Category: Standing Stones

Simply what the term suggests: upright singular or multiple sets of stones plonked there thousands of years back (traditionally betwixt neolithic to Iron Age) for various uses. Some relate to burial; others to land-markers (tribal boundaries, etc); some may be alignment-markers (solar and lunar); others simple meeting spots (moots). They are closely related to stone circles, tombs, and many of them are outliers to such sites.

Acharra, Duror, Argyll

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NM 9866 5455

Also known as:

  1. Achara

Getting Here

Not hard to find really.  From Ballachulish, take the western coastal road south, as if you’re going to Oban.  After about 5 miles you’ll hit the lovely hamlet of Duror (nowt much here: a hotel, small school and a few cottages).  Stop here and walk across the River Duror.  A couple of fields down on your left-hand side you’ll see what you’re looking for!

Archaeology & History

Described as “one of the most impressive standing stones in Lorn,” northern Argyll, it “is situated in a level field 180m NW of Acharra. It measures 3.7m in height and 1.1m by 0.6 m at the base, and tapers to a pointed top about 0.4m in thickness; the long axis lies NE and SW.”

Aubrey Burl (Thom, Thom & Burl 1990) thought: “it is possible that this, and other stones near Loch Creran, once marked a prehistoric trackway, 4.5 miles in length.”

Folklore

On the potential folklore side of this monolith, Burl mentions how this monolith – also known as the Hard Stone – “and the site on which it stands, is called Cnoc nam Aingeal, or ‘Angel’s Hillock.'”  Does anyone know the story behind this?

References:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Argyll: volume 2 – Lorn, HMSO: Edinburgh 1974.
  2. Thom, A., Thom, A.S. & Burl, A., Stone Rows and Standing Stones, BAR: Oxford 1990.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Achacha, Barcaldine, Argyll

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NM 9444 4075

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 23330

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:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Argyll – volume 2, HMSO: Edinburgh 1974.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Clach a’ Phoanais, Strontian, Inverness-shire

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NM 81581 61360

Also Known as:

  1. Branks Stone

Getting Here

As you enter the village from the east, onto the A861 road, the Strontian Hotel is on the right-hand side of the road and you can’t fail to notice. Stop!

Archaeology & History

Clach a’ Phaonais on 1872 map

Shown on the first edition OS-map of the region in 1875, this old worn standing stone, more than six-feet tall, can be seen at the edge of the drive.  There’s an iron ring is attached to it, which I thought might have made it an old Bull Stone in bygone days, but no such lore is remembered.  Also known as the Branks Stone, it’s Gaelic name probably means the ‘stone of penance,’ and folk were chained to it in eaelier days for bad behaviour.  It was widespread across the Highlands to tie criminals to stones and wooden poles, naked, for 24 hours and let the midges get to them.  Crime was down to a minimum up here!

Folklore

As the locals at Strontian Hotel told me (thanks Finlay), “several stories have emerged locally. It marks a clan chief’s grave, a sighting stone for the equinox but the most plausible one is based on the fact that there is an iron ring on the side of the stone facing the loch and it was used to tie up barges taking lead from the local lead mine.  It supplied the raw material for shot during the Napoleonic and Crimean wars.”

Aknowledgements:  Big thanks to Anne and the Megalithic Portal for additional help on this one.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Taynuilt, Lorn, Argyll

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NN 0120 3115

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 23497

Archaeology & History

Nearly twenty years have passed by since I last saw this rather small standing stone – ‘small’ for Argyll that is!  It’s near the corner of a field half-a-mile east of Taynuilt village, about 300 yards off the main Oban road. The Scottish Royal Commission (1974) chaps describe it quire accurately, telling it to be,

“a granite boulder, roughly triangular in shape at the base, and measuring 0.75 metre by 0.60 metre by 0.55 metre at ground-level. It now stands to a height of 1.2 metres (nearly four-feet tall in normal language! – Ed), but pieces have been split off in comparatively recent times and it may originally have been taller.”

