Field Visit
Date 11 May 1998 - 12 May 1998
Event ID 635344
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/635344
At the time of the survey in 1998, this recumbent stone circle stood in a heather- and grass-grown clearing beside a track in Bogmore Wood. Since then the surrounding forest has been felled, revealing its topographical position on a terrace on the SE slopes of White Lady. Of its thirteen stones, only the recumbent (2), the west flanker (1) and one orthostat (10) are still upright, but the circle is otherwise substantially complete, measuring about 20m in diameter and enclosing a well-defined ring-cairn. The recumbent boulder (2), which lies on the SSW, measures about 2.85m in length by 1.45m in height and is placed at a skewed angle to face almost S. Its horizontal summit is relatively even and a substantial earthfast stone behind its W end appears to chock it in position and prevent it from tumbling backwards. The W flanker (1) is a relatively slender pillar standing 2.3m high and arches over the end of the recumbent, but the E flanker (2), a broader slab, has fallen forwards, exposing its full length of 2.6m. When erect the two stones would have been of similar heights, and to a certain extent the curve of the eastern edge of the E flanker may have created the allusion of the pronounced inward curve of its neighbour on the W. Like the W flanker it was probably set back from the front of the recumbent and turned slightly to trace the arc of the circle. Apart from the one orthostat surviving upright on the NNW and two others leaning steeply on the E arc, six of the other seven are prostrate (4, 5, 8, 9, 12 & 13) and the seventh (11) has been broken up into at least four pieces which lie discarded on the NW. Under these circumstances it is difficult to demonstrate that the heights of the stones were graded, but in general the smaller stones are on the N and the lengths of the fallen and leaning stones around the E suggest that on this side at least their tops progressively reduced in height from S to N; on the W, however, where the circle climbs a low scarp that tilts the W half of the monument towards the E, they almost certainly did not. The internal ring-cairn measures about 17m across, rising from the top of the surrounding kerb to a flat top 14m in diameter and 0.6m in maximum height. The rubble-choked court at its centre is about 4.5m in diameter and the sixteen remaining stones of the inner kerb increase in height from N to S. The outer kerb, which evidently turned outwards to meet the back of the recumbent setting on the SSW, is not so clearly graded, but the largest of the 32 earthfast and fallen kerbstones that are visible is set immediately behind the W flanker.
Visited by RCAHMS (ATW and KHJM) 11-12 May 1998
