in a yard in the shadow of the church
amidst bent monuments and faded death markers
and dead flowers
protrudes from the earth the last fragment of a
heathen temple
that once stood in this location
now sanctified now a sanctuary
but once an altar upon which offerings were made
of an unholy nature pagan
with liquids unknown returning to the earth
dripping splashing running
to be absorbed into good christian graves
corrupting bones
countless years later many moons
have passed since dark and mysterious
rites were practiced here in a
heathen temple
that stood in this location
now a sanctuary now sanctified
bible-proofed
but chalk dust was spilled here
by antiquarian Mann inquisitive man
sketched out on the north face of this stone stump
mapping out the occult
crossing the cracks transcending planes
imposing acute and right angles
making connections that ignore
the topography of the megalith
inscrutable washed off by rain never repeated
photographed greyscale black and white
the last flourishing of a
heathen temple
that stood in this location
of the dead
Notes
The standing stone in the churchyard of Strathblane Parish Church, Stirling, is of unknown date although there is no reason to doubt that it has ancient origins. Nothing is known about the stone at all, although it was recorded in nineteenth century maps in this location and was briefly mentioned by John G Smith in his 1886 book The Parish of Strathblane. The stone itself is no more than 1m in height, with five faces, and a relatively flat top.
At some point, the archaeologist and antiquarian Ludovic Mclellan Mann drew a grid on one face of the standing stone in what looks to be white chalk. The nature and meaning of this grid, consisting of connecting and overlapping lines and circles, remains unknown. Only one photograph records that this event ever took place.
Paul Bennett, on the Northern Antiquarian webpage for this standing stone, notes:
‘The fact that it stands by the church (rebuilt around 1803 out of its more ancient fabric) suggests that the site was a heathen temple or sacred site, redesignated by the invading christian priesthood’.
The truth of this may never be known.
Sources and acknowledgements: The grid-drawn-on-the-stone photograph is copyright HES and has Canmore image number SC01331278. It was brought to my attention by Katinka Dalglish who attributed the handiwork to Mann. Supplementary information, as is easily gathered from above, comes from Paul Bennett’s Northern Antiquarian page for this site: he always gets there before me!
the urban prehistorian 