As with other carvings in this locale, the name of the stone is based on a survey done by Maarten van Hoek. (1996) It’s a pretty simplistic design within the impressive Castleton complex, found at the southeastern end of the gorse-covered rocky ridge, about 70-80 yards west of the farmhouse. It was uncovered on a visit here by Nina Harris, Paul Hornby, Frank Mercer and Lisa Samson on Sunday 19 November, 2018.
The cup-marked stoneLarge cup & arc of 3
Unlike the others in the Castleton complex, this carving is probably of interest only to the hardcore petroglyph hunters. The design consists of at least ten cup-marks on the uncovered section of the rock, one of which appears to have a broken circle with two ‘entrances’ either side of it, so to speak. The most notable element in the design is close to the edge, where an arc of three cups almost corners a larger cup right at the edge. There may be more carved elements to be found on the westerly side of the stone, which was covered in deep vegetation when we came here.
References:
van Hoek, Martin A.M., “Prehistoric Rock Art around Castleton Farm, Airth, Central Scotland,” in Forth Naturalist & Historian, volume 19, 1996.
Out of Aberfeldy, take the A826 road as if you’re going up Glen Cochill. Not far up, just where the housing of Aberfeldy itself ends and the green fields open up either side of you, keep on the road for a half-mile where you meet a small copse of trees on your left, with a dirt-track that runs down the slope. Go along the track for 0.8 miles (1.3km), past the Ursa Major Stone and where the track splits, go left past the Quartz Stone and follow the track through the farmyard. It’s somewhere there – or is supposed to be!
Archaeology & History
On our visit here, we couldn’t locate the cup-and-ring stone that’s described in Sonia Yellowlee’s (2004) regional rock art survey. She described it, as archaeologists always do, in the briefest manner, telling us simply:
“Leaning against a pile of rubble in the farmyard there is a split boulder bearing eighteen cupmarks, one of which is ringed.”
It may have been destroyed, as we were told by a couple of locals that there used to be “a real miserable sod” living there. When we visited the place and tried to ask the present farm owner, sadly he wasn’t to be found. If any rock art explorer manages to locate this seemingly lost cup-and-ring, please let us know – and mebbe send us some photos so that we can add them to this site profile. 😉
References:
Yellowlees, Sonia, Cupmarked Stones in Strathtay, RCHAMS 2004.
Acknowledgements: Big thanks to the crew – this time being Neens Harris, Paul Hornby & Frank Mercer. And the stunning resource of Scotland’s 1st edition OS-maps is Reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
Out of Aberfeldy, take the A826 road as if you’re going up Glen Cochill. Not far up, just where the housing of Aberfeldy itself ends and the green fields open up either side of you, keep on the road for a half-mile where you meet a small copse of trees on your left, with a dirt-track that runs down the slope. Go down here and follow the slightly meandering track for 0.8 miles (1.3km), a short distance past the Ursa Major Stone where the track splits. Take the track to the left and there, less than 100 yards on you’ll hit a large boulder on your left. That’s it!
Archaeology & History
Not previously recorded, this simple cup-marked stone will probably only be of interest to petroglyph aficionados, or those folk who are into ‘energies’ at sites. This latter aspect is due entirely to the carving being etched onto a huge rock, much of which is composed of quartz—which isn’t too unusual in this part of the world. But that aside…
Looking down at the cupsThe cupmarks highlighted
It is one in a group of carvings within a few hundred yards of each other, with its nearest neighbour 20 yards to the north. That one’s covered in cups—but on this large Quartz Stone, only two of them exist, on the top near the centre. Just a couple of inches across and half-an-inch deep, they’re pretty clear once you see them. The raised piece of ground behind the stone is artificial and has variously been described by antiquarians and archaeologist alike, as either a prehistoric dun, or a stone circle. Whatever it may be, some of it is certainly man-made. Check it out – and mebbe ask the friendly fat fella who lives nearby and what he thinks.
Out of Aberfeldy, take the A826 road as if you’re going up Glen Cochill. Not far up, just where the housing of Aberfeldy itself ends and the green fields open up either side of you, keep on the road for a half-mile where you meet a small copse of trees on your left, with a dirt-track that runs down the slope. Go down the track, bending to the right, then the left and then on for a quarter of a mile until the lines of trees appear either side of you. Barely 200 yards along, the track swerves slowly to your right, and the field above you slopes uphill. Keep your eyes peeled at the fencing on your right and you’ll see a stone sloping towards you right by the fence with faint cup-marks on it. You’ll find it!
Archaeology & History
A truly fascinating cup-marked stone recently uncovered by Paul Hornby on another one of our TNA meanderings. Fascinating because of the curious arrangement of the cups on the stone. Often, cup-marked stones have little to interest the causal visitor – but this one’s different. As can be seen quite clearly, the cups are arranged in the shape of the constellation of the Great Bear, or Ursa Major – albeit with an extra ‘star’ in this design. But it’s damn close! In all likelihood (he says with his sceptical head on 😉 ), the design is fortuitous when it comes to the Ursa Major. I know from many years experience how easy it is to see meaningful shapes and designs in the almost entirely abstract British petroglyphs, but the design is very close to the constellation we all got to know when we were kids.
Looking along the stoneGazing down at Ursa Major
The stone itself slopes upwards at an angle of about 60º, before starting to level out as it rises. All of the cup-marks have been pecked onto this sloping surface (the vast majority of carvings are found on top of stones). Altogether, at least twelve faint and shallow cups were exposed when we looked at it—measuring the usual inch to inch-and-half across—but it is likely that more of them are hidden beneath the turf at the top of the stone. We could discern no rings or other features in the design.
This is just one carving amidst a good cluster of petroglyphs within a few hundred yards of each other (the Quartz Stone being one of the nearest) that are well worth checking out if you like your rock art. It may also be of interest to astronomy students, or those exploring archaeo-astronomy.
References:
Yellowlees, Sonia, Cupmarked Stones in Strathtay, RCHAMS 2004.
Along the A65 near Draughton, go (south) uphill at Height Lane until it levels out. ¾-mile (1.2km) up, a modernized stone milepost is where the road crosses the ancient Roman Road. From here, walk west for just over a mile (1.8km), past the trees on your right, until you approach another small copse further along on your right. In the field just before the copse, walk uphill until you reach the highest of the two rises and walk about. You’re damn close!
Archaeology & History
Nor Hill cupmarked stoneCupmarks, top & side
This small cup-marked rock was rediscovered by Chris Swales in April 2018. It’s probably only for the purist petroglyph fanatics amongst you, consisting of just a single cup-mark on its vertical west-face, and another near its top western edge. Official records show no other carvings in the immediate vicinity, but local antiquarians may find it profitable in surveying the area for other potential remains.
The quickest way here is bedevilled with troublesome parking (and an unhelpful local at Malling Cottage). That aside, roughly halfway along the A81 between the Braeval roundabout (near Aberfolye) and Port of Meneith, turn down the track at Malling, following it round for 300 yards through the farm, then another 500 yards or so until you reach a junction with a gate on your left. Walk down the track to your right, roughly alongside the Lake of Menteith, for nearly 700 yards until you reach the gate into the forestry commission land. Go thru the gate and turn immediate right, following the fence for about 200 yards where a clump of stones lives. You’re there!
Archaeology & History
The Peace Stone in 1899
This seemingly isolated petroglyph, known about by local people in the middle of the 19th century and earlier, was said to have been “held in great reverence.” It was first mentioned in literary accounts in 1866, when the oral traditions about it were more important than any archaeocentricism. But things change with the times: local people were kicked off their lands, old stories and knowledge of sites were lost, and the ‘discipline’ of archaeology was beginning to look at these curious carved rocks with puzzled minds.
The Peace Stone was described at some length and with considerable accuracy in Mr A.F. Hutchison’s (1893) gazetteer on the ancient stones of Stirlingshire. It was one of the regions only known petroglyphs at that time and thankfully he gave us a good account of it, saying:
“On the west ride of the Lake of Menteith, about half a mile south from the farm-house of Malling, this stone is to be found, lying at the boundary of the arable land. The ground at the place rises into a slight eminence, on the top of which the stone lay till some seven or eight years ago, when a labourer took it into his head that a stone on which so much labour had evidently been spent must have been intended to cover something valuable. He proceeded to excavate the earth at the side with the intention of getting at the buried treasure, with the result that the stone slipped down into the hole which he had made, where it now lies. It is quite possible, however, that an interment, if no treasure, might be found beside it on further research. The stone is roughly circular on the surface, measuring about 4 feet in diameter. It is entirely covered with cup and ring marks—22 cups in all—varying in size from an inch to two inches in diameter. The cups and rings are very symmetrically formed. Nearly in the centre is a fine one surrounded by four circular grooves. Others have incomplete triple and quadruple circles, with radial duct dividing them. There are other curious curves that sometimes interlace, and near the lower side of the stone are five or six cups with straight channels running out from them over the edge. This is an extremely interesting stone. It is unique in our neighbourhood, so far as I know, in showing these symmetrical carvings. They are now, however, much weather-worn.”
