Down Memory Lane: Moving story recalled of ancient stone in Inverness
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They stood as silent sentinels on one spot for 6000 years, but 46 winters ago the Standing Stones moved 500 metres west.
The Stoneyfield cairn circle was in the way of the new A9 approach roads for the Kessock Bridge, lying 600 metres north of Raigmore Hospital close to the Moray Firth shore.
They were moved, however, over 13 successive winter Saturdays in 1974-5, and re-erected beside a burn at a Raigmore housing estate park.
Richard Pococke, the Bishop of Meath, visited Stoneyfield in 1760 and wrote of two stone circles on the site – with mystery surrounding what happened to the other one. Certainly, an 1831 survey mentions only one circle.
As the stones simply lay on the surface, rather than being dug down, it would have been relatively easy to remove one ring.
In 1845, the New Statistical Account reported: "A beautiful Druidic Temple and many similar structures, now partly destroyed, exist in the parish of Inverness as, for instance, on the plain of Culloden and at Stoneyfield, a farm so called for having two of them on its surface."
An 1884 site plan created by James Fraser showed the ring very much as it is today.
Local archaeologist Derek Simpson was commissioned by the Ministry for Public Building and Works to excavate the site in 1972-3 ahead of the road construction.
He reported that drill holes in two stones showed attempts to use explosives to remove them. All the kerb stones – the largest 1.7 metres high – were conglomerates from a short distance from the site.
Simpson reckoned the largest kerb had enclosed a platform-like cairn. A series of cists, pits and post holes were also found below the soil.
Experts calculate that the Stoneyfield site was first used around 3600BC for the digging of several pits, with a cup-marked Pictish stone found from that era.
In its second phase, between 2900 and 2300BC, more pits were created, with the cremated remains of two adults uncovered along with a flint arrowhead. At least 52 wooden posts were erected around a rectangular wooden structure with a hearth of sandstone slabs. Fragments of human bone recovered from the hearth suggest the building had a ritual or funeral purpose.
The ring of kerb stones of a Clava-style size and gradation, and the platform cairn, were built in this era.
Four cists, or stone-lined graves, were built in the interior of the stone circle between 2300 and 2000BC.
In this phase, a huge pit was dug through the cairn fill. It was found to contain the cremated remains of a child under an inverted urn.
Finds of glass, iron and charcoal showed there was still activity on the site 750 years ago.
A claim by “a Town Council official” that the monument was going to be dumped for landfill sparked the Save the Stones campaign and the council agreed to the relocation “as long as there is no cost to the ratepayer”.
A contractor lent equipment for the flit and burgh architect Bill Jack led the volunteers, including schoolboys.
A condition report in 1993 noted the megalith was “in a state of disrepair” and Archaeology Scotland worked with Raigmore Community Council and local schools to tidy up the site.
It is a great pity that the location selected by Neolithic and Bronze Age people, possibly aligning with the stars, has been altered, but the ring cairn remains.
This link with our ancestors is to be greatly prized and the monument that moved remains a mysterious, haunting part of our past.
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