EAB20699 - Field Visit and Measured Survey - MAINS OF ROTHIEMAY

This recumbent stone circle is situated within a gently sloping arable field roughly midway down the SE spur of Mannoch Hill, a low summit due N of Milltown of Rothiemay. The circle, which measures 28m in overall diameter, may have comprised from twelve to fourteen stones, but it is now reduced to only five, one of them the heavily cupmarked recumbent slightly askew the circumference on the SW (2). This is a roughly rectangular block in profile, measuring about 4.3m in length by up to 1.8m in height, and a possible stone sleeper emerges from beneath the front of its W end. The relatively even summit of the recumbent, which has a raised lump at its E end, bears at least nineteen cupmarks, and another seventy-two were noted on the W side of its rear on the date of visit, including at least eight surrounded by single rings (but see below). With the flankers and so many other orthostats missing it is impossible to demonstrate that the circle was graded in height; the tallest of the four surviving orthostats, which exhibits at least four cupmarks on its outer face, is now on the SSE (4), and the shortest on the WNW (7). The featureless interior has been intensively cultivated. RCAHMS surveyed Rothiemay recumbent stone circle on 1 April 2004 with plane table and alidade producing a plan and section of the site and an elevation of the recumbent stone at a scale of 1:100. The plan, section and elevation were used as the basis for an illustration, produced in ink and finished in vector graphics software, that was published at a scale of 1:250.