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Drumfours
Cup Marked Stone (Prehistoric), Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)(Possible)
Site Name Drumfours
Classification Cup Marked Stone (Prehistoric), Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)(Possible)
Canmore ID 17579
Site Number NJ51SE 1
NGR NJ 5608 1104
NGR Description NJ 5608 1104 and NJ 5611 1105
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/17579
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Leochel-cushnie
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Gordon
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NJ51SE 1 5608 1104 and 5611 1105
(NJ 5610 1106) Standing Stone (NR)
OS 6" map, (1959)
The OS map shows five stones arranged in a rude oval. All that now remains of this stone circle is one tallish monolith in situ, set with its long axis E-W on a flattish piece of ground, having on its W and N a rather deep natural crescentic hollow.
Eighty four feet E from this stone and within the paling which bounds the edge of a quarry are several large stones, the largest and nearest of which has on its smooth upper surface, ten marks (sixteen according to Ritchie) (1918) shewing slight tool markings. This stone lay for years against the monolith but was removed to its present position for preservation (Coles 1902). One side of it shows marks of a recent fracture. Close to the broken edge are a number of faint lines, possibly and Ogham inscription, but they are too incomplete and indistinct to allow satisfactory interpretation (Ritchie 1918).
There is a stone outside the circle to the SW which can only possibly
be explained as an outlier (Keiller 1934).
(F R Coles 1902; J Ritchie 1918; A Keiller 1934).
The remaining stone, situated as described, is c.1.4m high, c.1.0m broad, c.0.5m thick. No trace could be found of the stone to the SW, and Keiller (1934) may be referring to outcrop rock which occurs hereabouts. The cup marked stone has 16 cups. The only other marks on the stone appear to be weathering.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (RL) 17 September 1968.
Field Visit (27 September 1994)
NJ 5611 1105. Only one stone remains of this stone circle. It measures 1.4m in height, 1.0m in breadth and 0.5m in thickness, with an E-W long axis. There is no trace of the cup-marked stone which is depicted on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1979) at NJ 5611 1105, and the landowner has no knowledge of it.
(CRAIG94 84)
Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) 27 September 1994
Measured Survey (11 June 1999)
RCAHMS surveyed Drumfours possible stone circle on 11 June 1999 with plane table and alidade producing a plan of the site at a scale of 1:100. The plan was 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, 514).
Publication Account (2011)
This stone, which in 1999 was still upright, is now lying beside a pile of field clearance immediately south-west of an old quarry 240m west-north-west of Drumfours. It stood on the scarp forming the east lip of a hollow in the field to the west of the quarry, and measured about 1.3m in height. The OS surveyors visited the stone in 1866–7 and were persuaded by their local informants, who included Rev Alexander Taylor, author of a detailed historical account of the parish and its people in the New Statistical Account (xii, Aberdeenshire, 1102–31), that it was the remains of a stone circle (Aberdeenshire 1869, lxii; Name Book, Aberdeenshire, No. 53, p 47). Annotated as such on the map, in 1900 Coles mistook four points along the contour defining the hollow to the west as additional stones forming ‘a rude oval’ (1902, 490–1). He concluded that these had been removed long since, and drew attention to at least four stones lying 25m to the east on the edge of what he then described as a small quarry. One of these was cupmarked and on further enquiry he discovered that it had lain for many years against the standing stone, and had only been removed to the edge of the quarry for its safe-keeping. According to James Ritchie, the reasons were more practical, so that the standing stone might serve as a rubbing stone (1918, 89–90). Ritchie believed that the cupmarked stone had been cut down from a much larger boulder, an opinion in which he was almost certainly swayed by the knowledge that it had once lain beside the standing stone. Thus, he concluded that it had ‘every appearance of having been originally the recumbent stone of the Drumfours circle’ (ibid 90), betraying his underlying assumptions rather than any real assessment of the character of the boulder. At any rate, Coles does not seem to have shared this view, for though he accepted that the standing stone was the sole surviving orthostat of a circle, the cupmarked boulder measured only 1.4m by 0.8m (taken from plan, 1902, 490, fig 3) and with its rounded shape this evidently did not suggest to him that it had ever been of sufficient size to be a recumbent. Had he read the map correctly in the first place, he might not have been so ready to accept that this was the remains of a circle at all, for the position of the standing stone lying east and west on the lip of the hollow in the field to the west indicates that any circle to which it belonged would have broached uncomfortably across the scarp. Sadly the cupmarked boulder is now missing, presumably as a result of the expansion of the quarry between the visit by Richard Little of the OS in 1968 and the arrival of the present farmer, Arthur Smart, in 1970.
Publication Account (2011)
This stone, which in 1999 was still upright, is now lying beside a pile of field clearance immediately south-west of an old quarry 240m west-north-west of Drumfours. It stood on the scarp forming the east lip of a hollow in the field to the west of the quarry, and measured about 1.3m in height. The OS surveyors visited the stone in 1866–7 and were persuaded by their local informants, who included Rev Alexander Taylor, author of a detailed historical account of the parish and its people in the New Statistical Account (xii, Aberdeenshire, 1102–31), that it was the remains of a stone circle (Aberdeenshire 1869, lxii; Name Book, Aberdeenshire, No. 53, p 47). Annotated as such on the map, in 1900 Coles mistook four points along the contour defining the hollow to the west as additional stones forming ‘a rude oval’ (1902, 490–1). He concluded that these had been removed long since, and drew attention to at least four stones lying 25m to the east on the edge of what he then described as a small quarry. One of these was cupmarked and on further enquiry he discovered that it had lain for many years against the standing stone, and had only been removed to the edge of the quarry for its safe-keeping. According to James Ritchie, the reasons were more practical, so that the standing stone might serve as a rubbing stone (1918, 89–90). Ritchie believed that the cupmarked stone had been cut down from a much larger boulder, an opinion in which he was almost certainly swayed by the knowledge that it had once lain beside the standing stone. Thus, he concluded that it had ‘every appearance of having been originally the recumbent stone of the Drumfours circle’ (ibid 90), betraying his underlying assumptions rather than any real assessment of the character of the boulder. At any rate, Coles does not seem to have shared this view, for though he accepted that the standing stone was the sole surviving orthostat of a circle, the cupmarked boulder measured only 1.4m by 0.8m (taken from plan, 1902, 490, fig 3) and with its rounded shape this evidently did not suggest to him that it had ever been of sufficient size to be a recumbent. Had he read the map correctly in the first place, he might not have been so ready to accept that this was the remains of a circle at all, for the position of the standing stone lying east and west on the lip of the hollow in the field to the west indicates that any circle to which it belonged would have broached uncomfortably across the scarp. Sadly the cupmarked boulder is now missing, presumably as a result of the expansion of the quarry between the visit by Richard Little of the OS in 1968 and the arrival of the present farmer, Arthur Smart, in 1970.