It’s about time I got my arse back up ambling and exploring around this part of Scotland.  Tis a gorgeous part of the world…

References:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Argyll – volume 2, HMSO: Edinburgh 1974.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Llangynidr Bridge, Llangynidr, Breconshire

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Standing Stone:  OS Grid Reference – SO 1562 2039

Also Known as:

  1. Gliffaes Stone
  2. Llywn y Fedwen

Getting Here

Not too difficult – and its size makes it pretty easy to spot!  About 100 yards across the river bridge from Llangynidr, there’s a small path heading into the trees by the riverside. Walk along it, or whichever way you find easiest to walk along the riverbank.  Then as you reach the third field along, look up into the hedgerow-cum-fence above you and you’ll notice the old stone sticking up!  Head for it!

Archaeology & History

A 14 foot tall standing stone with a most peculiar ‘modern’ history to it.  Some of you will like this, others may have palpitations – but… In recent times, since the notion of “energy at megaliths” have been in vogue, this was one of the first monoliths found to possess magnetic anomalies.  Described by the writer Francis Hitching (1976), he asked the Welsh dowser Bill Lewis to dowse at this stone and checked the results. Lewis dowsed a spiral of ‘energy’ rising up the stone as he did at many standing stones, and urged Hitching to see if he could bring his findings to the attention of any scientists.  So Hitching contacted the physicist professor John Taylor — he of Black Holes fame, of Kings College, London — who felt that Lewis’ dowsing finds were probably due to him sensing subtle changes in the magnetic field of the stone.  And so with this in mind, he sent a young Argentinian physicist called Eduardo Balanovski, armed with a gaussmeter, to see what they could find. As Hitching later wrote:

“What Balanovski found surprised him very much. After checking the background levels and setting the meter at zero, he pointed the measuring probe at the stone. The needle on the dial shot up, showing an anomaly far greater than the few thousandths or hundredths of a gauss that would have been normal…

“Balanovski has no doubt that the basic anomaly…is significant: ‘The point is that a water-diviner told us about it, and we went there and found something measurable. It may be the stone contains, geologically, the reason for the anomaly. Or it may be caused by something we don’t yet understand. But I do not personally believe that the stone was accidentally chosen or accidentally placed. The people who put it there knew about its power, even if they didn’t know about electromagnetism.'”

This initial finding brought Taylor himself to the place, where he, Balanovski and Lewis set to work.

“Lewis was filmed marking with chalk the places on the stone where he dowsed ‘energy nodes.’ When the gaussmeter probe was passed down the stone, it did register increases of magnetism at the marked points – there seemed to be ‘a very strong field on and around the stone, which seemed to fall in bands,’ as Hitching put it. It was a very impressive demonstration. Taylor urged caution, pointing out that much more work would need to be done to be sure of such reactions.”

Further work was eventually carried out by the Dragon Project, where no anomalous readings were found. Hmmm….

References:

  1. Devereux, Paul, Places of Power, Blandford: London 1990.
  2. Hitching, Francis, Earth Magic, Cassell: London 1976.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Standing Stone, Foulridge, Lancashire

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Standing Stone:  OS grid reference – SD 8803 4316

Also Known as:

  1. Lark Hill Stone
Possible Standing Stone in walling close to Standing Stone Road crossroads
‘Standing Stone Road’ monolith

Getting Here

From Foulridge go west up the long windy road (B6251) till you hit the old crossroads near the top.  Turn right and go on till you hit the modernised farmhouse on your right, where you’ll notice a modern upright stone in the entrance.  You need to go back about 70 yards and you’ll see this old stone in the wall.

Archaeology & History

"Standing Stone Road' stone!
“Standing Stone Road’ stone!

Less than a mile northwest of Foulridge along the southern stretch of the Whitemoor Reservoir, on the northern outskirts of Colne, we find the intriguingly-named ‘Standing Stone Lane’ — which seems to indicate that at some time in the not-too-distant past, an old monolith could be found hereabouts.  The old maps show the boundary line turning at right angles just near the crossroads, which is where I thought we might locate some remains of an old standing stone.  But it wasn’t to be.  Instead, we need to travel about 100 yards west along the single-track road, just below the reservoir — and there, in the walling, plain for all to see, is what may be the old standing stone which gave the road its name.  I found this site in early July 2008, and although we can’t be 100% certain, it’s not too bad a good contender as the monolith which first gave the road its name.  Does anyone know anymore about it?

More probably though (and this is what ‘feels’ right): the original stone which gave the road its name was much bigger than this little thing, but was probably destroyed when the reservoir here was constructed.  How much d’ y’ wanna bet!?

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian