Tag: Kirkliston

Lochend Stone, Newbridge, Kirkliston, Midlothian

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NT 1266 7263

Also Known as:

  1. Newbridge Stone

Getting Here

The stone by the building

Coming out of Edinburgh along the main A8 Glasgow road, literally yards before you join the M9 near Ratho Station, on the left-side of the road where the last building stands (a company called Element), you need to look through their high metal fence.  Just in front of the large windows, you’ll see this tall standing stone (if you’re coming here via public transport, there’s a bus-stop less than 100 yards away on both sides of the dual carriageway).  Y’ can’t really miss it!

Archaeology & History

A prehistoric site which, today, has lost all value in terms of its original ambience.  The traffic and aircraft noise here is non-stop and prevents all forms of quietude and refection.  Added to this is the fact that it’s behind the high fencing of the warehouse, stopping you getting close to it.  But, I suppose, at least it’s still standing after all these centuries.  In many other parts of Britain, it would have been destroyed long ago…

It seems to have been mentioned for the first time, albeit briefly in John Smith’s (1862) early survey of the local prehistoric sites.  He told it to be a,

“large standing stone…of coarse greenstone,” which “bears no inscription or sculpturing of any kind, and measures about 10 feet in height from the surface of the ground.”

Old stone, new home

Many years later when the Royal Commission (1929) this way ventured, they weren’t much more descriptive, but postulated, not unreasonably I might say, that it functioned as a deliberate outlier from the impressive Newbridge megalithic complex 350 yards to the west.  They may be right.  “In shape it is an irregular four-sided prism,” they wrote, “measuring 9 feet 3 inches in height and 10 feet 6 inches in girth.”  The local megalith surveyor Adam MacLean (1977) pointed out that, relative to the prehistoric complex 350 yards away, “it is in the right position to act as an equinox sunrise marker.”

References:

  1. MacLean, Adam, The Standing Stones of the Lothians, Megalithic Research Publications: Edinburgh 1977.
  2. Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Midlothian and West Lothian, HMSO: Edinburgh 1929.
  3. Smith, John Alexander, “Additional Notes in Reference to the Inscribed Stone found near Yarrowkirk, Selkirkshire,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries Scotland, volume 4, 1862.
  4. Swarbrick, Olaf, A Gazetteer of Prehistoric Standing Stones in Great Britain, BAR: Oxford 2012.

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. 

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Ballengeich, Uphall, West Lothian

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Standing Stone (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NT 074 698

Archaeology & History

A few hundred yards west of the commemorative Wallace Stone monolith could once be seen a standing stone of considerable size.  It was described by James Primrose (1898) in his description of the standing stones of the Strathbrock region; but even in his day, remains of it were fragmentary.  He wrote:

“On Drumshoreland Moor, within the grounds of Pumpherston Oil Company, there is a stone, popularly styled Bucksides — its correct designation being Backsides — from its position at the backside of Pumpherston.  This stone, a huge whinstone boulder about 12 feet long and 8 feet broad, was blasted in 1888, to make room for the site of a bench of retorts; a few fragments of the stone, however, yet remain by the roadside.  The ancient name of this stone was Ballengeich — apparently the Gaelic for “the township towards the wind”, — as if a croft once stood here, near Pumpherston Mains, in an exposed and windy situation.”

A visit to the local history department of the local library might prove fruitful in giving us more information about this place—that’s assuming the filthy tory central government’s theft of taxpayer’s money doesn’t close it! (does that sound a bit harsh? 😁 )

Folklore

The same historian told of a “tradition…that round this stone in days gone by the Broxburn folks, along with their neighbours, used to assemble at Fair time, in the month of August, in order to witness their favourite sport of horse-racing; but whether there was any more ancient custom associated with it, we have never learned.”

References:

  1. Primrose, James, Strathbrock; or, the History and Antiquities of the Parish of Uphall, Andrew Elliot: Edinburgh 1898.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Carlowrie, Kirkliston, Midlothian

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Cup-and-Ring Stone (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NT 138 746

Archaeology & History

Lost carving of Carlowrie

Two-thirds of a mile west of the Cat Stane, on land immediately north of the River Almond by Edinburgh Airport in an area that was reported in 1780 to be “filled with the skeletons of human bodies,” this old petroglyph could once be found.  The Scottish Royal Commission (1929) described it as being a covering stone for a short prehistoric tomb near the OS-grid reference cited here, “but when discovered it was much broken by the plough that it does not appear to have been preserved.”  They refer instead to the last report of the site in the Scottish Society of Antiquaries journal, where we were informed that the cover stone was,

“marked with three series at least of concentric circles… The widest diameters of the sets of rings cut on the inside of the lid is about five inches, and each set is composed of five concentric circles.”

All trace of this carving appears to have been lost.  Other carvings reported nearby in the 19th century also appear to have been lost or destroyed.

References:

  1. Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR 86: Oxford 1981.
  2. Royal Commission on Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Midlothian and Westlothian, HMSO: Edinburgh 1929.
  3. Simpson, J.Y., The Cat-Stane, Edinburghshire, Neill & Co: Edinburgh 1862.
  4. Simpson, J.Y., “On Ancient Sculpturings of Cups and Concentric Rings,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 6, 1864-66.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian