Doune Of Dalmore

RCAHMS surveyed Doune of Dalmore stone circle and ring-cairn on 20 July 2005 with plane table and alidade producing a plan and section of the site at a scale of 1:100. The plan and section were used as the basis for an illustration, produced in ink and finished in vector graphics software, that was published at a scale of 1:250 (Welfare 2011, 512).

This ring-cairn and its surrounding stone circle stand on a hillock that rises out of the haughland on the east bank of the River Avon at its confluence with the River Livet. The cairn, which is composed mainly of waterworn cobbles, measures about 13m in diameter by up to 0.7m in height and has been retained by an outer kerb of larger boulders that can be traced round the southern arc from the east to the south-west. Of the eight kerbstones that remain, one on the south-west is significantly larger than any of the others and measures 0.7m in length by 0.6m in height. Nothing can now be seen of the central court, but six stones belonging to its kerb are shown set on edge on the plan drawn up in 1906 by Coles (1907a, 136–9, fig 6); at that time they protruded between 0.15m and 0.25m above the surface of the cairn and described a rough circle 5.8m in internal diameter around another four stones arranged in a square. The circle surrounding the cairn probably comprised ten equally-spaced orthostats, of which three remain in place and another three lie where they have fallen. Standing about 1.2m outside the line of the outer kerb, the orthostats are apparently set out along the lip of a stony platform skirting the cairn, though this is now only visible in places on the south-east, north-west and south-west. Judging by the heights and lengths of the surviving orthostats, the circle was graded to reduce in height from south to north. Briefly mentioned in the Statistical Account (xiii, 1794, 43), the stone circle is first described by OS surveyors, who noted that four of the orthostats (1, 2, 4 and 5) were still upright (Name Book, Banffshire, No. 17, p 105; Banffshire 1872, xxix); by the time of Coles’ visit in 1906 stone 1 on the south-west had fallen. Coles describes the circle and what he termed the ‘inner setting’, but these were not recognised as the remains of a ring-cairn until a visit in 1966 by Keith Blood of the OS. Since then the classification of the monument has been discussed in several publications (Henshall 1972, 274 note), opinion oscillating between a Clava-type cairn (Burl 1976a, 355, Ban 2; 2000, 424, Ban 2; 2005a, 118) and a recumbent stone circle, the latter being argued inconclusively by Barnatt on the basis of the encircling platform (Barnatt 1989, 260–1, no. 5:21). At the core of the debate is the premise that the circle has been so wrecked that it is impossible to characterise it without excavation. In the assessment of the present survey, however, there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that it is not a recumbent stone circle. The positions of the surviving stones suggest that Coles was almost certainly correct in supposing that the circle comprised ten orthostats, and though these were graded in height, we can be confident that their spacing did not increase on the south side. Evenly spaced, there is simply no room for a recumbent setting anywhere on the southern half of the circumference. Furthermore, at the most likely position, adjacent to the present gap in the ring on the south-south-west, the kerb of the cairn pursues a regular arc without the merest hint that it might once have turned outwards to embrace a recumbent setting.