From Alyth village, take the B954 road north for several miles. At the sharp bend of the road when you’ve crossed the Bridge of Craigisla, a few hundred yards along take the next road left. Barely 100 yards along, stop! Walk into the where the large farm-buildings are and keep your eyes peeled on the ground, just in front of the first farm building. A large long stone measuring about 7-feet (2.1m) is thereby beneath your very feet!
Archaeology & History
Formal Stone, laying down
At the edge of the farm-buildings this all-but-forgotten standing stone lays prostrate, almost hidden, and slowly being covered by the soil and grasses, nearly falling away past the eyes of history. It’s a pity, as this fallen stone would have stood some six-feet upright, with a couple of feet of it underground. When it was mapped by the Ordnance Survey lads in the 1860s, a portion of the stone remained standing. This was echoed in the survey of the Object Name Book in 1861 in which the buildings of Formal were described:
“A fine farm house and offices the property of the late Robert Smith Esqr. of Balharry – in the stackyard is a broken standing stone, to which my attention was drawn by Alexander Annand of Blackdykes and the (parish) Minister.”
Thankfully the present-day farmer here would like to have the stone stood back upright, so hopefully its resurrection aint gonna be too far away.
Formal Stone, looking east
Formal Stone, looking south
The stone isn’t lying in its original upright position. It used to stand nearly 10 yards east of here, and was knocked down and rolled into its present spot when an earlier adjacent building was erected. Another large boulder in the corner where the walls meet (at NO 25585 54044), just through the gates, may also have had some megalithic relationship with the fallen monolith.
One in a cluster of at least seven souterrains that could once be found to the east of Alyth, this was first described in notes by David Whyte in the 1845 New Statistical Account as being “about a mile to the south” of those at Barns of Airlie. Although Whyte told that the two places “are separated by a deep hollow but are within view of each other,” the explorer F.T. Wainwright (1963) was unable to locate the precise spot, despite several visits. Three earlier writers (Anderson, Jervise and Warden) merely echoed notes of there being a cluster of sites hereby and made no personal explorations of their own. Without the expertise of local people, the exact status of this underground chamber remains unknown…
Royal Commission of Ancient & Historicc Monuments, Scotland, The Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Scotland: Central Angus, RCAHMS: Edinburgh 1983.
Wainwright, F T., The Souterrains of Southern Pictland, RKP: London 1963.
2 low lines of stones mark route of possible pilgrim route to Well
Park up at the Menmuir Village Hall, walk west along the road and after crossing the burn, turn north into the field, following the line of fencing until you reach a stile. Cross the stile and continue following the fencing until you reach an east-west fence, whereupon turn right and follow that fence until you reach a gap. Come’s Well is on the other side of the fence, issuing into the East Burn of Balfour.
Archaeology and History
Forbes’ Kalendars of Scottish Saints notes, under the entry for St. Aidan, that the church at Menmuir is dedicated to that Saint, adding “In the immediate vicinity is Come’s Well, no doubt named after St. Colman”.
The Well is at the edge of a pine plantation
Apart from this one entry I was unable to find any other reference to this well, so recourse was made to the Ordnance Survey map, which shows one well other than St. Iten’s (Aidan’s) Well at Kirkton. At the site of this well marked on the map there is a modern circular concrete housing. But at the time of my winter field visit, I noticed two lines of stones running north of this well housing, parallel to the burn. They led to what had been a stone lined spring that issued into the burn. Unless anyone can show otherwise, I assume this to be the long lost Come’s Well, originally dedicated to St. Colman, with the lines of stones bordering what had once been the pilgrim path to the well.
Collapsed stone walling around the well
St Colman, whose Saint’s Day is accepted in Scotland as the 18th February, was Irish and was for three years Bishop of Lindisfarne, a near successor of St Aidan. Following his refusal to abandon the Celtic Paschal computation at the Synod of Whitby in 664, Colman resigned the episcopate and retired to Iona. At around this time he seems to have been active in Forfarshire, and is reputed to have founded the church at Fearn (near Kirkton in Menmuir), which he dedicated to St Aidan, placing there some of St. Aidan’s relics that he had transported from Lindisfarne. Colman later returned to Ireland and died in 676.
References:
Forbes, Alexander Penrose, Kalendars of Scottish Saints, Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh 1872.
Dom Michael Barrett, A Calendar of Scottish Saints, The Abbey Press, Fort Augustus, 1919
Cardinal Patrick Moran, Irish Saints in Great Britain, M.H.Gill and Son & Browne and Nolan, Dublin, 1879
From the little village of Kirkton of Auchterhouse, take the winding road uphill east as if you’re heading to Tealing. About 1⅓ mile along, where the road has straightened out, keep your eyes peeled on your right (to the south) where—if the vegetation isn’t too high—you’ll see a tall upright stone in the field. You’ll have to walk along the roadside until you find a gate into the overgrown field. Good luck!
Archaeology & History
Not to be confused with the legendary Martin’s Stone of Balkello ⅘-mile to the southeast, this is a little-known standing stone hiding above a mass of boscage ‘pon a quiet ridge that fades focus away from the world. It’s a bittova giant, all but forgotten it seems, and with little history to speak of in literary terms at least. When we visited the place a short while ago, summer nettles and willowherbs obstructed our initial contact—but we got to the fella eventually.
This dood lives & sleeps at the stone!
Looking east
Standing more than nine feet high and about five feet across, it’s quite a slender monolith that has seen better days. Its southern face is crumbling away and a large section of it is close to splitting off completely (surely a case for Historic Scotland to fix?). As you can see in the photos, upper portions of the stone have fallen into the widening crack that promises to fell the stone at some time in the not-too-distant future. Let’s get it sorted —before it collapses!
Balkello Stone on 1865 map
It was highlighted on the first OS-map in 1865 as the Standing Stone of Balkello, although without antiquated lettering. But unless there is excellent reason to suggest this was erected in recent times (it wasn’t), its ‘prehistoric’ status needs activating—cos it’s surely prehistoric! We all thought so anyhoo… It’s well worth checking out when you’re in the area!
Folklore
When the Ordnance Survey lads first visited the site in 1861, local people informed them that the stone was said to be,
“in Connection with some others in the Parish (and) are supposed to have (been) used to point out the Roads as they were then, merely beaten paths.”
Alfred Watkins students take note!
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks as always to Paul Hornby, Nina Harris & Frank Mercer for their assistance in our visit here.
This was one amongst a good cluster of souterrains that existed hereby, remains of which may still exist beneath the ground. It was rediscovered in the 19th century through a series of most curious events—owing more to the local belief in spirits and witches than any archaeological rationale. Mr A. Jervise (1864) told the story in his essay on Airlie parish:
“The circumstances which led to the discovery of one of these weems is curious. Local story says, that the wife of a poor cottar could not for long understand why, whatever sort of fuel she burned, no ashes were left upon the hearth; and if a pin or any similar article was dropt at the fireside, it could not be recovered. Having “a bakin” of bannocks, or oatmeal cakes, on some occasion, one of the cakes accidentally slipped from off “the toaster,” and passed from the poor woman’s sight! This was more than she was prepared for; and, believing that the house was bewitched, she alarmed her neighbours, who collected in great numbers, and, as may be supposed, after many surmises and grave deliberation, they resolved to pull down the house! This was actually done: still the mystery remained unsolved, until one lad, more courageous and intelligent than the rest, looking attentively about the floor, observed a long narrow crevice at the hearth. Sounding the spot, and believing the place to be hollow, he set to work and had the flag lifted, when the fact was disclosed, that the luckless cottage had been built right over an “eirde” house. The disappearance of ashes, and the occasional loss of small articles of household use, were thus satisfactorily accounted for; but, unfortunately, although the site of this weem remains, as well as that of another near the same place, both were long ago destroyed, and the materials of which they were constructed used for a variety of utilitarian purposes.”
Or to put it simply: right beneath the fireplace, a small opening into the souterrain below appeared, into which all things fell. F.T. Wainwright (1963) placed the position of the site “about 100 feet east of the road between Barns of Airlie and Brae of Airlie, about 200 yards from the former.” On the 1865 OS-map, this spot is marked with a small unnamed building. No excavation has ever been tried here
There are no remains left of this old ‘weem’, earth-house, or souterrain as they are now commonly known. It was one of at least seven separate souterrains beneath the fields between the Barns of Airlie and Brae of Airlie, but very little is now known of this one. The first and only real note of the site was given in Mr A. Jervise’s (1864) essay on the antiquities of Airlie parish. Nearly a hundred years later when F.T. Wainwright (1963) went to investigate any possible remains, he found very little, telling:
“A possible location for Airlie III…presented itself on 24 June, 1951, when Mr D.B. Taylor and I noticed a considerable number of boulders and slabs cast up in the field which lies over the wall from the entrance to Airlie I (souterrain). The farmer was aware that there was a heavy concentration of stones spread over an area of two or three thousand square feet, but he could add no further information. In 1951 we were not able to do more than record this possibly significant scatter of stones—it lies between 150 and 200 feet west from the present entrance of Airlie I on a bearing of 260º—and to note that it could very well indicate a souterrain settlement.”
