Field Visit

Date 26 August 1998 - 27 August 1998

Event ID 635078

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/635078

RCAHMS National Archaeological Survey, Strathdon

This recumbent stone circle stands on an island of uncultivated ground in the NE corner of a field on the lower slopes of Gallows Hill. Measuring roughly 21m in diameter, it may have comprised as many as fourteen stones, though only nine are currently present, and two of these (6 & 7) have only been unearthed quite recently (first noted Burl 2005c, 62). These last two aside, the rest are disposed around the SW half of the perimeter and five of them, including the recumbent and the W flanker, are still standing (1, 2, 4, 8, & 9). A tall, slender, monolith of solid quartz standing outside the circumference on the SE (A) is one of the most striking features of the ring, leading Coles to exclaim that it ‘gleams out with a rare distinction and effect’ (1901, 232).

The recumbent (2) is an irregular block on the SSW of the ring and measures 4.05m in length and 1.75m in height. A shot-hole in its uneven summit is testimony to an attempt to break up the block, which mainly appears to rest upon a bed of small boulders, with a support stone just visible beneath the field-cleared stones at its E end. The W flanker (1) measures 2.3m in height, as compared to 2.85m in length for its fallen pair on the E (3), so both would have stood a similar height above the recumbent, but whereas the western is leaf-shaped in profile, with a faceted outer face rising up into a point, the eastern is an altogether more rectangular block. At least four cupmarks are visible on the upturned inner face of the E flanker, and no less than eighteen can be counted on the outer face of orthostat 9 on the SW (below). At 1.5m in height, the latter and orthostat 8 on the WNW do not exhibit any evidence that this arc of the circle was consistently graded in height, while the disposition of the surviving stones around the southern half of the circumference suggests that the orthostats were evenly spaced elsewhere. Of the fallen stones, 5 has lain since the 1820s outside the ring on the ESE; 6 lies in the hollow from which it has been recently disinterred on the NNE; and 7, another recent addition, is lying in the NW quadrant. The disinterring of orthostat 6 and the plough scratches into its upper surface suggest that other missing stones may have been deliberately buried, though the majority were probably broken up for use elsewhere (below). Within the interior the ground is gently dished, as can be seen from the surveyed section, but when Coles opened a trench extending towards the centre from a point close to the S end of orthostat 6 he uncovered a layer of stones that probably formed the base of an internal cairn.

Visited by RCAHMS (ATW and KHJM) 26-7 August 1998