Tumulus (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SP 8601 7510
Archaeology & History
According to a Mr Abner Brown (1846), this was one of two prehistoric cemeteries that once existed in Pytchley village, but very little seems to have been written about it. Found on the north side of the village in the field where an old limekiln once stood, this “apparently pagan” site was “about 350 yards northwards of the church.” From his brief description it seems that a large barrow here was accompanied by other smaller ones of the same period. They have all been destroyed.
Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments, An Inventory of the Historic Monuments in the County of Northamptonshire – volume 2, HMSO: London 1979.
From Bettyhill village, take the road east towards Tongue and Durness. A half-mile out of the village, at the bottom of the hill, just before you cross the small metal bridge across the River Naver, a very minor road, left, takes you to Skelpick. Go down here and follow the directions to reach the giant long cairn of Skelpick Long. Once there, walk east up the moorland hill (there are no footpaths) for about 150 yards. Once on top of the rise, the moorland levels out a little and there, before you, amidst the small overgrown undulations of many old cairns, a giant one rises up to greet you about 100 yards away. Y’ can’t really miss it!
Archaeology & History
Neolithic in nature, this giant circular cairn, standing on the ridge above the hugely impressive chambered long cairn of Long Skelpick, isn’t quite as grandiose as its neighbour below, but it’s still an impressive feature in this beautiful moorland landscape. Comprised of tens of thousands of small stones raised to a height of 10 feet above the moorland peat, several ‘pits’ have been dug into the top of this undoubted tomb of regal nature; but whether it was originally the burial-place of a single person, to which were later added members of the same family, is simply unknown.
Large rock-covered capstoneDepression atop of the cairn
On the top of the cairn, at least one of the ‘pits’ that drop into the centre is covered by a large heavy tombstone with a small upright monolith at its side. Although the late great Miss Henshall (2005) thought no ‘chamber’ was here, it is very likely that a chamber will be found beneath this large rock-covered flat stone (see photo). In our visit, a hollow seemed to be apparent beneath this.
Mass of cairns on 1878 map
Highlighted on the earliest Ordnance Survey map, it was shown to be just one cairn amidst the mass of other smaller surrounding tombs—most of which were probably built for people from the same tribal group. None of these small cairns have been excavated, but they were probably built after the construction of the major Queen’s Cairn.
The Royal Commission lads visited the site in 1909, but said very little of the place (probably over-awed by Long Skelpick, Coillie na Borgie and other nearby giants!), merely that this large circular cairn has
“a diameter of about 54′. It is about 8′ high, and though the stones have been pulled about here and there on the top, it does not appear to have been excavated.”
Queen’s Cairn, looking north
And so it remains to this day—although the cairn is slightly larger than the dimensions given by the Commission boys. Beneath the encroaching heather, the cairn is closer to 67 feet (10.23m) across, with a circumference of 210 feet (64.25m).
Line of ancient walling nearby
The monument sits on a plateau immediately above the giant Long Skelpick cairn—although neither can be seen from each other. But if you walk only a short distance from the Queen’s Cairn towards the long cairn below, a very notable and extensive line of ancient walling runs along the edge of the geological ridge separating the two tombs, as if deliberately keeping them apart. Other lines of ancient walling run closer to the cairn, seeming to indicate that a settlement of some form was also apparent on this ridge, in close connection with the group of smaller burial cairns.
It’s a gorgeous arena with many prehistoric sites and puzzles to behold, and plenty of unrecorded ones nestling quietly in the heather. It’s bloody superb to be honest!
References:
Gourlay, Robert, Sutherland: An Archaeological Guide, Birlinn: Edinburgh 1996.
Henshall, Audrey S. & Ritchie, J.N.G., The Chambered Cairns of Sutherland, Edinburgh University Press 2005.
Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the County of Sutherland, HMSO: Edinburgh 1911.
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.
Take the same directions as if you’re visiting the Great Skirtful of Stones giant cairn on the boundary of Burley and Hawksworth. Cross the wire fence on its southern-side and, cross the (usually overgrown) prehistoric trackway 50-60 yards away. Keep in the same direction onto the pathless moor for about the same distance again, zigzagging back and forth, keeping your eyes peeled for some small overgrown rocky rises. You’ll find ’em.
