Castles and circles

I’ve mentioned the Tomnaverie Stone Circle a couple of time in prior posts. I never heard of this amazing site until a few years ago, when I was hosting a study-abroad program through the school where I teach digital media. We were taking a day trip away from Dundee (where we collaborate with two universities, Dundee and Abertay) and visiting a place I was keen to see: Dunnottar Castle. If you’ve never been, you must immediately stop everything you are doing and get on a plane now. Oh, wait, COVID… well, as soon as the US is granted “green light” status for international travel.

While at Dunnottar, I got into a conversation with a random Scot—this happens an awful lot when you’re in Scotland—comparing the castle to other sites. My unknown friend insisted that, while castles are indeed awesome (as in filling one with awe), we hadn’t truly seen Scotland until we had paid a visit to a stone circle. I couldn’t change our itinerary that day, but I asked him for a recommendation and he ticked off a list of about 3 dozen, one of them being Tomnaverie.

Planning a visit

I made a mental note for the next trip. As we started planning it, I researched the sites my nameless guide suggested. It seemed like those to the immediate west of Aberdeen were close enough to add to the itinerary. Cullerlie and Midmar were a bit closer, but the breathtaking landscape of Tomnaverie, with its sweeping views, seemed like the one, and it wasn’t that much farther away. So we planned the trip. Then COVID delayed the trip. Then delayed it again.

So, while waiting for the all-clear, I started an entirely unrelated COVID hobby: researching my family history. As I got deeper into my research, really odd dots began to connect. Long story short, I discovered that the stone circle we chose to visit—someday!—was so close to my great-grandfather’s childhood home I could connect them with a par-5 fairway (though I wouldn’t make par because I’m terrible at golf… so much for my Scottish heritage).

My family and Tomnaverie

As I learned more about my family, so too I learned more about Tomnaverie:

• I was surprised it was the subject of a considerable amount of scholarship.
• I found variations on the name, and the possible meanings of Tom-na-hivrigh: some sources claim it means Hill of Worship or Hill of Justice, other sources claiming Mound of the Fairies.
• I discovered excavations date it as an Early Bronze Age creation of 2500 BCE give or take a century, about as old as the Pyramids at Giza.
• I explored the possible uses for the monument and the potential archaeoastronomy behind its design.
• I followed the history of how the ring was saved, excavated, and restored after it was very nearly destroyed by the encroachment of a granite quarry practically eroding the hill out from under the standing stones.

In the maps below, note the name of the ferm-toun Cuttieshillock—my great-grandfather’s home—but also note the quarry moving in to undermine the stones near the top of the image:

1 | Aberdeenshire, sheet LXXXI (includes: Aboyne And Glen Tanar; Coull, etc.) Survey date: 1866-1867, Publication date: 1870 | National Library of Scotland CC-BY
2| Aberdeenshire sheet LXXXI.NE (includes: Coull; Logie-Coldstone. etc.) Date revised: 1900, Publication date: 1902 | National Library of Scotland CC-BY

Near-destruction

I wondered as I found out more about this quarry and the near-obliteration of a sacred monumental site: Who would have done such a horrible thing? What the hell were they thinking? Having nourished my sense of self-righteousness indignation well enough, I moved on, back to the family history.

I had known since my youth that my great-grandfather Theodore was a fine craftsman and a stonemason. What my family history revealed is that there were all kinds of masons, construction workers, stone-polishers, and quarrymen spread out among Cromars, Georges, Sims, and other branches of the family. Stone work appeared to be in our blood.

Wait.

Quarrymen… ?

That just took a fairly dark turn, didn’t it?

What did we do?

Now, there is no absolute documentary evidence that a Cromar, a George, a Sim, or another granite man from our family had worked the quarry at Tomnaverie. There is no proof we had a hand in nearly destroying this patrimonial treasure. But given the geography, given the proximity, given limited resources, given all the circumstantial evidence… there is a stupefyingly high probability that someone in the family at some point was complicit in the act of attempted murder of a stone circle! If not as the actual perp, then surely as an accomplice, a stonemason using the spoils to build a structure in nearby Tarland.

