veined with quartz. Its extreme dimensions are: length, 5 feet 8 inches, breadth, 3 feet, and thickness, 2 feet 6 inches. The other Stones are also roughly quartz-veined blocks of whinstone about 3 feet in thickness. There is a distinct stony mound of roughly semicircular contour about this group, the result, no doubt, of many seasons' ploughing, after the removal of the rest of the Stones.

Fig. 6. Gavenie Braes; View from the West.

In the three annexed views these Stones are shown from various points (figs. 4, 5, 6).

1

Rev. Dr Garden, with regard to another site in this vicinity, writes 2 (in 1692): "I was likewise told by an ingenious gentleman, who lives at

1 During our drive to Gavenie Braes, we passed two sites named on the map as antiquities. One is Barbara's Hillock, a very steeply conical mound, due, I think, entirely to natural causes; the other, Carlin-Kist-Cairn, at Boghead, a long, low mound overgrown with broom and brambles. The tenant of the adjoining farm remembered seeing part of the Cairn and a big Standing Stone, but could not say when they were removed. The name Carlinkist is, by the writer in the New Statis tical Account of Alvah parish, applied to the Stone itself.

2 Archæologia, vol. i., p. 340.

a place called Troup, in the shire of Banff, and parish of Gamrie, that not far from his house, there is a den called the Chapel Den, from one of those monuments [i.e. a Stone Circle] which is near by."

From

a recently published book I take the following paragraph : "Opposite the top of the Strait Path [in Banff] there was formerly visible a large grey-coloured Grey Stone, which was a popular place of resort, and which has given its name to the adjoining property. The stone is now buried below the surface of the street."

In another local publication 2 it is recorded that, "on the site of the now ruinous windmill overlooking Sandend Bay, stood, up till the year 1760, a Circle of Stones 14 feet high and 60 feet broad [circle-diameter]. A stone coffin and a deer's horn were found in it. Another Circle stood at a hundred paces."

We must therefore include in our enumeration five sites of Circles and Standing Stones not named on the Ordnance maps, and of which only the above brief notes are known.

No. 4.

Boyndie Church.-The map-record here, at a height above sea-level of 183 feet, is of the site of a Stone Circle, close to the south wall of the churchyard. There is now no vestige of any such remains to but the New Statistical Account records that " a huge red Stone used to stand near the manse offices, where a stone coffin was found." The Rev. J. Ledingham, M.A., the present minister, writes, in reply to inquiries, from the Manse of Boyndie :

be seen;

:

"Dear Sir,-I have seen the notice in the Statistical Account to which you refer. I have looked for the stone and coffin again and again,

but without success.

My impression is that the stone had been broken up and used in building of new offices. The district here is very rich in Stone Circles. A good one on the glebe was cleared off some thirty years ago, much to the disappointment of Sir A. Mitchell."

The N

in this

ew Statistical Account mentions a Standing Stone at Buchragie

Parish.

1 Illustrated Guide to Banff and Macduff, 1904.

2 The Banffshire Field Club Transactions.

No. 5. St Brandan's Stanes.-The few stones now left of this Circle are at the southern extremity of a long strip of fir plantation running down from Bankhead Farm, at a point 2 miles south-west of the site at Boyndie Church and half a mile east of the burn of Boyndie. Tillynaught Station on the Great North of Scotland Railway is distant slightly over half a mile on the north-west.

The farm-land is called Templeton, and is so named, I was informed

by the tenant, from these Standing Stones. The site is 300 feet above sea-level.

The ground-plan (fig. 7) shows the positions of the two great Pillars with an interspace sufficient for a Recumbent Stone fully 8 feet in length. Unfortunately, it is not possible to examine the whole bases of these Stones, on account of a huge and unsightly heap of field-wrack being piled up against them on the south. In front lie four large blocks, and close to the east face of the East Pillar is an almost square block, 3 feet in height, and apparently earth-fast, also quite vertical,

which may be the beginning of the inner stone-setting so frequently found in Circles of this type.

Both the Pillars are tall and massive blocks of grey granite, vertically set, and impressive in height and bulk. The East Pillar is 5 feet 5 inches in height, above the small stones covering the ground at its base. Its full height (on the outside) and its girth at the base could not be ascertained, for the reason above stated; but from what of the girth was measurable, that dimension can be estimated to be about 16 feet. Its inner, i.e. its northward, face shows signs of having been in modern.

times split and robbed of much of its bulk (see fig. 8). Quite probably some of the larger fragments lying close to this part of the Stone once formed a portion of it.

The West Pillar is 5 feet 11 inches in height, and has one very broad, vertical, and smooth face towards the interior of the Circle. It is a more shapely block than its fellow-pillar, and, near its base, displays a well-preserved group of large and deep cup-marks, as shown (drawn to scale) in fig. 9.1 There are eight distinct cups, and the highest is

1 In, or before, 1866, this Stone was examined by Dr Black, who records "twelve cup excavations of the usual size" (see Proc., vol. vi., p. 14 of the Appendix). The discrepancy may be accounted for by the growth of grass and weeds around the Stone.

almost precisely in the middle of the breadth of the Pillar. These cupmarks are also noticed by Dr Cramond, of Cullen, in the second volume of the Transactions of the Banffshire Field Club.

Of the other Stones, all prostrate, little need be said, except that they are blocks of rugged whinstone, of lengths varying from 5 feet 6 inches

Fig. 9. Cup-marked West Pillar in the Circle called St Brandan's Stanes.

to 3 feet 8 inches, and showing above ground from 16 to 33 inches in thickness.

There was no story obtainable from the tenant of Templeton, bearing upon the name attached to the Stones, or upon the date or alleged reason for the demolition of this Circle.

It is, however, recorded in connection with this locality that, "near the Parish Kirk is a Druid Circle, and another a mile north-east