Tag: tombs

Cuparlaw Wood, Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire

megalithix

Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – NS 8046 9916

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 47128
  2. Pendreich

Getting Here

The rise of Cuparlaw cairn
The rise of Cuparlaw cairn

From Bridge of Allan go down the main A9 road towards the University, but turn left up the Sheriffmuir road, 100 yards up turning right to keep you on track up the steep narrow dark lane, turning left at the next split in the road. Follow this for a mile or two all the way to the very end where the tell-tale signs of the unwelcoming english incomers of ‘Private’ now adorns the Pendreich farm buildings.  There’s a dirt-track veering uphill diagonally right from here. Go up here and as it bends slightly left, look into the open copse of trees to the highest point here less than 100 yards to you right. That’s it!

Archaeology & History

Lisa gives an idea of scale
Lisa gives an idea of scale

The remains of this prehistoric tomb sits right on the very crown of the hill round the back of Pendreich, covered on its western edges by old gorse bushes.  Its eye speaks with the nearby sites of the Fairy Knowe to the south, the fallen standing stone of Pendreich Muir to the northeast, the associated cairns to the east, and the Pictish fortress of Dumyat behind them.  When I came up here for the first time last week with local archaeologist Lisa Samson, we found that the land upon which the cairn now lives is fertile with a variety of edible (Boletus, Amanita, etc) and sacred mushrooms (Panaeolina, Psilocybes, etc).  And, despite being told by locals and the archaeology record as a place where very little can be seen, I have to beg to differ.

Fallen stone at the cairn edge
Fallen stone at the cairn edge

The crowning cairn is of course much overgrown and has been dug into in earlier years, but just beneath the grassy surface you can feel and see much of the stone that constitutes this buried site.  The cairn itself rises a couple of feet beneath the grass and is clearly visible as you walk towards it.  At its edges there seems to be the fallen remains of a surrounding ring of stones.  Inside of this ring we can see and feel the overgrown rocky mass and open cists sleeping quietly, awaiting a more modern analysis to tell us of its ancient past.  When the site was visited by the Royal Commission lads in the 1960s, they went on to tell us the following about the place:

“This cairn is situated on the summit of a low knoll within a felled wood, 170 yards ENE of Pendreich farmhouse at a height of 600ft OD. It consists of a low, grass-covered mound which measures 40ft in diameter and stands to a maximum height of 1ft 6in.  The surface is disfigured by pits caused in 1926 when the cairn was opened and three cists were uncovered. Two of these contained no relics; in the third there were fragments of bones and a broken beaker, some sherds of which are preserved in the Smith Institute, Stirling.”

Although we find the scattered remains of old farm equipment lying round the edge of this tomb, it’s still a good site to visit and, I’d say, worthy of further archaeological attention.

References:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments Scotland, Stirling – 2 volumes, HMSO: Edinburgh 1963.
  2. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Stirling District, Central Region, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 1979.
  3. Watson, Angus, The Ochils – Placenames, History, Tradition, Perth & Kinross District Libraries 1995.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Tulloch, Doune, Perthshire

megalithix

Tumulus:  OS Grid Reference – NN 71782 01194

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 24771

Getting Here

Tulloch Knowe from the road
Tulloch Knowe from the road

Head out of Doune village and take the A84 to Stirling. Just a few hundred yards along, over the old river bridge, take the first right along the B8032 (don’t head into Deanston).  Barely 500 yards along on the left-hand side, between the farmhouse and a small group of houses, note the large tree-lined mound in the middle, just over the fence.  It’s quite a big fella – you can’t really miss it.

Archaeology & History

The mound and its trees
The mound and its trees

This is an almost archetypal fairy mound of a monument—and a mighty one at that!—living quietly in the field with its olde trees for company.  Despite its size, it has brought little by way of archaeological attention and has, to my knowledge, never been excavated.  Probably a Bronze Age burial mound, the tomb stands more than 15 feet high and is some 30 yards across east-west and 35 yards north-south.  The Royal Commission (1979) listing of the mound says simply that “this large cairn measures 34m in diameter and up to 5m high.”

References:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Stirling District, Central Region, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 1979.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Craigton, Cleish, Kinross, Kinross-shire

megalithix

Tumulus (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NT 090 993

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 49622

Archaeology & History

A prehistoric tomb of unknown size was opened and robbed of its contents shortly before its total destruction sometime in the middle of the 19th century.  There were no remains seen of the site when Ordnance Survey came here in 1854, and it is unlikely to have been confused with the large Thorn Knowe tumulus a half-mile to the northwest.  A certain Prof. Duns (1876) described in an early article that the only remaining artefact from this tomb was an elaborate early Bronze Age spear-head, found in 1855, which he described at some length in the PSAS journal of the time.  Neither he nor any other colleagues told us anything further about the tumulus.

