On the flat meadowlands below the slopes of Old Monkland, half-a-mile southeast of the legendary Pilgrim’s Stone, an old mound once lived. It may have been here for thousands of years but, with the encroachment of the toxic Industrialists, its time was coming to an end. The mound was levelled in 1832 and, beneath it, relics from a truly ancient past were unearthed – and destroyed of course. The account of its demise was told in the Glasgow Evening Post of May 26 that year. Many years later, the Royal Commission (1978) lads unearthed the information and included the site in their inventory for prehistoric sites in Lanarkshire. They told:
“In 1832 four cists were discovered during the levelling of a small mound 900m SE of Old Monkland Church. The cists, which measured about 1m by 0.6m, contained the remains of crouched inhumations, two of them double burials with the skulls at opposite ends of the cists. A stone hammer-head and a coin were found in one cist, the latter no doubt indicating subsequent disturbance. There is now no sign of the site, and it is not certain from the report whether the cists were inserted into a small natural mound or were covered by a barrow.
“The present farmer states that his father discovered a single cist during ploughing in the same field; it contained a pottery vessel which the landowner, Mr Sholto Douglas, was thought to have presented to a museum, but it cannot now be traced.”
References:
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Lanarkshire: An Inventory of the Prehistoric and Roman Monuments, HMSO: Edinburgh 1978.
At Kirkton of Airlie, park next to the church and walk north eastwards along the track, past the houses Crabra and Cleikheim, and cross the burn by the small bridge and the mound will be seen ahead of you in the field.
Archaeology & History
A largely flat topped, rectangular mound, measuring, according to Canmore, 28 metres by 22 metres, 2.2 metres high on the west side and about ½ metre high on the east side. There is a quantity of rubble strewn on the top among which are two stone slabs, described in 1958 as being possible cist cover stones. The site has clearly suffered considerable disturbance.
The site highlighted in red on the 1865 6″ OS Map.The site from the north
Andrew Jervise, writing of the site in 1864 described it as having been 300′ in circumference and 6-7′ high before the owner started to remove it for agricultural ‘improvements’ around 1859. He described it as being sometimes known as the ‘Battle Cairn’. As part of the demolition of the mound, agricultural workers in October 1859 unearthed a large cinerary urn half filled with human bones and protected by a large sandstone flag. Jervise writes:
“After the urn was found, care was taken removing other parts of the hillock; and on further reducing the surface, the top of a large boulder was exposed, upon and around which the mass of loose stones and earth appear to have been raised which composed the mound. The boulder, as far as ascertained, measures about 6 by 7½ feet; and the urn was found about four feet to the north east of the stone. At the distance of about four yards from the spot where the urn was found, there appeared to be a separate circle, rudely constructed of stones and earth – stones predominating. In this circle, at pretty regular distances, deposits of human and animal bones were found; and each of these deposits appeared to have been protected by two flat stones set up in a triangular form, resembling (an inverted letter V)…none of the deposits was more than 8″ below the surface”. In February 1861, “..a stone cist was found a little to the south east of the boulder….it was 5 feet long by 2 in breadth. The lid, a single slab, was upwards of 6 feet in length…the depth of the cist was 2 feet….It was nearly empty, but one could see, from the soft, black, unctuous earth that was taken out of it, that it had contained a body.”
Jervise continues:
“The name of St. Medan’s Knowe is certainly significant, but, whether it would imply that the place had been that of his burial, or one of those of his ministry, and so been the original place of worship at Airlie – are interesting particulars upon which history and tradition are silent”.
Stone slabs on top
The Ordnance Survey Name Books, and the 25-inch OS map of 1865 record the finding, 20 yards to the west of the knowe, of a bronze spear head, which was at that time in the possession of a Mr Dixon, a merchant of Kirriemuir, which may go some way to explaining the alternative name of the site as ‘Battle Cairn’. The Name Books further record the testimony of a William Duncan that, ‘there have been 7 or 8 stone coffins and an urn found in the knowe, and that he believes a number more might be found if sought for, as the half of it is not yet excavated‘.
From the surviving evidence, it is very likely that Kirkton of Airlie was the centre of a cult of St. Madden (also known as ‘Medan’ and ‘Madan’), with the adjacent Holy Well, the (now destroyed) hamlet of St. Madden’s, and a Dewar’s land occupied by the hereditary custodians of St. Madden’s Bell. This site has no connection with St Medan’s Well at nearby Kirkton of Kingoldrum, that St Medan probably being a St Medana.
