Tag: Muthill

Dunruchan Hill, Muthill, Perthshire

megalithix

Cairnfield:  OS Grid Reference – NN 790 168 (centred)

Getting Here

Cairn NE of Dunruchan ‘E’

Simply follow the directions to reach the Dunruchan monoliths ‘D’ and ‘E’ and then zigzag through the heather to their immediate south—from just a few dozen yards away, to up to 300 yards west.  Keep your eyes peeled for the stoney little rises in the heather as you walk back and forth and you’ll see at least some of these cairns.

Archaeology & History

Not to be confused with the large cairn scatter on the grassy plain of Aodann Mhor a short distance north-west (whereon stands the magisterial Dunruchan A monolith), many of which which may be just field clearance cairns.  This small group found a short distance east, south and west of Dunruchan stones ‘D’ and ‘E’ are more typical burial cairns.  They each average between five and six yards across and none are more than three feet high.  We first noticed them about ten years ago and on subsequent visits kept looking them over, but the deep heather ensured they were hard to see.  But, after a recent heather-burning exercise on the moors, they are at thankfully visible—for a short time at least.

Cairn SE of Dunruchan ‘D’
Cairn S of Dunruchan ‘D’

At the time of writing, probably the best one to see is found 40 yards south of Dunruchan D and 47 yards north-east of Dunruchan E and may have the astronomers amongst you running for the theodolites!  It has that distinct look about it when you see it in context with the landscape and adjacent standing stones.  The westernmost cairn that’s (presently) known here is 300 yards west of the Dunruchan E stone, just past the Dunruchan enclosure, at NN 7873 1676.  It’s likely that there are other unrecorded prehistoric sites in this area.

Low line of ancient walling

Amidst this section of the moors is a line of very low walling that runs a short distance east-to-west, towards the Dunruchan ‘E’ stone.  A lot of old walling exists hereby, mainly visible in the fields to the east, but this particular line is much smaller and of a different age by the look of things, presumably older.  It has the appearance of walling more usually associated with prehistoric hut circles, but in this case runs in a straight line towards the standing stone.  Curious…

Folklore

The standing stones on this plain and the cairns here are said to be the graves of fallen Roman soldiers, slain by our tribal Scots two thousand years ago.  In all honesty though, these are likely to be much older than any of those Roman savages.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Dunruchan ‘F’, Muthill, Perthshire

megalithix

Standing Stone (lost):  OS Grid Reference – NN 795 168

Archaeology & History

When Fred Coles (1911) visited the giant impressive Dunruchan standing stones, he told that “some distance to the east” of the Dunruchan E stone, “near the unnamed stream…my friend Mr James Simpson has seen another great Stone, but lying prostrate.”  When he visited the area the weather beat him back (easily done up here!) and prevented him “from wandering far over the moor, and therefore this Stone was not observed.”  It remains lost.  (the grid-reference given for this site is an approximation)

References:

  1. Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire, Principally Strathearn,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.
  2. Finlayson, Andrew, The Stones of Strathearn, One Tree Island: Comrie 2010.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

St. Patrick’s Well (2), Struthill, Muthill, Perthshire

megalithix

Holy Well:  OS Grid Reference – NN 8555 1537

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 25329
  2. Chapel Well
  3. Struthill Well

Getting Here

Site on the 1866 map

From Muthill, go up Thornhill Street out of the village for nearly 1½ miles. You’ll have just passed the double hairpin bend, crossed the rivulet, then reached the large old farmhouse of Lurgs.  From here, turn right and after just over half-a-mile you reach Struthill where, running by the side of the house, is a small trackway.  Ask the folks at the house, who are most helpful, and walk down the track for nearly 400 yards and go through the first gate on your right, crossing the field until it dips down to the burn.  The boggy marshy mass running from near the top of the slope is what you’re looking for!

Archaeology & History

Shown on the 1863 map as the Chapel Well, the dedication of the waters to St. Patrick coincided with a chapel that once stood here, also in his name.  Very low faint remains of the chapel, completely overgrown, can still be made out amidst the rushes.  It’s one of two holy wells in Muthill parish that are dedicated to St. Patrick.

Very little of any real spring of water can be seen nowadays.  Indeed, the site today is merely a much overgrown bog-of-a-well whose water oozes down the slope into the Juncus rushes, trickling into the adjacent burn.  I had a drink of the water from the slopes, which tasted OK and did me no harm whatsoever.

Folklore

The most important aspects of this site was its use by local people and the attributes it was given.  We know not how far back such folklore goes, but it would have been many many centuries, if not millenia.  Water worship (if that’s the right word) is the most archaic of all traditional forms of veneration.  This place was no exception.  In John Shearer’s (1883) excellent local history work, he gave the following account of the site:

“About a quarter of a mile west from the Mill of Steps, upon a height on the right bank of the Machany, are to be seen the ruins of a small chapel.  When other places of Popish worship were thrown down after the Reformation, the Presbytery of Auchterarder ordered it to be demolished about 1650 to repress the superstitions practised at this place of resort.  West from the chapel is an excellent spring which was held in great veneration in those dark ages of superstition, when the ignorant and credulous populace were deceived by the crafty priests who stood below the spreading branches of an ancient ash which grew near the fount, pronouncing a benediction on the weary pilgrims as they drank of the waters.  And as it was celebrated for its healing qualities in many different distempers, numbers yearly visited it from a great distance to benefit by its virtues with as much devotedness as the Mahometan pilgrims visit the tomb of their Prophet.  Insanity was also cured here.  Several persons testified before the Presbytery of Stirling, in 1668, that having carried a woman thither, they staid two nights at a house hard by the well.  The first night they bound her twice to a stone at the well, but she came into the house to them being loosed without any help.  The second night they bound her again to the same stone and she returned loosed.  And they also declared that “she was mad before they took her to the well, but since that time she is working and sober in wits.”

“This well was still celebrated in the year 1723 and votive offerings were left, but no one then surviving appeared to appreciate the virtues of the stone.  Small offerings were given in coin and thrown into the well and those who had no coin brought white stones which were laid in regular order along the declivity where the water runs to the river.  Coins have been of late found in the well and the white stones are still to be seen.  The officiating priest generally resided at Drummond Castle.  Within the last sixty years, several of the gentry have come in their carriages to inspect these relics which were held in so great reputation in ancient times.  The chapel and well are about one mile south west from Muthill.”

References:

  1. MacKinlay, James M., Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs, William Hodge: Glasgow 1893.
  2. Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1982.
  3. Shearer, John, Antiquities of Strathearn, D. Phillips: Crieff 1883.

Acknowledgements:  Big thanks for use of the 1st Edition OS-maps, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland. 

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

St. Patrick’s Well (1), Dunruchan, Muthill, Perthshire

megalithix

Holy Well:  OS Grid Reference – NN 77905 17365

Getting Here

St Patricks Well on 1863 map

Take the B827 road between Comrie and Braco. If you’re coming via Comrie, going uphill for 3.1 miles (5.1km); but if from Braco Roman Camp go along and eventually downhill for 6.6 miles (10.6km), watching out for the track to Middleton Farm by the roadside.  Walk along for 125 yards, keeping your eyes peeled for the boggy ground below on your left. You’re there!

Archaeology & History

Immediately east of the prodigious megalithic complex of Dunruchan, bubbling up amidst the usual Juncus conglomeratus reeds, are the boggy remnants of St. Patrick’s Well—one of two such sacred wells dedicated to the early Irish saint in Muthill parish. We’re at a loss as to why this Irish dood has such sites in his name in this area.  No doubt some transitional shamanic character was doing the rounds in this glorious landscape, muttering words of some neo-christian animism, eventually settling a mile from the great megalithic complex, perhaps hoping—and failing—to convert our healthy heathen populace into ways unwise.

The shallow boggy waters
The site of St Patricks Well

Whatever he may have been up to, a small stone chapel was built hereby and, it was said, even a christian graveyard, to tempt folk away from the ancient plain of cairns whence our ancestors had long since buried their dead.  But the christian’s chapel and graveyard has long since gone; and when historians before me had visited the place, St Patrick’s Well had also fallen back to Earth in the drier summers, taking the blood of the Earth back into Her body.  The heathen megaliths still remain however, standing proud on the moorland plain in clear sight from these once healing waters, whose mythic history, on the whole, has long since been disregarded….

Folklore

St Patrick’s day on March 17—”a date very near the Spring Equinox,” as Mrs Banks (1939) reminded us—may have been the dates when the waters here were deemed particularly efficacious, although we have nothing in written accounts to tell us for sure. But in the 19th century Statistical Account we find that the site was “much frequented once, as effectual in curing the hooping cough.”  E.J. Guthrie (1885) told of an ancient rite regarding the drinking of the waters for effect of the cure, saying:

“In the course of this century a family came from Edinburgh, a distance of nearly sixty miles, to have the benefit of the well. The water must be drunk before sunrise or immediately after it sets and that out of a “quick cow’s horn”, or a horn taken from a live cow, and probably dedicated to this saint.”

Also in Muthill parish, Guthrie told, St Patrick’s memory was held in such veneration that farmers and millers did not work on his day.

References:

  1. Banks, M. MacLeod, British Calendar Customs: Scotland – volume 2, Folk-lore Society: Glasgow 1939.
  2. Booth, C. Gordon, “St Patrick’s Well (Muthill Parish),” in Discovery & Excavation, Scotland, New Series volume 1, 2000.
  3. Guthrie, E.J., Old Scottish Customs, Thomas D. Morison: Glasgow 1885.
  4. MacKinlay, James M., Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs, William Hodge: Glasgow 1893.
  5. Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1982.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Auchingarroch, Muthill, Perthshire

megalithix

Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 78732 19579

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 24795
  2. Roman Stone

Getting Here

Auchingarroch stone

The Auchingarroch stone

Take the B827 road south out of Comrie as if you’re heading towards Braco, and after a mile or so, as you start going uphill, turn left to go to the Wildlife Centre.  Go along the track and park up at the buildings.  The monolith is round the back of the first building (ask at the Centre, where the people there are very helpful).

Archaeology & History

F. Coles 19l1 sketch

F. Coles 19l1 sketch

Shown on the earliest Ordnance Survey map of the region as one of several ‘Roman Stone’ sites, this prehistoric upright is similar in size and feel to the other standing stones in the highly impressive Dunruchan complex close by.  The big fella stands on a raised piece of ground more than 8½ feet tall and, said Fred Coles (1911) has “a basal girth of 12ft 8ins.”  Quite a big stone!  A dubious large cup-mark is visible on the thin western face and three faint ones on its east.

The monolith is surrounded all along the southern landscape arc with forested moorland and low mountains, with the primary extended views reaching mainly into the north and western arc.  Although a rounded hillock immediately southwest of the stone looks promising, no calendrical or astronomical alignments have been found here.

Folklore

Auchingarroch, looking SW

Auchingarroch, looking SW

As with the other standing stones in this region, legend ascribes it as marking the resting place of a Roman soldier who fell in a great battle close by with our local heathens, in what was known as “battle of Mons Grampius.”

References:

  1. Coles, F.R., “Report on stone circles in Perthshire principally Strathearn,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.
  2. Finlayson, Andrew, The Stones of Strathearn, One Tree Island: Comrie 2010.
  3. Hunter, John, Chronicles of Strathearn, David Phillips: Crieff 1896.

Acknowledgements:  Thanks to Paul Hornby for the journey here; and more especially a different sorta thanks to Linzi Mitchell for her influence whilst the site profile of this megalithic erection was being written. Who sez that men can’t do two things at the same time?!

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Dunruchan Hill, Muthill, Perthshire

megalithix

Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 8022 1645 

Getting Here

Lisa standing with the old stone
Lisa with the old stone

Take the directions to the hugely impressive Dunruchan A standing stone.  Walk directly south, over the gate and follow the fence straight down the fields, crossing the burn at the very bottom. Walk over the boggy grassland and start veering uphill, southeast.  You’ll notice the land goes up in geological ‘steps’ and, a few hundred yards up, a small standing stone pokes up on the near skyline ahead of you.  Head straight for it!

Archaeology & History

This small standing stone was first noted after a quick visit to the major Dunruchan megalithic complex in the summer of 2016.  Photographer James Elkington was taking images of the landscape and the standing stones when he noticed a stone on the horizon a half-mile away.  As we were in a rush, he took a couple of photos from different angles on the way back to the car—both of which looked promising.  And so, several months later, we revisited the site again.  Lisa, Paul and Mr Fukner and I meandered up the geological steps of the hillside until we reached the site in question.

Looking northwest
Looking northwest
Looking northeast
Looking northeast

Standing just over four-feet tall, this solitary stone overlooks the megalithic Dunruchan complex a half-mile or so to the north and northwest.  Like the Dunruchan C monolith, this smaller upright is conglomerate stone.  Paul Hornby noted what may be a single cup-marked stone roughly 100 yards east along the same ridge. (Please note that the grid-ref may be slightly out by perhaps 50 yards or so at the most. If anyone visits and can rectify my ineptitude on this matter, please let me  know.)

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian 


Concraig, Muthill, Perthshire

megalithix

Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 85480 19503

Also Known as:

  1. Broadley
  2. Canmore ID 25285

Getting Here

Concraig on the 1863 map
Concraig on the 1863 map

Take the A822 road south out of Crieff and less than half a mile down, in a field on the east side of the road is the giant solitary standing stone of Dargill. On the opposite side of the road from here (roughly) is a small country lane. Go along here and past the third field on your left, park up.  Look down the fields for a coupla hundred yards and you’ll see the standing stone. Make your way there by following the field-edges.

Archaeology & History

Concraig stone, near Crieff
Concraig stone, near Crieff

Closer to the larger town of Crieff than it is to the village of Muthill, this seven-foot tall standing stone, leaning at an angle to the north and with a small scatter of stones around its base, stands alone near the side of the field, feeling as if others once lived close by.  It’s set within a distinctly nurturing landscape, enclosed all round instead of shouting out to the hills, with that nourishing female quality, less commonly found than those stones on the high open moors.  The only real ‘opening’ into a wider landscape here was mentioned by the local writer Andrew Finlayson (2010), “to the distant east.”  Whether this possessed any astronomical-calendrical importance hasn’t yet been explored.

Concraig, looking south
Concraig, looking south
Fred Coles 191 drawing
Fred Coles 1911 sketch

The stone was first highlighted on the 1863 Ordnance Survey map—and described in their Name Book as “a large upright Stone adjacent to and South-east of Broadley about 8 feet high and traditionally said to be either the remains of a Druidical Temple or in some way associated with the Druidical period”—but since then it hasn’t fared very well in antiquarian tomes.  Fred Coles (1911), as usual, noted it in one of his Perthshire surveys, but could find very little information from local people about the place, simply telling us that,

“in an open field about 300 yards to the north-west of Concraig, there stands this irregularly four-sided block of conglomerate schist… The stone measures 9 feet 3 inches round the base and stands 7 feet 3 inches in height.  About halfway up its eastern face it has been broken so as to leave a very distinct ledge.”

What appears to be cup-markings on the southern-face of the stone are just Nature’s handiwork.

References:

  1. Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire, Principally Strathearn” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.
  2. Finlayson, Andrew, The Stones of Strathearn, One Tree Island: Comrie 2010.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Dalchirla (east), Muthill, Perthshire

megalithix

Standing Stones:  OS Grid Reference – NN 82446 15893

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 25355

Getting Here

Dalchira's standing stones
Dalchira’s standing stones

Along the A822 road between Crieff and Muthill, take the small western country lane just as you’re coming out of Muthill. Nearly 2 miles on, take the turn to the right, and then 100 yards or so from there turn sharp left. Keep along this country lane for about a mile till you reach the third track on your left.  Walk down the track and you’ll see the standing stones in the field on your left. A gate into the field is by the house.

Archaeology & History

A fascinating pair of relatively large standing stones 317 yards (289.5m) SSE of the tall singular monolith of Dalchira North in the adjacent field.  Traditionally said to have once been part of s stone circle, it was marked as such when the Ordnance Survey lads came here in 1863, but there is very little evidence of such a megalithic ring today—and even the small stone lying in between the two uprights is probably a more recent addition to the site.  It certainly wasn’t mentioned by Fred Coles (1911) when he came here, who gave only a brief description of the place.

Dalchira East & the skyline notch of Lurgan Hill
Dalchira East & the skyline notch of Lurgan Hill
Dalchira, looking east
Dalchira, looking east

The stones were included in Margaret Stewart’s (1968) list of megalithic pairings as measuring 7ft 6in x 4ft 3in x 2ft and 4ft 3in x 3ft 6in x 1ft respectively, and 8ft apart.  There is a small stone laid down in between them which has cup-marks on it, but these indentations are natural nodules in conglomerate rock.  But the measurements and angles of Dalchira East were examined by the late great Alexander Thom (1967; 1990) who thought they had been positioned specifically to observe and predict lunar movements across the sky, saying that the alignment of these stones “shows the declination of the Moon rising at the minor standstill.”  He may have been right.

Thom's geometry of Dalchirla
Thom’s geometry of Dalchirla

In Aubrey Burl’s notes to Thom (1990) he told that the size and shapes of these stones, “have been interpreted as anthropomorphic, the taller, or alternatively the more pointed , usually at the west, being the male, the lower or flat-topped he female.” He subsequently included this site in his own work on megalithic stone rows (Burl 1993), without further comment.

Tis a peculiar site inasmuch there doesn’t seem to be much ‘feeling’ to the place.  I’m sure the site is gonna have its days, but more than likely the neat and tidy farmed theatre has subsumed the genius loci to all but the most auspicious of times—most likely generated when the pull of the Moon still tugs at any geomagnetic background memory… Still, it’s definitely worth looking at.

References:

  1. Burl, Aubrey, From Carnac to Callanish, Yale University Press 1993.
  2. Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire, Principally Strathearn” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.
  3. Finlayson, Andrew, The Stones of Strathearn, One Tree Island: Comrie 2010.
  4. Heggie, Douglas C., Megalithic Science: Ancient Mathematics and Astronomy in Northwest Europe, Thames & Hudson: London 1981.
  5. Stewart, Margaret E.C., “Excavation of a Setting of Standing Stones at Lundin Farm near Aberfedly, Perthshire,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 98, 1966.
  6. Thom, Alexander, Megalithic Sites in Britain, Oxford University Press 1967.
  7. Thom, A., Thom, A.S. & Burl, Aubrey, Stone Rows and Standing Stones – 2 volumes, BAR: Oxford 1990.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Dalchirla (north), Muthill, Perthshire

megalithix

Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 82274 16125

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 25356

Getting Here

The big fella in the field
The big fella in the field

Along the A822 road between Crieff and Muthill, take the small western country lane just as you’re coming out of Muthill. Nearly 2 miles on, take the turn to the right, and then 100 yards or so from there turn sharp left. Keep along this gorgeous country lane for about a mile till you reach the third track on your left and park up.  Walk down the track and you’ll see the standingh stone in the field on your right. Go all the way to the bottom where the farm is and go through the gate into the field.

