Field Visit
Date 25 May 1999 - 26 May 1999
Event ID 635306
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/635306
This unusual recumbent stone circle stands at the top of a long slope dropping away to the NE at the eastern end of Strone Hill. Excavated and partly restored at the behest of Miss Maria Farquharson of Haughton House, Alford, at the end of the 19th century, the circle is once again ruinous and only the E flanker (3) and three stones on the E arc (6–8) remain upright. Nevertheless, it measures about 18.5m in diameter and has comprised at least seventeen, or possibly eighteen (A), evenly spaced stones, apparently set out along the inner edge of a low stony bank 1.5m thick and no more than 0.2m in height. Unlike other recumbent stone circles, where the stones are typically large and imposing, here they are all comparatively small, not least the recumbent (2), a roughly rectangular block of dark pink aplite on the S, which measures only 1.5m in length and when upright would have stood no more than 0.8m high. This has fallen onto its back to expose a long support stone jutting forwards at an angle close to its E end; the block’s uneven summit now forms its N side. The W flanker (1), which has been the more slender of the two, has also tumbled backwards, but the S face of the upright E flanker (3) indicates the position of the leading edge of the setting; like the recumbent, and indeed most of the orthostats, both flankers are of dark pink aplite. At 1m in length and 0.75m in height respectively, both have been much the same height as the recumbent, though the roughly square top of the W flanker has led Burl to suggest that a stone now lying between it and the E end of the recumbent may have been its tip (2005a, 104). The remainder of the ring is made up largely of fallen blocks between 0.9m and 1.4m in length, and the only three orthostats that remain standing (6–8) are between 1m and 1.15m high. In this condition it is difficult to gauge whether the stones of the circle were consistently graded in height, but the shorter stones appear to be on the N arc. The enclosure in which they are set is slightly oval on plan, measuring 23m in maximum diameter overall, and the bank reaches its greatest thickness in front of the recumbent setting.
Visited by RCAHMS (ATW and KHJM) 25-6 May 1999
