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This has variously been described as a homestead, a dun, a fort and a ring fort, the last by the Forestry Commission information board at the site. The walls are around 3m thick, and defense is what immediately springs to mind. The 24m diameter seems too big for it to be domestic, particularly given its location. It sits high above Loch Tummel, guarding a strategic path through the hills, and is reminiscent of the forts around Glen Lyon (see Caisteal Cona Bhacain).
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This stone is situated in a caravan park, and as such we found it hemmed in by caravans and white plastic garden furniture. However, while the initial thought is that the site isn't very atmospheric, at least it is safe. The stone is actually well-protected by the nearby caravan and tree, and will no doubt fare better than some stones out in the middle of nowhere.
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This stone has now been removed, but only temporarily. It wasn't scheduled since Historic Scotland deemed the site's archaeological importance to have already been compromised by excavation in 1854 when the stone was lifted so that underneath it could be examined.
But when planning consent was given for the development of the site (open cast coal mining of 750,000 - 1,000,000 million tons over four years, followed by development as a retail and business park) it included the stipulation that the stone had to be re-set in its original position.
The stone is currently in storage, and it's estimated it will be re-erected in about 3 years time. Unfortunately the plans show that there will be a roundabout on the stone's original site, so the county archaeologist faces the dilemma of putting it back there, or re-locating it close by so that the public still have access to it.
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I've listed this site as a cairn to reflect what it says on the map, but to me it looks more like a bell barrow. The large central mound - which has apparently been extensively robbed and now has a flat top - seems to be made of earth rather than stones, and is covered in grass. Around its base there is a clear ditch and bank.
This struck me as quite a sad site, despite it being in quite an atmospheric woodland setting. Around about the cairn brambles, ferns and nettles are quite overgrown, but the cairn itself is clear - the Woodland Trust (who run Huntly Wood) periodically clear the site of vegetation.
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Most of this fort was obilterated when the Wallace Monument was built in the 19th century. The Abbey Craig is an old lava flow rising out of the flat, low Carse of Forth, and it's defensive properties are clear to see. There is a sheer drop on the W side, which affords views along Blairdrummond Moss towards Loch Lomond, while on the E side, which looks along the Carse of Forth, had a timber-laced heavy stone wall, enclosing an area of 175 ft by 125 ft. Look hard in the undergrowth around the Monument and you can still see vitrified material.
You can walk the grounds freely to look for the remains of the fort, but you have to pay to get into the Monument itself. I would highly recommend this. Even if you're not really interested in the history of William Wallace or seeing his enormous sword, it's well worth paying just to go straight up the narrow stairs to the top, where you get amazing views along the Ochils and the Carse of Forth to the E, and along Blairdrummond Moss to the W. You can also get a great view of Dumyat from a unique perspective, and can look down on the nearby standing stone at Airthrey.
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The fort of Dumyat, which sits on a spur of the larger hill of the same name behind it, is in an excellent defensive position commanding wide-ranging views across the Carse of Forth to the south, and on the western edge of the Ochils.
The name Dumyat is believed to derive from Dun Maeatae - the fort of the Maeatae. The Maeatae or Miathi were a tribe in central Scotland. Xiphilinus, writing in CE 208 of Septimus Severus' campaigns, said "the two most important tribes of the Britons (in the North) are the Caledonians and the Maeatae. . . . The Maetae dwell close to the wall which divides the country into two parts and the Caledonians next to them. Each of the two inhabit rugged hills with swamps between".
Whether or not the wall Xiphilinus mentions is Hadrian's or the Antonine Wall has been debated by historians. But the description of "rugged hills with swamps between" matches perfectly with Dumyat, which stands proud above Blairdrummond Moss, which until the late 18th century and early 19th century was still mainly swampland, passable only by those that knew the raised pathways.
The fort itself has several phases of development stretching from the late 1st millenium BCE into the early 1st millenium CE. To the E and NE of the fort, the land rises steeply up to the summit of Dumyat the hill. To the S there is a 1000 ft sheer drop to the floor of the Carse of Forth. The easiest access is from the W, so this is where the defences are most significant.
The first phase of building consisted of two closely-set heavy stone ramparts enclosing an area 320 ft by 180 ft entered by a single gateway on the W. Outside the gateway are further defences believed to be from a second phase of development. Inside the outer walls is a smaller enclosure crowning the summit of the site, and measuring 85 ft by 50 ft, with walls 12 ft thick. This inner enclosure may have been contemporary with the outer walls, or it may represent a later development, where a smaller fort was built within the ruins of an older and larger one. However interestingly the inner enclosure was linked to the outer by a section of wall, possibly suggesting that they were contemporary.
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Having thought about it further, the stone on the golf course is too far to the south-west of Comrie Castle for Coles to have described it as a mile and a furlong to the south. So I now think the original site was in the fields of Inchadney Park, or on the piece of land known as Eilean nan Ubh and Eilean Mor. Along the edges of these fields are piles of field clearance, including stones big enough to be the ones shown in Coles' report. I'll go back again later this summer and make an extensive search of the undergrowth!
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Around the bottom of the Knock, there is what appears to be a "causeway" of some kind. I first noticed it when me, Scotty and Martin visited here in 2002, and it was so flat that at first I thought it must have once carried a railway. However, checking the map shows that the only railway that used to run near here was south-west of Crieff and not north-east. Besides, the "causeway" is considerably wider than engineers would have built for a railway embankement.
It certainly appears to be too flat to be natural (unless it's perhaps a grass-covered lava flow from the Knock) and does have the look of having been made or modified by human hands. You can see parts of it in the photos I've posted.
It curves around the bottom of Kate McNieven's Craig, then heads off south-west along the edge of the rest of the Knock. Could it even be a cursus of some kind?
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Situated close to the track that leads up to Falls of Acharn stone circle, this barrow enjoys good views to the North from it's position on a shelf above Loch Tay.
Canmore describes it as a "sharply-defined, turf-covered mound, 6.7m N-S by 6.1m and 1.1m high."
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After speaking to the county archaeologist David Strachan, we came to the conclusion that the stone I found half-buried was probably the side-slab of one of the cists that was discovered "many years ago." It was probably stood upright by workmen when the cist was ploughed open to mark the grave, and left standing since then. It doesn't have the appearance of a standing stone, especially if that stone was supposed to have been the remains of a circle.
This doesn't take away from the fact that there may well have been a stone circle on the site at some point, either around the cairn (long since ploughed away) or nearby.
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This stone stands on its own in a field close to Belhie farm on the haughs of Aberuthven. First appearances suggest that it's an isolated site, but in fact the surrounding area features a complex of ritual monuments, mostly only showing up as crop-marks. (see main Belhie grouping)
As can be seen from the photos above, the stone enjoys great views in all directions to the surrounding hills. This open aspect will be changed forever if the plans for a film studio come to fruition, with a hotel and golf clubhouse planned for either side of the standing stone, which would stand at the end of a car park.
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This definitely looks and feels like a genuine standing stone. It's not marked on the OS map from the 1860s (see link below), but a lot of sites in Perthshire weren't. I believe that this is a real standing stone, and if it isn't, it's a brilliant fake.
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From the road, this cairn doesn't look like anything particularly special. But hop over the fence into the field, and it becomes much more interesting. There is one standing stone at the base of a large cairn, in amongst the trees. Walking around the cairn it becomes clear that it sits on a flattened platform with possibly the remains of a slight ditch around it. Me and Scotty were here the day after some light snow, and the snow appeared to be collecting in the slight depression that is all that remains of the ditch.
When walking around the base of the cairn, keep your eyes peeled for other stones of a similar size to the standing stone. They appear to be at fairly regular intervals around the base, 10 in all (including the standing one). Looking even harder, you'll see the remains of several cist covers. We counted four the remains of four large slabs, as well as lots of smaller pieces which may also once have been covers. There's also a cist intact if you look carefully. As far as I know, this site has never been excavated.
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Although there's no evidence left of there being a circle here, what it lacks in stones it makes up for in location. It sits out in the middle of a large flat floodplain in a sweeping bend of the Tummel, and can be seen for miles around. At the time of building, with the landscape free of trees, caravan sites, farm buildings and the A9, it must have been an even more impressive site! This is the tree-covered cairn that can be seen to your left across the river as you drive into Pitlochry from the south.
The cairn originally had a ditch and embankment around it, with a "row of upright stones round the mound". These stones were apparently toppled around 1840 and used to repair the nearby river embankment.This post appears as part of the blog post " just depends how hard you look" |
Two seperate authors writing in the 1920s in books about Pitlochry mention stones from a destroyed stone circle lying at the end of the golf course. The land is marked on the Explorer map as marshy, so perhaps predictably CANMORE found "no trace of these stones" as they are some distance from the car park, and it's just possible you might get your feet wet looking for them!
However, the stones are here, some of them turfed over, but here nonetheless. A bit of poking around and scraping away of long grass and mud revealed 4 large stones. I didn't find the ten foot long stone described in 1925, as a party of golfers were getting more and more suspicious. But there were several long bumps in the ground which could do with another look. I will no doubt be back sometime soon.This post appears as part of the blog post " just depends how hard you look" |
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A stone circle once stood here on the knoll known as Cnoc Dubh (black hill). The stones were removed early in the 19th century to build Balnadrum farmhouse, and Cnoc Dubh was levelled to build a tennis court in what is now the grounds of the Pitlochry Hydro.
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Around 1823 this stone was dug up and moved about 20 feet. At a depth of 3 or 4 feet under it was found an urn containing ashes, a piece of tartan too decomposed to be identified or moved, and copper and silver coins dating from the reign of Mary Queen of Scots. The urn was reburied in situ.
Around 1951, the stone was moved again, the farmer dumping it by the side of the field at NJ 5184 3048, where it lay "largely obscured by a grass-grown pile of stones, and farm rubbish" when visited in 2002 by the RCAHMS.
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I visited here today after stopping at Clach a' Mharsainte nearby. I first spotted this stone on the 1867 OS map, and haven't found any reference to it anywhere else. I originally listed it as a standing stone, but it is in fact a earth-fast flat-ish boulder. It was covered in two inch-thick moss, and I tried to scrape some away, but the heavens opened and it would take a while to clear the whole stone, so I left it. I've changed this site to Natural Rock Feature until someone can investigate further, but I wouldn't be surprised if under all that moss there were some cup-marks.This post appears as part of the blog post " sunny Perthshire?" |
Visited here today during a perfectly-timed break in the rain. The stone stands just off the road in front of the timeshare complex - you can't miss it, it's right next to a huge blue sign! The stone is a fairly regular cuboid in shape, but the top has a point to it. Standing behind the stone (with the timeshare behind you) you'll notice something striking - the top of the stone appears to mirror the shape of Schiehallion's peak. Checking the compass shows that Schiehallion is exactly to the SE.
There is a plaque affixed to the stone which suggests the stone may have been moved in some way by builders many years ago, but it seems to imply that it was re-erected in it's original position, so it's alignment with Schiehallion may have been unaffected.This post appears as part of the blog post " sunny Perthshire?" |
Visited here on a cold winter's day today. The stone stands next to the shop and café of the Auchingarrich wildlife centre, on an obvious round mound which looks like it could be artificial, or at least an artificially-enhanced natural knoll. Some large stones, which may actually be bedrock, can be seen poking through the grass at the side.
The stone itself is huge at 8' 7" tall, and is certainly an impressive specimen, rising from the centre of the mound. It commands good views of the surrounding area, and stands at a height of 450 feet above sea level.This post appears as part of the blog post " a wallaby?! in Perthshire?! in winter?!" |
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Hi!
I'm a freelance eyewear designer in Edinburgh, exiled from my beloved Perthshire. I also run a website about Scotland's many standing stones and stone circles:
stravaiging around Scotland
Some things I like:
Perthshire
Moscow
Guinness
puddings
music (my taste is either eclectic or dodgy, depending on your viewpoint - Joy Division, New Order, Mull Historical Society, Emiliana Torrini, Cat Power, Sigur Ros and assorted others)
vegetables (especially spinach)
you can read more of my ramblings here http://www.stravaiging.com
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