Tayside

Cnoc Dubh, Moulin, Pitlochry, Perthshire

17/02/202321/02/2023 megalithix

Stone Circle (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NN 9424 5871

Archaeology & History

Missing from the primary surveys of Burl (2000) and Barnatt (1989), a mention of this long lost site was made by local historian Hugh Mitchell (1923) in his survey of the area. He told that,

“On the east side of the Moulin road beyond the Hydro Hotel a knoll and a clump of trees will be noticed on the right, inside the Hydropathic grounds; this knoll is known as the Cnoc Dubh, or “Black Knoll” and still bears an uncanny reputation as being an old site of Pagan worship. There was at one time a stone circle on it, but the stones are said to have been broken up, fully 100 years ago, to build the old farmhouse of Balnadrum.”

Something ancient was there, obviously, as it was mentioned in another earlier account—albeit just a tourist guide of Atholl—which said that, on

“the knoll known as Knock-Dhu, within the (Pitlochry Hydro) grounds, are the remains of a pre-historic fort, now overgrown with pine trees.”

References:

Anon., Atholl Illustrated, L. Mackay: Pitlochry c.1910.
Dixon, John H., Pitlochry Past and Present, L. Mackay: Pitlochry 1925.
Mitchell, H., Pitlochry and District: Its Topography, Archaeology and History, L. Mackay: Pitlochry 1923.

Links:

Canmore

Cross Well, Dundee, Angus

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Healing Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NO 4032 3025

Archaeology & History

This old water supply had no direct ‘holy’ nature, despite its proximity to the cathedral, the old market cross and St Clement’s Well some fifty yards away! Most odd. A much more mundane story lies behind this long lost water source. The Dundee historian William Kidd (1901) told us,

“When the public wells were erected, about the year 1749, to supply the town with water from the Lady-well reservoir at foot of Hilltown, one was placed on the High Street, on the east side of the Cross, and was called the Cross Well.”

It didn’t have too long a life either—much like the old Market Cross, for,

“In the year 1777 that quaint structure was demolished. The platform and octagonal tower were carted away as rubbish, the least decayed stones being selected to be used in other buildings. The stone shaft, also, was preserved, and placed beside the Old Steeple. With the demolition of the Cross, the Cross Well was cleared away from the High Street, but, as water was an essential to the people, the well was re-erected behind the Town House in St. Clement’s Lane. In that situation it remained for nearly one hundred years, when, being rendered unnecessary by the introduction of the Lintrathen water supply, it was also demolished, along with the old buildings in the Vault and St. Clement’s Lane, to make room for the additions to the Town House.”

References:

Colville, A., Dundee Delineated, A. Colville: Dundee 1822.
Kidd, William, Dundee Market Crosses and Tolbooths, W. Kidd: Dundee 1901.

College Well, Brechin, Angus

05/08/202106/08/2021 megalithix

Sacred Well: OS Grid Reference – NO 5945 6006

Archaeology & History

Highlighted on the 1865 OS-map, this lost water source was located between the Brechin cathedral/round tower and the curiously-named St. Michael’s Mount, whose history seems to be lost. It would seem to be the well which Ruth & Frank Morris (1981) name as the ‘Ancient Well’ in their survey.

Folklore

The reason behind this site being classified as a sacred (or holy) well is based on the tradition that the Culdees had a religious convent here in the 12th century and, according to David Black (1839),

“This convent is believed to have stood a little to the west of the present parish church, in the gardens now belonging to the kirk-session, still called “the College Yards.” A small well of delightfully pure water in these gardens receives the name of the College Well, and is reported, by tradition, to have been the well of the Culdee convent.”

On the issue of St. Michael, students of folklore will know that, in the christian cult, he was an early dragon-slayer. His annual commemoration day is September 29. One of his shamanistic functions “relates to the very old tradition of Michael as the receiver of the souls of the dead.” (Attwater 1965)

References:

Black, David D., The History of Brechin, Alexander Black: Brechin 1839.
Gibson, Colin, Folklore of Tayside, Dundee Museum c.1968.
Morris, Ruth & Frank, Scottish Healing Wells, Alethea: Sandy 1982.

Acknowledgements: Huge thanks for use of the 1st edition OS-map in this site profile, Reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.

Balnasuim (3), Kenmore, Perthshire

27/05/202127/05/2021 megalithix

Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 66075 39622

Getting Here

Take the directions to the Balnasuim (1) carving, then up and across to Balnasuim (2). From here, walk diagonally uphill to your right (NE) for about 150 yards and head to the the very top-corner of this field. You’ll see the large embedded rock emerging out of the ground, just ten yards away from a small stream. You’re there!