References:
Andrew Jervise, Notice of Antiquities in the Parish of Airlie, Forfarshire, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, June 1864.
Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, The Archaeological Sites & Monuments of Central Angus, Angus District, Tayside Region, HMSO: Edinburgh 1983.
A mile or so WNW of the fantastic standing stones of Lundin, and just a coupla hundred yards above where the lesser standing stone of Balgrummo lives, we could once see an impressive prehistoric burial mound on the small hilltop of Aithernie. Sadly, like oh too many prehistoric sites in our landscape, it was vandalised and destroyed in the 19th century by the prevailing stupidity of the period. Thankfully we have a couple of accounts describing the place.
The site had already passed into memory when the Ordnance Survey fellas got up here in 1854, but an account of it was made in the ‘Object Name Book’ of the parish a decade earlier. Thankfully the story of the site was known locally and, along with the New Statistical Account describing the olde mound, A.S. Cunningham (1906) told the story of when it was “opened” and then of its subsequent demise. He wrote how,
“…in 1821 a much more interesting relic of antiquity…was opened in a field on the estate of Aithernie. When digging moulding sand for Leven Foundry, the workmen struck right into the heart of an ancient tumulus. This cemetery of prehistoric times contained as many as twenty rude stone cists. These cists were typical of the prehistoric burial places found throughout the country. They were constructed of slabs placed on edge, with a covering stone, and cemented with clay puddling. Above the coffins was a covering of stones, the stones having hundreds of years before been so firmly cemented together with clay and sand that the workmen required the aid of picks to enable them to “rifle the tombs.” Small urns were found in two of the coffins, and five of them contained larger urns, 14 inches in diameter and 24 inches in depth, and in another cist quantities of charred wood beads were discovered. All the coffins, except the five in which were the large urns, contained human bones, and innumerable bones were found outwith the mouths of the cists.”
When the Royal Commission (1933) lads visited the place in 1925, they reported “no existing indication of a tumulus” remained. Gone!
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1933.
A very well-preserved prehistoric cist and cairn (grave), sat amidst a valuable prehistoric landscape full of megaliths and other important prehistoric remains. Megalith enthusiast and antiquarian, Nik Megalithic, told that:
“The cairn is about 12 m diameter and 1 metre high, and has a large Kist in the middle. The cist has side slabs about 2 metres long and spaced 1 metre apart, and it is about 0.7m deep. The large capstone is tipped off to the west, and can be seen protruding above the cairn from quite some distance away.”
Described in association with the rich mass of other tombs and megalithic stone rows here, author Jeremy Butler told that,
“Cairn 13 is also in line with (cairns) 1-4, but just out of sight around the hillside 150m to the northwest. The mound contains a well-preserved cist, “a very fine example”, according to Worth, who cleared it out about 1900 but with “no result from excavation.” The displaced cover and massive side-slabs project well beyond its ends.”
Both Butler and Worth mention how cairn 13 is part of an alignment with two other cairns very close by.
Folklore
Spike Milligan in his tomb
Although legends of giants and pixy folk are well known round here, there is nothing specific I can find to this one site. One of the most important finds in recent years—as the photo above shows quite clearly—was the fact that before joining The Goons, the British comedian Spike Milligan used to live in this prehistoric tomb. When asked why he didn’t live in a house like other normal people, he invited us in for a cup of tea. Some historians believe that the person in the photo is in fact Mr R.H. Worth—author of Worth’s Dartmoor—but Mr Milligan insisted that Worth was an imposter!
On the level ground a half-mile south of the large Fairy Knowe prehistoric tomb, Bridge of Allan had a site of its own up until being destroyed sometime in the 19th century. Nothing much is known about the tomb – or “cist containing a skeleton”, as the Royal Commission (1963) lads called it – apart from the notes given in J.E. Alexander’s (1868) essay on the Fairy Knowe, where he told:
“It is right, however, to mention, that a few years ago, in digging the foundations of the house of Annfield, Bridge of Allan, at nine feet from the surface, there was found in the sand, and apparently undisturbed, a fine cist, containing the skeleton of a young female; and under the right arm was a small clay urn, corroborating the opinion of Professor Innes, that in many cases the so-called urn was simply a domestic jar to contain food for the deceased.”
A Mr R. Swift from Bridge of Allan told that the cist was located at the newly-named Lentran, along Kenilworth Road. Does anyone know anything more about it?