References:

  1. Duns, J., “Notes on some articles exhibited to the meeting: A bronze spear-head, a small unlooped socketed celt, a sword-shaped stone from Shetland, and a tripod bronze pot,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 11, 1876.
  2. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1933.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Kinpurnie, Newtyle, Angus

megalithix

Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – NO 2808 4069

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 30914

Getting Here

The giant Kinpurnie cairn
The giant Kinpurnie cairn

From the large village of Newtyle, take the straight road west as if heading to Kettins.  About half-a-mile along, 100 yards or so past the turn-off to Kinpurnie Castle on your left – stop!  In the second field after the turn-off, halfway up the slope you’ll see a large circular rise in the land with a crown of large trees sitting thereon. That’s the cairn!

Archaeology & History

Not far from the impressive Keillor standing stone is this huge prehistoric tomb.  Measuring about 90 feet across and more than 7 feet high in places, the mass of rocks making up the site is now crowned by a healthy ring of trees.  Near the middle of it you can see a collapsed tomb or cist, but there may be more than one inside this giant fella.  Its size implies that it was a tomb or burial centre for tribal elders, leaders or shamans.  When we visited the site last week, the field was still in full crop, so we couldn’t take a close look at it and must return again at a later date.  Apart from a brief note of the site in the Royal Commission (1983) archaeology listing for the county, no details have been made of this huge cairn—which is incredible in itself!

References:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, The Archaeological Sites & Monuments of Central Angus, Angus District, Tayside Region, HMSO: Edinburgh 1983.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


MacRee’s Cairn, Glen Meurain, Fortingall, Perthshire

megalithix

Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – NN 3959 4375

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 23899
  2. Gleann Meran

Getting Here

MacRee's Cairn, looking south
MacRee’s Cairn, looking south

Get to Pubil at the top of Glen Lyon, then walk on the track on the north side of Loch Lyon.  Several miles along you turn up Glen Meurain. When you reach the crossing of the stream, follow the waters up Allt Meurain for about 3-400 yards until you find a small flat section of marshland right by the streamside. You’ll notice rocky undulations of human remains here, and a distinct small cairn of rocks near the top of this section. Have a good rest here (and I’d advise avoiding the place in the summer months).

Archaeology & History

Remote indeed is this small cairn—less than 3 feet high and 4 feet across—sitting by the burn-side in a place many miles from any human habitation.  It is found amidst a small cluster of other archaeological remains close to each other, as if indicating a settlement of sorts, abandoned probably around the time of the Highland Clearances.  Although it is highlighted on modern OS-maps in antiquated lettering, the cairn here looks like it is only a few centuries old.  A larger mass of rubble stone is found adjacent to the small pile of rocks, from which it may originally have been taken.  Without archaeological analysis we will not know for certain the real age of this old tomb.

MacRee's Cairn & adjacent rubble
MacRee’s Cairn & adjacent rubble

Folklore

The small grassy hillside immediately across the trout stream here is known as Sith Trom’aidh – the Sad Fairy mound, whose history appears to have been lost.  Alexander Stewart (1928) told that this cairn was the burial place of one of Colin Campbell’s dairymaids, found and slain here during a skirmish with cattle raiders in the 16th century.

References:

  1. Stewart, Alexander, A Highland Parish; or, The History of Fortingall, Alex MacLaren & Sons: Glasgow 1928.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Drizzlecombe 13, Ditsworthy Warren, Sheepstor, Devon

megalithix

Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – SX 592 675

Archaeology & History

Drizzlecombe Cairn 13 (after Butler 1994)
Drizzlecombe Cairn 13 (after Butler 1994)

A very well-preserved prehistoric cist and cairn (grave), sat amidst a valuable prehistoric landscape full of megaliths and other important prehistoric remains.  Megalith enthusiast and antiquarian, Nik Megalithic, told that:

“The cairn is about 12 m diameter and 1 metre high, and has a large Kist in the middle.  The cist has side slabs about 2 metres long and spaced 1 metre apart, and it is about 0.7m deep. The large capstone is tipped off to the west, and can be seen protruding above the cairn from quite some distance away.”

Described in association with the rich mass of other tombs and megalithic stone rows here, author Jeremy Butler told that,

“Cairn 13 is also in line with (cairns) 1-4, but just out of sight around the hillside 150m to the northwest.  The mound contains a well-preserved cist, “a very fine example”, according to Worth, who cleared it out about 1900 but with “no result from excavation.”  The displaced cover and massive side-slabs project well beyond its ends.”

Both Butler and Worth mention how cairn 13 is part of an alignment with two other cairns very close by.

Folklore

Spike Milligan in his tomb
Spike Milligan in his tomb

Although legends of giants and pixy folk are well known round here, there is nothing specific I can find to this one site. One of the most important finds in recent years—as the photo above shows quite clearly—was the fact that before joining The Goons, the British comedian Spike Milligan used to live in this prehistoric tomb. When asked why he didn’t live in a house like other normal people, he invited us in for a cup of tea.  Some historians believe that the person in the photo is in fact Mr R.H. Worth—author of Worth’s Dartmoor—but Mr Milligan insisted that Worth was an imposter!

