Feb.2000
We almost made it.
We parked the car near the gate to the field. We squelched our way through the mud and then stopped!
There was 3 or 4 big black bulls surrounding the cairn in the middle of the field and they were staring at us.
And being townies we turned back quickstyle.
Another day?
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Feb. 2000
It had been raining heavily earlier in the day and slipped on the mud and I dropped my camera into a deep pool in the rocks.
Darn that Ver.
To be honest I love the rain.
Bill Clinton said at Wimbledon that it was what makes our islands so green. And how often do we moan about it.
Bill was probably reconnecting with his ancestral roots when he talked of the pishing rain - he doesn't live here now of course, and he doesn't need encouragment in root connection.
JC's theory of sacred water collection on these horizontal sheets, is so simple, and makes sense in these damp islands. Of course, the neolithic folk of Britain knew well that the rain was a lifegiver and surely the culture celebrated this big style.
What better way.
That day reminded me of the sanctity of the holy water fonts of my RC upbringing. But that's another story.
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The road seems to seperate this place from the rest of the Kilmartin sites - and all the little stones in the middle seem to seperate it from the usual stone circle thing.
I should have been paying more attention I suspect, because in retrospect, this is one of the most unusual sites I've been to.
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Feb. 2000
This is a strong place. Could it be a compact and artistic, tribute to the linear nature of the (older??) Nether Largie cairns?
We just walked about for ages, trying to savour this place.
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Feb. 2000.
We walked up the valley and visited all the cairns.
When I was posting the photos, I couldn't remember which cairn was what.
I do remember lying in a cist on the valley floor and thinking that this was the most comfy, warm place in the world, and that I could have stayed there all day.
I sense that it bothers some folk that the alignment is not precise. This non precise alignment suggests that it is not a lunar or solar monument.
It would have been too easy to set these places in a precise straight line in the neolithic and the valley is in pretty much a straightish line anyway.
Maybe the decisions were made to have the line slightly out of kilter, as a compromise, or a deliberate quirk of the precise - cos that is sometimes what does work.
17/12/01 -I was just thinking about the rough SSW-NNE alignment of the cairns, the river, the valley and the Dunaad footprint (Iwas just reading the Dunaad entry from Gyrus).
The geology and subsequently the rivers and lochs of the whole of the Dalriadic Kingdom and indeed the whole of North Western Scotland follows this alignment. The most important journeys would have been in this direction, by foot and boat along the great sea lochs, glens and freshwater lochs. Look at any map of Scotland and it's there. These journeys in peace and war, would have been physical and spiritual journeys at the time they were made, and would have become the stuff of legend and ritual.
Everything would have been in that alignment, such is the almost inpenetrable and fjord like nature of the sides of these great valleys. Even the Gulf Stream, which today brings much of West Scotlands weather (and I assume has for thousands of years) would have roughly followed this alignment.
Most of the storms, thoughts, dreams, fears, plans and total conciousness, would have all been in this direction, here and in much of the North West highlands.
just a thought?!
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We visited this place in Feb. 2000.
I dont know what this is.
And I dont have theories that set me on fire.
But one thing is for sure - this is a very amazing place and I'm glad we came here.
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We visited this site 2 years ago. It occurred to me that this may have been a very important place, given it's situation in the Earn Valley.
Dundurn, just up the valley, was an important place 2000 years ago, certainly, and probably was for a long time before. This place was apparently at the border of the pictish and celtic kingdoms and has no doubt marked a boundary between the rugged highland westlands, and the fertile farmlands on the east since the neolithic.
This site is marked on the map as a former circle and now just the 2 stones remain.
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I know nothing of this place.
We visited this stunning site 2 years ago, and I've bored people since with my pure enthusiasm since.
I've not seen this place as an entry in any gazzeteer or anything, but it deserves to be mentioned and not for the the usual compact aesthetics and feelings that other places have.
This whole hillside has the feel of one monument - and a powerful one at that! It is a must when visiting Perthshire!
Visit the stone on the green valley floor as a pre cursor and make your way up the hill to the first stone (a powerful thing that belies it's 5 foot presence). Off up to the left and there is a MF of a thing which dominates the valley from all directions. This 12ft monster is surrounded by what looks likes untampered cists.
Sitting in a hollow in the hillside is a vicious stone at a terrible angle and then further south is a 6 footer with nearby untampered cists, marking the end of this special monument.
Every stone is visible from at least on other in the hillside and that seems to be important.
I can't say enough about this whole place and what it did to me, and it was not all love and peace !
Next time I come here, I intent to visit the stones at Dalchirla, just down the valley.
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It took us ages to find this place. It's one of those places which requires orienteering skills to get there - a real quest.
According to the map there were 2 stones - we could only find 1, but according to the Ancient Scotland website, the other stone was under a fallen tree right beside us.
We visited on a cold January afternoon in 2000.
The stones are in the middle of a clear row in a Forestry commision forest. The place is totally sound insulated due to the trees, and this adds an eerieness.
Before the trees, this site would have had great views, as it sits on top of a gentle hill. A young River Carron rushes a few hundred metres to the North.
I want to go back and see the other stone.
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I think this might have been the first neolithic site I went to, when I was about ten. My mum was showing the local sites to an American friend of the family, Kate Ascher. I remember this so well, because Kate's visits were a highlight for us - she seemed uninhibited and free, more so than anyone else we'd met in our fairly restrictive council estate and R.C. upbringing. I also remember her as a humble and benevolent person. She later told us that she thought we were all referring to the 'local hills' when we talked about the Ochil Hills. Anyway I think me and my little brother were wearing the NY Yankees t-shirts that Kate had brought over, and we went for lunch at the Sheriffmuir Inn. I remember I was intrigued and a bit worried about the [one remaining] standing stone and there was talk of witchcraft and rituals.
I didn't know, until a few years ago when I was looking at the OS Landranger, that this place was actually a stone row of five stones, of which only one remains upright.
On closer inspection, this site turns out to be very unusual.
The stones are almost perfectly aligned, roughly SW-NE. The most northerly stone looks as though it would have been the tallest, standing at about 10 feet tall. The second one is still standing at 6 foot, and is called the Wallace Stone (see folklore). The middle stone would have been around five feet tall. The fourth stone has split into two and would have been about seven feet tall. The south stone has cup markings.
The stones are all almost evenly spaced, being about a hundred metres apart.
When I last visited with a friend last year, we found animal bones and an animal skull around the stone.
The site is on rough, exposed, heathered moorland on the western shoulder of the Ochil Hills.
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We drove past this circle in the summer of 2000. It sits on a steady steep slope, high above the NW side of Loch Tay. I recall taking my eye off the road and seeing a strange, small, boulder like circle.
I'll have a proper look when I visit Kinnell in Killin hopefully soon.
8/6/02
We parked down at the horn-carvers shop just down the hill at Lawers.
This strange little circle is in beautiful place high up above the loch, with views of the water stretching up to the north-east and down the the south-west. The mighty Ben Lawers was only partially visible behind the circle on the day we visited.
The circle sits on what looks like a levelled platform which has been built up on one side of the slope. Inside the circle there are many small stones just below the undergrowth which might be broken parts of this partially destroyed monument or might be a kind of cairn - it's hard to tell- these small stones and indeed the whole monument are more visible in Martin's photo taken in 1986.
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I shouted to stop the car when I saw Silbury just after leaving Avebury. I wasn't expecting to see it. When I did I felt priveliged. I just gawped for 10 mins from half a mile from the hill. 2 years ago, 500 miles and I want to come back here. The impression I remember was that the hill has a magic, living presence.
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We stopped the car just after we left Avebury on my request when I recognised this landscape and the horse.
