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The Witching Stone

Standing Stone / Menhir

Fieldnotes

Visited 17.02.24

I've passed by The Witching Stone countless times, however, the field was usually in crop or I was on my way to somewhere. Yesterday, while travelling home from a Bill Bailey concert, I noticed that the field enclosing The Witching Stone was being drained so it seemed like a good opportunity to finally visit the standing stone.

My first difficulty was finding a place to park on the busy A77. After some trial and error I parked down the track to the cottages S of the Alginate factory. The lane is a high tide detour off the Ayrshire Coastal Path. The track leads onto the beach. After following the coast S for c. 0.5 mile i headed to a gate in the NW corner of the field. The Witching Stone was c. 150 yards SE from the gateway across a sodden field (I had wellies on obviously).

The Witching Stone is natural pointed boulder leaning c. 30 degrees ESE. It is set upright with broad sides on a ESE-WNW axis. The stone measures c. 4x3x1 feet. The overall height is reduced to 3.5 feet by the lean. It is located at NS 19924 01730 (transcribed from OS Aerial Mapping).

There is no obvious reason why this rather ordinary stone has been set upright and preserved in the field. It is not listed on Canmore and a Google search for Standing Stone The Curragh Girvan produced no result.
Posted by markj99
18th February 2024ce
Edited 18th February 2024ce

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