nickbrand

Update re access: the new owners (non-local) who moved in a couple of years ago have now put up signs down the road stating “No unauthorised vehicles beyond this point”, which I’m not sure is strictly kosher. Certainly access on foot is still covered under the Right to Roam legislation. I’m not recommending anyone breaking the law but these clowns are going to have to learn that the days of colonialism are over – and that the people of Scotland (and elsewhere) have the right to access sites which have been visited from time immemorial. Some local action is planned on this, stay tuned.

Driven past this a number of times recently (currently working nearby), and will endeavour to bring a camera with me soon and get some photos.

The Clach a’Mheirlich or ‘Thief’s Stone’ (Pictish Symbol Stone Class 1) stands in a field by the Alness to Invergordon road. On the front is an incised step symbol and on the left side what appear to be the traces of a crescent symbol with a pair of pincers below.

Park in the ‘Public slipway’ car park. The stone is about 20m into the field across the road.

Accessed via the drive to Cultoquhey Hotel, this one took a bit of finding. The owners are Italian, and seem to cater exclusively for Italian guests to Scotland. They seemed interested however, and especially so when after they referred to it as “The Roman Stones” I took great delight in pointing out that these were ancient when the original Romans paid their brief visit to Scotland!

There’s not much to see, and I didn’t attempt any photographs. There’s definitely a slight mound present, but it’s so overgrown with trees, ferns, nettles, moss and bl**dy rhododendrons that access is limited and viewing anything is next to impossible.

This one would really benefit from a proper archaeological survey, stripping all the undergrowth (and overgrowth!) away.

This one was a bit of a drive-by as I was in a hurry to head for another site. It’ll keep for a return visit when hopefully I can access the field and have a better look around.

Couldn’t actually reach this today as the field’s in crop at present. Made do with a couple of pictures from a nearby slope, and will have to come back in the winter. Looks to be about 150 feet long, fairly low, and with two great oak trees growing from it.

As BigSweetie has said, there’s a lot going on here. Many of the stones are field clearance, but the cist covers and several recumbent stones (along with the single upright remaining) show that there was a veritable hive of neolithic activity here at one time.

According to a local lady I spoke to, the land belongs to the Abercairney Estate and was at one time used as a burial ground. The estate has been held by the Moray family since the end of the 13th century.

The field was in crop today so had to make do with what can be seen from the side of the field. Easy enough to access, as the farmer was quite happy to point out the route through one field to the next, in which the stone stands. About 2m tall, but with quite a pronounced lean.

Easy enough to find – ask at the Saline Golf Club – “See the trees up there? There’s a dyke under them, follow it right then left, stone’s at the end.” They apparently get a few people a year asking about it.

I wonder if they felt as depressed as I did when I got there. Great situation, if it hadn’t been misty the views would have been stupendous. But what a way to treat a stone...

It’s the first one I’ve ever seen with its very own corrugated shed extension. Trust me, the pictures don’t show the full horror. It’s also wrapped up in barbed wire, presumably to stop an escape if it was so inclined.

The area’s known as Temple, but no known Hospitaller or Templar connections as far as I’m aware, so it probably refers to ‘druidical remains’. The stone is pretty big, but there are a couple of lumps of stone nearby which look suspiciously as if they might have been companions at one time or another. One of them’s built into the dyke now, and looks happier than its big pal...

I called here today to photograph the Pictish symbol stone built into a rockery at the house. Spoke to the lady there and was told there was another stone there too. Different bit of the garden, bit it was OK to go and take a look. I’m glad I did.

I don’t think this stone is in its original position, it’s too well landscaped. Think it may well have been acquired at the same time the Pictish stone was removed from Whitefield Farm. But it is a standing stone, as the three well-defined cup marks point out. A nice surprise as I don’t see any reference to it in Canmore. The lady of the house didn’t know where it had come from, unfortunately.

Not too hard to find. Park below the kirk at St Martins and take the left of the three tracks ahead of you. About quarter of a mile in you pass the gate to the Abbey on the right, then another field gate on the right. About a hundred yards past this on the left a gently sloping track leads down to an old stone bridge. Cross and follow the path up to the left, then cross to the fence and follow it to the right. After a couple of right hand turns following this you’ll see a wee clearing – and there’s the circle.

Pretty disrupted, about 6 stones of a possible ten left, and all recumbent. Nice atmosphere though, and there’s a bonus – a cup marked rock about 50 feet SW of the circle.

Worth a look!

These stones are just lying at the side of the track. Canmore has the north stone standing erect but it looked pretty toppled to me. Not a very inspiring site I’m afraid. The Witch’s Stone is just up the road a bit, and a couple of deer ran out across the field as I took the photos.

Close by to the site of an old stone circle (now vanished), this appears marked on old maps as “Stone Cists found”. It was rather a damp day and the field had just been ploughed so contented myself with a long range shot. A lot of stones round the base (field clearance?) so will definitely have a look at this one again.

A cold March day but the undergrowth is mostly dead. A much improved view of this site from my previous visit.

I had a look here today, but wasn’t much impressed with the boulders. No sign of cup marks on any, and I remember reading in Canmore that a cup marked stone from here had been removed and built into a house (since demolished) and lost. They look like bog-standard field clearance, to be honest.

Cold but bright day today when I visited. The farmer’s quite happy to give permission. This mound is associated with MacBeth (the real one, not the Shakespearean invention) but there’s no evidence linking him with his mound other than folk lore. As far as I’m aware this hasn’t been excavated so I have no idea whether it’s a burial mound or not. Far too small for a castle motte however. Pretty impressive tree on the top!

Taking the Big Red Beast (TM) out for her final field trip before trading her in for a newer model, I wound up back here in an attempt to track down the alleged circle. A beautiful cold but very bright day, not a cloud in the sky. And this place is most definitely worth a good look. I didn’t find a circle, but I found damn near everything else...

There’s the remains of a large cairn at the top of the site. Immediately below it are two perfect hut circles, which could easily be mistaken for stone circles by someone who didn’t know what they were. They’re certainly two of the best I’ve seen. And the field leading to these is absolutely covered with the remains of small cairns, one of which (though fairly disrupted) had the familiar look and feel of a kerbed cairn. What a place! I spent nearly two happy hours here pottering about, and I suspect I’ll be back. This place is just begging for another look!

There’s a rough track up to Stylemouth farm, where you can park easily enough off the track. Then it’s about a ten minute walk up through a few gates, muddy in places. Unfortunately there wasn’t anyone home when I called as I’d like to have had a word with the farmer about this place. Maybe next time.

Visited here today. There’s a small tumulus situated just off the main drive up to the big house, and the stone stands just in front of this. It’s around 5 feet tall and quite solid. The owner of the house mentioned that it had been excavated ‘in the past’ and that some cremated remains were found under it.

Revisited Sunday 21st November with BigSweetie, George and ActionMan. Some idiots had been using the central depression (from a previous land-owner’s dig) as a fireplace... Fortunately the stones are far enough away from this not to have suffered any apparent damage. Shame though that even as remote a site as this can be damaged. A very cold day, with horizontal sleet, made sure we didn’t linger too long.

This is a pretty big stone, around seven and a half feet tall. Ask permission at the castle first (posh house...) and watch out for the electric fence!

Field was empty and only grass growing yesterday, so took some pictures of the stone from round about it, rather than just from the fence. Interesting texture on the stone.

Had a look here today, and spoke to the farmer. He’s an enthusiastic member of the local Dunning Parish Historical Society, and has farmed the land here for many years. He doesn’t know of any stones or circles in the vicinity, and knows all his land well – he has taken part in field walks held on his land, helping turn up flints and suchlike.

But no stones!

Had a long blether with the farmer here at the stone today, after asking his permission to photograph it. Lovely bright day, you could see hilltops 40 miles away to the north. A little history of the town states that the field it stands in is known as the Thane’s Field, but the farmer (who is the 8th generation of this family to farm here) says it’s always been known on the farm as simply the ‘Big Stane Field’. More prosaic, but eminently practical.

It’s a decent size, easily 6 feet tall and a yard broad. And what a view!

