Five lovely ancient sites to visit in Perthshire

Submitted by Andy B on Monday, 18 December 2017 Page Views: 10769

Multi-periodCountry: Scotland County: Perth and Kinross
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**Lundin Farm** submitted by golux : Photographed Christmas Eve 2010. Definitely one of the most picturesque stone circles. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Perthshire - officially now the County of Perth and nearby Kinross - is one of UK’s largest counties, situated in the centre of Scotland. The main city - unsurprisingly called Perth - is well worth exploring too. Perthshire varies widely from south to north with open farmland in the south giving way to the start of the Highlands and the foothills of the Cairngorms to the north. We've picked five of our favourite ancient sites (and one modern one) to visit.

Perthshire is known as the Big Tree County, and has some of the tallest trees in Britain, including the Fortingall yew, thought to be between 3000 and 9000 years old - making it Europe’s oldest tree. It has connections to early Christianity in Scotland and there are pieces of several ancient crosses inside Fortingall church, as well as two stone slabs with incised crosses in the churchyard.

Perthshire is rich in history and folklore - there are hundreds of standing stones and stone circles dotted all over its vast area, as well as countless cairns, barrows, forts and rock art. There are also many decorated Pictish stones and clues to Pictish elements in the placenames, hint at the importance of Perthshire to the Picts in the first millenium AD.

Abernethy Symbol Stone

This beautifully carved Pictish Symbol Stone (Type I) stands on a modern pedestal at the foot of the 11th century Abernethy round tower. The stone has been given a rather odd, but hopefully useful protective stone hat. Just 350m to the south-west is a rather ruined stone circle, follow the sign for the circular walk up the glen, which is a lovely walk in itself. As with all of these sites, have a browse of the Nearby Sites list from our main pages for these sites, which are linked.

Lundin Farm Four Poster Stone Circle

This is one of the most picturesque small stone circles in all of Scotland and isn’t that well known to casual visitors - it’s always a joy to visit. There’s also a cupmarked stone and just a bit further up farm track are the battered remnants of another circle. On the way to and from Lundin Farm circles you’ll also pass a 4 foot standing stone, with a curiously regular hollow on its top.

Croft Moraig

A stone circle in Perthshire with two outlying stones to the north-north-east. There is a good information board here outlining the history of the site, which has three distinct phases, initially 14 wooden fourteen wooden posts horseshoe shape, later replaced by eight stones enclosed by a bank., and later an outer circle of 12 taller stones. Again there is rock art nearby, just to the SSW lies a 2m long stone with over twenty cupmarks on it. This stone is said to be aligned with the southern moonset.

The Scottish Crannog Centre

This a visitor attraction run by the Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology. It is a unique reconstruction of an early Iron Age loch-dwelling, and is an authentic recreation, based on the excavation evidence from the nearby site of Oakbank Crannog, which is 2600 years old, and one of the 18 crannogs preserved in Loch Tay. Many of these crannogs were built out in the water all over Scotland and Ireland as defensive homesteads and must have represented power and wealth.

Craigh na Dun

Finally, one for folowers of the TV series Outlander - and the Diana Gabaldon books of course. Craigh na Dun is the fictional stone circle where the main character Claire Randall,uses the stones to pass back through time to the 18th century Scotland and finds adventure and romance with the dashing Jamie Fraser.

The filming location from the TV series for Craigh na Dun is of course a real place but sadly there are no stones there - these being modern props added for filming. However we have tracked the location down and you can view from the road or visit (with permission from the nearby Tullochcroisk Farm).

Being so central, Perthshire is well connected to the rest of Scotland - you can head North to Inverness and the Highlands, West to Mull, East to Fife and more Pictish Symbol Stones, or of course South to Glasgow and Edinburgh. It makes a great base for exploring Central Scotland and there are many luxury holiday cottages in Perthshire to rent for a week or longer.

Browse the rest of our site pages for many more ancient sites of all types in Perth and Kinross, you can use the filter boxes to choose your favourite type of site and narrow down by condition, access etc. This article was kindly supported by Highland Perthshire Holiday Homes.

Contributor Bio for Andy B: Megalithic Portal Founding Editor.

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