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Tomnagorn
Recumbent Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Site Name Tomnagorn
Classification Recumbent Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Alternative Name(s) Tannagorn
Canmore ID 17999
Site Number NJ60NE 1
NGR NJ 6514 0775
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/17999
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Midmar
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Gordon
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NJ60NE 1 6514 0775.
(NJ 6514 0775) Stone Circle (NR)
OS 6" map, (1959)
A Recumbent Stone Circle, approximately 80 feet in diameter, of which five stones of the outer circle, besides both flanking pillars of the recumbent stone, and four fallen stones, remain. Within is the remains of a setting of stones, several in situ, set in a slight bank. This setting is connected to the recumbent stone on its south side by a stone slab. To the North of it was a layer of waterworn boulders set like a floor.
In the centre of the circle three narrow slabs, in situ, and a broad slab 3 feet to the south, suggest that here was an oblong or squarish cavity now impossible to define.
F R Coles 1900.
A recumbent stone circle mainly as described and planned by Coles (1900) except that besides the recumbent stone and it's flankers only 3 stones remain erect of the outer stone circle. The W flanker is unusually small, but this may have been broken.
The 'setting of stones' described by Coles is all that remains of the outer kerb of the ring cairn. The 'slabs' in the centre may be kerb stones displaced when the cairn was robbed.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (RL) 7 February 1968.
The circle is 22.3m in diameter. The recumbent, its flankers and three other stones are still in their original positions. The remains of the inner and outer kerbs of a ring cairn within the circle are still visible.
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 4 March 1997.
Field Visit (30 October 1998)
This recumbent stone circle stands on a terrace on the W flank of the hill overlooking Tamnagorn from the E. Now in a grass-grown clearing at the edge of a modern coniferous plantation, the circle encloses a well-defined ring-cairn and measures about 21m in diameter, comprising the recumbent setting (1–3) on the SSW and nine orthostats (4–12), though one of the latter is leaning so steeply as to be almost prone (8) and another five are lying flat (5, 6, 9, 11 &12). The recumbent block (2) measures about 2.15m in length by 1.5m in height and has a relatively even summit. While both flankers remain standing, the western (1) has sheared off obliquely to a stump and what are probably fragments belonging to its top lie immediately behind it. Nevertheless, the two stones evidently presented contrasting profiles, the western being a slender pillar and the eastern (3) a much broader slab, its E edge rising inwards to a rounded point and giving the impression that it leans over the end of the recumbent. In contrast to the W flanker, which is set flush with the leading edge of the recumbent to extend its long axis, the E flanker stands back and is turned inwards slightly towards the recumbent. At 2.1m, the E flanker is the tallest stone in the circle, and the measurements of the rest of the orthostats, both standing and prostrate, show that they reduced in height and spacing round towards the N, where orthostat 7 on the NE is the shortest surviving upright. The heavily-robbed ring-cairn within the interior measures 15.5m in diameter over a kerb of heavy boulders up to 0.6m high. At least twelve of the kerbstones remain in place, one of which is a slab 1.7m in length set almost at right-angles to the general line of the kerb behind the E flanker, and serving to link the ring-cairn to the back of the recumbent setting. At least three of the four earthfast stones visible at the centre probably belong to the kerb of the inner court, though the status of the fourth, a rather lower stone on the NW side, is uncertain, for if this is indeed part of the kerb it would suggest that the court was little more than 2m in length by 1m in breadth, whereas more probably the line extended round by the displaced stones some 4m to the N.
Visited by RCAHMS (ARG, ATW, IGP and KHJM) 30 October 1998
