Burl, Aubrey, From Carnac to Callanish, Yale University Press 1993.
Cole, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles in Perthshire, Principally Strathearn,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.
Finlayson, Andrew, The Stones of Strathearn, One Tree Island: Comrie 2010.
Hunter, John, Chronicles of Strathearn, David Phillips: Crieff 1896.
Peterson, Edward, The Message of Scotland’s Symbol Stones, PCD Ruthven Books: Aberuthven 1996.
Thom, A., Thom, A.S. & Burl, Aubrey, Stone Rows and Standing Stones – 2 volumes, BAR: Oxford 1990.

Craggish, Comrie, Perthshire

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Standing Stones (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NN 7643 2086

Archaeology & History

Highlighted on the 1866 OS-map was an impressive cluster of standing stones that sadly met their demise sometime around at the end of the 19th century. They were mentioned to “still exist” when the local writer Samuel Carment passed them in 1882, but had been destroyed by the time the Ordnance Survey lads resurveyed here in 1899. Altogether there were at least six of them, standing aligned sharply northeast-southwest and were described in one of Fred Coles’ (1911) essays, who lamented their passing. Listed in the stone row surveys by Burl (1993) and Thom (1990), the prime description we have of them was by Cole himself, who told:

“This site has also been wantonly bereft of its group of megaliths. Up to so recent a date as 1891 there were several. These were shown on the (Ordnance Survey map) as three in one line and two in another, on a field about one furlong NE of Craggish farmhouse, close to the road coming down from Ross, and nearly a quarter-mile NW of the ford across the Ruchil at Ruchilside.”

In Finlayson’s (2010) colourful survey of the local megaliths he told that the stones,

“Stood, by the road, in what is now ‘The Whinney Strip’: a boulder-strewn strip of land 20m wide dividing up otherwise flat and even grazing land.”

References:

Burl, Aubrey, From Carnac to Callanish, Yale University Press 1993.
Cole, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire, Principally Strathearn,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.
Finlayson, Andrew, The Stones of Strathearn, One Tree Island: Comrie 2010.
Thom, A., Thom, A.S. & Burl, Aubrey, Stone Rows and Standing Stones – 2 volumes, BAR: Oxford 1990.

Acknowledgments: Big thanks for use of the early edition OS-map in this site profile, Reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.