Whitehill Wood

This stone circle has been removed and its site now lies in a cultivated field 600m ENE of Carnousie Castle (NJ65SE 18). The stone circle is first described in the Ordnance Survey Name Book (Banffshire, No. 13, p.53) as a 'druidical circle consisting of Seven Stones', and it is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Banffshire 1874, sheet XVI). Coles (1903, 140) purports to show a plan of the circle, but he seems not to have visited the site as his illustration depicts a fortuitous setting of boulders immediately N of Cairn Ennit (NJ65SE 13). Thom, Thom and Burl (1980, 234-5; Burl 2005, 110) in following him made a similar error.

Visited by RCAHMS (ATW, KM) 20 May 2005.

'The occasion of Coles’ visit was to record a stone circle shown on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map about 140m to the north of Cairn Ennit (Banffshire 1874, xvi); this has been removed since and its site taken into cultivation. In Coles’ day the circle lay in a dense plantation of conifers and it was only with some difficulty that he finally located what he believed to be its site. However, he almost certainly lost his bearings amongst the trees and bracken, for his plan showing seven stones lying in a rough circle about 9m across roughly conforms to a probably fortuitous collection of stones planned by Thom a mere 15m to the north of Cairn Ennit (Coles 1903a, 137–40; Thom et al 1980, 234–5).'

The orthostats that once made up this circle are now scattered with other stones on the grassy space between Cairn Ennit and the arable field to the N. Coles, who evidently did locate the stones forming the ring within the thick tangle of Whitehill Wood (pace Welfare 2011, 501), nonetheless had severe difficulties in taking a plan (Coles 1903a, 138); and this may account for the fact that his effort and the plan later taken by Thom in 1956 differ in their orientation by as much as 70 degrees (Thom, Thom and Burl 1980, 234). Sketches in Thom's notebook (MS 430/26) allow the orthostats to be correlated thus: Thom a/Coles B, Thom b/Coles D, Thom c/Coles g, Thom d/Coles A, Thom e/Coles C, Thom f/Coles e, Thom g/Coles f. Two still remained standing when Coles took his survey (Coles B/Thom a and Coles D/Thom b), but Thom found only the most southerly remained upright (Coles D/Thom b). Eight years later, the OS field investigator, William Johnston, found 'no trace of this stone circle . . . despite’ thorough perambulation in the surrounding area' and it is evident that the ring must have been destroyed between 1956-64, presumably when the woodland was felled and the ground was converted initially to pasture (OS 1:25000 map, 1957, Sheet NJ65). By the time Welfare recognised the stones cast on the edge of the field to the S of the ring's original location (recorded by Thom as 163.1ft (50m) due N of Cairn Ennit (NJ65SE 13)), the ground had been turned over to arable. However, because Welfare recognised some of the stones from the earlier accounts and perceived them to be roughly arranged as originally configured, he mistakenly supposed that that both Coles and Thom had actually planned them where they now lie at the edge of the field (Welfare 2011, 501).

In practice, it is by no means easy to identify the orthostats on the headland or distinguish them from the other field-cleared stones, despite Ritchies' photographs (SC679957, 681519, 681586, 681783) and the information provided by Coles and Thom. However, the stone marked C on the plan correlates with Thom e/Coles C.

Visited by HES, Survey and Recording (ATW and AMcC), 9 February 2017.