References:

  1. Butler, Jeremy, Dartmoor Atlas of Antiquities – volume 3, Devon Books: Tiverton 1994.
  2. Crossing, William, Tales of the Dartmoor Pixies, W.H. Hook: London 1890.
  3. Grinsell, Leslie V., The Ancient Burial Mounds of England, Methuen: London 1936.
  4. Worth, R. Hansford, Worth’s Dartmoor, David & Charles: Newton Abbot 1988.

Acknowledgements: – Huge thanks to Nik Megalithic for the info and old photo of ‘Spike Milligan’ in his tomb.

©Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


St. John’s Green, Colchester, Essex

megalithix

Tumulus (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – TL 9965 2467

Also Known as:

  1. Monument no. 384079 (PastScape)

Archaeology & History

St Johns Green, Colchester
Decorated prehistoric urn from St John’s Green tumulus

In a prehistoric burial mound that was destroyed by the usual self-righteous arrogance of industrialists, this well-decorated urn or beaker in the old photo (right) was somehow retrieved. Included in Dave Clarke’s (1970) major survey on such vessels (as an Abercrombie type A, no less!), the remains came to light in January 1930, “during the laying of a gas main under the west footpath of Flagstaff Road, about 100 yards south of St. John’s Green.”  Although the barrow or tumulus had already been levelled, sheer diligence and care on behalf—one believes—of antiquarian M.R. Hull saved the vessel from an otherwise inevitable doom!

In Mr Hull’s (1946) article on to this and other similar finds in Essex, he described how the urn, about seven inches high,

“…stood upright in the side of the trench, only 18in below the surface.  The ground had been disturbed before, and one side of the beaker was badly damaged… The clay was fine, but contains some sparse grit, fairly large and white.  It is light brown-red in colour and black in the break. The body is decorated all over with impressed lines, some done with the print of a stick or bone, some in an indefinable way which produces an almost maggot-like impression of varying length, and some with the end of a comb, as on the Type B beakers, but the teeth are oblong (very narrow) instead of square—the comb in fact, was very thin, at least at the point.”

References:

  1. Clarke, David L., Beaker Pottery of Great Britain and Ireland – volume 2, Cambridge University Press 1970.
  2. Hull, M.R., “Five Bronze Age Beakers from North-East Essex,” in Antiquaries Journal, volume 26, Jan-April 1946.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Aberdour, Fife

megalithix

Cairn (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NT 19 85

Archaeology & History

Nothing seems to known of the whereabouts of an old prehistoric cairn, positioned on one of the hills in Aberdour parish.  It was described in the Old Statistical Account of the region around 1791, and may have been on the place known as White Law on the northern edge of the town, now built over.  The account told:

“Not far from the village of Aberdour, on a flat on the top of a hill, there is one of those cairns or tumuli so frequently met with in Scotland. The farmer on whose farm it is situated, when carrying away stones some years ago, discovered a stone coffin in which were found the skeleton of a man, the head of a spear made of copper, with the copper nails by which it had been fixed to the shaft, and a piece of clear substance, like amber, supposed to have been an amulet. The coffin, with a great part of the cairn still remain. The tumulus has been conical, the coffin being exactly in the centre of the base, from which to the circumference, it measures 20 paces. The height cannot now be ascertained. There have been found in the same cairn several earthen vessels containing human bones. The vessels were flat, narrower at the bottom than top, and without any covering. The farmer digging in the same field, in another place, found such a quantity of human bones that he was obliged to desist.”

The finding of ‘copper’ spearheads in the tomb indicates either a Bronze Age or Iron Age period.  The brilliant Audrey Henshall (1965) thought the metal remains were more probably bronze.  An exploration of the field-names of the area might prove useful in helping to locate the whereabouts of this cairn.

References:

  1. Henshall, A.S. & Wallace, J.C., “A Bronze Age cist burial at Masterton, Pitreavie, Fife”, in Proceedings of the Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 96, 1965.
  2. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross, and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1933.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Hamilton Farm, Cambuslang, Lanarkshire

megalithix

Tumulus (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – NS 633 617

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 45084

Archaeology & History

In days of olde, close to the modern M8 on the edge of the modern industrial estate north of Eastfield, was once an old solitary tomb whose home had laid here, undisturbed, until the coming of the Industrialists.  Thought to have been a Bronze Age tumulus, it was destroyed sometime around 1768 according to the regional historian David Ure (1793) who told that,

“A small mound at Hamilton Farm was levelled about 25 years ago.  In it was found a “stone coffin” containing human bones.”

The Royal Commission (1978) lads think this may have been the same prehistoric tomb that was reported found on the nearby estate of Farme and destroyed that same year.  We have no idea what became of the remains and no trace is left of the site.

References:

  1. Royal Commission on Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland. Lanarkshire: An Inventory of the Prehistoric and Roman Monuments, HMSO: Edinburgh 1978.
  2. Ure, David, The History of Rutherglen and East Kilbride, Glasgow 1793.

© 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