Colen
Cup Marked Stone (Prehistoric), Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Site Name Colen
Classification Cup Marked Stone (Prehistoric), Stone Circle (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Canmore ID 28643
Site Number NO13SW 19
NGR NO 11058 31157
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/28643
- Council Perth And Kinross
- Parish St Martins
- Former Region Tayside
- Former District Perth And Kinross
- Former County Perthshire
This monument has been signposted and prepared for public access as part of the South-east Perthshire Stone Circle Trail, administered under the CSA Adopt-a-monument scheme by the Archaeological Section of the Perthshire Society for Natural Science. The visitor may find it difficult to distinguish the stones in standing crop. Information from Mr M King (Perth Museum), 2 November 1996. Council for Scottish Archaeology 1996.
NO 2091 3099 – Bandirran, NO 1106 3116 – Colen, NO 1476 3286 – Loanhead – Over several weekends in spring 2008 members cleared vegetation from the stone circles to improve access to them. The circles had been ‘adopted’ in 1996 when the AAM scheme was first proposed and a leaflet has been published by the CSA (South-east Perthshire Stone Circle Trail: A Guide to Three Ancient Monuments).
Funder: Archaeological and Historical Section of PSNS and Archaeology Scotland (Adopt-a-Monument)
David Perry (Archaeological and Historical Section of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science), 2008
NO13SW 19 1106 3116.
(NO 1106 3116) Stone Circle (NR)
OS 6" map (1901)
This consists of a circle (diameter 8 paces) of 8 large boulders. One recumbent, in the NW segment, is covered with cup-marks (no rings).
Cups are visible on some of the other boulders. In the middle is what appears to be the remains of a stone cist, but of shapeless boulders, not slabs. Also within the circle are a number of smaller stones, thought by Crawford to be the remains of a cairn but which the ONB states were recently gathered from the fields.
Information from O G S Crawford 10 August 1936
Name Book 1898
Publication Account (1859 - 1862)
The Ordnance Survey Name Book (Perthshire Vol.74, p.12) describes this site as 'A circle of 8 large unshapely boulder stones, one of which is considerably larger than the rest, and stands upright. They are nearly covered with a cairn of small stones recently gathered from the land. There are several of the same circles in the parish, and the Authorities further say that the only tradition concerning them, that they are Druidical Temples.'.
Field Visit (21 February 1969)
The stone circle is generally as described. There are 25 cup marks on the recumbent stone and four possible cups on the only standing stone. There is no trace of a cist and the smaller stones within the circle are almost certainly field clearance. Resurveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (RD) 21 February 1969.
Field Visit (6 April 1989)
The poorly-preserved remains of a stone circle are situated on a SW-facing terrace about 740m NNE of Colen steading. Only one of the stones is erect, the others having fallen or been broken, but enough survives to suggest that the circle measured about 7.7m in diameter, and comprised nine graded stones with the largest on the SW arc. The stones are described clockwise from the upright stone on the SW arc: Stone 1 (SW) is a small, roughly rectangular block measuring 1.15m by 0.7m, and 1m in height. On the SW face there are several possible cup- marks, and there is a further cup-mark on the relatively flat top.
Stone 2 (W) has fallen inwards and measures 1.5m by 1.45m and at least 0.4m in thickness; its present upper surface bears at least thirty-two cupmarks, the largest measuring up to 90mm in diameter.
Stones 3-7 (NW-ESE) around the northern half of the circle are either broken or largely buried, and were not measured.
Stone 8 (SE) is now missing.
Stone 9 (SSE) has fallen inwards and measures 1.55m by 0.72m, and at least 0.3m in thickness; there is one probable cupmark on its upper surface.
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS) 6 April 1989.
Measured Survey (20 April 1989)
RCAHMS surveyed the stone circle at Colen (NO13SW 19) with plane-table and alidade on 20 April 1989 at a scale of 1:125. The resultant plan was redrawn in ink and published at a scale of 1:250 as part of a ‘Comparative plans of stone circles in South-east Perth’ illustration (RCAHMS 1994b, 32).
