Nether Balfour

In 1867 OS surveyors noted the site of what they termed a Stone Circle in a field 250m south-east of Nether Balfour (Aberdeenshire 1869, lxii). It had been removed some 20 years before and measured about 18m in diameter, with what was described to them as ‘the remains of about 20 yards [18.3m] of road paved with flat stones, evidently leading to the circle, from the NE’ (Name Book, Aberdeenshire, No. 88, p 107). Annotated Causeway on the map, this was one of a number of such features that they had been told about, in every case adjacent to a Stone Circle – Bankhead (NJ52NW 25); Crookmore (NJ51NE 16 and NJ51NE 144); Druidsfield (NJ51NE 1); and Newbigging (NJ52NW 10). At both Druidsfield and Newbigging, Coles was persuaded that these had been rings with recumbent settings, but it was Alexander Keiller who then drew a connection between causeways and recumbent stone circles, thus drawing Nether Balfour into this category (1934, 18). Without any visible remains to contradict this identification, the inclusion of these structures in lists of possible and probable recumbent stone circles has been inevitable (Burl 1970, 78; 1976a, 352, Abn 79; 2000, 421, Abn 82; Ruggles 1984, 59; 1999, 187 no. 53). However, the most recent analysis of the descriptions of these monuments suggests an alternative explanation. Rather than rings of freestanding orthostats, they were all (excepting Druidsfield) probably walled enclosures or hut-circles with attached souterrains of the type that can still be seen at New Kinnord in the Howe of Cromar (Gannon et al 2007, 70–1).