Ron Morris’ sketch & photoClose-up of faded cups
When Alison Young (1938) came to write about the carving, she echoed Hutchison’s thought that the stone might originally have covered a tomb—but we simply don’t know and it should be treated as guesswork, as there are no known prehistoric tombs anywhere hereby.
Years passed before the next archaeological visit – by which time the stone had been uprooted and moved, apparently “ploughed up by the Forestry Commission”, and when Ron Morris (1981) last sought it out found that “the stone was un-traceable”. On a previous visit, before being moved, he found it to be,
“a cup-and-three-rings, 3 cups surrounded by two rings…and 6 cup-and-one-ring. One of these and 2 cups form part of the design of the cup-and-three-rings. There were also at least 7 other cups, and a number of grooves, some forming lines from a central cup, or a cup-mark, downhill. Greatest diameter visible in 1977 30cm (12in) and depth of carving 3cm (1 in)… Many of the carvings are so weathered as to be visible only when wet in early morning or late evening.”
And when we visited the site a few days ago, the stunning sunlight that had followed us all day, sadly faded and disallowed us better photographs of the site. Huge apologies…. But it’s worth visiting when the daylight’s good, perhaps when you’re exploring the huge number of brilliant petroglyphs at Ballochraggan and Nether Glenny on the hillside 1½ miles immediately north of this “outlier”, as Brouwer & van Veen (2009) called it.
Folklore
In a landscape bedevilled with stunning petroglyphs, traditions and folklore of them is all but gone; but the story of the Peace Stone was thankfully captured in words by Mr Dun (1866), who told us:
There is a curious prophecy connected with a stone situated near the ruins of the chapel of Arnchly, and which is worth recording. From time immemorial this stone went under the name of the Peace Stone, and it was held in great reverence by the natives. One Pharic McPharic, a noted Gaelic prophet, foretold that, in the course of time, this stone would be buried underground by two brothers, who, for their indiscretion, were to die childless. By-and-by the stone would rise to the surface, and by the time it was fairly above ground, a battle was to be fought on “Auchveity,” that is, “Betty’s Field.” The battle was to be long and fierce, until “Gramoch-Cam” of Glenny, that is, “Graham of the one eye,” would sweep from the “Bay-wood” with his clan and decide the contest. After the battle, a large raven was to alight on the stone and drink the blood of the fallen. So much for the prophecy then; now for the fulfilment. About fifty years ago, two brothers (tenants of the farm of Arnchly), finding that the stone interfered with their agricultural labours, made a large trench, and had it put several feet below the surface. Very singular, indeed, both these men, although married, died without leaving any issue. With the labouring of the field for a number of years, the stone has actually made its appearance above ground, and there is at present living a descendant of the Grahams of Glenny who is blind of one eye, and the ravens are daily hovering over the devoted field. Tremble ye natives! and rivals of the “Hero Grahams,” keep an eye on Gramoch-Cam!
The name of Betty’s Field came from an earlier piece of folklore: where a prince out hunting a stag was caught in one of the deep bogs hereby, only to be rescued by a local lass. In return for her help, she was given a large piece of land which was to bear her name.
References:
Armit, Ian, “The Peace Stone (Port of Menteith parish),” in Discovery & Excavation Scotland, 1998.
Dun, P., Summer at the Lake of Monteith, James Hedderwick: Glasgow 1866.
Hutchison, A.F., “The Standing Stones and other Rude Monuments of Stirling District,” in Transactions Stirling Natural History & Antiquarian Society, volume 15, 1893.
Hutchison, A.F., The Lake of Menteith: Its Islands and Vicinity with Historical Accounts of the Priory of Inchmahome and the Earldom of Menteith, Stirling 1899.
Maitland, Mrs, “Cup Marked Stones”, in The Scottish Country Woman, 1935.
Mallery, Garrick, “Pictographs of the North American Indians,” in Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, volume 4, 1886.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
van Hoek, Maarten, “Menteith (Port of Menteith parish) Rock Art Sites,” in Discovery Excavation Scotland, 1989.
