Tombreck 01, Kenmore, Perthshire

Cup-Marked Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 64798 38284

Also Known as:

1. Canmore ID 289069

Getting Here

Cup-marked stone, with Ben Lawers to the rear

Along the A827 Loch Tay road between Morenish and Lawers, take the track uphill where Carie farmhouse and Tombreck are either side of the road. Walk up this track 2-300 yards till you go through the gate just past the sheep-folds on your left.  Ahead of you is a small grassy hillock on your right – go to the top of it, where you’ll find one of them has a row of cup-markings on its northern edge.

Archaeology & History

This is a reasonably large boulder near the top of the hillock above the trackside.  Several rocks have what may be single cup-markings on them, but this roughly oblong-shaped block has four or five of them running along the more northern edge of the stone, in a rough line sloping gently down the surface of the rock.  No carved rings or other lines were immediately notable here.  It’s nothing special to look at and will probably be of interest only to the hardcore petroglyph enthusiasts amongst you. However, there are many more ornate cup-and-rings found further along the ridges close by (which we’ll add as the weeks and months go by); as well as the remains of a prehistoric enclosure about 200 yards southeast.  The small standing stone of Carie is roughly the same distance to the south.

Cup-marks visible along the edge

…and from above

(Note: although I’ve listed this as the ‘Tombreck 01′ carving, this is likely to be revised in the near future as there is a large gathering of carvings all around this area. The region is still being surveyed and the designations of the petroglyphs will be revised as and when they are recorded more fully, or if/when a detailed published account catalogues them satisfactorily.)

References:

Currie, George, “Kenmore: Tombreck (2-4), Cup-and-ring Marked Rocks,” in Discovery & Excavation in Scotland, New Series volume 10, 2009.
Currie, George, “Kenmore: Tombreck (5-7), Cup-Marked Rocks,” in Discovery & Excavation in Scotland, New Series volume 10, 2009.

© The Northern Antiquarian

Carie, Kenmore, Perthshire

Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 64772 38018

Also Known as:

1. Canmore ID 289028

Getting Here

Small standing stone, looking east

Along the A827 Loch Tay road between Morenish and Lawers, keep your eyes peeled for the Carie farmhouse on the mountain-side (Tombreck is across the road).  The farmer here is very helpful and will let you walk up the land behind his abode if you ask. Go behind the trees at the back of the farm, following the small burn up for a coupla hundred yards till you see the stone in the long grasses on the right.

Archaeology & History

Carie Stone, looking south

Nothing seems to have been written about this small standing stone, found close to the large cluster of cup-and-ring stones of Ben Lawers.  It sits alone in now-boggy ground, in a small dip of land near the stream above Carie Farm.  The stone is barely a foot thick, but stands 3½ feet tall and is more than 4 feet wide.  Its isolation is curious and makes it difficult to contextualize; but the stone is worth visiting if you’re exploring the rock art on the slopes above.

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Bengengie North, Alva, Clackmannanshire

Enclosure:  OS Grid Reference – NN 86680 00601  —  NEW FIND

Getting Here

Aerial view of Bengenie enclosure

This really take a lot of effort to find. From Alva, go up through the graveyard past St. Serf’s Well, turning left and across cross the lane. A gate into the field takes you past Rhodders Farm then up the zigzagging track up the steep hill called The Nebit and into the Ochils. Where the track stops zigzagging, keep your eyes peeled for a left turn (west) about 1000ft up. Go along this, parallel above Alva Glen, for about 2 miles till you reach the sheep fanks. Naathen – go straight uphill towards Bengengie peak, steering to the right (north) side, avoiding the cliffs and onto the level moorland. Once there, you’ll see a rounded hillock a coupla hundred yards ahead. That’s the spot!

Archaeology & History

Southeastern corner of the ditch & bank

This is a bittova long hike to see a very overgrown site – but if you really enjoy the hills, it’s a good little side-track to visit.  I came across it recently on a long bimble over the Ochlis, on my way back home after travelling to three of the Ochil peaks.  Walking carefully across the swampy heights of the Menstrie Moss, a rounded hillock north of Bengengie seemed to have the pimple of a cairn on its top—so I veered over to have a look.

The cairn was small and overgrown, with just a half-dozen rocks visible above ground, and a collection of others in the same pile beneath the heathland grasses.  It was obviously a man-made assemblage, but I couldn’t say for sure whether this was the grave of a person or someone’s favourite sheep a few centuries back!

Small cairn inside the enclosure

It was when I walked around the cairn to try and get some photos of it, that another very distinct feature—not immediately visible—stood out and gave this single cairn an additional feature that really brought this site to life!  For just a few yards east of the cairn I noticed an obvious ditch and outer embankment, running roughly north-south, which may have relevance to the pile of stones.  And so I walked along the edge of the embankment, for about 10 yards, only to find that it turned to the right and continued onwards, east-west, for some distance.  This then turned at a similar angle again about 30-35 yards along, and then again, and again, until I returned to where I had stood initially a few minutes earlier!

There was no doubt about it: this was a man-made, roughly rectangular-shaped enclosure, whose bank and ditch averaged 1-2 yards across.  The maximum height of the outer embankment is less than 3 feet.  Its eastern and western lengths measured roughly 17-18 yards long, and the longer lengths north and south were between 30 and 35 yards at the most.  The cairn feature that I’d initially noticed is found at the near-eastern edge of the enclosure. Apart from that, my initial ramble here indicated few other internal features that were visible, except several small stones.

Southern line of bank & ditch, running left to right

Eastern section of ditch & bank, looking north

The great majority of the site is very overgrown and, as you can see, the photos of the ditch and bank constituting the enclosure are sadly not that easy to make out.  You can see it mostly by the colour changes of the vegetation, running in lines either across or up through the middle of the photos.  I need to get up there again and try get some better images sometime soon—and also to see if there are other features hiding away on the heights of these old hills, long since said to have been the abode of one of the great Pictish tribes (there is also a considerable mass of old faerie-lore in these hills, indicating considerable ancient activity of people whose cosmos was inhabited by spirits and forms long since forgotten in the consensus trance of most moderns).

As for the age of the enclosure: it’s difficult to say on first impression and I’m not keen on making a guess on this one.  It’s certainly old, as the overgrown vegetation clearly shows, both on the photos and when you see it first-hand.  It’s already been suggested by one graduate as possibly neolithic, but I’m a little sceptical about that, as its linearity isn’t consistent with neolithic features we know about in the mid-Pennines. However, this geographical arena is new landscape for me and so the possibility remains open until better, more competent investigation gives us a clearer time period.

© The Northern Antiquarian

Garchel Burn, Glendevon, Perthshire

Hut Circles:  OS Grid Reference – NN 9696 0182

Also Known as:

1. Canmore ID 25942

Getting Here

Line of walling to hut circle on ridge

Along the A823 road from the Pool of Muckhart up to Glendevon, watch out for the small left turning opposite the car-parking spot by the Castlehill Reservoir a couple of miles up the road.  Walk up this small road a mile or so to the Glenquey reservoir, taking the footpath on your right and making sure you walk along the north-side of the waters.  You’ll eventually reach a small set of beautiful mossy green waterfalls (with the rounded fairy hill of Maiden Castle ahead of you).  This is the Garchel Burn. Take steep the path up the side until it levels out a bit, heading for the small clump of stones on the near skyline a couple of hundred yards ahead. That’s it!

Archaeology & History

This is a curious little cluster of seemingly multi-period remains sitting on the edges above the gorgeous waters of the Garchel Burn.  The Royal Commission Canmore report ascribes the scattered rocky cluster below the deer-fencing as the main hut circle – and the line of walling running slightly down the slope does have that traditional Iron Age look about it.  But it’s yet to be excavated.  The larger ring of stones constituting the main ‘circle’ is very much bogged-down, literally, amidst tussock and marshland, with an arc of stones running away from the circle and it’s obviously been made use of it by people in more recent times.

