Field Visit
Date 16 May 1925
Event ID 1099268
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1099268
Cup-marked Standing Stone and Boulders, Torryburn.
The site of the cup – marked standing stone (Fig. 22) is a plateau, 150 feet above sea-level, in a field on Torrie Estate about half a mile to the north-east of the village of Torryburn, and on the north side of the drive to Torrie House. At a distance of 60 feet from it are three huge boulders, and the four are said to be the remains of a circle, although that idea is not borne out by their present disposition.
The cup-marked stone rises to a height of 8 feet above the ground and has its narrow faces to the north-east and south-west. It is of irregular form, narrowing somewhat at 7 inches from the base, expanding outwards at the middle, and contracting again to a roughly convex top. On the east face the lower portion is covered with cup-marks, which vary from 1 ½ to 5 inches in diameter and from 1 ½ to 2 inches in depth. At a height of 6 feet from ground level, in the south-west angle of the stone, is a cavity 7 inches in depth, while there is a similar cavity of like depth opposite to it on the west face. The stone is also marked on the east and west faces, as well as on the top and down the narrow sides, with a series of perpendicular grooves of varying depth, but all these channels are due to weathering. Its measurements are: - north face, 1 foot 3 inches; south face, 1 foot 4 inches; east face, 4 feet 4 inches; west face, 4 feet 3 inches; girth at base, 10 feet 8 inches; at 7 inches up, 8 feet 10 inches; at middle 10 feet 5 inches.
The three other boulders are set in the form of a triangle immediately to the south of this cup-marked stone, at intervals of 12, 15, and16 feet apart. One has evidently fallen from an upright position and now lies with its major axis north and south. None of the three shows any markings. They are of whinstone, while the cup-marked standing stone is of grey sandstone.
"This place is thought to have been the scene of a battle in some former period, and these stones to mark the graves of some of the chiefs, who had fallen in the engagement…the name which it still bears, Tollzies, - is evidently a corruption of the Scotch word Tulzie, which signifies a fight." - Stat. Acct., viii (1793), p. 454.
RCAHMS 1933, visited 16 May 1925.