This excellent cup-and-ring marked petroglyph was found fortuitously in September 2001 by the land-owner at Near Hey Gate field to the northeast of Baildon village. He was clearing out remains of some old walling in the field and, adjacent, a rock that was protruding out of the ground got turned over. Underneath it he noticed a series of very well-preserved cups and rings in a cluster near one part of the rock. It was a bittova beauty to be honest!
Thankfully due to the subsequent efforts of local rock art students Mike Short and Keith Boughey, it was later re-housed in the Brackenhall Centre at the edge of Shipley Glen.
Enhanced rendition of Boughey’s Heygate Stone rubbingComputer-enhanced image of the carving
The stone itself was once larger than it now is and may have had additional carved elements on it, but the other portion that had broken off wasn’t located when it was first dug out of the ground. This may mean that it was moved here from another location, which would have been somewhere close by. Many other petroglyphs exist in and around the Baildon district.As we can see in the images here, two very well-defined double cup-and rings have clusters of smaller singular cup-and-rings around their edges. A single cup-mark was etched below the largest of the double-ring carving, and what seems like a carved straight line emerges from the largest of the single cup-and-ring.
If you’re travelling from Stirling or Bannockburn, take the B9124 east to Cowie (and past it) for 3¾ miles (6km), turning left at the small crossroads; or if you’re coming from Airth, the same B9124 road west for just about 3 miles, turning right at the same minor crossroads up the long straight road. Drive to the dead-end of the road and park up, then walk back up the road 350 yards to the small copse of trees on your left. Therein, some 50 yards or so, zigzag about!
Archaeology & History
Petroglyphs can be troublesome things at the best of time: not only in their ever-elusive root meanings, but even their appearance is troublesome! This example to the east of Cowie in the incredible Castleton complex is one such case. It is undoubtedly a multi-period carving, probably first started in the neolithic period, added onto in the Bronze Age, and maybe even finished in the early christian period. You’ll see why!
It’s been described several times in the past, with Maarten van Hoek (1996) telling how it was rediscovered,
“by Mrs Margaret Morris in 1986 in the birch-coppice at Castleton Wood. A fragment of outcrop rock with a distinct cup-and-three-rings, rather oval-shaped like others in the area.”
The main cup-and-3-rings (photo, Paul Hornby)
But as our own team found out, there’s more to it than that. Like many of the Castleton carvings, vital elements have been missed in the previous archaeological assessments. But it’s an easy thing to do. The carved design here almost ebbs and flows with daylight, shadows, changes in weather, bringing out what aboriginal and traditional peoples have always told us about rock itself, i.e., it’s alive, with qualities and virtues that can and do befuddle even that great domain of ‘objectivity’—itself an emergent construct of an entirely subjective creature (humans). But that’s what petroglyphs do!—whether they are part of a living tradition, or lost in our striving modernity, exhibiting once more that implicit terrain of animism. And this carving exemplifies it very clearly.
The primary visual design is the odd triple-ring, which isn’t quite as clear-cut as the earlier descriptions would have you think. In the drawing below by van Hoek (1996), three complete elliptical ‘rings’ are shown; whereas on its northern edge where the outer ring is closest to the rock edge, we find that the ‘ring’ has carved lines that run off and down the slope of the stone towards ground-level. It also seems that from the inner second-ring, a natural scar in the rock has been heightened by pecking, creating an artificial carved line running from near the centre and ‘out’ of the three rings. You can make this out in the accompanying photo, above.
van Hoek’s 1996 sketchThe more complete design
Additionally we found two very faint carved ‘eyes’ or trapezoids pecked onto the stone, obviously at a much earlier date than the notable triple-ring—which could almost be modern! They would no doubt have excited the old archaeologist O.G.S. Crawford (1957), whose curious theory of petroglyphs was that they were images of some sort of Eye Goddess. Archaeo’s can come out with some strange ideas sometimes…
Fainter still was another triple-ring—albeit incomplete—with what appears to be a very small central cup-mark, just below and between the two ‘eyes’. It was first noticed by Paul Hornby when he was playing with the contrast settings on his camera, in the hope of getting clearer photos of any missing elements.
Very faint triple-ring, bottom-left of photo (photo by Paul Hornby)
“Can you see this?” he asked. And although very faint indeed (on most days you can’t see it at all), it’s undoubtedly there: another multiple-ringer all but lost by the erosion of countless centuries, and older still than the ‘eyes’ above it. In all the photos we took of this stone, from different angles in different weathers (about 100 in all), this very faint triple-ring can only be seen on a handful of images. But it’s definitely there and you can see it faintly in the attached image (right) to the bottom-left.