Small ‘hut circle’ to centre

Below the larger rock cluster is a lovely oval structure, built upon a slight rise overlooking the burn, with all the rocks in the structure overgrown with age and grasses.  Tis a beautiful spot to sit and hear the silence of the waters around you.  Aerial images show the outlines of other roughly circular remains in the same area, but none are yet excavated – and some are distinctly much later in period, medieval by the look of things and very probably used by farmers in more recent centuries.  In all probability, there are more things to be found up here, hiding within the forests…

© The Northern Antiquarian

Wizard’s Stone, Dollar, Clackmannanshire

Legendary Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NS 9657 9902

Getting Here

Wizard’s Stone on the 1866 OS map

From Dollar town centre, take the road up to the gorgeous Castle Campbell, but instead of turning up towards the castle, keep on the road, uphill, for another quarter-mile.  As the road begins to level out, a small field and driveway on your left heads up to Kiloran house. Stop here, and note the stone in the field, right by the fence alongside the footpath which runs uphill by the field-side up into the woods.  That’s the Wizard’s Stone.

Archaeology & History

The Wizard’s Stone, Dollar

It’s difficult to determine whether this is the remains of an old standing stone (like that along the same ridge a mile east at Castleton), or a memorial rock.  Whichever it may be, the site is not listed by Canmore, but it’s found in an area with a rich cluster of heathen place-names—most intriguing of which is the Lochy Launds woodland, right above where this Wizard’s Stone now rests.  The stone has been broken into smaller pieces in recent years—as the photos here show—and the small standing stone which remains is barely 3 feet tall at the edge of the field.  According to the local history writer Bruce Baillie (1998), this old stone was an important spot in local witch trial annals.  He wrote:

“A large whinstone in a field in a field is known as ‘The Wizard’s Stone’, having been set there by one of the Moirs to take the place of a rotting stake said to mark the spot where the last Dollar witch (and, naturally, the last Scots one), named Forrester, was burnt, though this is probably folk confusion with the vicar of Dollar, Thomas Forrest.”

Angus Watson (1995) could find no early references of this stone, other than it being mentioned in the 1860 Ordnance Survey Name Book.  Further information on the site would be most welcome.

Folklore

Wizard’s Stone, looking down to the road

Reputedly one of the haunts and gathering places of the witches of the area, this spot was also known as Lochyfaulds, which the place-name giant W.J. Watson (1926) tell us means the ‘place of the Black Goddess,’ like the “Valley of the Black Goddess” or Glen Lochay, 40 miles northwest of here near Killin.  Modern folklore ascribed the wizard here to have been Merlin—as highlighted in the adjacent place-name of “Merlin Park.”

References:

Baillie, Bruce, History of Dollar, DMT: Dollar 1998.
Watson, Angus, The Ochils: Placenames, History, Tradition, PKDL: Perth 1995.
Watson, W.J., The History of the Celtic Place-names of Scotland, Edinburgh 1926.

© The Northern Antiquarian

Mount Cross, Cornholme, Todmorden, West Yorkshire

Cross:  OS Grid Reference – SD 9146 2728

Also Known as:

1. Idol Cross

Getting Here

Mount Cross, near Cornholme

The site can be approached by going up the almost hidden long steep winding lane off the A646 in Cornholme; but if you don’t know the area it’s probably best approached from the well known Bride Stones, above Todmorden.  From here, go west along the road running 100 yards or so above the Bride Stones, past the old pub, past Hawk Stones farm, and turning left downhill about a quarter-mile on.  A coupla 100 yards down, there’s a track to your left.  As you start walking along you’ll see a standing stone on the grassy rise in front of you on your left.  That’s it!

