Corrie (1), Gartmore, Perthshire

Cup-and-Ring Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NS 49502 95052

Also Known as:

1. Canmore ID 43472

Getting Here

On the A81 road from Aberfoyle to Strathblane, about a mile south of Aberfoyle take the tiny right turn (keep your eyes peeled!) to Gartmore.  At the end of the village, turn right at the T-junction.  Just over a mile along the tiny road, just over the tiny road-bridge, turn right again up up the dead straight road to Drymen for nearly a mile and park up.  A dirt-track is on your right: walk along here for ¾-mile (1.2km) and in a large field on your left a huge rock sits (no carvings on it).  Keep walking on the track and where the field ends, a path to your left runs above a small burn.  Naathen, 150 yards along here, look down at the waters and there’s a clump of large rocks. Check ’em out!

Archaeology & History

This stone and others were mentioned in MacNair’s (1973) essay in the popular history guide to the region, after it had seemingly been rediscovered a few years earlier by Ron Morris (1967; 1969), who listed it in his petroglyph catalogues.  It was originally located at the top of the slope above the burn, but was rolled down here shortly after Morris discovered the cup-and-rings on it.  The farmer at the time had made a bore-hole into the rock with the intention of blowing it up, but Morris found it just in time and the stone managed to survive!

It’s a large rock with a decent ornate design that was clearly visible when Morris surveyed it (see photo, right).  It comprises of, “a cup-and-two-rings, 18cm (7in) diameter, 6 cups-and-one-ring (2 of which are tangential) and at least 8 cups.  All rings are complete.  Greatest carving depth 2cm (¾in).”  There also appears to be a line of four or five small cup-marks running in a short line by one of the lower cup-and-rings, but these are very faint indeed.  The double cup-and-ring mentioned by Morris is the one at the top-centre in my photo, but the next cup-and-ring down may also be a double-ring.  At the top-right of the photo is where two cup-and-rings are conjoined.

Since being rolled down the slope to the side of the burn, the carving’s much more in the shadows and is more difficult to work out.  Sadly on the day when I visited here, Nature bestowed on me a wet and cloudy day, so the design was even more difficult to see, as my photos illustrate.

Morris (1981) told that “other stones in the immediate vicinity bear possible cup-marks,” and one of these may exist just a couple of stones away (Corrie 2), leaning up into the grasses: this is another rock that has been pushed down the slope and has curious natural cup-markings on it, with one or two that could be man-made, but we need a geomorphologist to have a look at it and tell us one way or the other.

References:

1. Edlin, Herbert L. (ed.), Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, HMSO Edinburgh 1973.
2. MacNair, A.S., “History,” in Edlin’s Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, HMSO 1973.
3. Morris, Ronald W.B., “The cup-and-ring marks and similar sculptures of Scotland: a survey of the southern Counties,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 98, 1967.
4. Morris, Ronald W.B., “The Cup-and-Ring and Similar Early Sculptures of Scotland; Part 2 – The Rest of Scotland except Kintyre,” in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, volume 16, 1969.
5. Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian