Publication Account
Date 2011
Event ID 887258
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/887258
A granite standing stone, which is situated in a field on the crest of the rising ground to the north of Peathill steading, is reported to be the sole survivor of a circle that was largely cleared in the early 19th century. The stone measures 1m by 0.7m at ground level and 2.1m in height, and an urn was found at its foot some years before 1866 (Name Book, Aberdeenshire, No. 44, p 48). The circle was estimated to have been up to 15m in diameter and the crops apparently grew higher and more luxuriantly on its site (NSA, Aberdeenshire, ix, 744). Elsewhere this observation might have been taken to indicate that the interior was slightly sunken, perhaps another example of a hut-circle misidentified as a stone circle (eg Crookmore App 1.27; Newbigging App 1.67), but in this case the presence of the standing stone indicates that some other explanation is required; possibly there was a band of stonier material around the circumference of the circle to create this contrast. This would in itself imply a more complex monument, but why Alexander Keiller thought it was likely to have been a recumbent stone circle is unknown (1928, 14–15). It may have been no more than his perception of its commanding position, but neither Coles (1902, 506–8) nor James Ritchie shared this view (1917, 38) and there is no record of a recumbent here in any of the earlier accounts.
