Field Visit
Date 28 May 1925
Event ID 1099126
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1099126
Cup-marked Boulder, “Macduff's Cross”.
In the pass leading to Strathearn, at an elevation of over 400 feet above sea-level and about 1 ½ miles south-west of the town of Newburgh, is a large sandstone boulder, which rests on an earthen platform surrounded by a comparatively modern circular setting of smaller stones. The boulder measures on an average 3 feet 3 inches high by 3 feet 6 inches wide, with a girth at base of 15 feet 5 inches and at top of 12 feet 9 inches. It is roughly cubical in shape, tapering somewhat from the base to a slightly hollowed top, where it is distinctly cupmarked. The cups vary from 1 ½ to 3 inches in width and from ½ inch to 1 ½ inches in depth. The name "Macduff's Cross", by which the stone is now popularly known, does not occur in local records until 1814, and it is more than doubtful whether the boulder is really the base of a cross. There is not the slightest indication that it has ever been socketed for a shaft, despite the current story that the cross itself was thrown down arid destroyed by the Reformers in 1559 on their way from Perth to Cupar. Sir James Balfour of Denmyln calls it, "Our ancient Limitt or march stone which devydit this Countrey [of Fife] from the Countrey palatine of Stratherne” (1).
RCAHMS 1933, visited 28 May 1925.
(1) Denmilne MSS., National Library. Cf. also Laing's Lindores Abbey and its Burgh of N ewburgh, p. 320.