Archaeology & History
Not to be confused with the much larger Bronze Age graveyard further south on the same moorland, this little-known prehistoric cemetery has had little of any worth written about it since the 19th century and—like many sites on these moors—has received no modern archaeological attention.
Close-up of one of the cairnsTwo of the cairns, looking NW
On my last visit to this site with James Elkington in 2015, only four of the heather-clad cairns were visible; but if you explore here after the heather has been burned away, a half-dozen such tombs are found in relatively close attendance to each other. They are each about the same size, being roughly circular and measuring between 3-4 yards across, 10-12 yards in circumference and a yard high at the most. As you can see in the attached images, they are quiet visible even when the heather has grown on them.
Another cairn in this group
This small cairnfield may stretch across and link up with the secondary cairnfield a half-mile to the southwest. More survey work is required up here.
As with the circle of Roms Law and the Great Skirtful of Stones, this relatively small cluster of cairns seems to have had a prehistoric trackway approaching it, running roughly east-west. A short distance west are the much-denuded waters of the Skirtful Spring.
References:
Bennett, Paul, The Old Stones of Elmet, Capall Bann: Milverton 2001.
Faull, M.L. & Moorhouse, S.A. (eds.), West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Guide to AD 1500 (4 volumes), WYMCC: Wakefield 1981.
Wardell, James, Historical Notes of Ilkley, Rombald’s Moor, Baildon Common, and other Matters of the British and Roman Periods, Joseph Dodgson: Leeds 1869. (2nd edition 1881).
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks to James Elkington for use of his photo in this site profile.
Take the directions as if you’re visiting the ornate petroglyphs known asthe Lunar Stone and the Spotted Stone. Walk past them and down the slope, NW, as if you’re heading to the small valley a few hundred yards away. As you reach the bottom of the slope, closer to the stream, a large boulder catches your attention. This carved stone is just a few yards before you reach it.
Archaeology & History
This simple cup-marked design below the northern slope of Stanbury Hill has, on its northeastern sloping face, a single cup-mark; then, past a curiously-etched line (probably more recent) is a larger circular feature, like a very shallow ‘bowl’ as in the one found in the superb Stag Cottage petroglyph complex 300 miles north (and several other carvings). A few yards away, a large single cup-mark has been etched onto another stone. As with quite a few carvings in this region, they have been missed in the standard archaeocentric surveys.
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.
Travelling north on the Bridgemill to Fettercairn road, park at the layby just before the junction with the minor road (left) through the Forestry Commission’s Inverury Wood. Go through the gate and walk along the track to the end where it joins another track and turn right. About 300 yards along, the Hillock is in a fenced enclosure to the right, accessible over a stile.
Archaeology & History
The site was not mentioned in the Statistical Accounts, nor is the origin of the name recalled, from which it is reasonable to assume that ‘witches’ (howsoever that term was interpreted in the days of persecution by the Kirk Sessions) met there. This is reinforced by there being a plot of land due west called ‘Witchfield’. The Canmore report describes the mound as being,
“situated near the edge of a low natural escarpment..measuring about 18m. in diameter and 2m. high.”
The Ordnance Survey reported in the mid-1860s that the Hillock was,
“An artificial mound….a remarkable looking object….enclosed with ornamental wire fencing, the name is well known in the district, but is not mentioned in the Statistical account nor any other document in the possession of the authorities. James Glenny, Gardener at Inglismaldie states that he assisted to open this, under directions from the Earl of Kintore, about Seven years ago, and that after clearing away the top soil there were found several stone coffins containing human bones and a clay urn containing what appeared to be calcined human bones….”
The site shown at the top of the 1865 6″ OS Map.The Hillock with 3 stones in the foreground
Another remarkable feature of the Hillock enclosure is an arc of three large earth fast boulders to the north-west of the mound. It has the appearance of being an incomplete, possibly four poster circle. The stones are not listed by Aubrey Burl (2000) as being part of a circle, and if indeed it was a circle there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of the fourth stone, which would have been positioned nearest to the Hillock. Unless the Hillock was imagined to be the ‘missing’ fourth stone.
Three stones – once part of a circle?
A ‘well’ is shown on the modern OS map in the corner of the enclosure nearest the stile, but there was no evidence of this on the day of my visit.
Despite its rather remote location, it was noticeable by the well trodden state of the long grass on the day of my visit that the site receives quite a few visitors – a venue still for witches?
