EAB20700 - Field Visit and Measured Survey - ARN HILL STONE CIRCLE

This grass-grown recumbent stone circle occupies a low rise on the NE spur of the Hill of Cormalet, a prominent position overlooking the valley of the River Deveron and its confluence with the River Isla. The circle itself has been reduced to no more than five stones, of which the recumbent is the only one still standing, but within the interior there is a cairn measuring about 20m in diameter by up to 1m in height. The recumbent block (2) stands on the SSW and measures about 3.5m in length by 1.7m in height. Its summit is uneven, rising into pronounced peaks at either end, and exhibits three long striae that may have been incised with a sharp implement. These contrast with a series of concentric grooves on the stone’s inner face that are clearly natural (Coles 1902, 572–3; Ritchie 1918, 111–2). Poaching and subsequent erosion around the foot of the stone has exposed one long stone sleeper beneath its WNW end and two shorter blocks supporting its ESE end. Both flankers are missing, and of the other stones lying around the perimeter of the internal cairn, only that on the NW (D), is certainly an orthostat of the circle (see below), now situated in the bottom of an eroded hollow. The position of the recumbent suggests that the ring of orthostats lay some 2m beyond the edge of the internal cairn, which on the E tails off into a low natural scarp. A single possible kerbstone can be seen on the edge of the cairn to the rear of the recumbent, but a second previously noted adjacent to it is no longer visible (Coles 1902, 573). On the day of the survey a fist-sized quartz pebble was observed in churned soil 3m E of the recumbent. RCAHMS surveyed the remains of the Ringing Stone recumbent stone circle on 5 April 2005 with plane table and alidade producing a plan and sections of the site and an elevation of the recumbent stone at a scale of 1:100. The plan, sections 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.