Very close to Auchquhorthies & Auld Bourtreebush this enjoys the same sightlines and atmosphere. It has four nice stones on a raised platform but there does seem to be something suspiciously wrong about it. Nevertheless, I liked it and access to it is so easy, it's worth a look-see.
The stones, in their embanked platform, stand at the four cardinal points. Each has a metal ring embedded in it which, in 1900, held guy ropes to support a flagstaff. It has the air of a reconstructed site about it.
Access. You can park outside it and access to it from the road is along a roped off path which separates you from the horses which now occupy the field.
Well, Stonehead is in horse pasture, but here at Craighead we're in dog pasture. The field is owned by the adjacent Ace Kennels, where you ask and the friendly folk bring the dogs in off the field and let you visit in peace. The kennel owner said the stones are getting two or three lots of visitors a week at the moment.
There's a weird feeling at this mutant four stone circle, perhaps assisted by the ominous industrial chicken sheds at the north end of the field. The stones seem to have been moved and jigged with and all but drained of significance. Two stones are aligned N/S, and one E/W. The fourth stone has the look of a flanker, but if it is then this stone has also been moved, or else the recumbent would have to have been facing south (as at Auchquhorthies nearby).
Certainly, it's an intriguing piece of positioning here, in sight of both the sea and, a mile and a half to the south-west, Hill of Auchlee, which was home to the Cairnwell stone circle. This site may even have been in sight of the Cairnwell stones, but I can't be sure. So much is unknown here, and an air of disjointedness permeates this site.
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Posted by Jane
Posted by greywether
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