Kinellar Kirkyard

Nearest Town: Blackburn, Aberdeenshire

OS Grid Reference: NJ 82 21 45

Directions: On the minor road between Blackburn and Hatton of Fintray, take the signposted turn to Kirkton. Go uphill, bear right at the fork and note the pair of stones in front of the house on your right. Park outside the church (now closed) and enter the Kirkyard. Go to your right, and look for the monument to the Stephen family where the wall doglegs. Look down.

Site Notes: All that remains of a once proud stone circle are two stones entombed in the Kirkyard wall, and one of those is barely visible. Pulled down by ignorant and backward christians so they could despoil the landscape with the ugly church building, still this circle manages to see the sun. The remaining stones are thought to be the flankers of a recumbent stone circle, and the size and shape of the visible stone supports this. The second stone was further concealed when the wall was re-aligned, and only a small part can be seen. The two stones near the house are less than 100m from the site of the circle, and appear authentic. They may be modern, but why? They cannot be seen from the house or its garden. I wonder if they were once part of the circle and have since been found and re-erected. I would like to know.

The wanton destruction inflicted to countless sites by the christian idiots does infuriate me. Look at it this way: we know that these circles were built by people to honour the land, the elements, the moon. Gods creations if that's what your beliefs entail. They were built from natural materials and were open to that creation. Along come the ignorant, tear down the earliest of Gods churches, if you like, to be replaced by wrought stone built to the vanity of the architect, and enclosed from creation by walls and a roof. Who are the heathens now?

Image: Alison Lodge