| County: | |
| Terrain: | |
| Property: | |
|
|
|
Loading map... please wait!
External service: courtesy of Google Maps.
The Witches' Stane which used to sit on Tormain in the vicinity of several cup-and-ring stones appears to be a casualty of twentieth century farming, if local rumours are correct. Prior to its destruction, this was a large rock incised with cups itself, and was possibly used in local folk custom, with women sliding down it as a fertility charm.
The Witches' Stane, Tormain
In an 1873 article in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, John Alexander Smith wrote:
On the north-west slope of this same Tormain Hill, about 200 yards below its summit and at an elevation of 435 feet above the sea, lies the large mass or group of stones which has long been know by the name of "The Witches' Stone." It consists now of a large sloping cap-like mass of greenstone, measuring 11 feet in greatest length, by 10 feet or so in breadth across the top, about 2 feet 3 inches in depth, and about 33 feet in circumference. Along the greatest length of the upper surface of this large sloping stone there is cut a regular series of twenty-three shallow cup-like depressions. This large cap-stone rests apparently on three blocks of stone, and two other smaller portions have fallen out from below it in front, at the highest end of the mass; which measures there about 8 feet in height. Below these different portions of stone there appears to be a large foundation-stone underlying them all. Indeed, looking at the stones as a whole, they suggest the probability of this great mass being, or rather having been, one large block of stone, which has by weathering separated into three beds, the upper or cap-stone, the middle bed with the broken portions of rock now fallen from it, and the lowest bed the foundation-like stone below.
— John Alexander Smith, "Notes of Rock Sculpturings of Cups and Concentric Rings, and 'The Witches' Stone' on Tormain Hill": PSAS X 1873 143
Locating the site of the Witches' Stane is not possible with absolute precision from Smith's account alone, but in another article from the same journal, J. Romilly-Allan gives further useful details:
The Witches' Stone is situated on the west slope of Tormain Hill, a few hundred yards from the road leading from Ratho to Bonnington Mains, at a distance of one mile south-west from the former place. The village of Ratho lies seven miles west of the city of Edinburgh. There is an Ordnance bench mark cut out the stone itself which gives the level at 430 feet above the sea and 40 feet below the summit of Tormain Hill (see One-inch Ordnance Map Sheet 32, and Six-inch Sheet 5). The position being thus at a considerable elevation above the valley of the Forth, a very extensive view is obtained in all direction. The Witches' Stone is a natural boulder of whinstone, rounded and smoothed by glacial action, whose upper surface slopes at an angle of about 35 degrees with the horizon. The length of the sloping face is 8 feet and at the top is a flat place 2 feet wide. The breadth of the stone is 11 feet 3 inches at the upper end, and 4 feet at the lower end. The thickness varies from 2 to 3 feet. The highest part of the stone is 6 feet 6 inches above the ground, and the lowest 1 foot 6 inches. It rests on what has originally been a portion of the same boulder, but is now a mass of whinstone broken up into several fragments, which serve as supports to prop up the stone above. Viewed from the north side the whole presents the appearance of a cromlech, the upper stone forming the cap, and the disintegrated portion below the supports. This notion, however, will be clearly seen to be erroneous on looking at it from the opposite side, [as shown on the accompanying sketch (fig.1), where the crack separating the two portions of the boulder is very apparent.
— J. Romilly-Allen, PSAS XVI 1882 80
Consulting the OS map for 1855, however, we see that a stone marked with an OS bench-mark is indicated in the field to the West of the main rock carvings:
Bench-Marked Stone, OS Map, 1855
It is possible that this indicates the exact location of the Witches' Stane, and the following photograph shows the slight ridge and depression which exists there now:
Location of the Witches' Stane
Two other stones are known locally as the Witches' Stane can be found still on Platt Hill and at Williamcraigs, although these are simple standing stones (?) and are unlikely to have been used in the same way as the Tormain stone. Furthermore, a collection of large boulders exists in the corner of the field on the Western end of the woods, next to the possible cist stone (see below), and it may be that these boulders are the remains of the Witches' Stane.
Possible Remains of the Witches' Stane?
Hand-Made in West Lothian, Scotland