I had spotted this wee stone in the fiels just east of Dunrobin Castle on the drive north, but didn’t stop at that time. Managed to park in the field entrance on the way back down the road and went to investigate (can’t find anything at all about this stone in Canmore). It has the right feel to it, though (i.e. not a rubbing stone), but is sadly neglected. The stone itself is mainly propped up now by pieces which have been knocked off, as can be seen in the photographs. Some of those pieces are very newly knocked off too, and the care taken by the farmer can be seen in the way the crops grow right up against the stone. I have to confess to not having walked very carefully on the way back from this stone, I was so annoyed.

I suspect that this is part of the Duke of Sutherland’s estate, being so close to Dunrobin. Fairly typical of the care for the people and landscape that these scum have shown down the years. The landscape above Golspie is dominated by a monstrous statue of the cretin responsible for the Clearances. One of these fine days we may be able to treat this excresence to a proper and fitting end, just the way that they treated the land and people. It’s even visible in one of the photographs, it can be seen from so far away!

These stones lie just north of the track to Achnagarron farm, on a small prominence with a lot of other stones lying around. I couldn’t discern any real pattern in the other stones, but had the feeling all the time I looked around that these were part of a larger complex. Maybe not, maybe it’s just me!

Two fairly solid stones, about 1.5m tall, and orientated roughly NE-SW.

This is so disrupted as to be barely worth bothering with, I only included it out of completeness. Set just back off the road, and now enclosed by deer-proof fencing, it has been recently planted round with trees so should enjoy a little more protection, though as I said there’s not much left.

I tried to get into this one, but I’m a big lad, and was well happed up (bitterly cold day) and just couldn’t squeeze down the steps whether trying to go forward or backwards, so had to content myself with a couple of photographs of the steps disappearing downwards. From what Martin says, this one sounds like a job for small skinny people clad in wet-suits!

Yet another chambered cairn where most of the stones have disappeared over the years and the central chamber stones are most of what remains. This is quite a big one, though, and almost resembles a small stone circle. It’s set back around 100m in from the road on a small prominence, and is easily spotted and visited.

Another ruined chambered cairn right beside the road, which makes for relatively easy access. Again, much of the cairn itself has disappeared, but the main stones of the central chamber remain.

Lying beside the road on the north side of Loch Assynt, the remains of the cairn are on a small hill just beside the ruins of Ardvreck Castle. It’s a beautiful place to stop, however, as the views are great. Just a bit further along the road we stopped below some crags to spend 20 minutes watching a golden eagle float silently above us.

A couple of the photographs of the cairn are a bit streaky, I’m not sure why this happened. The central chamber is still partially intact.

Very disrupted and ruinous, this chambered cairn lies at the roadside on the shores of Loch Borralan. There isn’t much to see, in all honesty.

Stuck in fairly boggy ground, this broch, so I didn’t manage to get very close to it.

As Lianachan correctly points out, this is in fact the remains of the broch and not a cairn! I couldn’t get across the river to this one, so had to content myself with a couple of photographs. In dry weather it may be possible to ford the Loth, but not after the rain there had been some days I was up there! Don’t make the same mistake I did and assume the sheep-fold just north of this as the broch....

A nice wee pair of stones sited just above the bridge where Glen Sletdale meets Glen Loth – a fairly classic confluence siting. Neither are very tall, about 1m in height, and running approximately E-W. They stand beside a fairly abrupt drop down into Sletdale, and care should be taken up here! It’s quite a long fall down into the burn...

Hamish is right about the distance this one is away from the road, the climb back up, through heather and bog, is pretty sapping. Having said that, it’s well worth the effort – this stone is a good 11 feet tall. Strange surface, pitted with dozens of tiny little holes (visible in one of the close-up photographs) and one possible cup mark, which I also photographed. A bright, cold May day when I had a look at this one, with a brisk northerly wind which discouraged lingering to enjoy the view back down the glen.

There are many burial cairns scattered about The Ord. The remains of the cairn tombs are the most obvious neolthic remains, but there are other burial cairns, a burnt mound and innumerable hut circles. I have attached a photograph of one of the burial cairns.

