Archaeology Notes

Event ID 669144

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/669144

NJ61NE 1 6833 1564

(NJ 6833 1564) Standing Stones (NR)

OS 6" map, (1959)

The remains of what has presumably been a stone circle whose main feature is a prominent red-granite monolith, over 4' in height, set near the centre. Only two other stones remain upright but a third lies flush with the ground on the east. The small set stones (marked 'T' on the plan) 6" to 9" high may be remnants of a setting of a type common in stone circles. A larger stone on the extreme east is level with the ground.

The ground between the larger stones is about 10" higher that the surrounding level but this decreases to a very few inches on the north and east margins where a vague circumference can be discerned. In its condition in 1901 it was impossible to classify the circle.

Coles (1901) criticises th OS portrayal of this circle saying that it is shown as a true circle of four stones. This is not so. The remains are described in the Ordnance Survey Name Book (ONB, 1867) as being three stones and are shown correctly on OS 25" map, 1900; OS 6" map, 1867 does not show any stones, merely a circular enclosure with trees.

F R Coles 1901; Name Book 1867.

A setting of three stones A, B and C evidently the remains of a stone circle, whose original plan and dimensions cannot be ascertained, although it appears to have been too small to be a Recumbent Stone Circle.

A and B are in situ at the SW edge of an oval mound, about 0.4m high and 10.0m N-S by 8.0m, which is poorly defined and mutilated by trees around the E half. The prostrate stone noted by Coles (1901) in the E is mostly obscured by tree roots and there is little trace of the smaller stones marking the 'vague circumference' around this arc. One of the stones 'T' is loose and it is doubtful if they have been part of the structure of the circle as suggested by Coles.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (ISS) 27 July 1973.

Scheduled as 'Deer Park, stone circle 65m of...'

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 13 March 2008.