Field Visit
Date 9 May 2005
Event ID 635097
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/635097
This recumbent stone circle is situated in improved pasture on the E shoulder of the broad summit of Cloch Hill. Now comprising a large slab (2) standing in the kerb on the SSE of a heavily-robbed robbed cairn about 17.5m in diameter and 0.5m high, there is no sign of a surrounding circle of orthostats. The slab, however, which measures 2.55m in length by 2m in height and has a roughly horizontal top, is of sufficient size that there can be little doubt that it should be considered alongside circles with recumbent settings. Although set up on the SSE of the cairn, its long axis lies NE and SW and the slab thus faces SE; the graffito ‘JP’ is cut into its summit. According to the OS surveyors in 1863, ‘a large boulder [stood] at each end of’ the slab (Name Book, Kincardineshire, No. 4, pp 33, 35–6), but it is unclear whether this refers to a memory of a pair of flankers once standing to either side or simply to the existing kerbstones. To judge from the kerbstones on the SE, of which only a stone 1m high remains upright, the kerb was graded to increase in size and height towards the recumbent and its flanking stones; like the Blue Cairn (No. 14), other orthostats may have stood on the line of the kerb.
This recumbent stone circle is situated in improved pasture on the E shoulder of the broad summit of Cloch Hill. Now comprising a large slab (2) standing in the kerb on the SSE of a heavily-robbed robbed cairn about 17.5m in diameter and 0.5m high, there is no sign of a surrounding circle of orthostats. The slab, however, which measures 2.55m in length by 2m in height and has a roughly horizontal top, is of sufficient size that there can be little doubt that it should be considered alongside circles with recumbent settings. Although set up on the SSE of the cairn, its long axis lies NE and SW and the slab thus faces SE; the graffito ‘JP’ is cut into its summit. According to the OS surveyors in 1863, ‘a large boulder [stood] at each end of’ the slab (Name Book, Kincardineshire, No. 4, pp 33, 35–6), but it is unclear whether this refers to a memory of a pair of flankers once standing to either side or simply to the existing kerbstones. To judge from the kerbstones on the SE, of which only a stone 1m high remains upright, the kerb was graded to increase in size and height towards the recumbent and its flanking stones; like the Blue Cairn (No. 14), other orthostats may have stood on the line of the kerb.
Visited by RCAHMS (ARG and IGP) 9 May 2005
