Very important picture of Stonehenge.
Http://www.archaeology.co.uk/specials/cakes/jaffa-cake-henge.htm
drewbhoy
‘In the midst of Fife’s tastefully controlled countryside, we are plunged into another age.
Suffered to remain as a decorative feature in Fife’s improved landscape are the bulky megaliths of a Bronze Age stone circle. These alternating pink and grey granite boulders were erected when in Egypt pharaohs were building pyramids. The magic of this Pagan temple of the Sun and Moon persisted into Christian times : ancient gods are remembered in the popular name for the monument – ‘The De’il’s Stanes‘
J. R. Barrett Knock News.
No. 64/June 2012.
Near the distillery lies the affectionately named ‘Cup And Saucer’. This tower like structure is the remains of a windmill, built in the mid-eighteenth century by the local proprietor, General James Alexander of Glasshaugh. Abercromby was at one point Commander in Chief of the British forces in North America, but returned home after a humiliating defeat in battle at Ticonderoga. His windmill was built on top of a Bronze Age Cairn using much of it’s stonework. It ceased production during the first half of nineteenth century but stands as a reminder of times gone by.
Mark Leith, Knock News Issue 61
March 2012.
More news about Carpow Log Boat.
These stunningly beautiful glass beads with intricate spiral patterns are known only in the North East. Who made them and why?
More info :
The inscription on the stone says :
These stones formed part of a Prehistoric Stone Cist which, containing an urn, was discovered here when the highway was made about 1800. An early Celtic Round cross probably from St. Ternan’s churchyard is built into the manse wall opposite.
Recorded by the Provost and Town Council of Banchory 1923.
‘We march down to Blackhills House. Our wonder is a garden feature. Six stone pillars support a jaunty stone-tiled roof. Within this shelter a rugged stone block perches on a little plinth. One face is pocked with a random rash of round pits. On the opposite face are two linked spirals. My map tells me that this a prehistoric Cup Marked Stone. These things are old : Neolithic-Stone Age-the age of the first farmers whose slash-and-burn and simple ploughs tore open Scotland’s soil 5,000 years ago-or maybe more. We do not touch the carved designs, though tempted. There is an ancient magic here that urges us to trace the spiralled coils or to place a finger in each pecked-out cup. But what supernatural forces might inhabit the stone-awaiting ritual release.‘
John Barrett.
Knock News Issue 42 August 2010.
‘On the summit of Mither Tap (1698 feet) are the ruins of what is probably a Pictish fort. It was an enormous structure, the total circumference of which must have been over 700 feet. The outer wall is fully fifteen feet in thickness and is carefully built with well coursed masonry having a rampart walk and a parapet. Inside the protected area were found the remains of around ten hut circles, a well and a second wall.‘
Algy Watson.
Oyne Past and Present.
‘Two graves of an early historical age, containing some bones and dust, and at least one burial urn were found on the farm of Newlands. In the beginning of August, 1932, the cover stone of a short cist was discovered while excavation was taking place for material to repair the road leading up to the farm of Newlands. On raising this stone a short cist was uncovered on the floor of which lay the remains of a human skeleton and an urn. Mr. George Murray, the farmer, removed the urn to his house, left the bones undisturbed and replaced the cover so that the burial might be examined by one familiar with such deposits. This was a typical short cist of the early Bronze Age and was formed by four slabs set on edge, one at each side and one at each end. The urn which belongs to the beaker class was found intact apart from two cracks on opposite sides of the lip.‘
Algy Watson.
Oyne Past and Present.
From The Muir Of Dinnet Nature Reserve Leaflet.
The first people probably came to Dinnet around 8,000 years ago but the only evidence that remains is the odd flint chip in the ploughed fields. Some of Scotland’s very first farmers settled in Deeside, in Neolithic times around 5,000 years ago. Tiny pollen grains trapped in the mud of the reserve’s lochs give a picture of agricultural changes from then onwards. A drop in the amount of tree pollen and an increase in the amount of cereal pollen shows that people were cutting down trees and growing crops 5,000 years ago. Iron Age people, roughly 2,700 to 1,900 years ago, left more visible evidence of a settled farming community in the form of field boundaries, trackways and hut circles in the neck of land between the lochs. Now grassed-over and among the woods, these circles show were the bases of large timber huts once stood. Some two millennia later, farming still forms part of the activity on the Dinnet and Kinord estate, part of which now forms the nature reserve.
Loch Kinord is in the Muir Of Dinnet nature reserve. This comes from the info sheet.
Kettle, crannog and castle.
Lochs Kinord and Davan also result from the long vanished ice. They formed when two huge chunks of ice pressed down into the land and melted slowly, leaving hollows called ‘kettle holes’ which then filled with water as the ice melted.
Loch Kinord, the larger of the two lochs, has a number of small islands. One of these near the north-east shore is artificial. It’s an old crannog~a loch dwelling where a large hut sat on a platform, once connected to the shore by a narrow causeway. Around 2.000 years ago, Iron Age people using dug-out oak canoes built it by pushing large oak trunks into the loch bed and piling layers of stone, eart and timber on top, to form the base. A large hut was then built on stakes above the water. The crannog stayed in use until medieval times when King Malcolm Canmore (Malcolm III0 may have kept prisoners here in the 11th century. Malcolm used a wooden ‘peel’ tower on Castle Island (largest island in the loch) as a hunting lodge.
Loch Kinnord has an ancient crannog which was enlarged in medieval times. This was to be the prison for the adjacent Castle Island. The area around the loch has Kinord Stone, Pictish carvings, and several prehistoric settlements.
“Just a little further on and we moved from history to prehistory at the superbly sited standing stone. This twelve foot high stone goes back 3,000 years before Somerled, to the Bronze Age. Of the men who carried it here we know little. Strangely, it is in Jura that traces of the very first men in Scotland have been found – flint arrowheads uncovered in the sand dating back over 9,000 years. Perhaps the proliferation of the caves, large and small, made Jura a natural island for colonisation by the first shore-dwelling people looking for a place to settle.”
Jura In The Sun, from
Tom Weir’s Scotland, published 1980.
The energetic Pennant climbed Beinn an Oir, the highest of the Paps Of Jura, but he mentioned its near neighbour, Beinn Shiantaidh. This translates as the “Enchanted Mountain”, or more precisely “the Mountain Defended by Enchantment”. No archaeological information exists to confirm or deny its use as such, but the name strongly suggests that the mountain was important in the beliefs of the prehistoric peoples of lived on Jura. As Pennant notes, it is one of three grouped close together, and triplicity was thought to be spiritually powerful in the ancient world. And high places seemed to attract those who felt it was important to be near their sky-gods.
Alistair Moffat “Before Scotland”
Studying Pennants Tour Of Scotland 1772.
Anybody looking for the cup marked stone, at Westertown (NJ58824450), will be wasting their time. The farmer buried the stone at least ten years ago in the same field in which it had rested for years. There then followed “a stushie” between the Historic Scotland people and the farmer. So, in the end not a very good result.
This cairn is mentioned in the James Godsman 1952 book King Edward – Aberdeenshire. The Story Of A Parish. There is a photograph of cairn when it wasn’t so badly eroded.
Sculptors Cave.
“On the beach below, (Hopeman Golf Course), is a proper wonder. Access is tricky, a hazardous descent on steep slopes and bare rock; or a slippery scramble around headlands on the shore at low tide. But we feel that a little danger adds spice to our wonder. More than two thousand years ago, spiritual Celts sought out this gloomy cavern for a grizzly cult: a pagan veneration of the human head as a source, symbol and esoteric power. The cavern roof was hung with severed heads: criminals executed for unspeakable crimes; warrior heroes decapitated in battle; apostates beheaded in bloody auto da fe; wise forebears exhibited for their posterity’s veneration. And later Celtic people – Picts on the cusp of Christianity – came here to chisel their arcane symbols into the soft sandstone of the cave walls. We have to search to find the sculptures – small and rudely carved among a gallery of subsequent graffiti.”
John R. Barrett
Walks and Wonders – Knock News No. 30
August 09
“Durn, a hill and a burn in the Fordyce Parish of North Banffshire. The hill culminates 2 miles south west of Portsoy, and, rising to altitude of 651 feet above sea level, is crowned with the remains of an ancient camp, supposed to have been Danish. A quarry on it’s northern side yields a beautiful variety of quartz, exported to England for the use of the potteries. The burn, rising near Smithfield (a farm), at an altitude of 600 feet runs 6 miles north-north-eastward to the sea at Portsoy.”
