Melgum
Cairn (Period Unassigned), Enclosure(S) (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Melgum
Classification Cairn (Period Unassigned), Enclosure(S) (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) Melgum Lodge; Waulkmill; Tarland
Canmore ID 16972
Site Number NJ40NE 1
NGR NJ 4714 0524
NGR Description NJ 4714 0524, NJ 4708 0523 and NJ 4713 0522
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/16972
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Logie-coldstone
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Kincardine And Deeside
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NJ40NE 1 4714 0524, 4708 0523 and 4713 0522
(NJ 4708 0523: NJ 4713 0522: NJ 4714 0524) Stone Circles (NR) (Remains of).
OS 6" map, Aberdeenshire, 2nd ed., (1902)
The only certain circle (NJ 4714 0524) was not of outstanding importance. Some of the stones have probably disappeared and of the remainder (which vary from 1ft 4ins to 3ft 4ins in height) two have clearly been disturbed.
A yard or two to the S of the circle are one or two other erect stones marked by the OS as a circle (NJ 4713 0522) but the ground has been much disturbed and there is no conslusive evidence one way or the other.
The OS also marks a third circle, to the west (NJ 4708 0523), of which there is no trace.
W D Simpson 1927.
The remains of three enclosures, each 24.5m diameter crest to crest and defined by low turf-covered stony banks, 0.4m high, and spread to about 4.0m wide with no kerbs or wall faces visible. Incorporated within the bank of the NE enclosure at irregular intervals are five or six large stones, two of which are displaced. The interiors are clear save for a slight scatter of stone probably from the surrounding banks. The N side of the W circle is mutilated by a later track. These features cannot be positively classified without excavation; they may be enclosed cremation cemeteries or ring enclosures.
At NJ 4708 0512 there is a large whin-covered cairn measuring 24.0m in diameter and 1.5m in height, from which much stone has been removed, probably for adjacent field walls.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (N K B) 17 October 1968.
This group of monuments is situated on a gentle SSE-facing slope in an area of mixed broadleaf vegetation at an altitude of between 170 and 200m OD.
NMRS, MS/712/44.
The OS believed that it was Melgum to which Stuart (1855) referred when he wrote 'Another circle of upright stone stood about a quarter of a mile westward of this position (Waulkmill NJ40SE 4) '.
Information from RCAHMS (ATW) 29 January 2009
J Stuart 1855
Field Visit (12 May 2005)
Three enclosures lie at the foot of a slope in unimproved pasture within a clearing in mixed open woodland. Each measures about 20m in diameter within a wall reduced to a low stony bank spread up to 5.5m in thickness. The NE enclosure is the least well-preserved, having been robbed of the majority of its stones save for six large boulders. These have previously been interpreted as the remains of a stone circle, though they are no different from the large boulders incorporated into the banks of the adjacent enclosures. What is not known, however, is whether they formed part of the core of the wall or whether they belonged to its inner or outer face.
Visited by RCAHMS (ARG) 12 May 2005
Measured Survey (12 May 2005)
RCAHMS surveyed Melgum stone circle and enclosures on 12 May 2005 with plane table and self-reducing alidade producing a site plan at a scale of 1:500. The survey drawing was later used as the basis for an illustration redrawn in vector graphics software at a scale of 1:1000.
Measured Survey (12 May 2005)
RCAHMS surveyed Melgum enclosure on 12 May 2005 with plane table and alidade producing a plan and section at a scale of 1:100. The plan and section were used as the basis for an illustration, produced in ink and finished in vector graphics software, that was published at a scale of 1:250 (Welfare 2011, 528).
Change Of Classification (12 May 2005)
The classification has been updated from 'Stone Circle' to 'Enclosures'.
Information from RCAHMS (ARG) 12 May 2005
Publication Account
The easternmost of three hut-circles or enclosures at the foot of the south-east flank of Gallow Hill has been noted as a possible recumbent stone circle (Barnatt 1989, 292, no. 6:63), a misidentification that can be traced back to when they were first mapped by OS surveyors in 1868 and annotated Stone Circles (Remains of) (Aberdeenshire 1870, lxx). At that time this term was being applied to a wide range of structures, ranging from hut-circles and thick-walled enclosures to rings of freestanding orthostats (Gannon et al 2007, 70–1), and in this case the Name Book entry displays what little the surveyors knew: ‘Three circles formed by large boulder stones, but a quantity of the stones has been removed, yet the circles is quite visible. It is a mere conjecture what these may have been, whether encampments, or used in conjunction and part of the surrounding Druidical Temples or Stone Circles’ (Aberdeenshire, No. 56, p 96). Each of the enclosures measures about 20m in internal diameter within a wall reduced to a low stony bank up to 5.5m in thickness, but the robbing of the easternmost has left a series of large boulders standing proud above the top of the bank, two of which probably mark one side of the entrance on the south-east. At the beginning of the 20th century Sir Alexander Ogston recognised that these were not circles of standing stones (1931, 95–6), but in the 1920s Douglas Simpson described the easternmost as an ‘hitherto undescribed stone circle’ (1927, 265–6). Since then it has been their fate to appear in lists of stone circles (Burl 1976a, 352, Abn 75a-c; 2000, 421, Abn 77a-c; Thom et al 1980, 208–9), which in its turn left Barnatt to struggle with their interpretation, his ideas ranging across freestanding rings of orthostats, ring-cairns and recumbent stone circles (1989, 292, no. 6:63). More likely parallels for these structures are to be found in the nearby settlements for which the area around New Kinnord is famed.