References:
Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, The Archaeological Sites & Monuments of South Kincardine, Kincardine and Deeside District, HMSO: Edinburgh 1982.
Close to the ancient boundary of north Lanarkshire—if not actually on it—and looking down on the River Clyde, was once a prehistoric burial mound, probably Bronze Age in nature. Described first of all in David Ure’s (1793) early survey of Rutherglen, he told that:
“A tumulus of earth, supposed to have been originally a burying place, was lately demolished in the estate of Shawfield, a few yards from Polmadie; and the place where it stood converted into a mill-dam. None of its contents attracted the particular attention of the workmen employed in removing it.”
The site was subsequently referenced in Hugh MacDonald’s (1860) excellent work, but no remains of it now exist.
Site of St Conval’s Well, off-centre beneath the tree
This all-but-forgotten holy well was becoming nothing but a faded memory even in the middle of the 19th century. Excluded from all of the previous Scottish holy well surveys, the site is mentioned in George Campbell’s Eastwood (1902) where, in his description of the obscure saint, St. Conval or Convallus—to whom Eastwood parish was dedicated—the position of the well is mentioned. When St. Conval first came to the area, said Campbell,
“The particular spot which the saint selected for his cell would be determined, as was so commonly the case, by the then remarkable spring which can still be traced in the lower part of what was the glebe before the excambion in 1854. Within the memory of man, even of my own, as I resided for a year in the old manse, before its removal from the early site, this well, as stated in the last Statistical Account, discharged about eleven imperial pints a minute, and was perennial, affected neither by drought nor rain. Up to that date the water was sufficiently abundant to supply the manse and all the families in what was still a bit of a hamlet, the remains of the Kirkton, as it was formerly called. But coincident to the removal of the last living remains of an ecclesiastical establishment from the spot, it has well nigh dried-up, through disturbances caused, it is believed, by the working of pits and quarries in the neighbourhood; but it is confidently hoped that what remains of it may be preserved, and a memorial erected over it of the long-departed past, situated as it is within the enclosure of the now extended burial ground. There can be no doubt that in its waters our fathers were baptised when they renounced Druidism, or whatever was their pagan form of faith, and a sacredness would thus naturally attach to it in former times…”
Site on 1863 map as ‘Spring’
When we sought out this well in the furthest corner of the old churchyard—where Ordnance Survey placed the ‘Spring’ on the 1863 map—we were greeted by a completely dried-up site, long since fallen back to Earth, with little hope of it ever resurfacing unless good local people choose to do something. The well was surrounded by excrement and litter and it truly needs a good clean-up and a dig down to bring the waters back to the surface.
In an Appendix to Campbell’s Eastwood, he tells that he came across a map-reference to the site, where it was shown as “St. Ninian’s Well”, but I have been unable to locate this.
From Kenmore, take the minor road on the south-side of Loch Tay for 1½ miles (2.4km) until you reach the hamlet of Acharn. From here take the track uphill for ½-mile past the Acharn waterfalls and when you come out on the east-side of the trees, keep walking uphill parallel to the trees and burn until the land levels-out and the track heads away, east. 200 yards ahead, on the left-side of the track, you’ll see the large fairy-mound.
Archaeology & History
The tumulus looking NE
First reported in archaeological circles in the Discovery & Excavation Scotland mag in 1964, this archetypal fairy-mound or tumulus sitting on the grassy plain overlooking the eastern end of Loch Tay and district would have been known of by local people in older times, but I can find no early accounts of it, nor its traditions. When Bob Money (1990) came here, he told of the grand vista stretching into the distant mountains:
“From here the views…are superb, and the little mound, which is an ancient tumulus, or burial mound, has sat here undisturbed for several thousand years, guarding the secret of its once important occupant.”
Circular in structure and measuring 20 feet across, the mound rises nearly four-feet high and is probably Bronze Age in origin. Although mostly covered in grass, there are some loose stones visible on the side of the mound, seeming to indicate that it may be a covered cairn. No excavation have yet taken place here.
References:
Money, Bob, Scottish Rambles – Corners of Perthshire, Perth 1990.
Acknowledgements: Many thanks to the unholy bunch who helped travel, locate, photograph and take notes on the day of our visit here, including Aisha, Lara & Leo Domleo; Lisa & Fraser; Nina and Paul. Let’s do it again and check out the unrecorded stuff up there next time!
