Stones in a Haystack
Because Emily was fed up of all my tabs
Ever since I lifted my first Scottish Lifting Stone in 2017 I've been totally hooked. I spend far too much time thinking of stones, lying in bed thinking of which I'd like to lift next, or how I could have tackled a stone better. Far too much time spent reading the stories of these stones, voraciously consuming the history of these lumps of granite (or other stone!) and adding them to my list of places to visit.
Recently I came across the unfinished "Twixt the Stone and Turf" (available to read here), by the late Peter Martin - the authority on Scottish Stones. The first half is all that is currently available to read and is well worth a read if this is your thing or you just want to know more about why us crazies go standing around in muddy Scottish fields to pick up chunks of rock. The second half was to be about specific stones, their history and where to find them - Chapter 8 has been released online as a completed chapter and is a great read. The contents page shows what would have been covered in part two, and upon recently re-reading it, I noticed that many of the stones listed under the "Islands" aren't ones I've seen people go lift, talk about or even heard of. A few google searches for some of them revealed naught.
Recently I came across the unfinished "Twixt the Stone and Turf" (available to read here), by the late Peter Martin - the authority on Scottish Stones. The first half is all that is currently available to read and is well worth a read if this is your thing or you just want to know more about why us crazies go standing around in muddy Scottish fields to pick up chunks of rock. The second half was to be about specific stones, their history and where to find them - Chapter 8 has been released online as a completed chapter and is a great read. The contents page shows what would have been covered in part two, and upon recently re-reading it, I noticed that many of the stones listed under the "Islands" aren't ones I've seen people go lift, talk about or even heard of. A few google searches for some of them revealed naught.
I love the thrill of finding a stone to lift, following the often obscure directions written online - left after the big Yew tree, follow the stone wall down to a right turn or opposite the small wood (which on one particularly occasion was at present just stumps...), it adds a treasure hunt aspect to the adventure. For many of the popular stones there's GPS co-ordinates if you're short on time or really stuck! So the idea of trying to find stones that no-one in the stone lifting community knows about, or the location of was a particularly attractive idea to me. To reconnect with old stones that have possibly not had lifts in modern times, to bring them back into the fold of stones that still challenge men and women today would be an amazing adventure to undertake.
So began the task. The plan for now is to try find locations of all the stones Peter Martin wrote about, or to list them as lost via research/physical efforts. I plan on making my first trip out later in the year to put some research into practice. And in the meantime, I've got about 90 tabs open plus everything I've saved and Emily wants me to close some! So this seemed like a good place to store information, and if anyone else is interested in the history and searching, be it observers or fellow stone-crazies, then I'd love the chance to share.
So began the task. The plan for now is to try find locations of all the stones Peter Martin wrote about, or to list them as lost via research/physical efforts. I plan on making my first trip out later in the year to put some research into practice. And in the meantime, I've got about 90 tabs open plus everything I've saved and Emily wants me to close some! So this seemed like a good place to store information, and if anyone else is interested in the history and searching, be it observers or fellow stone-crazies, then I'd love the chance to share.
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