Deer Park

What may be the remains of a cairn surrounded by a stone circle are situated at the edge of a field overlooking the Parsonage Burn. The cairn is now reduced to a low flat-topped grass-grown mound spread up to 17m from NW to SE by 13.5m transversely, and on the W, where it is best preserved, its sides are sharp and steep. The E half has been disturbed by stone robbing and several mature beech trees grow on top of the mound. Of the surrounding circle only two stones are still in place, standing on the SW at the foot of the mound. The base of a third can be seen on the E, lying prone and partly obscured by the roots of two of the beech trees, and a fourth, of pink granite, stands on the mound’s summit, set off-centre to the S and held in place by two packing stones; it is unlikely that this stone is in its original position. Beyond the lip of the gully, about 20m from the mound, there is a fifth stone lying on the steep S-facing slope that may too derive from the circle.

Visited by RCAHMS (ATW,ARG) 7 July 1999

RCAHMS surveyed the Deer Park stone circle on 7 July 1999 with plane table and alidade producing a plan and section at a scale of 1:100. The survey drawing was later used as the basis for an illustration redrawn in vector graphics software at a scale of 1:250.

This stone circle is situated on the edge of deciduous woodland about 45m NW of the Parsonage Burn, which is here confined within a deep, steep-sided gully as it flows towards its confluence with the River Don about 140m to the NE. It is now reduced to only two grey granite orthostats (1 and 2) standing at the SW corner of a small flat-topped cairn and a third of pink granite (3), which is supported by two packing stones to the NNE and WSW. The cairn, which measures 8.2m from NNW to SSE by 6m transversely and up to 0.6m high, is very poorly preserved especially on the north and west. There is a prone pink granite stone (4) tangled in the roots of two beech trees 2m to its east while another of a dark metamorphic rock (5),identified by Sir Archiebald Grant, lies 20m S of the cairn on the steep scarp above the burn. However, it is not certain whether either formed part of the ring.

The latter is difficult to reconstruct and classify as the cairn has evidently been disturbed. However, the remains appear to be part of a six-stone setting like Backhill of Drachlaw (NJ64NE 6), Glassel (NO69NW 2) and perhaps Image Wood (NO50NW 1).

The measurements of the individual stones are as follows: (1) 1.5m in height by 0.9m in breadth and 0.66m in thickness; (2) 1.45m in height by 0.94m in breadthand 0.4m in thickness; (3) 1.24m in height by 0.77m in breadth and 0.54m in thickness; (4) 0.9m in length by 0.5m in breadth; (5) 1.41m in length by 0.6m in breadth and at least 0.3m in thickness.

Two estate maps of 1774 show that the ring stood within what appears to have been a roughly circular enclosure at the SE corner of a small rectangular field extending into a larger area named 'Druid[s] Park', which bordered the west bank of the River Don (Hamilton 1945, 1956). Alexander Ogg's estate map of 1846, which denotes it a 'Druids Temple', indicates that this enclosure was a circle of trees that are likely to have been planted to enhance the environment and emphasise its archaic ethos. However, all that recalls this arrangement today is an arc of beeches to the east, a large depression to the north and a stately beech to the west. The first edition of the OS 25-inch map shows the ring then consisted of the three stones within the grove, situated to the SE of a greatly enlarged enclosure incorporating Druid Park (Aberdeenshire 1869, lxiii.4); Namebook, Aberdeenshire, No.64, p.22). Although Frederick Coles misinterpreted certain elements - the dashed circle representing the grove on the map as the stone circle, three unremarkable stones on the south and north as part of a 'setting' (T on his plan) and an arc of stones on the east as kerbstones - he did note the prone stone to the south of the latter as an orthostat (4) (Coles 1901). He was also convinced that the orthostat on the summit of the cairn was a central monolith, despite the fact that he was quite unable to establish the ring's overall diameter and knew of no analogies for such a feature in the neighbourhood. Coles' plan does not show the cairn, which he simply described as a raised area between the stones 'about 10 inches higher than the level of the field', but it is clearly visible in James Ritchie's superb photographs taken in 1902 (SC681711). Alexander Keiller was almost equally perplexed and initially speculated whether the remains might be those of a recumbent stone circle, presumably because he considered the outlines of the two stones on the SW (1 and 2) to be akin to those of flankers. However, he immediately rejected this notion as improbable - instead finding a likeness in the Hill of Tuach (NJ71NE 27), which he believed had also once had an orthostat situated at its centre (Keiller 1934). Alexander Thom planned the three stones, but could make nothing of them (Thom, Thom and Burl 1980); but Aubrey Burl, in firmly rejecting the idea of a central monolith, classified the site as a four-poster, suggesting that the SE orthostat had been removed when the setting was 'Christianised' (1988, 1995, 2000). John Barnatt also believed that the remains were probably those of a four poster, 'with one poorly positioned stone' (3) and Coles' more northerly 'T' being taken as the NE orthostat.

Visited by RCAHMS (ATW and KM), 7 July 1999; HES (ATW and AMcC), 6 October 2015

HES surveyed Deer Park stone circle on 6 October 2015, creating an overlay of RCAHMS 1999 survey (DC44441). The resultant plan was redrawn in vector graphics software.