Archaeology & History

As Officer Barbrady likes to put it, “move along people, there’s nothing to see here!“—and that’s really the case with this, another of Balnasuim’s petroglyphs. This lichen-encrusted rock has just two simple cup-marks, barely visible when the daylight’s poor – and it’s almost as disappointing when the day is good! In all honesty, in wilfully visiting this site and its geographical compatriots, I can sincerely understand how people can tell us petroglyph-nuts that we “really have nothing better to do” with our time!

Balnasuim (1), Kenmore, Perthshire

26/05/202126/05/2021 megalithix

Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 65813 39268

Getting Here

From Killin, take the A827 road to Kenmore. 6 miles along, on your right, is the track down to the Big Shed at Tombreck. Keep on the A827 for exactly ⅓-mile (0.53km), and opposite the driveway to Craggantoul is a small parking spot. A few yards on the road, over the burn, go thru the gate on your left. From here, follow the straight line of walling uphill and 20 yards before reaching Cragganester (9) carving, follow the line of fencing right (ENE) until you hit the wall more than 350 yards away. From here, follow the walling uphlil 350 yards where it turns a right-angle west. About 50 yards east of the right-angled wall, look around…

Archaeology & History

As with the other carvings up here at Balnasuim, there is little to look at unless you’re one of the ardent petroglyphic crazies! On this small rounded stone, cushioned beneath the skylines of Ben Lawers and Meall Odhar, are at least three cupmarks in a rough arc running from the northern part of the stone, with the most pronounced of them being close to the northern edge of the rock. The others are very shallow and can be difficult to make out in poor sunlight. A possible fourth cupmark with a short protruding line may exist close to the SE part of the stone. The Balnasuim (2) carving is 305 yards (279m) to the NE.

Balnasuim (2), Kenmore, Perthshire

25/05/202126/05/2021 megalithix

Cup-and-Ring Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 65965 39521

Getting Here

From Killin, take the A827 road to Kenmore. 6 miles along, on your right, is the track down to the Big Shed at Tombreck. Keep on the A827 for exactly ⅓-mile (0.53km), and opposite the driveway to Craggantoul is a small parking spot. A few yards on the road, over the burn, go thru the gate on your left. From here, follow the straight line of walling up past Cragganester (9) carving, following the burn uphill parallel to the copse of trees until, after about 800 yards, you reach the wall. From here, walk towards the rounded hill of Meall Odhar and, after about 450 yards, you’ll notice it meets a line of walling that runs downhill. Keep walking along, past this, but after 150 yards, go into the field on your right and walk downhill for about 100 yards. Look around!

Archaeology & History

Despite the climb, plus its description as a ‘cup-and-ring’ stone, this petroglyph is somewhat of a disappointment. An elongated stone, half-covered in earth faces south towards Loch Tay and the mountains across, with a series of very eroded cup-marks.

They are separated into two small groups. At the southwest side of the rock we can see three or four faded cup-marks. The middle of the rock seems devoid of anything, but on its more northeastern side we find four more cups in close attendance to a standard cup-and-ring motif. That’s about it! The Balnasuim (1) carving can be found 305 yards (279m) to the southwest.

Clach an Tuirc, Fearnan, Perthshire

19/05/202119/05/2022 megalithix

Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 72183 44970

Also known as:

Boar Stone

Getting Here

Pretty easy to find unless the vegetation takes over! From Fearnan take the road to Fortingall. Just as you’re going out of Fearnan, in the walling by the very last house on the right-hand side of the road is this large earthfast boulder. Y’ can’t miss it!

Archaeology & History

I first visited the Clach an Tuirc – or the Boar’s Stone – in 1981 when I stayed at Fearnan for a few weeks and, after clambering on top, looked down on the several simple cupmarks. Forty years later, I returned with a camera!

First highlighted on the 1862 OS-map, Fred Coles (1910) made a brief note of the petroglyph in one of his megalithic surveys, but only noticed a single cup, saying:

“Near Cromraor, close to the cottage at Clash na Tuirc, stands the large boulder bearing that name, the Boar Stone. Its highest point is about six feet above the road, and bears one very distinct cup-mark.”

But there are several cup-markings on top of the stone, just as William Gillies (1938) described.

