In Glasgow last weekend, with a hired car, and with the help of the Megalithic Portal website, I thought it might be interesting to find three megalithic monuments to the north of the city. Spoiler: I found only one.
The Machar Stones
The Machar stones (far left of the map) are in a Forestry Commission plantation, just west of the Carron Valley Reservoir. Alas, it proved impossible to get very far into the Forestry Commission territory from the B818 which skirts the northern edge of the reservoir. The western edge, at Todholes, was completely closed off. The eastern entrance, which looked more promising at first, was also closed off before you got much further.
There is an educational medieval village at the eastern end of the reservoir, and it has some mock standing stones.
They wobble when you touch them; made of fibre-glass (at best). So that was that.
The Broadgate Stone
This was the only one of the three that I was actually able to reach: conveniently beside the A891, just east of Strathblane. Some doubt has been expressed about whether it’s a genuine megalith, or possibly commemorating a 16th century murder. I thought it was nicely shaped to mimic the outline of the Dunglass volcanic plug across the road.
And the view in the other directions was good too.
But it’s actually rather small, maybe 1 metre 20 in height? All these pictures were taken crouching in the wet grass.
The Dumgoyach Stones
This looked promising, though it was a bit of a walk; I parked in a layby beside Dumgoyach farmhouse, and walked in a light drizzle along the West Highland Way (marked by the green diamonds on the map), passing many campers and a few non-campers who were out taking the weekend air, around the hill of Dumgoyach, which is really striking.
I hoped to find the row of half a dozen megaliths on the next rise. One of them was at least visible from the path, so I know that they exist.
But there was a small river and a large fence between me and the hilltop, and I realised that to get over to the stones I would really need to have had much better boots, or to be twenty years younger, or both. So I gave up and went back to the car.
An additional deterrent was provided by scary notices about the local wildlife.
At Edinburgh airport on the way home, I bought two venison haggis, which seemed like fine revenge (and was also not expensive).