Wallace's Stone
Cross Incised Stone (10th Century) - (12th Century)
Site Name Wallace's Stone
Classification Cross Incised Stone (10th Century) - (12th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Blairstane
Canmore ID 41595
Site Number NS31NW 16
NGR NS 33214 16579
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/41595
- Council South Ayrshire
- Parish Maybole
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Kyle And Carrick
- Former County Ayrshire
NS31NW 16 33214 16579.
(NS 3321 1657) Wallace's Stone (NR)
OS 1:10000 map (1981)
The incised figure, popularly believed to represent the sword of Wallace, is a cross, 3ft 6ins long and 14ins over the arms.
J Smith 1895
A recumbent megalith, 6ft 2ins long by 3ft 5ins at one end narrowing to a rounded end at the other, and bearing an incised cross, not positioned centrally and much weather-beaten.
A D Lacaille 1929
Field Visit (8 September 1942)
‘Blairstane’ is a granite boulder, now prostrate, 6ft long 3 in wide at its broadest and 1 ft 10 inches. One end is flat and the other comes to a rounded point. Though the former end is so flat as to give the impression of having been split off the edges are smooth and rounded. On what is now the upper face has been pecked a figure vaguely like a cross with a total length of 3’ 10 ½ inches and width along the arms of 1 ft 2 inches. This figure is not arranged along the main axis of the stone but is approximately at right angles to the plane of the flat end, and the edge of this end forms the boundary of the broad ‘head’ of the cross. The stem of the cross is not quite straight.
Visited by RCAHMS (VGC), 8 September 1942.
Field Visit (12 December 1955)
This stone, enclosed by a wall, is as described above.
Visited by OS (JD) 12 December 1955
Field Visit (10 September 1968)
No change.
Visited by OS (RD) 10 September 1968
Field Visit (2 October 1980)
This is probably a recumbent standing stone, as inferred by Lacaille. Its maximum dimensions are 1.8m long by 1.1m wide and 0.6m thick.
Visited by OS (JRL) 2 October 1980
Field Visit (September 1985)
Visited by RCAHMS (IMS) September 1985. For details see summary text.
Field Visit (September 1985)
Wallace's Stone NS 3321 1657 NS31NW 16
An irregularly shaped boulder, bearing on one face a cross in false relief, is set within a walled enclosure on the S side of a track 180m NW of Blairstone Mains. The boulder (1.8m long, up to 1m broad and 0.6m thick) has been removed from its former position 30m to the SE (NS 3322 1654) and may originally have been standing. The cross, set slightly off centre, has arms of uniform length (0.16m) with expanded terminals (up to 0.26m broad) and a tapering shaft which drops from the centre of the head (0.87m long and up to 0.06m broad). The form of the cross suggests a 10th- to 12th-century date.
RCAHMS 1985, visited September 1985.
(Paterson 1863-6, ii, 375-6; Smith 1895, 179; Macfarlane 1906-8, ii, 5; Bryden 1910; Lacaille 1929, 347-50).
