Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Bankhead
Recumbent Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Site Name Bankhead
Classification Recumbent Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Alternative Name(s) Altar Stone; Hillhead
Canmore ID 17663
Site Number NJ52NW 25
NGR NJ 5293 2698
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/17663
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Clatt
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Gordon
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NJ52NW 25 5293 2698
For 'stone circles' at NJ 5295 2701 and NJ 5285 2652), see NJ52NW 9 and NJ52NW 10 respectively..
(NJ 5293 2698) Supposed (NAT) Altar Stone (NR).
OS 6" map, Aberdeenshire, 1st ed., (1866-70)
This stone appears to be that referred to by the New Statistical Account (NSA) as a supposed altar stone, evidently the supine stone of a recumbent stone circle. In 1842 this stone and a few of the other crest stones remained. But about 1812 the circle consisted of two flanking pillars to the recumbent stone, each about 6 feet in height, and seven erect stones, from 5 to 6 feet in height, placed at equal distances on the line of a circle about 25 yards in diameter. The whole of the interior was rudely paved with stones to a depth of about 3 feet. The recumbent stone was 10 feet in length, 9 feet in breadth and 4 feet thick, and lay at an angle of 45 degrees.
In 1866 its measurements were taken as 12 feet long, 4 feet broad and 4 feet thick though drill holes showed that it had been reduced in width. A dyke had been built across it. The surveyor had difficulty in relating it to the circle to the north (NJ52NW 9) as Mr Booth, the oldest inhabitant with an interest in antiquities, had no knowledge of its being moved to its present position. Coles (1902) found its length to be 9 feet 8 inches and noted another stone, over 5 feet in height, possibly from this circle, used as the western post of a gateway a few yards down the dyke.
NSA 1845; Name Book 1866; F R Coles 1902; (Undated) information from Mr Booth, Hillside.
The remains of a recumbent stone circle, the recumbent stone and a gate-post stone as described by Coles (1902). At the base of a dyke built between these stones there are several other large broken stones probably from the circle.
Re-surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (RL) 18 September 1967.
The surviving stones of this stone circle were removed to Bankhead steading (NJ52NW 50) in about 1981, when the stone wall in which they had been incorporated was removed.
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, IF), 5 March 1996.
Field Visit (24 June 1999)
The site of this recumbent stone circle lies in an improved field on the low rounded hill to the WNW of Bankhead. Probably largely intact until the beginning of the 19th century, it was then cleared away and all that remained by 1866 were a number of large boulders incorporated into a stone dyke, including the lower section of the recumbent. The first description of circle, however, written about 1842, was transposed by its author onto another site nearby (see below), and the details of its composition and character, and indeed of the number of circles in the neighbourhood of Clatt, have been shrouded in confusion ever since. Assuming that this description is now correctly correlated with Bankhead, the circle comprised the recumbent setting and at least seven orthostats, measuring some 23m in diameter and enclosing a cairn up to 0.9m high within the interior. The dyke incorporating the remaining stones has also been removed now and since about 1981 the surviving fragment of the recumbent has lain with three other large boulders on the W side of a pond to the S of the farmhouse (NJ 53287 26784). Lying on its back, the recumbent (2) is a roughly trapezoidal block in plan measuring 3m in length. The summit of the stone has been cut and blasted away to form its jagged SW face, and at least two shot-holes and several wedge marks are preserved in the fractured edge. The other three stones here come from elsewhere on the farm.
Visited by RCAHMS (ATW and KHJM) 24 June 1999
Measured Survey (24 June 1999)
RCAHMS surveyed the remains of Bankhead recumbent stone circle on 24 June 1999 with plane table and alidade producing a plan at a scale of 1:100. The survey drawing was redrawn in ink and used as the basis for an illustration produced in vector graphics software for publication at a scale of 1:250 (Welfare 2011, 303).
