Field Visit
Date 1 August 1927
Event ID 1099389
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1099389
Standing Stones at Orwell.
These two standing stones are situated almost 400 feet above sea-level, on the crest of a slightly rising ground about 100 yards north of the roadway running past Orwell farm. The western one is a rough, undressed boulder of hard whinstone with its base set in a packing of small stones. It faces north and south and has an inclination to north and east. It is 7 ½ feet in height, 3 feet 8 inches across the broad faces, and has an average thickness of about 2 feet with a girth of 10 ¼ feet at 3 feet above the base. There are no markings. The second stone is 47 ¾ feet to the east-south-east and is a huge, smooth-sided boulder with a somewhat rounded top. It rises to a height of slightly over 9 feet above ground, has an average girth of 10 feet, and is set up with its major axis almost due north and south. It is undressed and shows no markings.
"In the same field stone coffins have occasionally been turned up by the plough; and, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, the ground was in many places dug up by the neighbouring proprietor, when quantities of bones much decomposed and mixed with charcoal were discovered" (1).
RCAHMS 1933, visited 1 August 1927.
(1) Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., xl (1905-6), pp. 293-5.
