08/09/2021 – About 300m west of the Dwarfie Stane is this large erratic stone. This is surely the St. Patrick’s Stone mentioned in a post by Rhiannon (hope they don’t mind me reposting on here).
“Some 900 feet further up the slope, to the south of the Stone, rise the Dwarfie Hamars, a crescent-shaped range of cliffs 700 feet above the sea level and facing the north-west, from under which there is said to be a very fine echo. The Stone appears to have fallen down from this cliff. Mr. Moodie Heddle, the proprietor of the island, informs me that there is a similarly sized stone further west along the same hill face, which, as far as he can ascertain, has always been called the “Patrick Stone,” or “St. Patrick’s Stone,” a fact hitherto unknown outside of Hoy.In A W Johnstone’s ‘Dwarfie Stone of Hoy’ article in the Reliquary, April 1896.”
It’s a good size and has a spring next to it which is often the case for named stones connected to saints.
Wideford posted
“A heads up to look for a 6’ sandstone cube ~200 yards to the south – in a 1997 book John Bremner calls this the Patrick Stane and reports the faint presence of cup-and-ring marks on the top”
I couldn’t make out any marks. Just a lot of natural holes on the top.
It’s a very nice stone.