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments Scotland, Stirlingshire: An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments – volume 1, HMSO: Edinburgh 1963.
Follow the same directions to find the Balfarg Stone Circle. From the A92 going north from Glenrothes, turn E onto the country lane to Star and Kennoway. 100 yards on there’s a sign for Balbirnie; turn right here and about 200 yards on, where the road bends right, the circle’s just below you). This carving is perched on its side in one of the preserved grave cists within the circle, easily visible at ground level.
Archaeology & History
This carving (and its adjacent compatriot) was found insidethe Balbirnie stone circle when it stood in its original position more than 100 yards northwest of the place it presently occupies (at NO 2850 0304). Thankfully, when the megalithic ring was moved and reconstructed, its original status was kept, including the repositioning of this impressive small cup-and-ring stone – despite it being a copy of the original.
Early photo of the carving
Like a good number of prehistoric tombs, this small carved stone was stood on edge, facing into the stone-lined tomb (cist), obviously representative of some important element in the Land of the Ancestors: perhaps a map of the landscape therein; perhaps a personal token; perhaps indicative of the spirits of the dead; perhaps a magickal amulet for safe guidance. There are a number of ritual possibilities here, and whichever it was, we can be sure the symbols were representative of the animistic cosmology of the neolithic people living hereby, linking the living with the dead.
As you can see from the original photograph, a number of cup-marks along the edges of the stone are accompanied by two or three cup-and-rings, one of which is very faint. Some carved lines run between some facets of the carving, linking one mythic element to another. Ron Morris (1981) described the carving, simplistically, as,
“Under a cairn, within a ring of stones, one of 5 cists had, carved on the inside of a side-slab (sandstone), ¾m by ½m by ¼m (2¾ft x 1¾ft x ¾ft): 2 cups-and-one-ring—one faint and incomplete—and also 8 cups, 2 with ‘tails’. Greatest diameter of ring 12cm (5in), and carving depths up to 2cm (1in).”
References:
Burl, Aubrey, Rings of Stone, BCA: London 1979.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
This carved stone is now held in one of the museums. To get a better idea of its original locale, take the directions to reach the Balfarg Stone Circle (from the A92 going north from Glenrothes, turn E onto the country lane to Star and Kennoway. 100 yards on there’s a sign for Balbirnie; turn right here and about 200 yards on, where the road bends right, the circle’s just below you) and look at the small stone-lined tombs (cists), within which this carving was first found.
Archaeology & History
This carving (and its adjacent compatriot) was first found within the Balfarg stone circle that originally stood more than 100 yards northwest of the site it now occupies (at NO 2850 0304). Found inside the edge of another prehistoric stone-lined tomb (cist) within the stone circle, the small elongated stone possessed at least 16 singular cup-marks along one flat face of the rock. Two adjacent cup-marks may be linked by a small line running between them. As you can see in the old photograph here, most of the cups run in two parallel lines, similar to the primary feature found on the more famous Idol Stone on Ilkley Moor.
Described in association with the Balbirnie 1 carving by Ronald Morris (1981) as simply, “a slab in another cist (with) cup-marks,” like its partner just a few yards away this carving was again representative of some important mythic element in the Land of the Dead to the person whose body was laid here.
References:
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR: Oxford 1981.
The sites that were once here have long since been destroyed as a result of quarrying operations. But thankfully this place was given a quick appraisal by those renowned Scottish archaeologists, Anna Ritchie and D.V. Clarke, before final destruction. They recorded the site in an early edition of Discovery & Excavation in Scotland:
“Two short cists were discovered in November, 1970, during the removal of a long low gravel ridge protruding into the flood plain of the River Clyde. The two cists were both aligned NE-SW and were 14m apart. Both employed identical construction techniques. The side slabs overlapped both end slabs and the N end slab was shorter than the other three slabs, necessitating a building-up of the floor by some 30cm. Both appear to have had a double layer of capstones although this is uncertain in one case. The cists contained and adult and child without grave goods on a gravel floor in one, and an adult with a beaker on a ‘crazy-paving’ floor in the other.”
Crazy-paving in prehistoric times sounds good! The Scots got there first!
References:
Clarke, D.V. & Ritchie, Anna, “Boatbridge Quarry: Short Cists,” in Discovery & Excavation in Scotland, 1971.