Is there redemption, if in fact our family did try to kill Tomnaverie? Is it a cop-out to say they are faultless because the landowner, the Earl of Aberdeen, had the final say on any use of the land? Was dealing with the desperate economy of the Long Depression an end that justified the means? Or, because the quarry came right up to the ring but did not overwhelm it, is the ultimate preservation of Tomnaverie a testament to the quarrymen’s desire to balance doing the right thing with putting food on the family table? There remains, after all, a lot of good granite that they did not dig.

Redemption

Perhaps redemption will take the form of our study-abroad visit to honor this site, which has withstood the passage of over 4500 years of history and has survived to tell its tale. Look for our report this November, live from the Howe of Cromar, when we are rescheduled to finally run our program. Perhaps the third time will be a charm and the Cromars can reconcile our relationship with Tomnaverie on vastly different terms than we possibly left it last.

A Tomnaverie Webliography

In doing research for both the study-abroad program and my family history, these are resources that I’ve found illuminating about the history and preservation of this sacred site. I hope you find them as useful as I have.

• Tomnaverie Stone Circle – Historic Environment Scotland | Basic information, location, the administrative caretaker of the site.
• Tomnaverie – Canmore | Part of HES, deeper data and documentation including measured drawings, historical photographs
• Publications – Historic Environment Scotland | Book to purchase and complementary PDF download (link at bottom of page) for Great Crowns of Stone by Adam Welfare, 2011. Places Tomnaverie in a comparative study of recumbent stone circles in Scotland.
• Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba – Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland | Entry for Tomnaverie – Tom na h-Aifrinn
• The New Statistical Account of Scotland: Aberdeen | Published by W. Blackwood and Sons, 1845. An account of Tom-na-hivrigh on p. 958.
• Aberdeenshire OS Name Books, 1865-1871 | OS1/1/16/34 Ordinance Survey page containing reference to Tomnaverie with alternate spelling Tom-na-hivrigh and Stone Circle (Remains of).
• Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland | PDF download for Record of (I) the Excavation of two Stone Circles in Kincardineshire: (1) in Garrol Wood, Durris; (2) in Glassel Wood, Banchory-Ternan; and (II) Report on Stone Circles in Aberdeenshire, with measured Plans and Drawings; obtained under the Gunning Fellowship by Frederick Coles, 1905.
• Archaeology Data Service | PDF download for The Moon and the Bonfire: An Investigation of Three Stone Circles in North-east Scotland by Richard Bradley, 2005. An in-depth discussion of excavations and restoration of Tomnaverie and other sites.
• ResearchGate | PDF download for The Archaeoastronomy of Tomnaverie Recumbent Stone Circle: A Comparison of Methodologies by Liz Henty, 2014. An analysis of Tomnaverie combining the disciplines or archaeology and astronomy.
• Cromar History Group | Search results for “Tomnaverie” yields photographs, news articles, as of June 2021 returning 65 entries. Correspondence from Bradley on the 1999 excavations, feasibility studies, handwritten surveys, visitor questionnaires, CHG minutes.
• The Heritage Journal | Reclaiming Prehistory is a 2004 article decrying the then-current state of Tomnaverie and like-kind monuments, a “heartfelt plea … for ‘the myth of barbarism’ to be lifted from our prehistory and for our ancient places to be given the care they deserve.” Compare this description to the current status.
• Wikipedia | Article on Tomnaverie stone circle.
• Wikimedia Commons | Media for Category:Tomnaverie Stone Circle licenses public domain or CC. License description is specified on individual discussion page for media.
• Tomnaverie – Megalithics UK | Brief discussion of restoration efforts, a gif animation of the development of the site over the ages.
• TOMNAVERIE STONE CIRCLE – Undiscovered Scotland | Images and location information.
• Tomnaverie – stone-circles.org.uk | Images and a 360 dedgree panorama.
• YouTube | Search results for “Tomnaverie Stone Circle” in 2021 yielding a dozen items.