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New Craig

Stone Circle

<b>New Craig</b>Posted by drewbhoyImage © drew/amj
Nearest Town:Old Meldrum (7km E)
OS Ref (GB):   NJ745297 / Sheet: 38
Latitude:57° 21' 25.64" N
Longitude:   2° 25' 25.96" W

Added by Merrick

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Fieldnotes

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Visited 27.7.14

Directions:
From Loanhead stone circle continue along the minor road north. When you see the circle remains on your right park on the verge. Access to the field is via a metal gate.


The field was full of cows but I walked past them without fuss. At the far end of the field I had to navigate an electric fence which didn’t prove to be too much of a problem.

The recumbent and its flankers have been built into a dry stone wall which has probably saved the circle from total destruction.

This stone circle is intervisible with the one at Loanhead. Both are on high ground.
Why two stone circles so close together? There again, why do we have so many churches so close together?

I am glad I took the trouble to visit New Craig and would recommend you do the same.
Posted by CARL
18th August 2014ce

Just a little up the road from Loanhead of Daviot New Craig stone circle is just a recumbent and flankers. We couldn't get to it as the field in front was inhabited by cattle with bulls. However, even from the road you could see just how huge the recumbent is and how these stones dominate the landscape. Jane Posted by Jane
30th July 2006ce

This is Loanhead of Daviot's next-door-neighbour.... about 1km away.

I had read the earlier fieldnotes before I left but had forgotten them .... maybe just as well.

Suffice to say, there is nothing threatening here now (apart from an electric fence round the stones - why?) but then I went in from the W.

Visited 17 March 2005
greywether Posted by greywether
24th March 2005ce

Mindful of Merrick's experience with the police due to the GM test site here, I was sure to wait until the farmer was around to ask permission. The fields around here now have painted 'DANGER: Lady Farmer' signs and official 'Protected by Rural Crime Prevention' signs. The farmer seemed very friendly and gave me directions - but when I got back to my car, she had called the cops anyway, and I was given a quick grilling. Be warned!

The site itself is *fine* place. The small wood is great: like Loanhead of Daviot, very seductive to those with tents; like Loanhead of Daviot, almost no chance of succeeding in camping out there. As with many other circles here, only the recumbent, flankers and the stone opposing the recumbent remain. Indeed, I found myself wondering if the other stone weren't really just decoration anyway, if they were all ever there.

A grand view from here over to the Bennachie hills and Mither Tap, Dunnideer, and of course Tap O'Noth.
Posted by gyrus
27th August 2000ce

There are two ways to approach this site, either from the road that runs north out of Daviot, or from the New Craig Farm to the east. We chose the latter in order to ask permission. Unfortunately we didn't know that New Craig Farm was running a farm-scale GM test, and our visit resulted in us being interrogated and searched by the police, but that's a whole different story.

Approaching from the Daviot road side, you crest the hill and are presented with the mighty recumbent and flankers, now set into a field wall. The picture in Modern Antiquarian of the broken recumbent set in the wall really doesn't do the place justice, indeed no photograph could. When you're there it is the most magical place, I've *never* buzzed so strongly at a standing stones site! It faces, as RSCs do, south-west, but from here that's straight to the Mither Tap, 'the mother's tit', the mountain that's a clear focus for so many of these sites.

And then it also looks south to the mighty Loanhead circle, and then looking out west we saw our first sight of Dunnideer, instantly recognisable from its Glastonbury Tor-style ruined tower on the summit. These things alone would've amazed us, but from here Dunnideer and its two sister hills, Hill of Christ's Kirk and Hill of Flinder, formed a triple-pyramid design. Turning back to Mither Tap, the Bennachie Hills behind it formed a startlingly similar triple pyramid! Whoah, with Loanhead to the south and the rich rolling land behind this was the most amazing place! Most circles elsewhere feel like they're at the centre of the landscape, but this place feels like it's at the centre of *everything*!

Out to the west beyond Dunnideer, beyond our vision on this misty evening, are the mountains of Tap O'Noth and Hill O'Noth, the looming big mountains that start the landscape's climb out of rolling fertility and into Cairngorm hostility.

And here on the site, behind the massive recumbent and flankers among this mad faerie copse are two large stones, one standing and one on its side, but it's difficult to see either as part of the circle. The latter is the one called the New Craig Flyer in the Modern Antiquarian, and Cope says it predates the standing stones as the original focus here. It has a big dip in it, which Cope suggests was imitated in the dip of the recumbent stone (which initially looked to us like a chunk had been broken off and was missing).

The circle has gone, the recumbent is cracked and built into a wall, but all the same, this place feels like the control panel of the whole landscape.

(visited 30 June 00)
Posted by Merrick
7th August 2000ce