Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
The Pipers, St Buryan
Cornwall
The Pipers near St Buryan are two exceptionally tall standing stones aligned toward the Merry Maidens, preserving a distinctive component of Penwit…
- Near St Buryan
- Easy path
By type
Carved stones & monuments of Britain & Ireland
Pictish symbol stones, cross-slabs, standing stones and rock carvings: the marks left on bare stone.
Page 1 of 1. Browsing 100 of 4619 — searching looks across all of them.
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Carved stone · Medieval
Bewcastle Cross
Cumbria
A near-complete Northumbrian cross carved with figures, runes and one of England's earliest sundials, still standing where it was first raised some…
- Near Bewcastle
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Glamis Manse Stone
Angus
One of the most crowded cross faces in Pictish sculpture: axe-fighters, a cauldron with legs dangling from it, and a centaur share the stone with a…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Aberlemno Sculptured Stones
Angus
The stones were carved during the height of Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900) power in A…
- Near Aberlemno
- 31 metres from car park
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
Achnabreck Cup and Ring Marks
Argyll and Bute
One of the densest and most elaborate concentrations of prehistoric (before written records reached Britain) cup and ring carvings anywhere in Scot…
- Near Lochgilphead
- 6 min walk from car park
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Brandsbutt Stone
Aberdeenshire
Brandsbutt preserves the symbols of the Picts, people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900, beside an Ogham inscription still…
- Near Inverurie
- 1 min walk from car park
- Easy path
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Sacred place · Prehistoric
Calanais Standing Stones
Outer Hebrides
Erected around 2750 BC, before Stonehenge, and laid out so that none of its three stone rows actually points at the centre of its own circle.
- Near Calanais
- 107 metres from car park
- Easy path
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Sacred place · Prehistoric
Croft Moraig Stone Circle
Perth and Kinross
Croft Moraig is a complex multi-phase monument. Excavation in 1965 revealed three phases of construction: first a horseshoe of fourteen timber post…
- Near Kenmore
- 3.1 km from car park
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
Hill o' Many Stanes
Highland
Alexander Thom argued these modest stones once tracked the moon's 18.6-year cycle: a claim no other Caithness stone row has earned.
- Near Lybster
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
Hownam Rings
Scottish Borders
C. M. Piggott's 1948 excavation at Hownam Rings became a landmark in the archaeology of northern Britain. It produced the 'Hownam model' (or 'Howna…
- Near Hownam
- 1.2 km from car park
- Some walking
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Carved stone · Medieval
Jedburgh Abbey
Scottish Borders
In 1118, before his accession to the Scottish throne, Prince David established a foundation of Augustinian canons at Jedburgh. It rose from priory:…
- Near Jedburgh
- 1 min walk from car park
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Sacred place · Prehistoric
Laggangairn Standing Stones
Dumfries and Galloway
Laggangairn’s stones link a setting from before written records reached Britain to early Christian crosses and a medieval Whithorn pilgrimage route…
- Near Newton Stewart
- 164 min walk from car park
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Picardy Symbol Stone
Aberdeenshire
A double-disc, a serpent and a mirror cut into whinstone around AD 600: three of the clearest Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eas…
- Near Insch
- Easy path
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Sacred place · Prehistoric
Ring of Brodgar
Orkney Islands
The Ring of Brodgar is a stone circle on the narrow isthmus between the Lochs of Stenness and Harray on Mainland, Orkney.
- Near Stenness
- 5 min walk from car park
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Ruthwell Cross
Dumfries and Galloway
The Ruthwell Cross is a stone Anglo-Saxon cross probably dating from the 8th century, when Ruthwell: now in Scotland: was part of the Anglo-Saxon K…
- Near Ruthwell
- Easy path
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Sacred place · Prehistoric
Stones of Stenness Circle and Henge
Orkney Islands
An ancient monument five miles north-east of Stromness that may be the oldest circular enclosure in the British Isles.