Archaeology & History

The slim end of the wedge
The slim end of the wedge

Less than 2 miles southeast of the megalithic titan of  Dunruchan A, we find a slightly smaller monolith positioned on lower ground and humbled by a more manicured landscape close to the farmhouse.  But it’s still a big fella, albeit hemmed in by a mass of field clearance rocks piled up and around the base (two of which have odd carvings on them).  The stone is about ten-feet tell, being very slim on its north-south side and much wider on its east-west face.  For some reason I got the impression that the stone wasn’t standing in its original position; though in searching through my megalith library for further information on the site, l found that very little has been written about it.  The earliest literary evidence comes, as usual, from Fred Coles (1911), who simply told us:

“In a field south of Machany Water and NE of Dalchirla farm-steading 260 yards, there stands this tall and striking monolith… In essential features this stone much resembles most of the great schistose blocks which characterize the main portion of the Strathearn area; but it tapers upwards to a very thin and narrow summit that rather distinguishes it from its fellows. It stands 9 feet 4 inches above ground, and girths at the base 7 feet 11 inches.  It is set with its longer axis due north and south. Around its base there are several large masses of stone—not earthfast—amid a conglomeration of smaller pieces evidently cleared off the field.”

Fred Coles' 1911 drawing
Fred Coles’ 1911 drawing

The prehistoric cairn of Torlum to the north may have had some significance to the setting of the stone, but without excavation and details of its original site, we’re just grasping at straws when it comes to evaluating any potential geomancy or landscape relationships—with the megalithic stone row in the next field perhaps being an exception!

The moorlands above here, stretching for many a mile, is apparently lacking in any prehistoric remains if you listen to the official records. But with the Dunruchan megalithic complex only two miles away and the once-giant tomb of Cairnwochel over the southeastern horizon, we know that cannot be possible… Watch this space!

References:

  1. Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire, Principally Strathearn” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.
  2. Finlayson, Andrew, The Stones of Strathearn, One Tree Island: Comrie 2010.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Giant’s Knowe, Culloch, Muthill, Perthshire

megalithix

Cairn (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NN 7848 1762

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 24797
  2. Crock-nafion
  3. Fingalian’s Knowe

Archaeology & History

Landscape of the Giant's Knowe (image credit, Marion Woolley)
Landscape of Giants Knowe (photo by Marion Woolley)

Amidst the colourful and nurturing landscape close to the gigantic Dunruchan standing stones and just along the road from the solitary Craigneich stone, in the field across the road above Straid farmhouse could once be seen a fascinating-sounding prehistoric site that has sadly been destroyed.  Some of the remains of this old monument can be found in the field-clearance of stones just over the fence, above the top of the field (many fields round here have scatterings of large stone clearings at the field edges), but we have no detailed accounts of the site.  It was mentioned in early notes by the Ordnance Survey to have been,

“A large circular heap of small stone and gravel entirely removed in 1831. An urn filled with ashes and several stone coffins were found under it.”

The local historian John Shearer (1883) later told us that,

“A small mound of earth on the farm of Strayd, called Crock-nafion or the Giant’s Knowe, or the Fingalian’s Knowe, was cleared away several years ago.  An urn containing burnt bones was discovered.”

Any additional information about this site and its folklore, would be greatly appreciated.

Folklore

To the west along Glen Artney whence our view takes us from here, old legend told that the valley was once the abode of a great giant who lived in a cave in one of the mountains thereby.  In mythic lore, giants were the creation deities of hills, mountains and other geological forms, whose narratives were overturned and demonized by the incoming christian cult many centuries ago.  It is likely that this once great tomb was deemed as the burial-place of our local giant – which would make this prehistoric site neolithic in age.  But — logical though it is — this idea is pure speculation…

References:

  1. Hunter, John, Chronicles of Strathearn, David Philips: Crieff 1896.
  2. Shearer, John, Antiquities of Strathearn, David Philips: Crieff, 1883.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian