Tag: Stone Circles

Clach na Croiche, Balnaguard, Perthshire

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Standing Stones:  OS Grid Reference – NN 94624 52118

Also Known as:

  1. Balnaguard Farm
  2. Gallows Stone

Getting Here

Site on the 1899 OS-map

Just as you’re coming into Balnaguard village on the B898 road from the eastern side (as if you’ve come via the A9 from near Pitlochry), just where the road crosses a small burn (stream), take the first farm-track on your right and walk down to the end where it meets the field.  Here, walk to your left left and you’ll see a gate that takes you into the field.  You should have already noticed the standing stone before you even open the gate!  It’s about 100 yards in front of you.  You can’t really miss it.

Archaeology & History

Clach na Croiche

Standing alone in this field a short distance south of the River Tay is this fine old standing stone, nearly seven feet high, from whose locale we gaze west to the opening of the Perthshire mountains—but in times gone by it wasn’t alone.  Less than 10 yards east of the Clach na Croiche stood another seven-foot tall standing stone and, some six yards further east (and along the same axis) there may have stood another one, some 7½ feet high.  This alignment ran east-west in line with the rising and setting of the sun at the equinoxes. (whether that was deliberate or not is another matter altogether) and was first noticed by the great antiquarian Fred Coles (1904) in one of his many megalithic ventures.  He wondered “whether they (were) fallen Standing Stones, or the covers of cists” and when they were looked at by Margaret Stewart in 1971 she found that one of them laid beside “a shallow socket outlined with packing stones”—meaning that it had stood upright.  The other stone didn’t seem as certain, although Stewart did report finding “a single cupmark…on the eastern side of the upper surface.”  We’ve yet to see a photo of this carving.

The Clach na Croiche also has its own cup-markings, just above the bottom of the stone on its southern-face.  Margaret Stewart described them  as being “strung out irregularly across the face.”  Sounds about right!  Sadly, somehow, I didn’t get any photos of these when I last visited, but will grab some the next time I’m there.

Looking to the west
Looking to the northeast

In the fields either side of the stones, ancient tombs have been found.  Around 1887, the Duke of Atholl dug under some of the stones in the field and found a “cup” or urn which Coles reported “was found in a cist in the haugh near Tom-na-Croiche.”  Then, in 1969, the farmer John MacBeth was ploughing the field and unearthed another cist some 15 yards north-west of the present upright.  The base of the cist was cobbled and whilst whilst the tomb itself was filled-in, the farmer moved the covering stone to the fence at the west-side of the field (NN 9455 5205).  Also, on the eastern side of the field in 1971, Stewart reported finding what she thought were the remains of cremated bones that seemed to have been part of another prehistoric structure.

Fred Cole’s 1904 sketch
Looking to the southeast

Nearly 250 yards to the west of the stone, in the adjacent field, a huge prehistoric cairn—known as the Sketewan Cairn—was uncovered and fully excavated in the late 1980s.  It originally stood some four feet high and was nearly seventy feet across.  Within the cairn complex, a small standing stone accompanied some cremations.  Unfortunately this entire archaeological site has since been completely covered over.  You wouldn’t even know it was there if you stood right next to it!  But if you want to see Balnaguard’s remaining tombs, head for the Fairy Mound right in the heart of the village…

References:

  1. Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire – North Eastern Section,” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries Scotland, volume 42, 1908.
  2. Dixon, John H., Pitlochry, Past and Present, L. Mackay: Pitlochry 1925.
  3. Kennedy, James, Folklore and Reminiscences of Strathtay and Grandtully, Munro Press: Perth 1927.
  4. Omand, Donald (ed.), The Perthshire Book, Birlinn: Edinburgh 1999.
  5. Stevenson, J., “Prehistory,” in Omand’s The Perthshire Book, Edinburgh 1999.
  6. Stewart, Margaret E.C., “Perthshire: Balnaguard”, in Discovery & Excavation in Scotland, 1971.
  7. Swarbrick, Olaf, A Gazetteer of Prehistoric Standing Stones in Great Britain, BAR: Oxford 2012.
  8. Yellowlees, Sonia, Cupmarked Stones in Strathtay, Scotland Magazine: Edinburgh 2004.

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 

Mylnefield, Longforgan, Perthshire

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Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NO 332 430 (approximation)

Archaeology & History

This stone circle wasn’t logged in either Barnatt (19890 or Burl’s (2000) standard megalith inventories.  The only mention of it seems to be in Alex Elliott’s (1911) rare work on the region, in which he described it as being located “within the grounds of Mylnefield”.  All trace of it would seem to have gone.  Elliott told it to have been,

“elliptical in form and consisted of six large boulders – three at the east, three at the west, with a gap between capable of holding an equal number of stones.”

References:

  1. Elliott Alexander, Lochee – As it Was and As it Is, J.P. Mathew: Dundee 1911.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Cecilmount, Blackford, Perthshire

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Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NN 9020 0985

Also Known as:

  1. Blackford Glebe
  2. Brookfield House

Archaeology & History

In the 18th Century there stood, on the slight rise of the land about 150 yards south of Brookfield House, one of those “circles of stones…in the glebe”, of the sort that “are supposed to have been places of Druidical worship,” wrote John Stevenson. (1792)  Sadly, sometime in the 19th Century, the entire site was uprooted and destroyed, leaving no trace of the place.  Not good…. 🙁

References:

  1. Stevenson, John, “Parish of Blackford,” in The Statistical Account of Scotland – volume 3, (edited by, John Sinclair) William Creech: Edinburgh 1792.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Clach Mhor, Aberfeldy, Perthshire

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Cup-Marked Stone (destroyed?):  OS Grid Reference – NN 8575 4901

Also Known as:

  1. Clachmore

Archaeology & History

The Clach Mhor, or the Big Stone, is all but forgotten as an antiquarian relic in Aberfeldy.  It’s history is somewhat piecemeal.  First described in Hugh MacMillan (1884)’s essay on local cup-and-ring stones, he told that:

“A short distance above the village of Aberfeldy, where General Wade’s old road emerges from the houses, a huge stone, called the Clach Mhor, lies on the left-hand side in a slanting position half  erect, as if supported by the garden wall of which it forms a part. …In all likelihood it originally stood erect, and formed one of a group of similar stones, its companions having been broken up in the formation of the road. …On the upper face there are some small cup-markings, not quite so well formed as usual, owing to the hardness of the material… The fact that they occur on only one side of the stone, and are scattered indiscriminately all over its surface, are sufficient to convince any one who is skilled in the subject that they are genuine specimens of prehistoric sculpture.”

Nearly thirty years after this initial description, MacMillan (1901) found that it had previously been a part of The Tullich stone circle, and following its destruction the Clach Mhor was moved and used as “part of a garden wall on the old military road passing along its base.”

More than fifty years later, the Aberfeldy historian N.D. Mackay (1954) told that up to 1910 the Clach Mhor was a conspicuous object, standing “as it were overlooking and to some extent overhanging the roadway down near the Square.” However, it

“was blasted and broken up in 1910 in the course of road widening operations, but a considable part of it was built into, and still forms the lower corner of, the garden boundary wall, nearest The Square, of the house which bears its name, ‘Clachmhor’.  Its present position is slightly east of the site it occupied when I first knew it and, unless Wade’s men did actually move it, the site it occupied for centuries.”

Mackay also mentioned what he called the “indentations” on the stone which MacMillam deemed as cup-marks, but he pointed out that one Rev. John MacLean “believed they were made by the levers, jacks, etc, of (General) Wade’s men” when they cut the road into Aberfeldy in the 18th century, whilst

“A third solution was given by the son of a one-time local strong man called Big Robert, “What a strong man my father was,” he said, “he lifted that stone. Don’t you see the marks of his fingers on it?””

It’s not known what became of the Clach Mhor and whether it remains hiding in some walling, or whether it has met its demise….

