Tag: Argyll

Acharra, Duror, Argyll

megalithix

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

megalithix

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 Brath, Baile Mor, Iona

megalithix

Bullaun Stone:  OS Grid Reference – NM 286 244

Also known as:

  1. Clacha Brath
  2. Clachan-nan-Druidhean
  3. Day of Judgement Stone
  4. Druid’s Stone
  5. World’s End Stone

Folklore

On this curious, broken, basin-shaped rock — thought by some to have at one time played a part in an old cross whose remains are in the Abbey Museum — are two deep cup-shaped hollows, in which were once “three noble globes of white marble” that were used for oracular purposes and were said to have originated in druidical rites.  In Miss McNeill’s (1954) survey of the island, she tells that:

“near the edge of the path leading to St. Oran’s Chapel, there lies a broad, flat stone, with a slit and a cavity on its surface. Here there used to lie some small round stones which pilgrims were wont to turn sunwise within the cavity; for it was commonly believed that the ‘brath’, or end of the world, would not arrive until this stone should be worn through.”

The small stones that were once in the Brath were ordered by the Church to be thrown into the sea; but local folk replaced them with three other small stones, maintaining the traditional rites of this stone until they eventually stopped sometime in the 19th century.  But in Major-General James Forlong’s (1906) study, he tells of a somewhat earlier mythic origin to this old stone, saying:

“In Iona the Druids are said to have made the flat altar stone called Clachan-nan-Druidhean, or Druid’s Stone, the stone of fate or of the last day, with round stones fitted into cup hollows on the surface, which the pious pilgrim turns round.  The world will end when the stone is worn through.  The Culdee monks preserved this monument.”

And what little is left is still preserved to this day.  The curious “end of the world” motif was something that was grafted onto an earlier mythos: what Mircea Eliade called the “myth of the eternal return”, wherein Nature’s annual cycle —from birth, life to death and subsequent renewal, endlessly, through the seasons—was the original status, later transmuted by the incoming judaeo-christian cult of linear time and milleniumism relating to a literal “end of the world” when their profane myth of Jesus returning to Earth occurs.  We might also add that the stones which once rested into the hollows of the Clach Brath would likely have possessed divinatory and healing qualities, as comparatiove studies suggest.

References:

  1. Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return,
  2. Forlong, J.G.S., Faiths of Man – volume 1, Bernard Quarithc: London 1906.
  3. Holder, Geoff, The Guide to Mysterious Iona and Staffa, Tempus: Stroud 2001.
  4. McNeill, F. Marion, Iona: A History of the Island, Blackie & Son: Glasgow 1954 (4th edition).

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Beinn na Cailleach, Islay, Argyll

megalithix

Sacred Mountain:  OS Grid Reference – NR 450 596

Also Known as:

  1. Beinn na Caillich

Folklore

Another great mountain of the ‘Old Woman’: primal creation deity of these hills. Whether she holds sway over the land here for many months, as she does on Mull and Skye, I cannot find.  One creation legend here tells that one of the furrows down the side of the mountain – called Sgrìoh na Caillich – was said to be made by her as she slid down it in a sitting position. The small loch on the way up to her summit – Lochan na Caillich – was one of her washing places; and the Beinn na Caillich Beag, immediately east, speaks of other legends, now seemingly lost to us.  It’s highly likely that some of the megalithic remains nearby had some mythic relationship with this old hill, though I aint found any studies along these lines…yet!

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Ardlamey, Gigha, Argyll

megalithix

Cairn:  OS Grid Reference – NR 63091 48258

Also Known as:

  1. Canmore ID 38524

Archaeology & History

A decent-sized cairn, around 50 feet across (even though much of the stone has been nicked) and about 3 feet high, with a singular large cist near its centre. When the Scottish Royal Commission lads checked the place out in 1967, at least four of the kerb stones were still in situ (on its north, west and southwest sides) – the tallest being its northern stone, more than 6 feet high. The northern stone also had a peculiar deposit of white quartz and pebbles laid at the base, placed there quite deliberately – unlike the others which rested on a level of sand and gravel.

The Scottish Royal Commission (1971) also reported the former existence of two cists not far from here, “uncovered by the plough during the 19th century on the farm of Ardlamey”: one at NR 637 484, and the other at NR 635 484.

References:

  1. Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Argyll – Volume 1: Kintyre, Glasgow 1971.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian


Taynuilt, Lorn, Argyll

megalithix

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