nickbrand
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!
A little further down the field, there are the remains of many cairns. This is one of them, which I felt had been a kerbed cairn.
As you can see, the cairn is pretty disrupted. I suspect half the dykes in this area have been built from stones robbed out of here.
This view of the eastern hut circle illustrates reasonably well why it might be mistaken for a stone circle.
Looking across the western hut circle, with the Grey Cairn in the background
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.
A dreich day, as they say. George is the only spot of colour in the landscape.
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.