- Near Stenness
- 2 min walk from car park
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
Tappoch Broch
Falkirk
Tappoch Broch is a scheduled stone tower dating from from about 800 BC until the Romans came, whose surviving chamber, staircase and recent conserv…
- Near Torwood
- 20 min walk from car park
- Some walking
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
White Caterthun
Angus
The neighbouring Brown Caterthun was repeatedly altered during the latter half of the first millennium BC; White Caterthun preserves the contrastin…
- Near Brechin
- 15 min walk from car park
- Some walking
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Abdie stone
Fife
The Abdie Stone is a rare Class I Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900) monument in Fife who…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Medieval
Andle Stone
Derbyshire
A prehistoric (predating the written record in Britain) boulder scored with cup-and-ring carvings was later turned into a private war memorial, its…
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Carved stone · Medieval
Ardboe High Cross
County Tyrone
At 5.6 metres, Ardboe High Cross is Northern Ireland’s tallest and most complete original high cross; its twenty-two biblical panels preserve the o…
- Near Cookstown
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Ardjachie Stone
Highland
A single red sandstone boulder carries two carving traditions centuries apart: Bronze Age (roughly 2500–800 BC) cup-and-ring marks beneath a Pictis…
- Near Tain
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Ardlair Stone
Aberdeenshire
Carved with the Pictish beast, a tuning fork and a mirror, the stone ties this quiet Aberdeenshire field into the still-unresolved symbol tradition…
- Near Kennethmont
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Balluderon Stone
Angus
Only the lower half of this Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900) cross slab survives, yet l…
- Near Dundee
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Medieval
Bewell's Cross
Bristol
A boundary cross that doubled as Bristol's place of execution for centuries, where the condemned said a final prayer before being hanged on the hil…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Birnie Symbol Stone
Moray
The Birnie Symbol Stone preserves a compact seventh-century Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to…
- Near Elgin
- Easy path
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Sacred place · Roman
Blue Man-i'-th'-Moss
North Yorkshire
A single weathered stone on open moorland still carries a painted name, a Victorian carving, and a boundary role that has outlived every explanatio…
- Rough ground
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Bowstones
Cheshire
A round cross-section and an unusual pairing set these two Anglian shafts apart from almost every other stone cross of their age in England.
- Near Disley
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Bullion Stone
City of Edinburgh
The only Pictish carving to show a man drinking: a bald, bearded rider on a tired horse, lifting a horn that ends in a startled bird's head, cut ju…
- Near Edinburgh
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Cairnton stone
Aberdeenshire
Found in a field-clearance heap in 2001, its incised crescent-and-V-rod and triple disc symbols mark a seventh-century Pictish (of the Picts, the p…
- Near Newmachar
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Camus Cross
Angus
One of only two intact freestanding crosses surviving in eastern Scotland, its carving points to Irish monastic influence rather than the Viking le…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Medieval
Chester High Cross
Cheshire
A cross smashed by Parliamentarian soldiers in the Civil War, its scattered pieces quietly preserved for three centuries before being reassembled a…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Clach a' Charridh
Highland
A carved cross faces the sea while Pictish beasts and a hunting scene face the land on the reverse: a single stone holding two entirely different v…
- Near Inverness
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Clach a' Mheirlich
Highland
A single monolith carries two separate ages of use: raised in the Bronze Age (roughly 2500–800 BC), then marked centuries later with Pictish (of th…
- Near Rosskeen
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Clach an Tiompain
Highland
A carved eagle on a Pictish stone became, centuries later, the marker for a clan battle and the trigger for a seer's flood prophecy.
- Near Inverness
- Some walking
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Clach Biorach
Highland
A Bronze Age pillar over three metres tall was reused two thousand years later as a canvas for Pictish carving: a salmon, a double-disc and a Z-rod…
- Near Edderton
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
Culbone Stone
Somerset
An early medieval cross-marked stone found lying flat in wartime and stood up again: with one arm of its cross running outside the circle.
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Medieval
Dacre's Cross
North Yorkshire
Dacre’s Cross preserves a fifteenth-century object whose contested history keeps the Battle of Towton, chapel, boundary and memorial traditions in…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Dandaleith stone
Moray
A Pictish symbol stone whose carver broke with convention, spreading incised emblems across two adjacent granite faces: an arrangement thought to b…
- Near Elgin
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
Devil's Arrows
North Yorkshire
The Devil’s Arrows are among Britain’s tallest standing stones and an exceptional lowland Neolithic (the first farming period in Britain, roughly 4…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Drosten Stone
Angus
One of the few Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900) stones datable to a precise reign, its…
- Near St Vigeans
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Dunnicaer
Aberdeenshire
Radiocarbon-dated rampart (the raised bank thrown up around a fortified enclosure) timbers make this eroding sea stack the earliest known Pictish (…
- Rough ground
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Dunnichen Stone
Angus
Its carved flower motif is rare among Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900) symbol stones, w…
- Near Forfar
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Dupplin Cross
Perth and Kinross
A Pictish high cross carrying the name of a king who reigned around AD 800: the fixed point from which the rest of Pictish sculpture is dated.
- Near Dunning
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Easby Cross
North Yorkshire
Carved from sandstone hauled some 60 miles from quarries near Whitby, the cross links a remote Yorkshire churchyard to the court art of Charlemagne…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Eassie Stone
Angus
Carved on both faces with warriors, hunters, angels and a figure entangled with severed heads, it survived only because Georgian antiquarians pulle…
- Near Eassie
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Edderton Cross Slab
Highland
One slab, two scenes: a plain ringed cross on one face, three processing horsemen beneath a cross on the other, recently raised to reveal riders bu…
- Near Edderton
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Elgin Pillar
Moray
A tall granite Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900) stone found buried beneath Elgin's old…
- Near Elgin
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Fordoun Stone
Aberdeenshire
For generations the stone served as ordinary paving in the church floor, its carved face walked over underfoot before being rediscovered and stood…
- Near Auchenblae
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Gairloch Stone
Highland
A carved salmon and the broken remains of a bird - rare survivors of a Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from abou…
- Near Gairloch
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Gosforth Cross
Cumbria
A single carved stone shows a Christian crucifixion and Norse gods sharing the same four faces, caught mid-way between two belief systems rather th…
- Near Gosforth
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Halton Cross
Lancashire
A dismantled Anglo-Saxon cross reused as a sundial for two centuries, its surviving shaft carries what one archaeologist called the clearest carved…
- Near Lancaster
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Hilton of Cadboll Stone
Highland
Broken by a storm, stripped for a memorial, and split between two museums and a modern replica, this Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern…
- Near Hilton of Cadboll
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Hunter's Hill Stone
Angus
Its rear face still carries an older set of incised symbols beneath a later relief-carved cross: one of only two stones nearby known to have been r…
- Near Glamis
- Some walking
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Irton Cross
Cumbria
Carved in the early ninth century, it stands stylistically between the Bewcastle and Gosforth crosses, though its own runic inscription has never b…
- Near Irton
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Medieval
Kilberry Sculptured Stones
Argyll and Bute
The Kilberry Sculptured Stones preserve medieval cross-slabs and grave markers from a parish church destroyed in the 17th century, keeping a disper…
- Near Kilberry
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Kirriemuir sculptured stones
Angus
The stones' Pictish symbols were carved as the symbol tradition itself was dying out: among the last such carvings made anywhere before it vanished…
- Near Kirriemuir
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Lang Stane of Auquhollie
Aberdeenshire
Carved in Ogam: an alphabet devised for Irish, not Pictish, speech: the stone has anchored more than a century of scholarly argument over how far I…
- Near Stonehaven
- Some walking
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Carved stone · Medieval
Lilla Cross
North Yorkshire
A stone cross on a windswept moorland burial mound marks where four ancient parishes meet, a boundary charter first named it in 1109, and it still…
- Rough ground
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Carved stone · Medieval
Mab's Cross
Greater Manchester
Mab’s Cross is a surviving medieval Wigan waymarker whose later association with Lady Mabel Bradshaigh shows how local legend can attach to a real…
- Near Wigan
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Maiden Stone
Aberdeenshire
A slab of red granite standing some three metres high, carved on every face with Christian crosses, Pictish beasts and a legend of the Devil's forf…
- Near Inverurie
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Meigle Sculptured Stone Museum
Perth and Kinross
Twenty-seven Pictish stones pulled from the ruins of a church that burned in 1869, now in the village schoolhouse: including one carved by the Pict…
- Near Meigle
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Nigg Stone
Highland
A shattered, staple-mended slab carries the oldest known depiction of a European triangular harp alongside carving so fine it is thought to share c…
- Near Nigg
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Papil Stone
Shetland Islands
Carved on a single face of stone left otherwise plain, the Papil Stone rises to a large, long-stemmed cross shaped like a fan, its shaft crowded be…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Portmahomack sculpture fragments
Highland
Roughly 200 carved stone fragments, most no bigger than a handspan, add up to one of the largest collections of Pictish (of the Picts, the people o…
- Near Portmahomack
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Medieval
Puleston Cross
Shropshire
Puleston Cross is a medieval memorial and market monument whose relocation, disputed identity and archaeological surroundings preserve Newport’s ch…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Medieval
Riasg Buidhe Cross
Argyll and Bute
Its carver rendered Christ with spiral arms and a fishtail body, an image found nowhere else among Scotland's early medieval (roughly AD 400–1100,…
- Near Scalasaig
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Rodney's Stone
Moray
Its Ogham inscription is the longest to survive from Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900) S…
- Near Forres
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Rosemarkie sculpture fragments
Highland
Fourteen carved fragments, including a slab showing Daniel in the lion's den, reveal a Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Sc…
- Near Rosemarkie
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Rosemarkie Stone
Highland
Broken in two and hidden for centuries under a church floor, this cross-slab carries the only Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eas…
- Near Rosemarkie
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
St Vigeans Sculptured Stones Museum
Angus
Two plain sandstone cottages beside an Angus church hold 38 carved Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD…
- Near St Vigeans
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Stapleford Cross
Nottinghamshire
Pevsner called it by far the most important pre-Conquest monument in Nottinghamshire. Its shaft is round below and square above.
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Strathmartine Castle Stone
Angus
Carved with the Pictish beast and the crescent and V-rod, the stone was recycled as ordinary wall-stone for generations before Dundee Museums rescu…
- Near Dundee
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Sueno's Stone
Moray
At 6.5 metres tall it is the largest surviving Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900) cross-s…
- Near Elgin
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
The Pipers
Cornwall
The Pipers near Minions are a pair of standing stones closely associated with the Hurlers circles, anchoring a Bodmin Moor ceremonial complex along…
- Near Penzance
- Some walking
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Carved stone · Iron Age
Three Holes Cross
Cornwall
Three Holes Cross is a scheduled medieval wayside cross whose unusual pierced wheelhead gives its name to a long-standing road junction east of Wad…
- Near Penzance
- Easy path
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Sacred place · Prehistoric
Tolvan holed stone
Cornwall
Cornwall's largest holed stone, a Neolithic (the late Stone Age, roughly 4000–2500 BC in Britain) monument altered by nineteenth-century removal bu…
- Near Penzance
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Medieval
Tottenham High Cross
Greater London
Tottenham High Cross marks the historic centre of Tottenham village on the line of Ermine Street, replacing a medieval wayside cross and preserving…
- Near Tottenham
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Medieval
Whitby Abbey Cross
North Yorkshire
A fluted medieval shaft still standing on Whitby's Abbey (a monastery headed by an abbot) Plain, possibly the very 'great cross' named in the town'…
- Some walking
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Wolverhampton Pillar
West Midlands
Seven bands of vine scroll, animal and acanthus carving make this the only known English cross shaft worked in a rare southern continental Baroque…
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Woodwrae Stone
City of Edinburgh
The Woodwrae Stone is a richly carved Class II Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900) cross-s…
- Near Edinburgh
- Easy path
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More places
Briefer entries: recorded and worth knowing, with fuller pages to come.
