
View from west, showing the lovely concrete ‘repair’ What were they thinking? And this was supposedly the work of Archaeologists.
View from west, showing the lovely concrete ‘repair’ What were they thinking? And this was supposedly the work of Archaeologists.
View from SE, with Knocklayd mountain in the distance.
Situated in a sloping field in the Glenshesk valley at the foot of Knocklayd mountain, just under 2km from another stone in Breen forest. Unfortunately the stone was toppled by a bull, according to the resident farmer and has been very crudely reset in concrete, with no real finesse. According to the NI Environment & Heritage Service, it once stood on top of a small mound, 17m in diameterx0.3m high. The mound was excavated, and was found to predate the stone.
The stone is 1.9m tall, and approx 0.5m wide, appears to be basalt, and has a quite interesting shape from certain angles. I’m not sure if the stone broke when toppled, or if it has always been this way.
The site is marked in the OS map, about 3-400m up a gated farm track just off the B15 from Armoy to Ballycastle, which winds along the Glenshesk valley. I was lucky enough to catch the farmer at work, who was kind enough to point out the stone, which isn’t visible from the road.
Details of the re-erection of the stone in 1993. I take back what I said about the lack of finesse, the concrete was intended to be hidden. It just obviously didn’t work out...