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

 

what3words: vote.weekday.arranger

 

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

 

Skulferatu #86 - The King's Cave, Arran

 

To get to my walk for today to the King’s Cave, I was dropped off at a nearby car park, helpfully called Kings Cave Car Park. From there I followed the path through a woodland plantation that eventually took me out on to a steep path that descended down to a rocky and pebble strewn beach below.  There I found the King’s Cave, which is one of a series of caves in the sandstone cliffs that were formed during the Ice Age, around ten thousand years ago.

 

The King’s Cave

 

The caves along the coast

 

The caves in the cliffs

 

View from the caves down to Drumadoon Point

 

The King’s Cave is the largest of these caves and the name comes from the legend that Robert the Bruce once took shelter here when on the run, and that it was in this cave that he met the famous spider.  For those of you not familiar with the story, Bruce had suffered a heavy defeat by the English army and was on the run.  While taking shelter in a cave he noticed a little spider trying to weave a web.  It would get so far, then fall, but would climb back up and attempt to start again.  Eventually, after falling numerous times it succeeded in building its web.  From watching this Bruce took the lesson that ‘if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try, try again’.  He then went on to defeat the English army at Bannockburn.  Though the caves are full of little spiders, it is unlikely that there is any truth to the story or that Bruce even sheltered here.

 

Before the cave was known as the King’s Cave, it was referred to as Fingal’s Cave, after the legendary Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill or Fin McCool, which let's face it is much easier to pronounce.  What he had to do with this cave I have no idea, as all I can remember about him comes from some of the stories we were told in Primary School.  Though what I remember is not so much the actual stories but more that his size seemed to vary quite massively from story to story.  I’m sure in one he must have been about five hundred feet tall and in another he was only about twelve feet tall, which was something that even at six or seven years old I wanted an explanation for.  I wanted to understand and to make some sort of sense of how he achieved this.  Was there some sort of magic involved?  Or, like Alice in Wonderland, did he take potions that made him bigger or smaller?  Unfortunately, no satisfactory explanation was given by my teacher other than ‘they are just legends, what does it matter?’

 

Cave and cliffs

 

The caves

 

A view into one of the caves

 

Looking out from one of the caves

 

Inside one of the caves

 

After exploring all the caves, I sat on a rock by the beach and dozed in the warm afternoon sun.  Then, feeling lovely and refreshed I got up, left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk in the King’s Cave and ambled off back through the woods.

 

Skulferatu #86

 

Skulferatu #86 in a gap inside the cave walls

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #86

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.526129

Longitude -5.353452

 

what3words: practical.unwanted.boss

 

I used the following sources for information on the Kings Caves –

 

Arran of the Bens, the Glens and the Brave

by MacKenzie MacBride

1911

 

The Book of Arran

Edited by J. A. Balfour

1910

 

Skulferatu - #85 - Giants' Graves, Arran

 

It was time to journey away again for a quick break, so I headed off to the Isle of Arran on the west coast of Scotland.  On my first day there I went for a rather lovely walk up the hills by Whiting Bay.  The walk takes you up by the quite spectacular Glenashdale Falls and then round to the Giants’ Graves and the views from there over to Holy Isle.  The walk was steep in parts, which wouldn’t normally be a problem, but a touch of Angina made it a bit wobbly for me on some of the steeper bits.  However, though I may be fat and old, I’m determined when it comes to getting places and I soon walked it off.  After a quick stop at the viewing platform looking out on Glenashdale Falls I carried on round and up to the top of the hill and the Giants’ Graves.

 

Glenashdale Waterfall

 

The Giants’ Graves are actually the remains of two chambered cairns that were built around five thousand years ago and sit on top of a hill near Whiting Bay.  The chambers in each would originally have been roofed with large stone slabs and then enclosed in a cairn made up of thousands of smaller stones.

 

View of the Giants’ Graves

 

View of the Giants’ Graves

 

The cairns were used as burial sites, but not quite in the way we now bury bodies.  That reverence and respect for a corpse wasn’t there in the way we know it, and bodies didn’t tend to just be buried and left alone.  No, our ancient ancestors seemed to have had religious practices that involved leaving corpses out in the open to have the flesh eaten from them by the birds and the beasts, before they would then pick up the remaining bones, burn some and place these and the other unburnt bones into the chambers of the cairn.  What the significance of this was we’ll never know, but it probably all meant something deeply spiritual to them.

 

View of the Giants’ Graves

 

View of the Giants’ Graves

 

Given these religious practices the cairns were not permanently sealed, but rather used over and over again. 

 

Only some of the larger stones in the cairns now remain, as most of the others were taken away to be used for building with.

 

Excavations carried out of the two cairns found human bone, pottery, flint knives and stone arrowheads.

 

Graffiti carved into one of the stones

 

Before making my way back down to Whiting Bay and a spot of lunch, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk on one of the stones that make up the Giants’ Graves.

 

Skulferatu #85

 

Skulferatu #85 on one of the stones of the Giants’ Graves

 

Skulferatu #85 on one of the stones of the Giants’ Graves

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #85

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.476701

Longitude -5.097959

 

what3words: acquaint.closet.deeply

 

I used the following sources for information on the Giants’ Graves –

 

The Book of Arran

Edited by J. A. Balfour

1910

 

Public information sign at site