Archaeology Notes

Event ID 670611

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/670611

NJ80NE 3 centred 87 08

See also NJ90NW 135.

The parish of Newhills is divided into two by the Via Regia or King's Highway. The part to the south of the road was at one time the Stocket Forest a tract of rough moorland used as a Royal hunting ground.

William the Lion hunted in this forest and in 1319, Robert the Bruce gave the Stocket Forest to Aberdeen as a gift, subject to a small feu-duty in thanks for services rendered during the late wars. This forest, with some additional land, became known as 'The Freedom Lands' or 'The Freedom'. In 1551 the Magistrates began a policy of fencing out these lands at rates much below the true value , the feuars being the magistrates themselves, with the result that this heritage was gradually lost to the city.

By 1525 the boundaries of the Freedom Lands were already marked by cup-marked stones, and the system reached its most complete form in the year 1698. The marches were so marked until about 1790, when lettered and numbered stones were introduced. While in the main these stones were placed adjacent to their cup-marked precedenced, many additional stones were used, and others lost and replaced. There are now fifteen cup stones still in existence.

J Cruickshank 1934; D B Gunn 1929.

The boundary stones marking the limits of the 'Freedom Land' across this mapsheet are described individually under the numbers: NJ80NE 1 (ABD 40); NJ80NE 23 (ABD 41); NJ80NE 24 (ABD 45); NJ80NE 25 (ABD 42); NJ80NE 26 (ABD 43); NJ80NE 27 (ABD 44); NJ80NE 32 (ABD 46); NJ80NE 35 (ABD 38); NJ80NE 36 (ABD 39).

Information from RCAHMS (JRS), 28 April 2003.