Visited here today. You can park at Belmont Centre and walk up the castle drive (ask permission, it’s a site used a lot by schools so there are often a lot of children about). The stone’s on the left a couple of hundred metres up the path, just inside a field which had several horses in it today. Not much to look at, about a metre high with a slight tilt to the west.

I spoke to a couple of people in the area about it, but despite having searched the Statistical Accounts and a couple of other references I can’t ascertain why it is thus named – it sounds almost Danish, and certainly other stones are named after battles with the Danes. This one, however, seems to have no such tale attached to it.

As Tiompan knows, this one is in a fairly dodgy situation. I spoke to the farmer about it, and he has agreed to ensure that no further risk will occur to the stone from its current situation.

Sorry if this sounds a bit mysterious, but the stone could be regarded as ‘portable’ and we don’t want it to disappear.

Unless, of course, the risk continues and we’re forced to take it into “protective custody”!

The site has been reported to the local museum, but nothing much seems to have been done.

Revisited today, glorious sunny afternoon, so I have deleted a lot of the old misty photos and added some which show the overall layout of the site a bit better. However, the heather’s starting to grow again so it’s disappearing fast....

George has been doing some digging : he talked to a gent from the local history group, who came across the site 4 years ago. They contacted Liz Thoms from the local museum, but as far as they know she never visited the site. As far as is known however, no local ‘built’ this and it’s looking as if it is another true rediscovery.

Visited this site yesterday, a very cold, bright day. From the archives of Canmore:

“A large standing stone about 8’ high in the angle of the garden wall close to the W side of the farm steading, which gave name to the farm. It is considered a stone of memorial of some event”. (By 1923 (OS 25” map) the stone had apparently been moved from its position W of the farm which also became known as the Home Farm).
Name Book 1859.

This standing stone, 2.2m high, 1.0m broad and 0.9m thick, bears a number of small cup-marks – especially noticeable on the lower portion of the north side. Some of the ‘cups’ may be due to weathering.

It’s big, in quite a prominent position, and some of the cup-marks are almost certainly weathering – but some aren’t. I wonder if the stone was orientated differently when first erected, as cup-marks aren’t commonly on the north face of a stone. Maybe it’s just an exception.

This wee stone stands near Court Hill cairn, is oriented NE-SW, and measures 1.3m high x 1.4m long x 0.5m thick. There are no markings on it, but it has quite a fantastic pattern to the stone – I have tried to capture this in one of the photographs.

Visited this site today, as it’s adjacent to the Loak standing Stone. From Canmore: “This is a large turf-covered barrow, mainly of earth but with some stone evident, 4.0 to 5.0m high and formerly covered by trees. It is situated on relatively flat arable land and is readily visible from all directions. A slight terrace effect halfway down the east side of the tumulus is probably due to the tree-planting. Traditionally the site of judicial courts held prior to 1745.”

Hence the alternative name. There’s little else in Canmore about it, so presumably it hasn’t been excavated. The farmer did tell me, however, that this area lies on a gravel bed, and that the local estate has made some plans to quarry for this. He wasn’t sure how advanced the plans were – but possibly another cause for Heritage Action? I’ll be keeping a close eye on local developments here.

The view from the cairn is quite spectacular, and I make no apologies for posting a couple of pictures of these. The cairn seems to be the central feature in a number of low mounds running NW towards the Obney hills, which can be faintly discerned in a couple of the pictures. Anyone have any theories for this? A long line of standing stones runs from Denmarkfield Farm, through Cramflat, Gellybanks, Loak, and Pitsundry to the Witch’s Stone at Meickle Obney. Could be just serendipity, though...

Visited here today. The stones still exist, and are in the garden of a small cottage, protected at the rear by a large hedge. Canmore states: “Two standing stones 10’ apart W of the main road at Dowally. They are respectively 8’7” and 7’8” high and 8’ and 10’11” basal girth.” In 1975 it was noted that one stone had fallen, otherwise the description is correct. This has since been re-erected, and I was unable to find out which one – presumably the one hit by the bus, however!

The western stone has a huge line of quartz running vertically down the west side of it. They’re quite a decent size and impressive standing out pale against the dark hedge.

