Auchmaliddie
Recumbent Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Site Name Auchmaliddie
Classification Recumbent Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Alternative Name(s) North Mains Of Auchmaliddie; Muckle Stane Of Auchmaliddie; Rocking Stones; Muckle Ordeal Stane O' Auchmaliddie
Canmore ID 19879
Site Number NJ84SE 1
NGR NJ 8815 4484
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/19879
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish New Deer
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Banff And Buchan
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NJ84SE 1 8815 4484.
(NJ 8815 4484) Rocking Stones (NR)
OS 6" map, (1959)
According to Pratt (1870) this was known as the 'Muckle Stane of Auchmaliddie' and he described it as a fallen rocking stone. Coles (1904), however, records a local tradition of a stone circle and describes the two remaining stones as the recumbent stone and west pillar stone. He suggests that a slight swelling a few yards to the north of the stones, is the original mound on which the circle stood.
J B Pratt 1870; F R Coles 1904.
Two quartz boulders still known as the 'Rocking Stones'. The 'recumbent' stone lying NE-SW measures 3.0m x 1.8m and 0.7m thick and the other to the SE measures 2.5m x 1.3m and 0.7m high. There is no trace of "a slight swelling" north of the stones as suggested by Coles. The large stone would make a suitable recumbent stone for a recumbent stone circle, but there is no further ground evidence for this. The name 'Muckle Stane of Auchmaliddie' is not known locally.
Visited by OS (ISS) 22 February 1973.
The remains of a recumbent stone circle whose stones appear to have come from outcrops half a mile to the SW.
H A W Burl 1973.
Scheduled as North Mains of Auchmaliddie, stone circle.
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 8 November 2000.
Field Visit (21 August 2003)
The site of this recumbent stone circle falls on the summit of a hill, where two stones of white quartzite now lie prone beside a trackway running along the SE boundary of a field; these almost certainly represent the recumbent and its W flanker. The recumbent (2), which is a roughly trapezoidal slab in plan, lies on its back and measures 3.15m in length by a maximum of 1.8m in breadth. Its summit, now the N side, is relatively uneven, and small facets around its edges suggest that the stone may have been shaped. Aligned roughly E and W, the recumbent setting evidently stood on the southern arc of the circle, but whereas the recumbent has fallen backwards, the surviving flanker (1) has fallen forwards and now lies displaced to the SSW; faceting around its edges suggests that it too has been shaped. There is now little evidence of the ‘slightest swelling’ identified by Coles in the surface of the field to the N of the stones (1904, 264), but on the day of the survey small fragments of white quartz could be seen here in the plough-soil.
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, ATW and KHJM) 21 August 2003
Measured Survey (21 August 2003)
RCAHMS surveyed the remains of Auchmaliddie recumbent stone circle on 21 August 2003 with plane table and alidade at a scale of 1:100. The survey drawing was checked on-site on 5 May 2005. The plan 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, 296).