Most of the scattered stone was subsequently removed for use in walling and no trace remains of the place.
Described by the early 20th century antiquarian and megalithomaniac Fred Coles (1903) as being situated “about 1¼ mile SE from the church at Ythan Wells,” all trace of this stone circle has long gone, and had already disappeared when Coles was surveying the region, telling merely that it had been here “in open fields.” All subsequent explorations looking for remains of the site has proven fruitless.
References:
Barnatt, John, Stone Circles of Britain – volume 2, British Archaeological Report: Oxford 1989.
Most folk visiting here are coming from Stirling city. There are various buses to get here, which head out over Stirling Bridge along Causewayhead Road (the A9) for half-a-mile where, at the roundabout and the William Wallace pub, go straight across up the minor road, zigzagging back on itself, until you reach the signs for the Wallace Monument. Follow the well-defined footpath and, once on top of the hill, walk round the back of the mightily impressive tower.
Archaeology & History
Located right where the impressive Wallace Monument proudly stands, this prehistoric precursor to Sir William Wallace’s memory was where Scotland’s legendary hero and his men cast a clear and easy view over Bannockburn, where the halfwit english came for a fight—and deservedly lost! The structures that used to be inside the now denuded hillfort would, no doubt, have been used by Wallace’s men; but much of those prehistoric remains have now been destroyed. The visible remains of the fort can be seen round the back of the Wallace Monument: elongated rises of overgrown walling that run almost all the way round, getting slightly higher as you approach the more northern edges, like a semi-circular enclosure.
Royal Commission planAbbey Craig – and the great Wallace Monument
The site was described very briefly in William Nimmo’s (1880) early survey of the area, where he told that in 1784, “eleven brazen spears were found on the Abbey Craig, by a Mr Harley”, which he thought came from the time when the earlier ‘castle’ stood here. He was probably right. Many years later, the prehistoric remains were included in the county survey of archaeological sites by the Royal Commission lads (1963), who told that, near the north end of the summit of Abbey Craig,
“there is a fort which has been damaged by the construction within it of the Wallace Monument. All that remains is a substantial turf-covered bank, cresentic on plan and 260ft in length, the ends of which lie close to the brink of the precipice that forms the west face of the hill. The bank stands to a maximum height of 5ft above the level of the interior and presumably represents a ruined timber-laced wall, since numerous pieces of vitrified stone have been found on the slopes immediately below it.
The entrance to the fort presumably lay between one end of the bank and the lip of the precipice, but both the areas concerned have been disturbed by the construction of the modern approaches. The interior of the fort measures about 175ft from north to south, by about 125ft transversely and the interior is featureless.”
The fort was probably built sometime in the early Iron Age; so the next time you visit this fine spot, check the remains out round the back of the tower—and remember that our ancestors were living up here 2500 years ago!
Feacham, Richard W., Guide to Prehistoric Scotland, Batsford: London 1977.
Hogg, A.H.A., British Hill-Forts: An Index, BAR: Oxford 1979.
Nimmo, William, The History of Stirlingshire – volume 1 (3rd edition), T.D. Morison: London 1880.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments Scotland, Stirling – volume 1, HMSO: Edinburgh 1963.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Stirling District, Central Region, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 1979.
There is no written history of this site; only the quiet murmurings of a few locals whose families go back to when the English came and destroyed the people and their lives in the 18th and 19th century in the ethnic cleansing we known as The Clearances. As with the Darach nan Sith (the Oak of the Fairies) a few miles away, the local traditions were lost, and ancient monuments destroyed. Thankfully, due to the remote location of this site, its status remains….
It is found 2000 feet up, near an old derelict village (english academic romancers term it as ‘sheilings’). An ancient track and stone bridge runs over the burn nearby, place-names evidence tells of a prehistoric tomb a few hundred yards west, and there’s a dispersal of forgotten human evidences scattering the south-side of the mountain all along here. The clach (stone) sits on the very top of a large earthfast rock; is an elongated loaf-sized smooth red-coloured stone, about 14 inches long and 8 inches wide, and of a different type and much heavier than the local rock hereby. It is said to have been a healing stone, used in earlier times to cure warts and other ailments.
Folklore
The Wart Stone itself
My first venture here was, like many in this area, amidst a dreaming. Those who amble the hills properly, know what I mean. I cut across the mountain slopes diagonally, zigzagging as usual, always off-path, resting by mossy stones and drinking the waters here and there. My nose took me to the mass of giant rocks hedging into the higher regions of Allt Ghaordaidh: a pass betwixt the rounded giants of Meall Ghoaordie and Meall Cnap Laraich, where only eagles and Taoist romancers might roam.
The great rock comes upon you pretty easily. Approaching it for the first time I wondered whether there might be petroglyphs on or around it, but the rich depth of lichens and its curious crowning elongated stone stopped any further thought on the matter. The setting, the eagles, the colour of day and the fast waters close by, stole all such thoughts away. In truth I must have walked back and forth and near-slept below the place for an hour or two before I gave way to rational focus! And then my curiosity got even more curious.
“This must be the place,” I mused, several times.
As you can see in the photo, a large natural earthfast boulder, six feet high or more, like a giant Badger Stone covered in centuries of primal lichens, has a large deep red-coloured stone on its very crown. The stone is unlike any of the local rock and is very heavy. I found this out when trying to prize it from its rocky mount, dislodging it slightly from the seeming aeons of vegetation that held it there. But the moment I moved it, just an inch or so above its parent boulder, a quiet voice inside me rose sharply into focus.
“You shouldn’t have done that!”
The Wart Stone. looking east
Quickly I set it back into place, shaking my head at what I’d done. One of those curious feelings you get at these places sometimes wouldn’t leave me, however much I tried to shake it off. …Silly though it may sound, the echoes inside kept saying over and over to me, “you’re gonna get warts now you’ve done that!” Logically, of course, that made no sense whatsoever. I’d only ever had one wart in my life, a couple of decades ago. And yet, a few days later, one of the little blighters emerged on my finger! So there was only one thing for it! If this was a Wart Stone, I should revisit it again and place my afflicted finger back onto the wart and ask it to be taken back into the stone.
A week or so later, I clambered all the way up the mountainside again and asked the place to forgive my stupidity and take back the wart. Apologising to the spirit of the stone, I rubbed my finger on the curious coloured rock and, I have to be honest, didn’t know what to expect.
I spent the next few hours meandering here and there over the hills and cast the thought of the Wart Stone back into my unconscious. But a few days later it had started shrinking – and within a week, had completely gone! This faint relic of an older culture, this Clach na Foinne had performed its old ways again, as in animistic ages past…
Going out of Killin towards Kenmore on the A827 road, immediately past the Bridge of Lochay Hotel, turn left. Go down here for just over 2 miles and park-up where a small track turns up to the right, close to the riverside and opposite a flat green piece of land—right by The Green cup-marked rock-face. Walk up the small bendy track for about ⅔-mile (1km) and eventually, high above the tree-line, the road splits. Right here, go through the gate and walk downhill, over the boggy land, cross the burn, then the overgrown wall, and a second overgrown wall. Very close hereby is a small rise in the land amidst the mass of bracken, upon which is the stone in question!
Archaeology & History
Close-up of some cups
This large long, undulating, quartz-rich stretch of rock has two main petroglyphic sections to it, with curious visual sections of natural geological forms accompanying the cup-markings, found either side of the stone on its north and south sides. Its northern face has at least 20 cup-marks, of differing sizes, measuring between one and two inches across and up to half-an-inch deep. Their visual nature is markedly different to those on the more southern side of the stone, where they are generally smaller and much more shallow, perhaps meaning they were carved much earlier than their northern counterparts. One of the cups on this section has a very faint incomplete ring around it.
Running near the middle of the rock is a large long line of quartz and a deep cleft in which I found a curious worked piece of quartz shaped like a large spear-head, and another that looks like it’s been deliberately smoothed all round the edges. Both these pieces fit nicely in my hand. All around the edges of the stone, many tiny pieces of quartz were scattered, as if they had been struck onto the stone—either to try carving the cups (damn problematic!), or for some visual/magickal reason.
