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The Buck Stane
Friday 21/12/01
…and I thought we'd never see the sun this Solstice day. It was lashing down this morning and the prospect of an afternoon trip up here looked very wet! But as I write I'm being dazzled by the Solstice sun that is hanging just above the silhouette of the Pentland Hills, and the SW face of the Bore Stane watches the sunset. This stone sits in a beautiful little niche just off the very busy Braid Hills Road. A fine cobbled path, plaque set in the wall above the stone and flowerbeds either side. It originally stood further up the hill, but was moved here some time in the 20th century. As with most of these re-positionings, I am in hope that the alignments remained the same. The stone is about 3.5 foot tall and almost square in section. It has a very deep (non-megalithic) cup hole on the very top. Originally this stone would have been in view of the Braid Hills and its cup marked rocks, but the finest view would have been (and still is) to the mighty Pentlands. I leave this stone warm, happy and with the sun still dazzling in my eyes- Happy Solstice!
At about half a mile's distance to the southward, there is another stone called the Buck Stone, upon which the proprietor of the barony of Pennycuik is bound by his charter, to place himself, and to wind three blasts of a horn, when the king shall visit the Borough Moor.
From p90 of Black's Picturesque Tourist of Scotland By Adam and Charles Black (1861). Viewable online at Google Books.
'Of greater age than any of the other memorials of the Parish and the Ward are the four Standing Stones of Liberton. One of them is in the old burial-ground at Niddrie-Marischal. Another stands close to the Old Dalkieth Road at Craigend, in what was once known as Kirklands, now a market-garden. The third, formerly built into a wall at Nether Liberton, has been re-erected on the King's Knowe, behind the stables of The Inch. The fourth is in the grounds of Mortonhall.'
From 'The Fringes of Edinburgh' by John Geddie (date unknown) pages 155-156.
These four stones are Niddrie, Ravenswood Avenue, Cat Stane at the Inch and the Bore Stane.
Around this stone there are 32 streets named in its honour.
The plaque reads;
'The Buckstane. This marchstone, a relic of feudal times, occupied a site on the Roman road about 250 yards north from this spot. By tradition the name was derived from the stone having marked the place where the buckhounds were unleashed when the King of Scotland hunted in this region.
An entry from Ancient Stones, an online database that covers most of the standing stones, stone circles and other stones found in South East Scotland. Each entry includes details, directions, photograph, folklore, parking and field notes on each location.
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