I scrambled up to the top of a grassy bank with the video camera and stayed there for a minute or two. That's all - just a minute - and it's 2 years ago and 500 miles away, but Iwant to come back here.
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My brother decided to stop here for lunch on the way to Falmouth for the eclipse in August 1999.
It was raining steadily but it was so warm and I walked and walked on the soggy chalk paths. I was cagouled in long shorts and sandals and it felt good.
Up on a nearby hill, someone had spirographed a nice crop circle and despite the rain, this place was so busy.
I could not comprehend this place as a whole, but I still found the visit exhilarating.
I walked down the avenue alone and I'll never forget that.
A week wouldn't be enough for all this.
Everyone else was waiting in the car when I got back.
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I had been working for the best part of a week in Blackpool during the illuminations in November 1999. I was staying in a cold apartment, with the wind and the rain howling against a damp net-curtained window every night.
Travelling back home, I was so happy to stop here.
The henge at King Arthur's looks almost too landscaped, but surely retains much of it's strength, despite the close proximity of the roads. I didn't stay too long.
I went over to Mayburgh. The sun was low and there was an eerie gloom inside the henge - those bare trees and the great pebbled edge surrounding that lonely stone. I remember a feeling of vastness and peace and I'd like to see this place at different times of the day.
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This was worth the visit while we were up visiting Kintraw in Feb. 2000.
This is a simple cairn, with capstone still attatched.
We got directions from an eccentric, elderly woman who smelled of whisky and we didn't expect to find it. The Cairn sits above the hamlet of Ardfern which is on the shore of the (sea) Loch Craignish, in a field beside a newish private house. The owners were helpful and we had the company of thier happy little collie dog for the duration of our visit.
Take the Road uphill from the village (towards Craobh) for about a hundred metres, then the private house is up a drive on the right hand side.
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A friend and I visited this site in Feb. 2000. We drove (probably shouldn't have) half way up the track which leads to this place and used the map to take us across the rough bit of moor land after the track. This is well worth it. These are three very weathered, rough and spooky looking stones, which were aligned in a NNW to SSE line.
Today the alignment is not the aesthetic feature that grabs you - it's the spookily, comic way they now are. The N stone stands upright like a tooth, the middle stone is at an outrageous gravity defying angle and the S stone lies recumbent.
There is a feeling of power here, high up in the moorland.
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We visited this site in Feb.2000. What a view. Situated high above the head of Loch Craignish on a steep bend in the A816 a short drive north from Kilmartin village.
The views SE over Loch Craignish towards the mountains of Jura and Islay are outstanding.
We had no time to explore the complex Alexander Thom theory as described in the MA. However, this stone seems to have a definite and precise vertical presence which would perhaps support this theory. The journey here is a must, if visiting the Kilmartin area.
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I visited this site with a friend in late 1999 on a cold, damp, very overcast Saturday late afternoon, when we were both hungover. I want to say something about the panoramic nature of this place, but I can't. I want to say something of the inside of the cairn, but we visited out of season and it was locked up.
When I've visited Cairnpapple under better conditions I'll replace this posting.
Sometimes these sites can be so uplifting, and then sometimes so crushing. The mood, the mud, the heavy clouds in the sky, and in my head, all conspired to send us home.
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I'd driven past this place hundreds of times before I knew it existed.
OK, it's got It's own motorway interchange, airport and MacDonalds for our convenience, but something remains of the original feel of this place, I'm sure.
You can see Arthur's seat and castle rock in the city distance.
I visited this site with a friend in August 1999. This site is on low ground, most of the horizon has been taken and it has the feel of a landscaped park. The remaining stones are still impressive.
I've seen worse examples of disrespect and Hully Hill is still well worth the visit.
And I forgot about that big stone at the other side of the roundabout - it's impossible to figure out the reasons for the siting of this stone by just being there now, but it's good to see this stone surviving.
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