References:

  1. Mackay, N.D., Aberfeldy Past and Present, Town Council: Aberfeldy 1954.
  2. MacMillan, Hugh, “Notice of Cup-Marked Stones near Aberfeldy”, in Proceedings Society of Antiquaries Scotland, volume 18, 1884.
  3. MacMillan, Hugh, The Highland Tay, Virtue: London 1901.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

The Tullich, Aberfeldy, Perthshire

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Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NN 857 489

Archaeology & History

In an early essay on the rock art around Aberfeldy, Hugh MacMillan (1884) remarked on what he thought was a tumulus on the southern slope above the town and where a large old petroglyph once lived.  Subsequently (MacMillan 1901), in his beautiful artistic foray through upper Tayside, he revised his earlier remarks telling that:

“On the side of a high, tree-covered hillock, rising up abruptly behind the central part of Aberfeldy, called the Tullich, there was once a Druidical circle, one of the huge stones of which, called the Clachmore, forms part of a garden wall on the old military road passing along its base.”

The circle was mentioned in Mackay’s (1954) excellent work, albeit in the past tense, and he could add no more to it other than his memory of the whereabouts of the Clach Mhor (as it was more accurately known), on which were numerous cup-markings. (Note: the grid-reference to this site is an approximation)

Folklore

In bygone times the people of Aberfeldy observed the celebration of Samhain, the old pre-christian New Year’s Day—a.k.a. Hallowe’en—on November 11th.  Interestingly for us, “bonfires were numerous and there was always a great blaze on the Tullich,” said Dr John Kennedy. (1901)  Considering the small area of The Tullich, it would be unusual if such festivities did not have some relationship with the stone circle.  Samhain relates primarily to the passing over of the dead in the cycle of the year: the spirits of the ancestors moving through the worlds.  If this circle had such a relationship with the bonfires, it may have been a ring cairn and not a free-standing stone circle.

References:

  1. Kennedy, John, Old Highland Days, Religious Tract Society 1901.
  2. Mackay, N.D., Aberfeldy Past and Present, Town Council: Aberfeldy 1954.
  3. MacMillan, Hugh, “Notice of Cup-Marked Stones near Aberfeldy”, in Proceedings Society of Antiquaries Scotland, volume 18, 1884.
  4. MacMillan, Hugh, The Highland Tay, Virtue: London 1901.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Kirkgunzeon, Kirkcudbrightshire

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Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NX 8657 6668

Archaeology & History

Little is known about this stone circle, which had apparently been destroyed sometime in the first half of the 19th century.  The local Rev. J. Gillespie spoke about it with the great Fred Coles (1895), who told that it was “near the manse of Kirkgunzeon.” The site was listed in Burl’s (2000) magnum opus, where he wondered if it might have been a cairn; and interestingly, when the Ordnance Survey lads came here, they spoke with a Mrs J. Moffat, the oldest inhabitant in the area, who told that,

“a circle of stones c.30 ft in diameter with a small mound in the centre stood on flat ground at NX 8657 6668. Over the years successive farmers have removed the larger stones and now only the slight mound, c.4.0 m diam. x 0.3 m high, with several clearance stones on top, survives to mark the site of the stone circle.”

References:

  1. Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
  2. Coles, Fred, “The Stone Circles of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright”, in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 29, 1895.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Knockshinnie, Kirkcudbright, Kirkcudbrightshire

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Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NX 681 450

Archaeology & History

In an area that’s littered with prehistoric rock art, this “stone circle” at Knockshinne—listed in Burl’s (2000) magnum opus—is a debatable entry that was described in one of Fred Coles’ (1895) many articles on such matters.  When he came here he told how to the west,

“of Balmae House, and near the base of Knockshinnie, four stones in situ, all, I think, granite, and the sites of six others as distinctly observable…. A  massive stone lies outside the circle on the south.  Diameter 72 feet.”

Subsequent visits to the same spot by the Royal Commission (1914) gave a somewhat different interpretation to that suggested by Coles.  They told us that,

“This setting of stones, noted elsewhere as a stone circle, lies on rough pasture some 100 yards below the road passing to the south-west of Knockshinnie, and about ¼ mile west-north-west of Balmae.  It consists of four granite blocks, the highest standing about li feet above ground, placed on an arc with a chord of 76 feet and radius at centre of 21 feet.  The stones are placed at irregular distances on a sloping bank, so that the lowest stone is at 8 feet lower elevation than the upper one. Other two displaced boulders and a number of smaller stones lie in a heap to the north-west, and the beds of stones which have been removed from the setting are visible. Though the boulders have been placed in position by man’s hand, it is doubtful if they have ever been part of a stone circle, and from their situation on a slope below a plateau it is probable that they represent the line of an old dyke.”

