Cup-Marked Stone: OS Grid Reference – NN 85602 24795
It’s a helluva zigzag to get here. Just out of Crieff along the A85 road to Comrie, turn right up the minor road to Hosh and Glenturret Distillery. Just past the distillery, over the small river bridge, turn left and go up the tiny road for literally ⅔-mile (1.1km) and park up just before the cattle-grid. Naathen, up the slope into the trees at a diagonal behind where you’re parked, walk up and up for half-a-mile where the land levels out and you reach a gate (and my bath, in the undergrowth to your right). A track goes up above the gate (not the one through it) and bends round where, 100 yards up, you reach a gate. Go over it and look at one of the stones in front of you!
Archaeology & History
This is another one of those petroglyphs that only the purists amongst you will want to see. On the lower section of this typically smooth female stone, you’ll see a singular cup-mark, half-natural half-carved, a couple of inches across, with a less discernible cup-mark of similar dimensions further up the rock, but entirely man-made. When we visited here yesterday, the shadows of the trees above made it very difficult to get any decent photos of the cups. Give it your eye on the journey up to the impressive standing stone of Stonefield a few hundred yards further up the hill; and if you manage to get any good photos, stick ’em on our Facebook group.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
