Stone Circle (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NT 641 240
Archaeology & History
Mentioned briefly by Burl (2000), this site is another of the countless megalithic monuments in our islands that has been destroyed. References to it are few and far between, though the site was investigated by members of Scottish Royal Commission in March, 1947, and found absolutely no remains left. In the first volume of their Roxburgh (1956) survey, they told:
“The stone circle that stood in the vicinity of Harestones Cottages had been reduced to a single stone by 1845, and this stone has since disappeared. No details of the circle are recorded and the evidence for its exact position is contradictory. Stobie’s Map of Roxburghshire (1770) marks the site a little to the NE of Harestones Cottages, while an estate map of 1795 is said to have placed it at the SW corner of this group of buildings.”
There is the distinct possibility of course that there once stood two independent ancient monuments in the vicinity, which would account for descriptions in the different site locations.
References:
- Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
- Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Roxburghshire – volume 1, HMSO: Edinburgh 1956.
- Watson, G., “The Stone Circles of Roxburghshire,” in Transactions of the Hawick Archaeological Society, volume 20, 1908.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
