Balnabroich, Kirkmichael, Perthshire

Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NO 09175 56752

Also Known as:

1. Canmore ID 27267

Getting Here

Take the A924 road north of Blairgowrie, between Pitlochry and Bridge of Cally and, about 4.6 miles (7.5km) along, roughly halfway between Ballintuim and Kirkmichael, in the field by the roadside immediately west, you’ll see this conspicuous upright stone standing all alone – unless the cattle are meandering slowly around it!

Archaeology & History

This single monolith that stands today as a cattle rubbing post, may at one time in its distant past have been related to the present pair of standing stones hiding in the small remain of trees 148 yards (135.5m) to the south; although neither Aubrey Burl (1993) nor Alexander Thom (1990) ascribe the stone such an association in their relative tomes on aligned stone rows.

When the great standing stone lover Fred Coles (1908) came here, he was as reliable as ever in his subsequent exposition of the place – and despite getting his measurements slightly out he told us almost liltingly, like an antiquarian Uncle Monty stroking his megaliths, that

“At a point almost 176 yards due north of (the) two stones is a tallish and unshapely monolith standing but a few yards west of the main road.  Its most notable feature is the extreme irregularity of its shape.  If any proof were needed to show how uncritical were the people who raised such stones, how totally devoid of any regard for symmetry or neatness of contour in the monoliths they set up, surely the ground-plan of this block of rent and riven quartz-veined whinstone, fissured and uncouth in all its parts, would supply it.

“The contour here shown was measured by laying down an irregular rhomboidal figure, and from each of its sides measuring by offsets to the depths 0f the curves which are so prominent on the north, the northwest and the southeast sides.  The ground-plan this obtained shows that, taken between their prominent angles, the four sides measure almost exactly 3 feet each, and the main long axis of the stone which lies due east and west and measures 4 feet 6 inches.  The monolith stands 5 feet 8 inches above the ground and…appear to have been unconnected with circles, so far at least as it was possible to glean any information.”

References:

1. Coles, Fred, “Report on Stone Circles Surveyed in Perthshire – Northeastern Section,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, volume 42, 1908.
2. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, North-East Perth: An Archaeological Landscape, HMSO: Edinburgh 1990.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian

Balnabroich stone