Standing Stone: OS Grid Reference – NM 9444 4075
Also Known as:
Getting Here
Not quite halfway along the A828 road between Oban and Ballachulish, just before the village of Barcaldine, a large expanse of forested land unfurls on the slopes to your left (east). You can either just walk straight into the woods and follow your nose, or do the easier thing and head up the track into the woods from Mill Farm. As you walk up, keep an eye out for where the open land to your left starts fading. Once here, head straight north into the trees (it’s not too bad and a few animal paths help you along the way). Walk into the trees for a couple of hundred yards and look around. If you hit the triangulation pillar (Cnoc Reamhar), walk back 100 yards.
Archaeology & History
There are actually two monuments here: a small overgrown cairn not far from the forest edge, kerbed with several large boulders between one and three feet high – 15 of which were still in situ in 1974 – with the inner section lower than the surrounding stones. The other more impressive site and much easier to locate is the tall standing stone, nearly 8 feet tall, about 100 yards east of the cairn.
I liked the feel of this place. There’s good clean waters all round, a coupla decent little waterfalls close by, an abundance of healthy wildlife and an old holy well apparently dedicated to St. Columba in the trees a short distance away, though I never got a look at it.
References:
- Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Argyll – volume 2, HMSO: Edinburgh 1974.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