Had another look at this site today, a fine clear afternoon and (unusually) no cattle-beasts in the field for a change. This was one of the first sites I visited when I started recording the stones in my area, and I only took a couple of general photos. I have removed these and replaced them with the current set, which quite clearly show the large cup marks on the NE stone.

Canmore states: “A ‘circle of stones’ forming a triangle whose sides are 25’10” x 28’10” x 29’4”. There is also a small outlying stone on the north side. The first measures 5’ x 4’ x 10” high; the second, 2’ x 3’ x 3’6” high; the third, 2’ x 2’ x 3’8” high.

On the E side of the latter are 21 cups, varying from 1”-3” in diameter. 6 are surrounded by single rings and connecting grooves. On the west side are 16 cups, varying from 1”-2 1/2” in diameter. There is also a connecting groove at one side.

J R Allen 1881.”

These are all easily visible in the photos. The view from this elevated field is quite spectacular, with the Sidlaws behind and the long slow slope south towards the mouth of the Tay.

I received an e-mail last night from George Currie, one of the Scottish Megaraks with a habit of turning up relatively unknown sites. In part it read “the possibility of a stone circle in the seedlees might be of interest . i noticed it last summer and thought it landscaped a la “cuddy stanes” but had another look today and i’m not so sure . anyway it’s near the short cist in auchterhouse approx 3560 3888 . there are 5 stones in heather 40 metres in diameter , a path goes round them hence the landscaping effect. anyone wanting to have a look (it’s nearly yer backies nick) park in the layby just after the double gates just west of the 234m height mark on the map, walk back to the stile on the bend cross field to the N.W. over the rise and the stones are due south of the pylon which is about 150 yds away”

Couldn’t resist that as I hadn’t been out for ages, so off I set this morning into what was an extremely dreich day. His instructions are spot on except it’s NE not NW, and I walked past the site initially trying to find the pylon in the mist...

It’s definitely the remains of a circle, I estimate probably 12 stones originally, of which one solitary one to the west survives, along with 4 on the eastern arc. None of them terribly tall, but it sits in a lovely little natural amphitheatre. The photographs are terrible, the mist was very thick, and I’ll try to get back on a sunny day to see it in a better light. A great atmosphere though even in the mist and drizzle, and only a short distance away from the Balkello stone.

As Mr Sweet has said, this is in the grounds of a school, so ensure that you ask before visiting. This is a large, almost triangular stone, around 8 feet tall, with no visible markings.

This stone is now recumbent, lying a few metres from where it once stood on a patch of rough ground and gorse. I spoke to the farmer, who said it had been moved there after it fell some number of years ago, and he is currently musing about re-erecting it. It would stand around 8 feet tall if he does so, it’s a fairly solid piece of whinstone!

According to CANMORE, this is a cairn, approximately 19m in diameter, with a single standing stone on the SSW quadrant. The field was full of bullocks today, so discretion kicked in and I couldn’t confirm the stone itself, having to be content with a couple of rather atmospheric photographs of the cairn looming out of the mist. There are a couple of projecting stones which show up fairly clearly, which the CANMORE researcher thought might be part of a kerb.

Literally feet away from the circle here is a large cup marked rock, with around fourteen cup marks and the vague outlines of a couple of rings. It used to be in the centre of the circle before the circle was moved to its present position.

I came back to have another look here nearly 4 years on from my initial visit, armed with more information and the benefit of 4 years intensive stone-visiting. Although Canmore describes 3 stones, there is a fourth, at a greater distance from the other 3, but on exactly the same ENE-WSW alignment. The 3 stones lie approximately 7m apart, the ‘outlier’ is 35m away from the most easterly of the 3. Not sure about this – it’s not as large as the 3 in the row, but just looks and feels right. The most easterly in the row does have some possible weathered cup marks on the upper face.

According to Canmore, the four poster measures less than 3m across, and contains 2 recumbent boulders on the SW and NW, and two smaller earth-fast boulders, both broken. The NW stone has 3 cup marks on the upper surface.

And that’s almost exactly what is here. It lies at the SW end of the stone row, and the view up to the NE is quite spectacular.