Archaeology Notes

Event ID 678362

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/678362

NN80SW 2 8307 0214 to 8330 0232

(NN 8324 0226) Wallace's Stone (NR).

OS 6" map, (1959)

An upright stone, six foot high, three wide and two thick. Traditionally the site of a battle between Wallace and the English, the stone being placed here by Wallace to commemorate the event.

Name Book 1863.

In addition to the Wallace Stone, five other stones, now prostrate, seemed to have formed a series running in a direction south-west to north-east, 253 degrees. The first is 7ft long, 8ft in circumference at one end and 6ft at the other. On the exposed side, which, when the stone was erect, would be the SE, are over 20 cup-marks, from 1 1/2 to 2ins in diameter. About 75 yards distant and in the same line with the standing stone lies a roughly rectangular stone 6ft 6ins long and about 10ft in circumference. The next in the series is a flat stone 5ft 6ins long and 4ft 6ins broad, sunk in the ground, and slightly out of line but near it and in more exact line is a small stone 4ft long. These may be fragments of a single stone. The interval between this and the standing stone is about 150 yards, which suggests that a stone is missing. Next is the Wallace Stone and beyond this in the same line at a distance of about 75 yards, is a stone 10ft long and from 16 to 18ft in girth. Associated with Wallace by an incident narrated by Blind Harry (now discredited).

A F Hutchison 1893.

NN 8307 0214 - NN 8330 0232. Hutchison (1893) is probably correct in suggesting an alignment of stones here. The stones are generally as described by him but the stone 4ft long, close to the middle one 'C' must be considered extremely doubtful as either having been a standing stone or even a fragment of stone 'C'. Stone 'B' is now split. On stone 'A' there are at least 19 cup-marks, mostly indistinct but probably true cup-marks.

Visited by OS (W D J) 8 June 1967.