As with a number of prehistoric burials in the Halifax district, there is no longer any trace of the original site here. It was a place that I wrongly attributed as being a dolmen in my early survey on West Yorkshire’s megalithic remains (Bennett 1994) — but at least I got the prehistoric tomb part of it right! It was first found, quite accidentally, in February of 1877, when a grave-digger working in the grounds of the Mount Zion Chapel at Ovenden (as it was known in them days) hit upon a large stone beneath the earth he was digging. Thankfully the grave-digger was a conscientious chap and, instead of just digging up the obstruction, decided to inform others of his discovery. A temporary halt was made on his grave-digging and thereafter a careful dig was organized to explore what he’d found. Some years later an account of the discovery was reported in H. Ling Roth’s (1906) work on the history of Halifax, where he told:
“On digging about 2ft (61cm) below the surface of the ground, a slab of stone impeded the work, and on its removal, a square cavity, formed of four upright stones, was discovered, in which the urn had been placed bottom upwards (see old photo, PB), and the mausoleum filled with gravel… The urn had not been disturbed since its removal from its present site, but still remains on its original base: a rude stone which formed the floor of its ancient sepulchre. The urn measured when first discovered 19in (48cm) in height by 13in (32.5cm) in diameter at its orifice, but only 4in (10.2cm) at its base. Below its rim it has the usual curved division which is here ornamented with dots made with a pointed instrument when the clay was in a soft state.”
Mr Roth went on to tell how a Dr Dolan of Halifax examined the broken bones and contents within the urn and found them to be human. Intriguingly it seems there was some evidence of prehistoric dental practice from the remains! Dr Dolan told:
“There is unmistakable evidence on this point from some of the bones of the skull, particularly from the preserved portions of the petrous part of the temporal bone showing meatus auditorius, from the right malar bone, and from fragments of the flat bones of the cranium. The teeth offer confirmatory evidence. I have found several which had evidently been subjected to great heat, as they were completely calcined. But there was one which had been only partially burnt, the burnt part being quite black; and another, unburnt, which seems to have dropped from the jaw before the fire had reached it. One of the teeth seems to me to have been ‘stopped’, and this opens out a question whether the art of dentistry was known to the inhabitants before the Roman invasion. From the size and structure of the bones, I believe the majority of them to have belonged to a female of adult age. There are certain bones, particularly some phalanges, which seem to me to be those of a child. As we do not however possess the whole of the original contents of the urn — much having been extracted from it on its discovery — there may probably have been, when first interred, the relics of others than those we at present possess.”
The remains of the urn were eventually presented to the care of the Bankfield Museum by the Halifax antiquary, F.A. Leyland.
A definitive account of this little-known site was recently published by Raymond Varley (2021), and all interested readers can refer to his work here.
References:
Bennett, Paul, Circles, Standing Stones and Legendary Rocks of West Yorkshire, Heart of Albion Press: Loughborough 1994.
Leyland, F.A., The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Halifax, by the Reverend John Watson, M.A., R.Leyland: Halifax n.d. (c.1867)
Roth, H. Ling, The Yorkshire Coiners, 1767-1783; and Notes on Old and Prehistoric Halifax, F.King: Halifax 1906.
This little known site, long since destroyed during the construction of Keighley Railway Station, was found in a curious spot, close to the bottom of the Aire Valley. Most (known) prehistoric burials occur on the higher grounds in this area. And though we don’t appear to have the exact location of the find, it was pretty close to either side of Keighley’s old railway station (which is shown as 100 yards to the other side of the road of the present station on the 1852 OS map). This may position the site as being on the grounds opposite and below St. Anne’s Church; otherwise it was getting closer to where the River Worth runs by. In Keighley & Holmes’ early (1858) work they told that,
“Whilst excavating for the Railway within about a hundred yards of the Keighley station, one of the labourers discovered three urns containing a quantity of human bones. Two of them were unluckily broken, one being large enough to hold eight or nine quarts. The one brought away whole, and seen by the present writer, may hold about a quart; it is somewhat distastefully designed, moulded by hand out of the common clay, without glaze, and rudely ornamented on the outside by some sharp implement. The once animated contents of each urn were covered by a square flat stone.”
This final remark seems to indicate the urns were located in a cist (a small stone grave), but we don’t know whether this was found within the remains of a denuded tumulus or stone cairn. However, considering the lack of any remarks about a large pile of stones (which would have been very noticeable) covering this burial site, it would seem more probable that this site was originally an earth-covered tumulus, whose visibility and knowledge had long since diminished in this part of Airedale.
References:
Keighley, William & Homes, Robert, Keighley, Past and Present, R. Aked: Keighley 1858.
