Skulferatu #88 - Derelict Farmhouse, Upper Bardennoch, Moniaive, Dumfries and Galloway

 

Ah, what to do on the day they are burying a long serving monarch and you don’t really fancy being stuck in the house all day watching all that pomp and ceremony?  Well, taking a lead from a kids’ TV show I remember from the Seventies ‘Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead?’  I did just that.  I got up off my fat backside and went out for a walk up in the hills by the village of Moniaive.

 

Stopping off in Moniaive first of all, I wandered through the rather picturesque and very quiet village.  Everything was shut and no-one was out on the street, I assume because they were all staying in and watching the funeral.  Though, maybe they were all at home busy writing, composing and painting, as Moniaive is one of these places that despite its size has attracted many musicians, authors, and artists.  The artist James Paterson, one of the ‘Glasgow Boys’ lived here, as did the author of ‘Black Narcissus’, Rumer Godden, the comic book writer, Alan Grant, and the musician Alex Kapranos.

 

In the warm, afternoon sun I walked out of the village and up a track leading through some woods and then on to a steep, grassy, and bumpy path lined by two drystane dykes.  As I walked up the hill, I could see the sky around me darkening as the rain clouds came rolling in.

 

The rolling hills outside of Moniaive

 

I made it up to the rather atmospheric ruins of Upper Bardennoch Farm where I had a staring competition with a ram who after sizing me up for a bit, wandered off and kept a wary eye on me from a safe distance.  Then the rain came down.  It poured and poured and soaked right through the cheap and nasty ‘waterproof’ jacket I was wearing.  Five minutes later the rain was gone, the sun was out again, and I was drying off nicely. 

 

The path up to Upper Bardennoch Farm

 

The derelict remains of Upper Bardennoch Farmhouse

 

The derelict remains of Upper Bardennoch Farmhouse

 

View over Upper Bardennoch Farm

 

I had a wander around the ruins of the farm, which I suppose at some time in the not too distant past had been a home and a livelihood for someone but was now abandoned and falling down.  Parts of the farmhouse roof had caved in, and the doors and windows had been removed and replaced with iron bars to keep the curious out.  The remains of the outbuildings now served as nothing more than a place for sheep to shelter from the elements, with the ground in them a sludge of sheep poo and the walls a scraped fluff with tufts of wool.

 

Tree and sheep pen

 

Gap in the wall

 

View from Upper Bardennoch over Moniaive

 

Upper Bardennoch Farmhouse

 

I left a Skulferatu in one of the many cracks in the farmhouse walls and then I carried on with my walk to the top of Bardennoch Hill, before making my way back to Moniaive.

 

Skulferatu #88

 

Skulferatu #88 in a crack in the farmhouse walls

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #88

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.206379

Longitude -3.91858

 

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Skulferatu #87 - Machrie Moor, Arran

  

On Machrie Moor there stand six stone circles, so I headed off there for a wander around an ancient landscape of standing stones and distant hills.

 

From the car park I headed off along a gentle and winding path that led me through fields of sheep, and then out into a land of mystical magic.  There is almost something unreal about the moor, it is sort of Hollywood film set in the way it looks.  All it really needed to finish it off would be some pixies and wizards wandering around, maybe a group or two of druids...or a few hobbits.  But this is no film set, it is real.  It is a landscape of Neolithic ritual and also of everyday domestic activity with the remains of hut circles and ancient farming activity having been discovered there.

 

Fingal’s Cauldron Seat

 

Ruins of Moss Farm

 

Just by the derelict buildings of Moss Farm stands a circle of stones known as Fingal’s Cauldron Seat.  This consists of a ring of inner stones and a ring of outer stones.  Local legend has it that on one of his many journeys through Arran, the warrior giant Fin McCool cooked his tea in a huge cauldron supported by the inner ring of stones and tethered his dog to one of the outer stones.

 

Down from the farm buildings and in a more peaty and mossy area sit, or should that be stand, a whole load more stone circles.  Some of these are made from granite boulders, while others are tall slabs of sandstone.  The stones circles are thought to date from around 4,500 years ago and were places of religious activity for many years, being used as burial sites long after they had been built.

 

Standing stone framed by dead tree

 

Standing stone on Machrie Moor

 

Standing stone on Machrie Moor

 

Standing stone on Machrie Moor

 

Standing stone on Machrie Moor

 

Standing stone on Machrie Moor

 

View by one of the standing stones on Machrie Moor

 

Standing stones on Machrie Moor

 

Standing stones on Machrie Moor

 

Standing stones on Machrie Moor

 

The stone circles on Machrie Moor have long held a fascination for natives and visitors to Arran alike, with Patrick Murray writing in 1883 that – ‘...in the whole Island, I know of no more interesting sight, or one better worth visiting, than the stone circles of the Machrie Moor. As you approach them, the tall upright forms of the standing stones rise up before you, silent and solemn, from the solitary heath.  As we look on them the mind wanders backward over the ages with a strong desire to know something of the people who must have toiled and laboured at their erection. Who were they.? In what age did they live? What was the nature of their religious belief? That the circles have been used at some time as places of burial has been ascertained; but was that their original or their only use? Have they not also been used as places of worship? For answer to all this we can only conjecture, but I think we shall not greatly err if we recognise in them the silent tribute of a people long since passed away to that mysterious Power which governs the universe and overlooks the actions of man.’

 

Standing stone on Machrie Moor

 

Standing stone on Machrie Moor

 

Standing stones on Machrie Moor

 

Standing stones on Machrie Moor

 

Ring of standing stones on Machrie Moor

 

Ring of standing stones on Machrie Moor

 

After a wander around the marshy ground absorbing the atmosphere of the place, and absorbing a lot of water into my rather inadequate footwear, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my trip, in a hollow, high up in one of the stones.

 

Skulferatu #87

 

Spot the Skulferatu

 

Skulferatu #87 in a hollow in one of the stones

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #87

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.540656

Longitude -5.312024

 

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I used the following sources for information on Machrie Moor –

 

Information boards at the site

 

The Book of Arran

Edited by J. A. Balfour

1910

 

Natives of Arran in Glasgow

Ayrshire Weekly News and Galloway Press - Saturday 10 February 1883