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Publication Account
Date 2011
Event ID 887141
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/887141
The site of what has been claimed as a possible recumbent stone circle lies near the centre of the churchyard surrounding the roofless shell of the old parish church of Culsalmond (Burl 1970, 79; 1976a, 351, Abn 38; 2000, 420, Abn 37; Ruggles 1984, 59; 1999, 186, no. 38). It is described by Rev Ferdinand Ellis in the New Statistical Account as a ‘circle of twelve upright large granite stones … which were overturned when the first Christian temple was erected.’ (xii, Aberdeenshire, 732). Ellis, who was minister of the parish 1801–41, gives the impression that the circle had stood in living memory, but this is the site of a medieval parish church and the commentary that follows the description should probably be taken to indicate that the stones were already prostrate long before his day – if indeed any of them were still visible when he first arrived. Nevertheless, he believed that all twelve stones lay buried in the churchyard, though one was apparently disinterred in 1821 and could still be seen at the time he was writing. Subsequently Coles heard from John Callander that the sexton had encountered large stones beneath the turf (Coles 1902, 577). There is, however, no mention of a recumbent setting and little to recommend Barnatt’s assertion that the number of stones in the ring suggests that it was a recumbent stone circle (1989, 460, no. 6:122).
