Stonehaven

NO88NE 51 c. 87 85.

'At Stonehaven there is a shallow embayment of the coast where two small streams, the Cowie Water and the Carron Water, reach the sea c. 700m apart. At the S. end of the Bay a rocky point cuts off a small cove, the site of the medieval and modern harbour. A mass of rocks at the harbour entrance was only removed in 1825. How usuable this cove would have been in its natural state is uncertain. Perhaps Roman transports would have been beached on the strand of Stonehaven Bay, though this is wide open to the E....'.

J K St Joseph, 1978

'...But if Victoria is after all at Inchtuthil, then Orrea must be much further N.E., if not at Montrose then probably at Stonehaven (even though Ptolemy's co-ordinates place it S. of the Tay near the coast of Fife). Wherever it was, it must certainly have been a fort containing buildings, and it is to be observed that the line of Agricolan forts in this part of Scotland approaches the sea only at Stonehaven. It has always seemed likely that the terminal fort would be at Stonehaven, in contact with the sea, though not yet found; recently St. Joseph (Britannia ix, (1978), 277) has given a further reason for the expectation'.

S S Frere, 1980a