Standing Stone: OS Grid Reference – NM 87901 04877
Getting Here

On the A816 road, a mile-and-a-bit north of Kilmartin, take the small road (east) to Ford—passing the Creagantairbh stone on your right, then a bit further on the Auchinellan stone on your left. Go through Ford village, making sure to stick to the road that goes along the north side of Loch Awe — as if you’re heading to Dalavich. Just fractionally over a mile out of Ford village, just where the road begins to swerve into a large bend, there’s a small left-turn that takes you to some houses. Just 60-70 yards along this little road, take the trivial little path on your right that takes you straight to a piece of manicured scrubland. If you walk into it, and bear left, you’ll see what you’re looking for. It’s unmissable!
Archaeology & History
When I first visited here in the 1990s, a farm building stood by this huge standing stone and there were no other houses nearby. How things change—but thankfully our old sentinel stone is still living here.


It was highlighted by the Ordnance Survey lads on their early map of the area, and visited a few years later by the great petroglyphic pioneer J. Romilly Allen. (1880) Standing eleven feet tall and more than four feet across at the base, Allen noticed that, about four feet above ground-level, someone had carved an old cross onto the northeast face of the stone (you can just make it out in the attached photos). It had obviously been carved many centuries ago, by a wandering christian no doubt—although it was incomplete and never finished. Perhaps the person who carved it was chased away by local folk, who would obviously and rightly seen such an act as outright vandalism. The cross was deemed by Ian Fisher (2001) and the Royal Commission (1992) to be medieval in nature. Apparently there’s another, much fainter cross that was first mentioned by Marion Campbell etched on the other side of the stone, but in all the times I came here I was never able to make it out.


But even further back in time someone had carved a cup-marking on the stone—and the cross was etched onto the same spot, enclosing the cup-mark. When I lived nearby, I made a sketch (long since lost) of what seemed to be two other faint cup-marks at one end of the extended arms of the cross, but on our recent visit here these were very hard to make out. When Ron Morris (1981) mentioned the stone in his survey, he mentioned its proximity to other cup-and-ring carvings immediately to the southeast and a hillock thereby, wondering whether there was “an astronomical complex” going on here. I doubt it—but I like the idea!
But it’s the size of the stone that’s most impressive here and keeps up with the tradition of similar megaliths in and around the Kilmartin area. Check the place out when you’re hunting the other stones nearby. You won’t be disappointed!
Folklore
Local tradition ascribed this great stone as marking the grave of an ancient warrior. The full folk tale seems to have been lost.
References:
- Allen, J. Romilly, “Note on a Standing Stone near Ford, Argyllshire,” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 14, 1880.
- Campbell, Marion, Mid Argyll: An Archaeological Guide, Dolphin: Glenrothes 1984.
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Campbell, Marion & Sandeman, M., “Mid Argyll: An Archaeological Survey,” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 95, 1964.
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Christison, D., “On the Standing Stones and Cup-Marked Rocks, etc. in the Valley of the Add and some Neighbouring Districts of Argyle,” in Proceedings Society Antiquaries, volume 38, 1904.
- Fisher, Ian, Early Medieval Sculpture in the West Highlands and Islands, RCAHMS: Edinburgh 2001.
- Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
- Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Argyll – Volume 6: Mid-Argyll and Cowal, HMSO: Edinburgh 1988.
- Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Argyll – Volume 7: Mid-Argyll and Cowal: Medieval and Later Monuments, HMSO: Edinburgh 1992.
- Ruggles, Clive, Megalithic Astronomy, BAR: Oxford 1984.
- Swarbrick, Olaf, A Gazetteer of Prehistoric Standing Stones in Great Britain, BAR: Oxford 2012.
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