Publication Account
Date 1986
Event ID 1017321
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017321
The three small, unearthly, rings of quartzite blocks that glisten in the sleet and sparkle in the sun high on the south facing shoulder of Kirk Hill represent two trends in the burial and ritual monuments of Grampian that run back over 1500 years. The first, seen here in the diameters of the rings of between 6m and 7m, is the gradual reduction in the size of the feature (compare the great single ring cairn at Loanhead, no. 98). The second is the use of quartzite, a notable characteristic of the earlier recumbent stone circles and Clava cairns, at Logie Newton translated into hefty blocks up to 1.3m in length. Kerb cairns are often found in groups, as here, and their kerbstones are frequently disproportionately large when compared with the flat interiors of the cairns. There are few, however, so striking or so dramatically unreal as this Buchan group.
The location of the Roman marching camp of Ythan Wells on the hill to the south (NJ 655382) can be appreciated from the kerb cairns.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Grampian’, (1986).