Archaeology & History

Said by local writer Geoff Boswell (1986) to be “the oldest religious memorial in Todmorden,” this old stone, more than 4-feet tall, is still in good condition and can be found beside the Old Causeway: a prehistoric trackway running between Lancashire and Yorkshire which is said by archaeologists to have been an old, but established trade route.  It was suggested by some to have been erected as a cross as early as the 7th century.  Generally known as the Mount Cross, it is also known as the Idol Cross, as legend reputes it to have been the site of pagan practices; hence its repute as being haunted. Its alleged heathen history is probably true (history records describe an old “rude stone” that was once found beneath the legendary Bride Stones nearby, which was moved many centuries back).

The Calderdale Council website tells that, ”Towards the bottom of the shaft on the NE side are what appears to be extremely faint traces of vine-scroll decoration which would suggest a fairly early date for the cross, possibly tenth or eleventh century. The irregularity of the carving overall tends to indicate that the cross is no earlier.”

Folklore

Said to have stood upon or beside a small tumulus until the 20th century. Jessica Lofthouse (1976) reported that a local farmer said of this stone. “Queer things happened here long since. They worshipped idols here.” Locally attributed to be haunted, the old stone was said to have a history of “uncanny happenings.”

…to be continued…

References:

Bennett, P., The Old Stone Crosses of West Yorkshire, unpublished MS, 1995.
Boswell, Geoff, On the Tops around Todmorden, Delta G: Todmorden 1986.
Lofthouse, Jessica, North Country Folklore, Hale: London 1976.

© The Northern Antiquarian

Rivock Enclosure, Riddlesden, Keighley, West Yorkshire

Enclosure:  OS Grid Reference – SE 0768 4414  —  NEW DISCOVERY

Getting Here

Rivock Enclosure walling, looking north

Follow the directions to reach the small Rivock East Carving just on the level of the small moorland.  From here, walk less than 100 yards east, staying just on the edge of the moor, keeping your eyes peeled for the irregular shaped rocks running in lines roughly parallel with the footpath above the edge of the crags.

Archaeology & History

Recent explorations in and around the Rivock Edge area found, not only a number of undiscovered cup-and-ring stones, but the overgrown remains of an undoubted prehistoric enclosure on the ridge of moorland above the rock escarpment which has not previously been reported in archaeological surveys.  Much of the time the area is covered in deep heather, but thanks to this small section of moor being burnt back a short while ago, the lines of walling that mark the enclosure are there for all to see. It’s obvious that some sections of the old walls have been removed in the not-too-distant past for use in more modern walling and, nearby, old quarries and farming have probably been responsible for other destructive elements.

Easternmost line of Rivock enclosure walling

This enclosure is of a rough, rounded, scalene triangular formation, with the main piece of extant walling running roughly northeast-southwest.  The walling is typical of other settlements and enclosures in the region, probably Bronze Age in nature, Iron Age at the latest, with some natural earthfast boulders marking parts of the outline and many smaller pieces of rock and packing stones being added to build up the structure.  The same layout is found at other nearby prehistoric enclosures at Crow Well, Dumpit Hill, Snowden Moor, Woofa Bank and many others.

Of the larger upright stones in the Rivock Enclosure, several of them stand about three feet high, with some of them having been knocked down.  The longest line of walling, running roughly east-west, is less than 50 yards long; whilst the enclosure wall running roughly north-south on its eastern side is 30 yards long.  Much of the walling along its northern side appears overgrown and sections of it are missing.

For a long time I puzzled as to whether there had been any settlements on this part of Rombald’s Moor, rich in cup-and-rings stones — and at last we find that there was at least one such site.  Forays back and forth across the level ground all around here failed to locate any other similar enclosure remains; but it may be that some have been covered (or were destroyed) in the adjacent forestry plantation to the west.  Further explorations by fellow antiquarians may prove worthwhile when the forest is cut down in the next few years.

© The Northern Antiquarian