A final note has to be made of a possible unfinished, large circular section with a cross carved into the natural feature of the stone, first noticed by Lisa Samson. It’s uncertain whether this has been touched by human hands (are there any geologists reading?), but it’s something that we’re noticing increasingly at more and more petroglyph sites. They’re not common, but it has to be said that we found two more man-made ‘crosses’ attached to multiple cup-and-rings near Killin just a few weeks ago. Also, folklore tells us that not far from this Castleton cluster, a christian hermit once lived….
References:
Crawford, O.G.S., The Eye Goddess, Phoenix House: London 1957.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
van Hoek, M.A.M.,”Prehistoric Rock Art around Castleton Farm, Airth,” in Forth Naturalist & Historian, volume 19, 1996.
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks as always to Nina Harris, Fraser & Lisa Harrick, Paul Hornby, Penny & Thea Sinclair, for their additional senses and input.
If you’re coming via Castleton Farm, at the back of the farm go through the gate on the right, by the corner of the field and walk along the line of the wall for 200 yards northwest until you approach the small copse of trees ahead of you. Just before the trees, instead, walk up the slope, SW, to the other small copse, and about 15 yards along the line of trees, go into them. Keep your eyes peeled on the upwards sloping ground where a gap in the greenery shows you the stone in question!
Archaeology & History
This is an odd one. Amidst the array of truly ancient and well-eroded multiple cup-and-ring stones in the incredible Castleton complex, this small design on the northeast slope away from the main cluster, has a distinctly different appearance about it when we compare it to the others along the ridge. It’s not been done by the same person or people who carved the more ornate designs close by. Indeed, it seems that it wasn’t even done at the same period but has a history that is much more recent.
The carving, as you can see in the photos, has a somewhat scruffy look about it when compared to the more usual designs. If it’s prehistoric, it has the hallmarks of being done by someone with rock art dyslexia! My own view is that it’s a pretty recent carving. It’s possible, perhaps, that it may have been executed by a medieval christian priest who lived a short distance to the east and whose cross markings are evident on at least one of the other cup-and-rings hereby. But the carving might be even more recent: perhaps 19th Century in origin. It just doesn’t have that air of authenticity about it, as any seasoned petroglyph officionado would tell you. And we have to bear in mind that this was the site of a quarry in the 18th and 19th century, so the carving might have been done at that time by one of the workers to mimic the very ancient and faded designs close by. Anyhow…
The design consists of two distinct and deeply carved rings around a central raised point, in which it looks as if someone started to create a cup-mark, but never finished the job! The same can be said of an third outer-ring, whose faint outline is clearly visible in decent light, but which was started but never finished. Make of it what you will. When we first found this carving in 2019, someone had been up and already peeled back the turf (“there were a group o’ folk,” the farmer told me), thankfully showing the carving in its crude glory. The Canmore website informs us that the stone was first unfurled by George Currie in 2006, who said that it was little more than “a ring surrounded by a central boss”—but there’s clearly more to it than that and I wonder if this is actually the same carving that Mr Currie found.
Note: The name of this and the other carvings in the Castleton complex need completely re-designating into an accurate order, as they’ve been defined and redefined by various authors and groups over the years, leaving them in a disorganized haphazard mess.
Cup-and-Ring Stone (lost): OS Grid Reference – NS 56 77
Archaeology & History
The lost Loch Ardinning stone
This site-profile is one for the explorers amongst you. It was last reported by the rock art author Ronald Morris (1981) who himself looked several times for this multiple-ringed carving, but never managed to find it. The carving was rediscovered and described by the Glasgow archaeologist J. Harrison Maxwell, who took the only known photograph of the carving (reproduced here). Sadly, he only left a short note about the site which read simply: “cups-and-rings to the west of Loch Ardinning.”
It seems probable that the carving would be in the area between the loch and the A81 road (between Strathblane and Bearsden) and not on the western side of the road—but we cannot be certain. It may be hidden in the trees somewhere between the road and the lochside—which means that it’s probably completely overgrown by vegetation. Morris (1981) described the carving as:
“a cup-and-four-rings, 2 cups-and-two-rings, and at least 4 cups-and-one-ring. Some rings are complete without radial groove and some are gapped with groove from the cup.”
If any explorers out there manage to unearth this lost carving, please give us a shout!
References:
Morris, Ronald W.B., “The Cup-and-Ring and Similar Early Sculptures of Scotland; Part 2 – The Rest of Scotland except Kintyre,” in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, volume 16, 1969.
