| Using
Maps to find Ancient Stones
One of the most useful information sources available to
the Stone Hunter is the maps produced by the British
Ordnance Survey. Of the many different series available, two
are the most useful, the 1:50,000 Landranger Series and the
1:25,000 Explorer Series.
Of the two, the Landranger is best used for navigation as
they give a much better view of a wider area than the
Explorer maps. While they do show some of the more well
known sites, detail is limited and many known stones are not
listed. However, they are great for route planning but
limited for locating ancient stones. The Explorer Series
offers far greater detail, even down to field boundary
level, and many more stones are noted making then ideal for
pin-pointing the positions of potential ancient stones.
The method I've employed successfully for many years when
starting to investigate a new area is to slowly scan over
the map, looking very carefully at each grid in turn, while
looking for anything that might indicate a potential site to
visit. Sites that are recognised as prehistoric - or at
least recognised as having some antiquity - are usually
shown in Italics but not all stones are marked in this way.
For example, Kings Chair in East Lothian is simply marked in
a standard font but a site visit to the location revealed an
interesting chair-shaped stone that was worth recording in
the database. Keep an eye open for similar location and
place names, they may well be worth checking out.
Once you have located at sites, carefully circle it in
pencil - not pen because you cannot easily remove pen from
the map. Doing this in each instance will soon show up
clusters of sites in local areas and makes planning your
trips so much easier. Once you have visited a site, I simply
use a pencil tick to indicate that the site has been
recorded.
As well as the two map series above, is can be well worth
browsing some of the smaller scale and usually older,
Ordnance Survey maps as well. On more than one instance I've
checked out a known location on an old map only to find
additional stones shown. While they may not still exist in
reality, they could actually be lost stones waiting to be
re-discovered. Many of the larger libraries hold stocks of
older large scale maps and can often be used by prior
arrangement. The online Ordnance Survey Get-a-Map facility
also has a link to large scale old maps.
Using maps to locate ancient stones must be done with a
degree of caution, for a number of reasons. Just because a
stone is marked on the map, does not mean that it still
exists. Conversely, you may also find a stone marked on one
ma but not on others and the only way to tell if it still
exists is to actually get on the ground as see for yourself.
You may also find that the surrounding habitat is different
to that shown on the older map with coniferous plantations
being the most common change. It is also important to
realise that because a stone exists does not means to can
gain access to it. A good example of this is the Cat Stone
at Edinburgh Airport, which is located between the main
runway and the airport boundary. In these days of increased
security access may not be easy to obtain.
When you have located a site, I would always advise
looking at the immediate area around the site. This can
often give you some clue to the origin of the stone or
stones or meaning to its continued existence. Such items of
river crossings, ancient boundaries and other types of
prehistoric structures are important clues to note. Finally,
take your map with you and don't leave it at home. More than
once I've taken what I thought was enough other information
- print outs, grid ref and so on - to find the stone only to
realise that the OS map would have been useful as well.
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