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Walton

Pictish Symbol Stone (Pictish)

Site Name Walton

Classification Pictish Symbol Stone (Pictish)

Alternative Name(s) Crawford Priory Estate; Cupar

Canmore ID 31171

Site Number NO30NE 1

NGR NO 363 096

NGR Description NO c. 363 096

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/31171

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Fife
  • Parish Cults
  • Former Region Fife
  • Former District North East Fife
  • Former County Fife

Early Medieval Carved Stones Project (7 September 2016)

Walton, Fife, carved stone

Measurements: H 0.31m, W 0.31m, D 0.12m

Stone type: sandstone

Place of discovery: NO c363 098

Present location: uncertain, Crawford Priory now ruinous. Plaster cast in National Museums Scotland (X.IB 175).

Evidence for discovery: found on Walton Farm in the nineteenth century and taken to Crawford Priory. John Abercromby presented the cast to NMAS in April 1894.

Present condition:

Description

This fragment appears to have been trimmed for re-use. It is carved in both incision and relief but the designs are incomplete. Incised is the head of an eagle with typically hooked beak, facing right. Below its beak is a design carved in relief: circular with an inner decorated ring, the outer band is in relief. Thomas likened it to a Donside terret, and Fraser to the head of a tuning fork symbol. The Ordnance Survey recorded that, when the cast was examined in NMAS in 1971, R B K Stevenson expressed doubts about the authenticity of the stone itself.

Date: seventh century?

References: ECMS pt 3, 344; Thomas 1963, 46, pl 2; Fraser 2008, no 86.

Compiled by A Ritchie 2016

Early Medieval Carved Stones Project

Walton, Fife, carved stone

Measurements: H 0.31m, W 0.31m, D 0.12m

Stone type: sandstone

Place of discovery: NO c363 098

Present location: uncertain, Crawford Priory now ruinous. Plaster cast of stone in National Museums Scotland (X.IB 175).

Evidence for discovery: found on Walton Farm in the nineteenth century and taken to Crawford Priory. John Abercromby presented the cast to NMAS in April 1894.

Present condition:

Description

This fragment appears to have been trimmed for re-use. It is carved in both incision and relief but the designs are incomplete. Incised is the head of an eagle with typically hooked beak, facing right. Below its beak is a design carved in relief: circular with an inner decorated ring, the outer band is in relief. Thomas likened it to a Donside terret, and Fraser to the head of a tuning fork symbol. The Ordnance Survey recorded that, when the cast of the stone was examined in NMAS in 1971, R B K Stevenson expressed doubts about the authenticity of the original.

Date: seventh century?

References: ECMS pt 3, 344; Thomas 1963, 46, pl 2; Fraser 2008, no 86.

Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2016.

Activities

Reference (1903)

Walton farm-house is situated on the west slope of Walton Hill, 200 feet above sea-level, a mile and a half S.E. of Springfield railway station, and 3 1/2 miles S.W. of Cupar-Fife.

The symbol stone was found on Walton farm, and is now in the possession of Lady Gertrude Cochrane at Crawford Priory, 1/2 a mile S.E. of Springfield railway station. There is an ancient fort close to Walton farm-house, on the N side of it.

The monument is a fragment of a slab of Old Red Sandstone, nearly square in shape (but fragmented along all the edges), 1 foot long by 1 foot wide by from 4 to 5 inches thick, sculptured with incised symbols on one face thus-

Front.- At the top on the left, the head of the eagle symbol; and below in the middle, a circular disc with a somewhat heart-shaped figure on it.

J R Allen and J Anderson 1903

Field Visit (27 April 1926)

Symbol Stone, Walton.

This broken slab-of red sandstone was originally found on the farm of Walton Hill, which is situated at an elevation of 200 feet above sea-level about one and a half miles south-east of Springfield Station. It is now preserved at Crawford Priory, a mansion house in the same parish. It measures about one foot square and is from four to five inches thick. On one face are incised the eagle symbol and the mirror symbol. The stone is fully described in Early Christian Monuments, p. 344, and in Proc. Soc Ant. Scot., vol. xxviii (1893-4), p.218.

RCAHMS 1933, visited 27 April 1926.

Desk Based Assessment

NO30NE 1 c. 363 096

Class I symbol stone.

(Undated) information in NMRS.

Found on Walton Farm and formerly preserved in Crawford Priory; a cast of the slab was presented to National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) in 1894 (IB 175). A partly dressed sandstone slab (0.3m by 0.3m and 0.13m thick), it bears the head of an eagle and a curved shape sometimes interpreted as an terret. When the stone was examined in NMAS in 1971 doubts were expressed about its authenticity.

Information from OS.

J R Allen and J Anderson 1903; A C Thomas 1961; A C Thomas 1963; RCAHMS 1985.

References

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