Ond. Sur., sh.96, 1876.
Ordnance Gazetteer Of Scotland
by Thomas C. Jack between 1882 and 1885.
(The burn enters the sea at Portsoy harbour right next to the Shore Inn pub. Hurrah!)
Ancient Leftovers.
The dune system you now see at Forvie acts as as a blanket covering an older landscape shaped by our ancestors. People lived on Forvie from the earliest times because it provided many sources of food. The earliest evidence of settlement dates from 8000 years ago and consists of small fragments of flint scattered during tool-making.
Later evidence comes from the people who began farming and burying their dead, about 5000 years ago.
Little circular foundations, most now buried by sand, were part of this use. It continued with kerb cairns, which local people built about 3000 years ago, to cover their cremation burial sites. Three of these cairns lie on land that had previously been farmed.
Forvie National Nature Reserve.
Scottish Natural Heritage.
King Edward – Aberdeenshire
The Story Of A Parish – Gray Stone Of Clochforbie
“This circle stood at an elevation of 420 feet above sea level, two miles north of the circle at Auchnagorth, and the recumbent alone remains. This type is peculiar to the shires of Aberdeen, Banff and Kincardine. The recumbent stone was flanked by two pillars, and its situation was invariably on the south-west side of the circle. The whole enclosed a central ring cairn, and when examined pottery and cremated burials have been found. An interesting utensil, peculiar to the recumbent stone circle, is the handled stone cup or ladle found in them, confirming the belief that these circles were in use in the Iron Age.
The recumbent stone is situated on the farm of Clochforbie, belonging to Mr. Andrew Smith. It is within a few feet of the road separating Clochforbie from the crofts of the same name. It is clear from the position of the recumbent stone, that the stones comprising the circle were removed to bottom the road under construction at the beginning of the 19th century.
The recumbent stone is a whinstone boulder 12 feet in length, 4 feet 10 inches broad at the middle, and 3 feet 3 inches at its greatest height. It rests on several small stones and makes contact with the ground for only five feet. The is of irregular shape and flat on the top. Its weight is 4 tons and a quarter, but stones of this type have been known to weigh up to 30 tons.”
James Godsman 1952.
King Edward – Aberdeenshire
The Story Of A Parish – Auchnagorth
“This circle stands on a plateau 497 feet above sea level. From the stone circle the plateau eastwards towards the hill of Turlundie, near New Pitsligo, and possesses the curious name of Cairny-whing. The circle is located on the farm of Upper Auchnagorth, and commands a magnificent view over a wide area.
The circle consistes of ten stones, three of which remain upright, and do not include a recumbent stone. the stone content is that of “rotten porphyry,” bluish and reddish in parts, with veins of white quartz. The largest stone stands at 4 feet 6 inches high, and the base measures 17 feet 5 inches ; it is fully 5 feet across its western face. A stone on the south-west periphery has a height of 5 feet 6 inches, its breadth is 4 feet 4 inches. The third stone is 5 feet 9 inches above ground level, and 3 feet 6 inches in breadth. the diameter of the circle is 44 feet 6 inches.”
By James Godsman, 1952.
There is also information about cairns at Balgreen and Fisherie in this book.
St Brandans is the name of the church in Whitehills. More to our subject, the ruined church at nearby Boyndie, also called St. Brandans, is supposedly built on or near the location of a destroyed stone circle.
A couple of years back the site was visited by Historic Scotland and Aberdeen University people. They mentioned to Gregor Cook that if he had time he could move the field clearance. Apparently Gregor replied in language I won’t repeat.
The Culsh monument now stands on the site of this circle which was destroyed presumably during 1876. Alistair Moffat, the former Church of Scotland minister of that parish, informed me that some of stones had been used in the building of the manse. Alas no remains can be seen.
Tom Weir’s Scotland gives the site a little mention in the chapter “The Ythan Estuary.”
“But the shifting sand uncovered as well as destroyed. When it blew away it revealed a record of 3,000 years of human history, in ring cairns, kitchen middens, stone implements, fragments of pottery, and stone circles, dating back to the Bronze and Early Iron Age.”
Just down the coast, towards Aberdeen near Balmedie, Donald Trump is trying to build his infamous golf course on a nature reserve and sand dunes. Perhaps the North Sea winds will blow this greedy bampot away.......if only!!
One person, whom I won’t name, who was brought up on Carnousie farm didn’t even know that these two sites existed. (she is now quite a well known photographer and one of my former pupils) Even worse, her father, who has worked on the land his whole life, didn’t know either! I found out when my father and myself did some dry stane work at the nearby castle and estate.
Greywether’s comments could well be correct as local legend and rumour has tales of circle(s) being destroyed in the area. Sheilburn has only stone left and the Carlin Stone has it’s remains. The stone at the Hill of Laithers also merits a mention. (Why was Backhill left alone?) Some reckon that the stones are in a wall at the Mill of Laithers. Just recently I found the standing stone at Newton of Fortrie. (July 09)
If you ask the present occupiers to see the circle chances are they will be very helpful. I was shown inside one of the barns. Notches showing the heights of various Shand children over almost the last 500 years are marked on wooden posts. The Shand family only recently, 10 years ago, left Yonder Bognie. The daughter of the last Shand occupants still visits the circle with her daughters.
October 08.
This area is covered in ancient wonders with hut circles, Schivas, South Ythsie, Mill Of Kelly and Shethin stone circles, Fedderat and Pitmancy Cairns, cup marked stones as well as the standing stones at Bellmuir, Monkshill and the Candle Stone. These are all situated on or near the River Ythan between the villages of Fyvie and Ythanbank.
Cortes House across the road from Cortie Brae has been long rumoured to be the site of an ancient circle. Indeed the house is supposedly built on top of it. Anyway this is what Mary W. Melville had to say in the Fraserburgh Herald Oct 9, 2008.
“At one time there stood a Druidical circle on the Cortes estate. The name Cortes is said to be derived from the Gaelic for circle, so it must be of ancient origin. It was first recorded in the 1696 Poll Book that the estate was owned by Patrick Ogilvie of Hallyards a cadet of the Ogilvies of Findlater who purchased the lands from William Keith, Earl Marishcal. The estate remained in the Ogilvie family for the next century”
The rest of the item gives the history of the house up to 2nd World War.
J. Barrett writes in the Knock News Dec 08 edition page 27,
“A little side trip takes us up to the field behind the houses – and another wonder. Ravaged by stone robbers and disrespectful agriculture, are the remains of a boulder kerbed cairn: the burial place of a petty pharaoh, and sacred high-place of the Bronze-Age sky cult. We creep through the fence, feeling, perhaps, that we should remain respectfully upon our knees as we approach this place of ancient power.”
A little further up the road Barrett continues,
“The green lane becomes a tarmac road leading downhill towards our favourite Speyside wonder. Oppressed by two more misplaced new builds is the Fairy Hillock. Is this curiosity a natural feature? The archaeology books are unhelpful. The hillock is shaped like a Norman castle-motte, but the site argues against this interpretation. Perhaps it is another Bronze-Age high-place from which the spirits of ancestral chieftains watch over their flocks, crops and descendants in the Strath of Spey. Perhaps it was built by fairies after all.”
Also known as Hatton Burial Cairn.
In Alistair Moffat’s book “Before Scotland” Pitglassie, which means “patch of green” is a place of historical note.
Page 118
“,early farmers worked a place called Pitglassie. The name translates as “patch of green land” and might remember a cleared area of woodland. Between 3750 and 3500 BC the farmers lifted the turf, cleared away the stones from a roughly circular area and built a funeral pyre in the middle. They buried the resulting cremations in the same place. This circular area was marked by a ring of 11 or 12 timber posts. A ring cairn was thrown around the site, probably making use of the cleared turf and stones. Pitglassie is significant because it prefigures the wood and stone circles of a later period, and may be the particular forerunner of the recumbent stone circles found in North Eastern Scotland.”
On Page 138 he continues concerning remains, bones etc.
“What was done with the majority of the bodies? How were they disposed of? There is no evidence of mass graves, or indeed of anything else, and only speculation is possibe. It may well be that cremation of the sort that went on at Pitglassie provides an answer. Perhaps bones were defleshed and burned to dust, and that dust strewn over the ground that those people had farmed. And when it rained their remains went back into the land. This means of burial is undetectable.”
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