Folklore

Not far from here tradition tells of a legendary figure who is known today only as the Lady of Lawers (whom tradition asserts to have been a member of the Stewart family, from Appin, Argyll – they of the daemonic Red Book of Appin). She made various prophecies, one of which said “that when Clach an Tuirc, the Boar’s Stone at Fearnan, would topple over, a strange heir would come to Balloch.” Though as the stone still aint toppled, we’re still waiting… (let’s just hope this doesn’t augur more of those selfish tories into our mountains who bring with them their mantras of “gerrof mah land”)

References:

Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire (Aberfeldy District),” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 44, 1910.
Gillies, William A., In Famed Breadalbane, Munro Press: Perth 1938.
MacMillan, Hugh, ‘Notice of Two Boulders having Rain-Filled Cavities on the Shores of Loch Tay, Formerly Associated with the Cure of Disease,’ in PSAS 18, 1884. ???
Yellowlees, Walter, Cupmarked Stones in Strathtay, Scotland Magazine: Edinburgh 2004.

Links:

Canmore notes on Clach an Tuirc

Acknowledgements: Huge thanks for use of the 1st edition OS-map in this site profile, Reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.

Cragganester (11), Kenmore, Perthshire

11/03/202112/03/2021 megalithix

Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 65858 38750

Getting Here

From Killin, take the A827 road to Kenmore. 6 miles along, on your right, is the track down to the Big Shed at Tombreck. Keep on the A827 for exactly ⅓-mile (0.53km), and opposite the driveway to Craggantoul is a small parking spot. A few yards on the road, over the burn, go thru the gate on your left. Follow the straight line of walling up for 400 yards it meets where another line of walling running right (E), into the boggy pasture-lands. Walk along here for roughly another 400 yards then go up the slope as if walking up Ben Lawers (N). You’ll come to 2 large boulders next to each other where the slope levels out. It’s the one on your left!

Archaeology & History

This carving is really for the purists amongst you. It’s like most of the carvings along this contour line in that the design is simplistic. Consisting of at least nine cups all on top of the stone, they can be difficult to see amidst the rough garnet and lichen-encrusted rock.

On one of our visits here, when the light cut across the surface at a lower angle, it seemed as if one of the cups had a faint ring around it; but it looked as if the outline of it had been started, but then for some reason the ring was never actually carved. This outline is very faint. We’ve found examples of this at two of the Duncroisk carvings, several miles to the west, where the faintest trace of a ring was outlined, but never carved. Of the cup-marks: five of them are carved on the east-side of the rock and are pretty easy to see (with the ring around one of them), whilst the other four—slightly more difficult to make out—are on its west side. A couple of hundred yards north you can see the Cragganester 10 carving.

Gladsfield Wood Stone, Cargill, Perthshire

01/03/202101/03/2021 Paul Hornby

Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – NO 15607 35797 – NEW DISCOVERY

Getting Here

Turn right off the A93 at Cargill onto the side road at Keepers Cottage and up the hill. Gladsfield Wood is at the top of the hill on your right. Park up at the top side of the Wood and walk along the narrow track to where it crosses another track, look 45º to your right and you’ll see the stone.

Archaeology & History

One of those chance finds that turns up when you’re looking for something else. Recent forestry work had dislodged the stone from its original earthfast position of millenia, only a few feet away. It may have been rotated from its original position. The grey whinstone rock measures around 5′ 8″ (1·75 m) long, 3′ 9″ wide (1·15 m ), 2′ 9″ (0·85m) high, and the moss shows its original depth in the ground. Fortunately the cup marks weren’t damaged in what appears to have been a quite brutal move. On what is now the north east facing side there are three definite and one possible very shallow fourth cup mark. The top cup is the most prominent, while the possible fourth cup is just to the left of the bottom one.

L-R 1. The original position of the stone 2. The stone showing the possible fourth cup 3. The prominent top cup 4. The three definite cups

One for the enthusiasts really, in an area of Strathmore quite rich in megaliths and rock art; whatever the future holds for this dislodged stone in the savage world of agri-business, it is now recorded for posterity!

Cragganester (3), Kenmore, Perthshire

23/11/202024/11/2020 megalithix

Cup-Marked Stone – NN 65632 38144

Getting Here

Archaeology & History

This is another one of the many simple cup-marked petroglyphs scattering the Cragganester and Tombreck regions beneath the slope of Ben Lawers. It’s an elongated, smoothly-shaped ‘female’ stone, aligned north-south, possessing four distinct cups along its crown: three in a small line at the south-end of the stone and a single one close to the north end. However between these is what may be another, shallow fifth cupmark—but this is uncertain.

One notable feature here is that the rock is encrusted with small garnets. This geological ingredient isn’t uncommon in this area, and we’ve found that quite a proportion of the petroglyphs hereby possess this feature. It was probably of some importance to the people who carved them.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Paul Hornby for use of his photograph.