The Wren’s Egg and Standing Stones in winter.
Image credit: Andy H
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Superb. So pleased to see you back here too.
What SC said :-)
It's good to have a fellow Modern Antiquarian in Dumfries and Galloway. There are plenty of good sites for you to visit.
Thanks folks. Yes Mark, I've been slowly working my way around them, but still lots of places to visit yet.
Great pic. If you didn’t, have a look at the two large stones in the wall out of shot on the right should you return soon. I do wonder too if there’s more to that large tree covered agglomeration of stones…
Hello Spencer. I know the stones you mean and it's hard to say if they are cleared standing stones or not. There are a few similar stones in the walls around the field, which all look to be the same type as the Wren's Egg and the two in-situ standing stones. I'd guess they were all dropped from the last glacier to melt here. I was at Shakeabodie Rock, a few miles north at the weekend and the walls there were full of small glacial erratics of the same type too.
The mound is certainly made of glacial deposits, but it isn't beyond possibility it was also of significance. The 1970s excavation report ruled out the possibility of the Wren's Egg being part of a double circle, but didn't rule out other stones standing close to it. It also mentions that as the stone holes are so shallow, it is possible any traces have been ploughed away.
Interestingly, the stones from one of the early Bronze Age cists discovered here a few years ago, are deposited in the same corner of the field you speak of. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more to still discover (I think there was one found near the farmhouse too). I'd be interested to see if there are any ritual deposits waiting to be found in the nearby loch and my feeling is that the Fell of Barhullion lies at the centre of a ritual landscape.