Hill Of Milleath
Recumbent Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Site Name Hill Of Milleath
Classification Recumbent Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Alternative Name(s) Lieth, Mill Hill; Gingomyres
Canmore ID 17326
Site Number NJ44SE 9
NGR NJ 4679 4294
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/17326
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Cairnie
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Gordon
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NJ44SE 9 4679 4294.
(NJ 4679 4294) Stone Circle (NR) (Site of)
OS 6" map 1959.
The site of a possibly recumbent stone circle removed by 1871, but whose remnants were described by both Stuart and Sim about 1850.
Only a few stones, none of them upright, remained of the circle, but traces of two 'walls', one outside and one inside the circle remained. The remains of the circle consisted of several large stones of bluish granite, 3', 4', 5', 6' and 7' long, lying mainly on the S arc of the circle though a very large singular stone still stood on the NE. Their positions suggested that some, at least, had stood upright.
Somewhere between S and E, slightly outside the line of the inner 'wall' was 'the Table' or 'Altar Stone', 13 1/2' long, 6' broad, and 1' thick, where it lay, opposite a 14' to 15' wide 'entrance' in such a position as to suggest that it had been displaced from a 'pedestal' of three stone blocks, against two of which it leant in an oblique position. This may have been a 'recumbent' stone. The outer 'wall', 98' in diameter, took the form of a rude dyke of loose stones of rather small size not built apparently any degree of care, but thrown up into a some-what pyramidical form, tapering from the foundation upwards (Sim 1865).
Most of the wall had been removed, especially, on the N, leaving a slight trench. Only a few yards of the wall remained to the S of the 'entrance'. Of the inner 'wall', 32' in diameter, scarcely a stone remained but a slight trench still marked its course. A flat stone was said to have lain in the centre of the circle, where charcoal and animal bones were found at a slight depth.
Coles (1906) could find no trace of the circle in 1906 but thought he could identify its broken stones in the nearest wall. Maclagan (1875) gives a plan of a recumbent stone circle at "Lieth, Mill Hill" which could conceivably be "Hill of Milleath" on which this circle stood, but it shows the recumbent stone on the SW, the orthodox position, as opposed to the SE as stated by Sim (1865) and Stuart (1855) - a position known in only one other circle, Old Bourtree Bush (NO99NW 2).
J Stuart 1855; R Sim 1865; Name Book 1871; C Maclagan 1875; F R Coles 1906.
No trace.
Visited by OS (AA) 30 November 1972.
Field Visit (21 March 1990)
This ring, which was destroyed in the late 1860s, can be identified as a recumbent stone circle on the strength of descriptions by John Stuart (1854a, 141) and Robert Sim (1865, 145–50), and a plan taken by Christian Maclagan (1875, pl xxvii), the latter depicting the recumbent setting and four orthostats with a beguiling clarity that is largely absent from the earlier descriptions. Fortunately the OS surveyors visited not long after its destruction and with the help of the tenants of Gingomyres, Smallburn and Drumdelgie were able to locate its site in what was by then improved pasture on the E side of the saddle between Black Hill on the NW and Hill of Milleath on the S, an area now cloaked in a forestry plantation.
Visited by RCAHMS (SPH) 21 March 1990
Field Visit (21 March 1990)
This monument has been entirely removed.
Visited by RCAHMS (SH) 21 March 1990.
