Excursion to Tarland
I realised I badly needed an excursion this week to raise my spirits and so it did! It’s good to move around sometuimes – I nearly took the mountain bike in the car and now I know about Tarland Trails I’ll give that a go another time. It was wonderful driving through rural Aberdeenshire, enjoying the snowy ways. The snow plough had been out previously so they obviously got lots more snow than we did.
I had a vgaue plan but knowing how the plans go, I left it fairly open and I’m glad I did, I enjoyed myself and discovered plenty more to see on the next visit. This is really my fave bit of rural Aberdeenshire.
I headed vaguely towards Tarland on the back ways via Rhynie, which led me to Glenkindie, where I stopped to consuilt the maps. There was a standing stone! And also icy snow so I figured I’d visit the stone another time. Little did I realise then that there’s several souterrains nearby but i always find them hard to locate so it was probably for the best, even if I’d found them on the map I may not have found them on the ground. Is this because they were hideyholes and still have the hidden energy? Maybe, dude.
I retreated back 100 metres in the trusty car and crossed the ragey Don, heading for Tarland. I then remembered about Migvie Kirk so decided to go there, since it was on the way. The road off the A97 was closed at Tillypronie, but i figured I’d be ok since I wasn’t driving through, and I made it to the church. Where does everyone park i idly wondered, but i guess the snowy verge is normally the parking zone. I went throudh the gate into the kirkyard dfeeling like i was trespassing and headed to the kirk, which even though i knew was open, amazed me by … being open!! Inside was weird. I guess because the pictish symbol stones, the reason i’d cmoe, felt like an afterthought to the christian kunst. Apparently the renovation is thanks to Philip Astor, gazillionaire former owner of the massive neabry Tillypronie estate, one of Scotland’s “best” [worst] huntin and shootin resorts.
There was a stone by the door which had symbols that were hard to see, and two odd stones in the wall, one with feeties one with triangles (the latter being a crucifixion scene i later read). I pottered, I explored the kirkyard, I left, feeling underwhelmed. That might be because i missed the 2 metre high symbol stone standing outside by the gate LOL and a stone discovered by Drew nearby which got moved into the kirkyard. In my defence the latter was probably snowed under.
From the kirk, I backtracked to the A97 to go round the closures and followed “the old military road” through the delightful landscape, heading once more to Tarland. And freedom. I’ve never explored the village before, then I found Culsh souterrain on my third attempt. Yippeeeee! Wow it’s bloomin amazing. It’s huge!! The ceiling is composed of massive hunks of pink granite. This was no fridge, don’t make me laugh. This was a supercool hidey hole, obviously.
Parking is bad, if that’s because the Brownies have cultivated a former layby then shame on the Brownies, I hope they grow up to realise the error of their ways.
But the souterrain is wonderful. I could stand up at the end! Which put my head amongst the resident flies, an unexpected pleasure in late November.
After the wonders of Culsh I backtracked to a woodland car park I’d spied for lunch, noticing Tatland Trails as i went – yeah it’s a mountain bike place, how cool. So I could bike and visit Tomnaverie at the same time. Aberdeenshire is simply the best, better than all the rest (except Moray.) After lunch, I took a stroll in the woods which led me past the retirement home, a part of the Macrobert Estrate. Turns out they own a lot of Tarland! I started to think maybe I could see Tomnaverie RSC, and I could see the location, although the gorse was hiding up the stones.
Interestingly (to me at least), when I turned round 180 degrees from looking at Tomnaverie, there was a squat mausoleum type builidng in front of me, rudely and charmingly built out of boulders. Some of them quite big .. a few big enough to be from a stone circle…. I wonder. I’m trying to find out from the estate what this building is and its provenance. So come on Macro Bert, pick up the phone! Haha It doesn’t appear to be on the Aberdeenshire HER (Historic Environment Records) which is strange. I wonder if it used stones from the nearby former circle marked here.
Then after this, of course I had to go to Tomnaverie RSC.
Location location location. What a gem.
And it was lovely to see it with a bit of snow still on the peaks. I love this RSC, it’s the first one I met and now I come back to update it on my plans and life. Such an amazing spot. Nuff said.
Leaving, I met a guy who turned out to be Hysteric Scotland, he was clearing out the gutters on the path, since not all heroes wear capes. He said they get all sorts at Tomnaverie, including people who are lighting bonfires and/or using it as a dog toilet! Personally, I think people who let dogs shit at a monument should be burnt at the stake, but bonfires don’t bother me that much, they seem closer to the original usage. Having said that, I’m not condoning destruction like at Ardlair by any means…
After the giddy experienc of Tomnaverie I felt pumped and considered my next move. I could return home in the glory of the light and do all the chores or I could go see anothe rcircle. It was a really tough decision … which ended up with me going to Ardlair RSC for the first time on the way home. This was a superb decision, it was a supremely beautiful drive with excellent views and then I met the stones at sunset. I wasn’t quite sure how to approach them as there were various options and eveything was very churned up, so I knocked at the nearest building, Ardlair Cottage, and had a nice chat with a woman who said the Pictish stones were on her land and the RSC was on that of the Grants. She was happy to direct me up a track and parted saying they got all sorts visiting the stones, even Americans. I parked up where she said was best and took the tractor trail up through a harvested field to the clump of trees and behind them were the two stones said to be outliers of the RSC. One has Pictish symbols, which is cool! They’re definitely outliers of the circle thoguh, they line up and on the way to the RSC there’s a fallen stone which no doubt was another stone in the avenue or wing or whatever the ancients were up to. There’s also a candidate for another outlier stone just at the edge of the tree clump, near to the stones and a concrete reservoir block … wait was the holy spring right here??
Ardlair RSC [pic]
This circle is in a magnificent spot atop a small hill roughly equidistant between Mither Tap and Tap o’Noth. So no wonder the Picts marked an already ancient stone, they must’ve loved this place as a prominent point between two forts, especially ift hey used beacons. I figure an ancient track went past it, and it was probably quite the highway back in the day.
It’s a real shame that a bunch of heathens has tried so hard to blow up the recumbent, it looks a bit sad now, all angular at the ends and yet still unbroken in spirit. Ritchie was already commenting on this attempted idiocy in 1909, so it’s not recent damage. I would blame the ancient landowner but Welfare mentions shepherds who used the recumbent as the back of an almighty fireplace for boiling tar!? I really don’t know why you would do that at the top if a hill, but the stones still standing in the RSC do bear black marks 🙁 The fallen stones are a blend of field collection, a possible inner cairn and probably a few fallen orthostats. As my pix show, there’s a stone in the ground halfway between the circle and the outliers, plus another possible outlier at the edge of the trees.
Well well well there’s a well nearby – the Melsach Well, is that the same as the Holywell I wonder. At the Melsach, people used to do fertility rituals! So this is clearly a landscape well used by humans for millennia. It’s shame it’s a bit of a mess now but still it’s powerful. And seeing it at sunset was lush, I got nice pinky pix!
With my fingers starting to freeze as the temperatures dropped, it was time to go home.