Region : Strathclyde Home
District : Argyll & Bute Map
Town or village : Kilmartin List
Grid Reference : NR 826 978 Glossary
Period : 3rd-2nd millennium BC Bibliography
Temple Wood

STONE CIRCLE
Temple Wood image

 
This stone ring is ovoid in shape and measures 12m x 13m. There were originally 22 uprights, but some of them have been removed. The site was used for rituals and burials over many centuries.
At the centre of the ring there is a stone cist, measuring 1.4m x 0.8m. Several burials were found both in this cist, in a stone setting inside the ring and in two cists covered by small kerbed cairns outside it.
Two ring stones are decorated, one with concentric circles (now very faint) and the other with a double spiral spread across two of its faces. Two slabs, one at the north and one opposite at the south are chlorite schists, the other ones are of a different kind of stone.
An earlier stone ring, 10m x 10.5m in diameter, was discovered in 1979 a few metres to the north-east. It has been reconstructed with concrete markers to indicate the two main phases of activity, the earlier being a timber setting, which was subsequently replaced by upright stones.
The chambered cairn of Nether Largie South is 250m to the north-east and the standing stones of Nether Largie are some 300m to the south-east.
In care of Historic Scotland