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Sacred place · Medieval
Aghanaglack
County Fermanagh
Aghanaglack concentrates thousands of years of archaeology in one Boho townland: a late Stone Age burial monument, medieval cross, underground cave…
- Near Enniskillen
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Broomend of Crichie stone
Aberdeenshire
A Pictish symbol stone: the Picts held northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900: carved with the enigmatic 'beast' and crescent-and-V…
- Near Port Elphinstone
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Iron Age
Carminow Cross
Cornwall
Carminow’s pierced-wheel head, separate shaft and Victorian base make it a distinctive Cornish wayside cross whose repeated moves reveal changing t…
- Near Penzance
- Easy path
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Sacred place · Prehistoric
Coffin Stone
Kent
The Coffin Stone is a striking Medway megalith whose possible long barrow, a prehistoric burial mound, origin remains unresolved after excavation s…
- Near Aylesford
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Crowle Stone
Lincolnshire
Crowle Stone is a richly carved Anglo-Saxon cross shaft with a runic inscription, preserved through reuse in the Norman rebuilding of St Oswald’s C…
- Near Crowle
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Dingwall Stone
Highland
A Pictish (of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300 to 900) symbol stone carved on both faces, possibly recut fr…
- Near Dingwall
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Dyce Symbol Stones
Aberdeen City
A rare survival: an incised pagan-era stone and a Christian cross-slab stand side by side under one roof, one still carrying an ogham inscription n…
- Near Dyce
- 1 min walk from car park
- Easy path
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Sacred place · Prehistoric
Giant's Grave, Cumbria
Cumbria
Two standing stones at the foot of Black Combe carry rare prehistoric (before any written account of Britain existed) cup and ring carvings, one st…
- Near Penrith
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Invereen Stone
Highland
Invereen’s accidental discovery saved a precisely carved Pictish stone: of the Picts, the people of northern and eastern Scotland from about AD 300…
- Near Aviemore
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Kilmodan Carved Stones
Argyll and Bute
A rare assembly of medieval West Highland grave slabs kept together under one roof, in the direct care of Historic Environment Scotland, rather tha…
- Near Clachan of Glendaruel
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Medieval
King Doniert's Stone
Cornwall
King Doniert's Stone is a rare inscribed Cornish cross fragment whose ninth-century text may commemorate the documented King Dungarth, linking loca…
- Near Penzance
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
Leper Stone
Essex
The Leper Stone is a large sarsen near Newport whose association with a medieval leper hospital and possible prehistoric (predating the written rec…
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Lunnasting stone
Shetland Islands
The Lunnasting stone is a slab of slate, 44 inches (1.1 m) long, about 13 inches (0.33 m) wide and just an inch (2.5 cm) thick, carrying an ogham i…
- Easy path
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Sacred place · Prehistoric
Moyadam
County Antrim
Moyadam joins a medievally attested place-name, Maigh Doinn or “Donn’s plain”, with a surviving standing stone from before written records reached…
- Near Antrim
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
Oughtboy
County Tyrone
Oughtboy turns an Irish hill-name and scheduled stone alignments into a single landscape story, where language, terrain and protected archaeology r…
- Near Omagh
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
Poolewe Stone
Highland
A carved crescent, v-rod and a pair of spirals fused into a pelta survive on a single stone that sat unknown until 1992: a Pictish (of the Picts, t…
- Near Poolewe
- Easy path
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
St Breock Downs Monolith
Cornwall
St Breock Downs Monolith is Cornwall's largest prehistoric menhir: a standing stone from before any written account of Britain existed: a re-erecte…
- Some walking
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Carved stone · Pictish & early medieval
St Orland's Stone
Angus
St Orland’s in-situ cross-slab joins a richly interlaced Christian cross to symbols, hunters, a boat and beasts, preserving a remarkably complex pr…
- Near Glamis
- Some walking
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Carved stone · Prehistoric
Stalldown Barrow
Devon
Stalldown Barrow is a Devon megalithic site whose long stone row contributes to the wider prehistoric (predating the written record in Britain) mon…
- Near Harford
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