From Menstrie, walk up the path behind the post office and head up onto the hills, following the track that runs up alongside the Menstrie Burn. After about 500 yards, crossing a stream, the path has a sort of hairpin kink and, shortly past this a smaller path leads off up into the grasslands on your left. The standing stone can be seen up this path about 100 yards up.
Archaeology & History
The Lipney Stone
We came across this small standing stone, less than four feet high, after running and jumping down the steep eastern slope of Dumyat at some speed — or rather, Naomi came across the little thing and then told me about it after I’d run round and further down the slope towards the upper stretches of the Menstrie Burn (I was knackered!).
It’s a curious little thing inasmuch as it stands here alone, with no other companions close by; although there were a number of other stones scattering the grasslands hereabouts and other stones may await discovery. Little seems to have been said of the site. The Canmore record tells:
“It measures 1.1m in height, 0.7m in breadth and 0.4m in thickness, and is aligned with its long axis NE-SW. It rises with straight sides and leans to the SE.”
There are extensive remains of earthworks scattering the slopes hereby, though much of this seems medieval in nature. Any further information about this old stone would be much appreciated!
An intriguing entry inasmuch as we don’t know the full history and nature of the site. Whether this site was the “druidical circle” mentioned in the 1791 Old Statistical Account of Scotland ” upon the heights of Sheriffmuir,”(vol.3, p.210), we cannot be sure. The site was certainly described by Mr Hutchinson (1893) more than a century ago as a “stone circle”, but earlier still in a short piece in the Stirling Journal of May 5, 1830. It read:
“About eight miles from Stirling by the Sheriffmuir Road, near a place called Harperstone, there is a remarkable circle of stones, supposed to have been a druidical place of worship of old. The site of this circle is rather uncommon in this country — being on the back summit of a high hill, one of the Ochils called the Black Hill, and exposed to every wind that blows. It is about two english miles south of the present roadway.”
The writer’s notes then told of some curious finds by this circle, giving the impression that it may have had another function: perhaps a cairn of sorts; perhaps an ancient building — we may never know. Nevertheless, his information is intriguing.
“Tradition records two remarkable circumstances connected with this druidical circle, which may perhaps be worthy of being preserved. About the middle of last century (c.1750) there were dug up at the foot of the larger stones three vessels of clay of antique shapes, containing coins of very ancient date, which were long preserved by Monteath of Park, but are now, we regret to say, lost. So late as 1770, these coins were, it is said, to be seen at Park House, all of gold. About the year 1715, some stones on which had been engraved inscriptions were dug up at the same place; and at a previous period specimens of ancient Pictish armour were dug up from the bowels of this hill, which had been carefully deposited of yore some feet below the surface in crypts of curious description.”
When Mr Hutchinson came to explore this region in search of the stone circle, his nose took him to a site a few hundred yards north of nearby Harperstone Farm, where he found a large stone:
“It is 9 feet long by 6 feet across on the top, is 3 feet thick and measures 26 feet round. This appears to have been a centre stone, and a surrounding circle is traceable more or less distinctly — moreso to the west and north, less so to the east and south. The radius of the circle is about 15 yard, and a similar distance separates each of the larger stones yet traceable in the circle. The ground beside the great central stone appears to have been excavated…”
Black Hill, Sheriffmuir, looking eastArc of 3 stones in large ellipse
But it would seem that Hutchinson’s site and the one described in the Stirling Journal of 1830 are two distinctly separate items if their relative topographical descriptions are to be accepted. No doubt — like many a-local who’s found these same written accounts — when we visited and wandered back and forth over the Black Hill site in Autumn 2010, we were as puzzled as others before us in finding nothing on the named Black Hill. Nothing that could remotely be viewed as the circle described was anywhere in evidence. The only thing that we found of any potential was on the flat below the southern ridge of the hill, heading towards the small copse of trees, where is a possible ring of seven stones, albeit a low one, in an ellipse formation. The ground was much overgrown and a spring of water emerged from the edge of where might have been an eighth stone. The photo shown here was the best we could get of the site. It’s unlikely to be the place which Messrs Hutchinson and company wrote about.
A more detailed examination of the landscape around this ‘Harperstone Circle’ is needed.
References:
Hutchinson, A.F., “The Standing Stones of Stirling District,” in The Stirling Antiquary, volume 1, 1893.
From Dunblane, head up the Glen Road for nearly a mile, turning left up the Sheriffmuir Road and all the wya on till you reach the pub near the T-junction another couple of miles on. OK – get thru the gate and onto the moor, roughly in a straight line with the pub behind you for about 400 yards. You’re damn close! (if you find the nice standing stone known as the Wallace Stone, walk 250 yards southwest from here).
Archaeology & History
Almost nothing has been written of this cup-marked stone, found at the southern end of what’s alleged to be an authentic megalithic stone row alignment, running northeast to southwest — although this alignment isn’t included in either Aubrey Burl’s (1993) or Alexander Thom’s (1990) textbooks dealing with such matters.
Cup-marks highlighted in ice!Cup-marked rock with the Wallace Stone in the distance
When we came here last winter in temperatures of around -6°C (one helluva good day!), curiously only this and the other stones along this “stone row” were actually uncovered on the moorland. Quite bizarre to be honest! Many of the other rocks scattering this small moorland edge were covered in several feet of snow. We were lucky I s’ppose…though I’ve gotta get back up here again shortly and see the site in summertime (midges up mi crotch, cleggs-a-biting – oh such joy!) cos I can’t believe this is the only cup-marked stone hereby.
The rock itself is more than seven-feet long and has at least twenty archetypal cups carved into its slightly-slanting face — although when we visited the stone, several of these were difficult to see and, as the images show, even more difficult to photograph (of the 20 I took of this stone alone, only one was of any value in highlight the cups) . The stone gave the impression that it may have stood upright in the not-too-distant past — which would of course give the notion of this as part of megalithic avenue a considerably more potent status.
Some dood alleged that this potential stone row, with this cup-marked stone at its southwestern end, marked an astronomical alignment — but for the life of me I can’t remember who it was! (it’s my age creeping up on me at last!)
References:
Burl, Aubrey, From Carnac to Callanish: The Prehistoric Stone Rows and Avenues of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 1993.
Heggie, Douglas C., Megalithic science: ancient mathematics and astronomy in north-west Europe, Thames & Hudson: London 1981.
Thom, A., Thom, A.S. & Burl, Aubrey, Stone Rows and Standing Stones – 2 volumes, B.A.R.: Oxford 1990.
Stone Circle (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NS 9256 9709
Also Known as:
Druidical Temple
Archaeology & History
Remaining stone at the destroyed circle
A stone circle was once to be found on the elevated piece of ground above the north-side of the main road between Tillicoultry and Dollar, but it was sadly destroyed sometime in the 19th century. Listed in Burl’s (2000) magnum opus, we have very little information about the place; though an account of the site was described in the Scottish Royal Commission report (1933) which told that a —
“Stone circle, measuring about 60 feet in diameter, once stood here but was completely removed many years ago, when the stones, which are said to have been 5½ feet in average height, were taken to cover a built drain at Tillicoultry House”!
Stone circle site shown on the 1866 OS-map
Unbelievable! Any decent local folk nearby wanna find out where this drain is, see if the stones are visible (though I doubt they are), so we can plan to uproot it and move the stones back somewhere nearby. There are a few decent spots on the slopes above where it would look good!
When visited by researchers in the 1890s, parts of an embankment which surrounded the destroyed circle were still visible. Also, indicating there was some ritual funerary nature to the site, a local teacher called Mr Christie found the remains of an ornamented urn protruding through the ground next to where one of the monoliths had stood. Unfortunately in his attempts to remove the urn, much of it crumbled away.
Further examinations thereafter found that a burial was (seemingly) beneath the centre of the circle; and excavations here found that a covering stone of the tomb was covered in intricate cup-and-ring designs (see the Tillicoultry House Carving for further details). Other prehistoric remains were found a little further up the hill from here.
References:
Burl, Aubrey, The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, Yale University Press 2000.
Morris, Ronald W.B., The Prehistoric Rock Art of Southern Scotland, BAR 86: Oxford 1981.
Robertson, R., ‘Notice of the Discovery of a Stone Cist and Urns at the Cuninghar, Tillicoultry…’, in PSAS 29, 1895.
Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1933.
