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Site visit 25 July 2011.
I parked in the lay-by 100 yards South-East of Carlsuith Castle on the A75. It was 6.30 am and I'd decided to rise early and get this done before breakfast. I was in need of some fresh air and a walk to shake off the night before - I'd had a few jars at the Ellangowan Hotel in Creetown (that's the pub/ hotel in The Wicker Man for any fans out there).
I headed up through Birk's Wood roughshod until I hit a wee path which took me to the right. I had to cross a wee burn and climb a dyke and fence at the edge of the wood before making my way up the edge of a field to the track which takes you up to the fort.
There is a stone standing on a wee knoll at the edge of the wood in the corner of the field. Unrecorded - but it's there. Nice shape and 1m high. The track up to the fort is very good. Ten minutes easy walking to the fort. The view is pretty spectacular. The Isle of Man with Snaefell and its neighbours loomed up out of a hazy Solway. Across the bay Wigtown and Garlieston lay snoozing. Early morning ferry traffic headed along the A75 to Stranraer far below.
The final approach to the fort is through a very narrow defile with sheer rock faces on either side. Then through a little metal gate and you are there. The fort itself is really a steep hill with rocky cliffs protecting three sides and a steep basnk on the other. Little of any ramparts are left, just the odd bit of banking and the faint trace of a ditch on the North and North-East side. There is a large stone set at one side of the entrance like a doorstop.
Don't visit here for impressive ditches or intact drystane ramparts. They simply aren't here. The defences seem to have been mostly natural cliffs augmented by man on the vulnerable North side of the fort. Little of the hand of man remains here. But do visit this site for the panorama. The fort is only about 600 feet up but it's like the top of the world!
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Site visit 25.7.11
The car thermometer showed 26 degrees as we swung out of our base at Castlecary. Car windows wound down on the twenty minute run up to the masts on Cambret Hill. We parked by the masts and started down the hill at a good pace. A neat quad track took us most of the way down. It had been eight years since I last visited the site but I felt sure I could walk directly to the stone.
The walk down with my OH, our nine and a half year old and his best pal was quick but the sun was pretty merciless. We made a quick stop by the "cist-slab" rock to reapply some sun block.
After a quick map check I re-aligned us all and sent the kids ahead to find the marked rock in an area I pointed out. They found it straight off! I'd brought down a 2 litre bottle of water to wet the rock and photograph it better - but we had to drink the water! The glaring sun made my photos a bit indistinct and glared out!
The cairn across the burn looked massive and inviting but it was so hot that we had to get everyone back to the car ASAP.
The return trek up the hill was not so pleasant or so quick. A few cleg bites between us (I also pulled a deer tick out of my ankle later that night) and a toiling climb under an unforgiving sun. Ice creams and cold fizzy drinks at Gatehouse of Fleet soon sorted us out!
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Some incredible aerial shots of this stunning hillfort on the canmore site.
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This is an easy stone to visit if you are in the area. Once in Gatehouse go down Church Street (directly opposite the Granite clock tower in the High Street). Stay on this street as it passes through rows of very sweet little white Gallovidian cottages and Church Street becomes Memory Lane (honest). Follow Memory Lane till the houses run out and a cemetery comes into view. Drive past the cemetery and park at the little parking bay just beyond. About a hundred yards into the field immediately beyond the parking bay is the stone . There is a good wee swing gate for access.
Today there were no jumpy stirks, nervous bulls, Belted Galloways or even a Texel sheep in the field. This lone four foot stone stood baking in 26 degrees of blazing Galloway sunshine. It is highly weathered and has suffered a fair old bit of cattle rubbing which reveals some surprising profiles.
It appeared on the 1854 OS sheets but is thought by some to have been fairly recently erected. At a point in the recent past it might well have been in a horizontal position on the ground for there are plough scars visible on one side of the stone.
A few hundred yards to the South West lies a barrow cemetery. A hundred yards to the North West (in the next field) is a wee roman fortlet - as yet the most westernly known node on the Flavian road system in Galloway. There is a settlement in the woods beyond the parking bays. A lot of history here and hereabouts but whether this standing stone is an ancient one or not is uncertain. Far above, the masts on Cambret Hill gaze down and say nowt!
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This four poster lies at approximately the same elevation as Allt Cul Corriehiam but at a few hundred metres further East across the hill. You will find it at roughly the point where the broad level tongue starts to drop away. Again one stone lies fallen in the long grass. This four poster is a little smaller than Allt Cul Corriehiam and sits in a slight hollow and a few yards to the South in deep bracken sit two more stones in some kind of setting.
Despite being way out in the open air, I found the site felt quite enclosed and that it had less of the ambience and open-skied vibe of Allt Cul Corriehiam. Perhaps it was because the site perches above a narrow river valley with the steep sides of Burican Hill on the other side of the water. But somehow it felt less like a stone circle and more like a grave, with its two larger stones marking the head and feet.
As I stood up from crouching down to take a picture, a Merlin flew past me at waist height less than five feet away. I was nearly blown off my feet in surprise, but steadied myself and stood grinning like a fool as I watched it fly at breakneck speed down the hillside. I never find my time is ever wasted heading out to sites like these, even if the stones aren't the greatest, Nature often steps in and gives you a wee treat. Particularly on Arran.
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Beyond the Teanga Burican
I was surprised just how short and easy this walk was and just how fruitful the journey was to become with a wonderful array of sites ranged across the gentle lower slopes of Tormusk. They were only discovered in the late 1990's and they include three four-posters, numerous cairns, cists, stone alignments and standing stones spread across the hillside's lower slopes. I strongly advise plotting the sites carefully on an Explorer Series OS map from the Canmore site beforehand. A few feet of peat has been laid down since the sites were constructed, add to that a further two or three feet of growing heather, bracken, grass and reeds which conspire to conceal everything… but that is half the fun – seeing these ghostly, forgotten sites emerge from the undergrowth in front of your eyes! For those who enjoy bird spotting I saw seven different birds of prey (White-tailed Eagle, Golden Eagle, Kestrel, Buzzard, Hen Harrier, Sparrow Hawk, Merlin and Tawny Owl) in the leisurely hour and a half the walk took around this group of sites.
Directions - drive from Lamlash along the unclassified Ross Road two and a half kilometres beyond the Buddhist Retreat Centre. Park at the layby by the green sign marking the footpath to Shiskine. Or if coming in from Sliddery drive ½ km past Glenree Farm and park in the same layby. Take the Shiskine footpath and follow for ¾ km till it joins another path. Follow this path up the little wooded river valley. There is a fence on your right hand side. Descend to the ford (if the ford, riverbanks and riverbed is of red sandstone bedrock you are in the wrong place - return to the main path and follow it further upstream for 300m to the next ford). The path becomes a fine quad track. You will pass what appear to be three large capstones lying by the path. You will then find yourself passing through a gap in a large drystane and turf structure. This is the Teanga Burican and marks the beginning of the surprises! It might seem like the *rse-end of nowhere but this really is the beginning of everywhere – you just have to look carefully!
Standing on top of the Teanga Burican you can easily see a prominent standing stone on the hillside. Keep your eye on it as it is a useful orientation marker for the other sites. Continue up the path until you draw level with the standing stone and strike out confidently across the hillside towards it!
The West of Scotland Archaeological Service (WoSAS) report says that the prominent standing stone has a cup mark. I couldn't find one. Perhaps I'd found a different stone. This one was about 1 ½ metres high and slanting slightly. For some reason the photos came out all blurry – so it'll be next time for those.
Next, I headed up the slope looking for the first four poster 90-odd metres further on. All I could see was the mogre of near waist-high bracken and heather I was wading through. I felt my heart sinking… How on Earth would I find anything in this undergrowth? I counted off a hundred paces up the hill. Suddenly there it was! Right at my feet! The bracken had subsided a bit and the heather revealed a smashing little jaggy-toothed four poster right in front of my eyes! The stone to the North East is fallen, but lies right where it should be, snug in its peat and heather bed. The views back down to Bennecarrigan and the coast at Sliddery are stunning. The four poster sits on a broad gentle tongue just a few hundred feet up, but its elevation and situation on these empty moorland slopes give it a real lofty vibe.
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