Tag: place-names

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 a’ Phoanais, Strontian, Inverness-shire

megalithix

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


Burwains, Foulridge, Lancashire

megalithix

Cairn (destroyed):  OS Grid Reference – SD 888 421

Archaeology & History

Burwains on the 1848 map

The place-name burwain is an early Old English word meaning “a cairn or tumulus”.  It has variants such as borrans, borwen and borwans.  In the developing survey by Parsons & Styles (2000), other linguistic examples are given, all of which point to the same thing, i.e., a prehistoric burial of one form or another.  Also, in 19th century northern English dialect, Wright (1898) told that borrans is “a cairn, a heap of loose stones”—which is what used to exist hereby.

The fact that there is a place-name telling of its existence implies that it was a cairn of some size, but sadly all remains of it have long since gone.  All that we’ve got left is the name of Burwains house on the early Ordnance Survey maps.  Built on a hilltop rise, which is a common construction spot for such sites up and down the country, it’s possible that the cairn was destroyed when the Foulridge Lower Reservoir was built in 1793, with the mass of stone used in its construction (the reservoir also kept the name of Burwains lake for sometime).

References:

  1. Clayton, John A., Valley of the Drawn Sword, Barrowford Press 2006.
  2. Parsons, D.N. & Styles, T., Vocabulary of English Place-Names – volume 2, EPNS: Nottingham 2000.
  3. Smith, A.H., English Place-Name Elements – volume 1, Cambridge University Press 1954.
  4. Wright, Joseph, English Dialect Dictionary – volume 1, Henry Frowde: London 1898.

© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian