Carved stone
This stone was probably carved between 1,000 and 1,200 years ago.
It may have been a grave stone.
This slab of greywacke sandstone is decorated with a flower
design. It was found at Craigdhu, Glasserton in the 1950s by the
tenant Mr Hugh Telfer. He was repairing a dry stone dyke when he
noticed that one of the through stones - long stones used to
stabilise the wall - had a pattern carved on one face. Mr Telfer
thought the stone might be of some interest and put it to one side.
When he retired to Girvan he took the stone with him.
In 2004 the stone was shown to Ian Jones of the McKechnie Insitute
in Girvan who then informed Stranraer Museum. Mr Telfer, alerted to
the stone's possible importance, kindly agreed to donate it to the
museum.
The stone is decorated with a series of compass-drawn arcs that
form a six-petalled flower or marigold design. It is very hard to
put a date on a simple carving like this and it may be fairly
modern. But a number of stones with very similar carved marigold
designs were found during the recent archaeological excavations at
Whithorn which the archaeologists thought were carved during the
eighth or ninth centuries AD.
The Craigdhu slab might originally have been a grave marker. Was
there a small cemetery here during the Dark Ages?
Object no :
SRMO004n
Collection :
Creator :
NA
Place of Production :
NA
Dimensions :
Length: 505mm
Materials :
sandstone
Location :
NA
Accession number :
WIWMS 2005.9
Copyright :
Dumfries & Galloway Council