29/06/2022 - I was a little grumpy at this one. I hate rushing sites but we'd sent longer than expected down the road at Kinbrace stone rows (quite right too as they're great). So it was a quick bash from the road to have a look. The way across is a bit hard work but we got there. Stones are tricky to see until you are almost upon them. The more you look, the more you find. Most are pretty buried. Very good location with hut circles and cairn nearby. Just wish I'd had more time. Nice site, well worth a visit. Our last stone row on a fine day out along the River Helmsdale.
As with the excellent kerbed cairn of Carn Glas standing, unseen upon its hillside, a half mile or so to the south-east, the motorist traversing the B871 would be unlikely, in the extreme - even if he/she also happened to have assumed membership of that rather idiosyncratic club of Modern Antiquarians - to halt and explore the low ridge of Cnoc Molach... if it wasn't for the extraordinary actions of those, past and present, responsible for annotating our maps with references to 'burnt mounds', 'hut circles', 'field systems' 'cairns' and, perhaps most intriguing of all, 'stone rows'. So thank you Ordnance Survey for helping me to assuage, temporarily at least, this almost amaranthine state of curiosity I appear to possess.
I pull off the road a little north of the Badanloch Burn and, overcoming a momentary hesitation - courtesy of my spiritual guardian John le Mesurier's customary 'Do you think this is wise' admonition (much better than an angel, I find) - I advance westward across the very wet, rough moorland to the low summit of Cnoc Molach, the ubiquitous, tussocky grass here giving way to outcropping rock. The outlook is expansive, the watery aspect maintained, albeit in a much purer, infinitely more attractive form than the soggy, eastern flanks, the extensive contents of Loch Badanloch leading the eye toward a horizon diffused by distant hill tops.. not to mention the occasional mountain summit, too. However stone rows are very much conspicuous by their absence.
Descending to the south-west(ish) I'm still none the wiser until, suddenly, protruding through the peaty surface like (thankfully) misfiring versions of Cadmus's dragon's teeth, there they are. A couple of reasonably sized stones notwithstanding, these monuments - or is it a single monument? - are distinctly underwhelming in physical stature, the layout not at all clear... four, maybe five rows?; indeed one wonders how many more diminutive orthostats still stand subsumed within the moor. If buried stuff can be said to 'stand', that is? I'm left with the impression that this was very much a 'no frills' working landscape, tailored to the specific ritualistic needs of the community which called Cnoc Molach home back in the day. The people who, I assume, lived within the hut circles which still stand overlooking the loch... and tended the surviving field system, buried their VIP(s) within the nearby cairn? Anyhow, according to those wondrous OS people:
[Upon the] "SW-facing moorland slopes of Cnoc Molach within an area of hut circles and field system is a group of at least five incomplete stone rows. They are aligned from NNE to SSW, converging slightly towards the uphill NNE side. A total of twenty eight stones can be identified Visited by OS (N K B) 26 April 1977"
I go walkabout upon Cnoc Molach, noting numerous examples of the aforementioned hut circles and cairns, clearance or otherwise. As I do so, pausing at one particularly large hut circle to reflect - a hall circle, perhaps? - I become acutely aware of the all pervading, almost eerie silence, an overwhelming sense, perhaps, of 'what went before' irresistibly seeping into the present? Hey, maybe this isn't as daft as it sounds... is it possible that placing yourself in such positions may retrieve or trigger memes (for want of a better word) buried deep within the shared human consciousness? Guess Richard Dawkins might have a view on that.
The former community of Cnoc Molach, therefore, is not somewhere to come to be blown away by awesome feats of human constructive endurance, to see exquisitely shaped monoliths defining a pioneering culture. In my opinion it transcends all that, great as all that may be, instead perhaps offering an opportunity to be a little more self-indulgent. A suitable environment, the 'space' to ponder who we are vis-à-vis who we used to be?
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