St Ringan's Cairn, Redstone Hill
Cross Slab (Pictish), Pictish Symbol Stone (Pictish)
Site Name St Ringan's Cairn, Redstone Hill
Classification Cross Slab (Pictish), Pictish Symbol Stone (Pictish)
Alternative Name(s) Cairn O' Mount
Canmore ID 36067
Site Number NO67NE 15
NGR NO 6549 7944
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/36067
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Fordoun
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Kincardine And Deeside
- Former County Kincardineshire
St Ringan’s Cairn 1, Redstone Hill, Kincardineshire, Pictish cross-slab fragment
Measurements: H 0.58m, W 0.49, D 0.16m
Stone type: red sandstone
Place of discovery: NO 6549 7944
Present location: University of Aberdeen museum collections, Mariscal College (ABDUA 39615).
Evidence for discovery: found in 1964 in or near St Ringan’s Cairn (Canmore 36070), which lies beside a track (the old military road) over Redstone Hill, east of the modern road. It was taken to the grounds of the Department of Botany, University of Aberdeen, and later that year to the Marischal Museum in Aberdeen. Ringan is a Scottish variant of Ninian (www.saintsplaces.gla.ac.uk).
Present condition: broken and worn.
Description
This stone is the lower part of a straight-sided cross-slab with a well-shaped tenon at least 0.20m long (it is thought not to belong to the socketed base that was found at the same time, St Ringan’s Cairn 2). It appears to have had a plain flat-band border and is carved in low relief. Only the base of the cross shaft survives on face A, edged by a roll moulding which flares outwards at the foot and slithers over to become a fishtail below the foot on the left-hand side. On the right-hand side of the base of the shaft, much has been lost through flaking but again the roll moulding slides off the base, perhaps to form a serpent head, now lost, with a long narrow tongue. The interior of the shaft is filled with diagonal key pattern. Placed vertically on the left of the shaft is a heavily built animal, possibly a bear judging by its hind-quarters, but the area of the head is damaged.
Very little survives of face C, only part of a finely executed pattern of triscele and spiral. The narrow faces are plain. There is no evidence that there was any symbol on the stone.
The stone is likely to have functioned as a wayside cross.
Date range: eighth or ninth century.
Primary references: Borland, Fraser & Sherriff 2007, 106-8.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2019
St Ringan’s Cairn 2, Redstone Hill, Kincardineshire, cross base
Measurements: L 1.14m, W 0.80m, H 0.32m
Stone type: sandstone
Place of discovery: NO 6549 7944
Present location: University of Aberdeen museum collections, Marischal College (acc no 39615).
Evidence for discovery: found in 1964 in or near St Ringan’s Cairn (Canmore 36070), which lies beside a track over Redstone Hill, east of the modern road. It was taken to the grounds of the Department of Botany, University of Aberdeen, and later that year to the Marischal Museum in Aberdeen. Ringan is a Scottish variant of Ninian (saintsplaces.gla.ac.uk).
Present condition: damaged edges.
Description
The surface of the base has a chamfered surround for a socket that extends through the full height of the block. The rectangular socket is stepped and would take a tenon of up to 0.28m by 0.08m.
Date range: early medieval.
Primary references: Borland, Fraser & Sherriff 2007, 104, 106-8.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2019
Field Visit (11 November 1971)
According to the finder, Mr Lindsay Fairlie (Fairlie, Farm Manager, Glensaugh) this cross was found in the centre of St Ringan's Cairn (NO67NE 23) whilst excavating rubble for road material. It is now at Aberdeen University.
Visited by OS (A A) 11 November 1971.
Desk Based Assessment (6 October 1971)
NO67NE 15 6549 7944.
(NO 654 796) A small fragment of the bottom of a cross-slab carved in high relief along with its heavy slotted base was discovered on the slopes of Cairn O' Mount at a height of just over 1,000'.
Information from OS (ES) 6 October 1971
A Small 1965.
In 1964 during clearance of a pile of stones, a fragment of a cross-slab carved in high-relief was discovered. One panel shows the body and hindquarters of an animal, possibly a boar. Its present location is unknown.
A Small 1965; A Small 1974; RCAHMS 1994
Class II symbol stone.
'The cross slab from St Ringan's Cairn has now been set up in the grounds of the Department of Botany, University of Aberdeen. As you are aware there are problems in dating these slabs but one might tentatively suggest a date of 9/10th century.'
Information contained in letter from A Small, Dundee University to OS (JLD), 24 November 1971.
Field Visit (December 1981)
St Ringan's Cairn NO 654 794 NO67NE 15 & 18
St Ringan's Cairn is situated to the E of the Military Road over the Cairn o' Mount Pass at a height of 330m OD. It measures 8.5m in diameter and 0.4m in height; stone-robbing in 1964 revealed a cross-base and part of a 'Pictish' cross-slab.
RCAHMS 1982, visited December 1981
(DES, 1965, 24; Small 1974)
External Reference (27 April 1998)
This cross slab is now in the Marshall Museum.
Information as per phone call, from Neil Curtis, Geography department, Aberdeen University, 27 April 1998