By the 1970s, all that remained here was a line of three stones, but these have subsequently been removed or destroyed.  Modern archaeological interpretation goes against Burl (2000) and Coles, suggesting that the stones were more likely part of an ancient dyke.

References:

  1. Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
  2. Coles, Fred, “The stone circles of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright”, in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 29, 1895.
  3. Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments & Constructions of Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in Galloway – volume 2: County of the Stewatry of Kirkcudbrightshire , HMSO: Edinburgh 1914.

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

Wilson Scar, Shap, Cumbria

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Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NY 549 182

Archaeology & History

This site has been completely destroyed by the huge eyesore of a quarry that we all see when we’re travelling up the M6 north, above Shap.  John Waterhouse (1985) told that “a rescue excavation” was carried out here with help from the kids at Penrith Queen Elizabeth School, shortly before its destruction in 1952, but now there is no trace left of it.  When it was first described by J.E. Spence (1935), the circle had already been damaged by a wall that cut right through its centre.  He told:

Spence’s 1935 plan

“The circle, which is 6o feet in diameter, is composed of 35 stones, 20 being on the west and 15 on the east side of the boundary wall running through the circle from north to south.  The stones of which the circle is composed are Borrowdale erratics, a large number of which are scattered over the adjoining ground on both sides of the wall but more thickly in Sweet Holme Pasture. The  stones, which vary up to 5 feet 9 inches by 3 feet, are larger and more numerous in the north-west quadrant where the tallest stands 1 foot 8 inches above the level of the turf.  The ground within the circle is level, but to the south and west it slopes gently down from the edge of the circle in such a manner as to suggest that the area within the circle has been levelled.”

1952 plan laid over Spence’s 1935 plan

Spence told that an ancient “sunken trackway” led outwards from the circle to the south-west in the direction of Rosgill, but when the 1952 excavation occurred, no remains of such a track were found; nor was the wall that had cut through it; and the north-easterly section of the circle had been cut into and re-laid, presumably by the quarrymen.  It was quite plain, wrote G.G. Sieveking (1984), “that this portion of the monument was encroached upon in the summer of 1952, and hastily reconstructed for the benefit of the archaeologists.”

Their excavation found that some internal sections of this ring had been paved with thin limestone slabs and they also uncovered two small cairns, neither of which possessed anything.  However, they did find four funerary deposits within the monument: one at the northeastern section of the circle (no.1); another near the centre (no.4); and remains of a cremation west of centre (no.3); but the most complete find was at the western side of the ring, where a “disarticulated inhumation burial was lying immediately beneath the turf line in a shallow grave 1.35 m long, surrounded by a setting of small boulders.”  It was a near complete human skeleton.  This place was obviously, at times, used in ceremonies for the dead.

Shortly after the archaeological examination of the site, it was blasted away by quarrying.  Gone!

References:

  1. Barnatt, John, Stone Circles of Britain – volume 2, BAR: Oxford 1989.
  2. Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
  3. Farrah, Robert W.E., A Guide to the Stone Circles of Cumbria, Hayloft: Kirkby Stephen 2008.
  4. Seton, Ray, The Reason for the Stone Circles in Cumbria, privately published: Morecambe 1995
  5. Sieveking, G.G., “Excavation of a Stone Circle at Wilson Scar, Shap North 1952,” in Transactions Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society, volume 84, 1984.
  6. Spence, J.E., “A Stone Circle in Shap Rural Parish,” in Transactions Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society, volume 35, 1935.
  7. Waterhouse, John, The Stone Circles of Cumbria, Phillimore: Chichester 1985.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Kor Stone, Logiealmond, Perthshire

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 9733 3004

Also Known as:

