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Archaeology Notes

Event ID 714834

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/714834

NT32NE 1 3545 2775

See also NT32NE 11.

(NT 3545 2775) Standing Stone (NAT)

OS 6" map (1900)

Among discoveries at Annan Street there are recorded:

1. a standing stone bearing a latin inscription

2. a socketed bronze axe

3. a 'small ring of cannel coal'

4. 'portions of a clay urn' and

5. a flint arrowhead.

(3) and (4) were found in eight long cists. This area of ground was apparently taken into cultivation about 1807-8 and the remains are identified as those of a 'scene of slaughter and sepulchre'

J Hardy 1884.

(Similar information to the above, but with more details about the finds, also) 'A bronze celt was found in the garden at the same time, 4 in long and 2 1/2 in broad at the edge, with a socket to admit a handle, and a lateral loop'.

J Hardy 1885

Standing Stone and Cemetery, Warriors Rest. At the SE corner of the cottage known as Warriors Rest, 300 yds W of Yarrow Church (RCAHMS 1957, No. 10, NT32NE 9), there is a standing stone measuring 5ft 3 ins in height, 5ft 9 in round the base and 4 ft round the shoulder. The top is pointed.

In 1857 a group of eight stone-lined graves was found from 10 to 12 yds S of this stone.(J A Smith 1859) They were built of large slabs, measured from 5ft to 6ft in length, and were oriented E and W. Apart from traces of bone, the only contents of the graves were fragments of a Food Vessel and an Early Bronze Age ring of cannel coal with thin, perforated walls, (J G Callander 1916; V G Childe 1935) this ring and one small fragment of the Food Vessel are now in the National Museum of Antiquities.

Close by, a cairn of small round stones enclosed a quantity of partially decomposed bones, while numerous fragments of bones were cast up by the workmen employed in digging the foundations of the cottage. A flint arrow-head and part of a stone hammer (J A Smith 1868) were also found in the same area.

Subsequently a further stone-lined grave, also oriented E and W, was uncovered some 25 yds S of the main group. It measured 5ft 9ins in length by 12 to 16 in. in breadth and contained nothing but the skeleton of an adult male. (J A Smith 1868)

In spite of the fact that the food Vessel fragments and the ring were found in the graves, it seems most unlikely that they represent contemporary furnishings. Groups of stone-lined graves, oriented E

and W and lacking grave-goods, are characteristic of Christian and not pagan burials, (J Anderson 1868) and evidence of Christian burials in this area is provided by the inscribed stone (NT32NW 5). It is probable, therefore, that the site has been successively occupied by Bronze Age and Early Christian cemeteries, and that the appearance of the Food Vessel fragments and the ring in the later graves is due to the disturbance of the earlier interments.

RCAHMS 1957, visited 1949

"... the stone at the Warrior's Rest..., which marks the site of an Early Christian cemetery." (RCAHMS 1957, No.174)

The stone is as described by RCAHMS. There is no evidence of a cairn or graves in the vicinity. See also NT32NE 11.

Visited by OS (EGC) 5 June 1962.

Coles mistakenly locates Yarrow in the former county of Roxburghshire; his socketed axes Roxburghshire 31 and Selkirkshire 1 are in all probability the same. On the evidence of the coincident descriptions, Annan Street (NT32NE 11) and Warrior's Rest (NT32NE 1) are the same group of finds and monuments, within which the standing stones NT32NE 1 and NT32NE 2 the Yarrow Stone (NT32NW 5) are also situated.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 18 April 1990.

NT32NE 1 NT 3545 2775

A site visit to this standing stone (N T32NE 1) was carried out in November 2003. Two previously unreported cup markings were marked on the E side of the stone, each c 20mm in diameter.

M Wilson 2005

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References