  1. Car Stone
  2. Carse Stone

Getting Here

The huge Kor Stone

Take the tiny long winding B8063 road that runs west off the A9 at Luncarty, meandering eventually to the entry of the Sma’ Glen.  If you’re coming via Luncarty, after going west for 8 miles (12.9km) you pass the hamlet of Harrietfield and just a few hundred yards further a dirt-track on your right goes uphill to Milton.  If you’re coming via Crieff/Sma’ Glen direction, along the B8063 road, cross the Bridge of Buchanty and after nearly 3 miles (4.7km) just past a bit of a hairpin, you’ll see the track up to Milton on your left.  Walk up, past all the newly modernised houses and go through the gate, bearing right where, in the field on your right (thru another gate) you’ll see this big fella standing alone 200 yards to the east along the fence-line.

Archaeology & History

Looking N to Crochan Hill

This is a bit of a hidden beauty!  Standing nearly ten feet tall on the crest of an elongated ridge with the land ever so gently declining either side of its proud stand, it beckons the impression of partners long since gone (or something truly olde)… and so it proved to be.  Very little has been written about the place, despite its impressive stature.  It seems to have been described firstly in J.W. Thomson’s essay on the local parish in April 1837 (subsequently published in the NSA in 1845) where, ascribing it as usual to the druids of olde, he told that,

“at the western extremity of Logiealmond, there is one remarkable block about 12 feet high and 18 feet in circumference, standing upon its narrow end, with three other stones in its immediate vicinity.  It is commonly called the Kor Stone.”

Kor Stone, looking SE
Fred Coles’ 1911 sketch

William Marshall (1880) also mentioned these three additional standing stones, saying that they were “apparently part of a row.”  But they are long gone and we know not what became of them.  They were probably uprooted and included in some of the nearby walling or buildings (quite a lot of suspicious-looking stones scatter the edges of many fields around Logiealmond).  If we look closely at the surface of our Kor Stone, in earlier times someone has fixed metal loops into the monolith to make it part of an early fence or gate.

The stone was highlighted on the 1867 OS-map of the area and described in the accompanying Name Book,

“Carse” Stone on 1867 map

“A stone about ten feet high, supposed by some people to be the remains of a Druidical Circle, by others to be a mark on a division of lands: in support of the latter supposition they bring forward the fact of a large stone at Dunkeld and one near Fowlis – both similar to this one – and The Carse Stane being in the same straight line.”

The great Fred Coles (1911) also gave the place his attention, but apart from a brief description of its size and position, he found no additional lore about the other three stones, telling us simply:

“It is an imposingly large and erect block of rugged whinstone, 9 feet 9 inches in height, with a basal girth of 15 feet 10 inches, but at about midway of its height the girth increases to fully 17 feet. The view…shows the Stone as seen from the east.”

In truth, the location of this giant stone on the ridge strongly suggests it was once part of a much greater megalithic neolithic monument.  But whatever that might have looked like, we may never know.  It’s an awesome site though.  Well worth checking out if you’re in the area.

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.
  3. Marshall, William, Historic Scenes in Perthshire, William Oliphant: Edinburgh 1880.
  4. Thomson, J.W., “Parish of Moneydie,” in New Statistical Account of Scotland – volume X: Perth, William Blackwood: Edinburgh 1845.

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

Bachilton, Methven, Perthshire

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Stone Circle (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NO 0015 2411

Also Known as:

  1. Skelfie

Archaeology & History

Sometime between the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a Perthshire architect by the name of  Thomas Ross was informed by a farm-worker called John Lawson who lived at Meckphen, that a stone circle had existed at Bachilton, but which had been destroyed when he was young.  The information was gained by the great Fred Coles (1910) during his extensive survey work in and around Perthshire, but all trace of the site had gone when he came to write about it.  He told us simply:

“Many years ago, several Stones of a Circle stood here, upon what appeared to be an artificial, and quite distinct mound which is still visible.  The Stones were, however, undermined and buried, so as to be out of the reach of the plough, close to their respective sites.”

All subsequent searches for the site have proved fruitless and the circle’s long gone.

References:

  1. Coles, F.R., “Report on stone circles in Perthshire principally Strathearn,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 45, 1911.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian