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Memorial stone dating from the 17th Century. It is an upright, partly hewn stone surmounted by a ball which was erected at the time of the building of Castle Fraser (1617) to commemorate the architect/mason John Bell. A small scale excavation was undertaken by MAS in April 2009, commissioned by NTS. Observation in 2007-2008 had shown that there was considerable rabbit activity around the stone and a major consideration of the project was to identify the extent of the rabbit disturbance and to record any archaeological evidence prior to the stabilisation of the base of the stone. The watching brief failed to reveal any direct evidence to prove that the standing stone was prehistoric. However its proximity to the nearby stone circle remains a very strong argument for regarding it as a prehistoric standing stone. A single sherd of medieval/late medieval pottery suggests cultivation in the vicinity of the stone prior to the Improvement of the Estate. A furrow was noted which related to pre-Improvement cultivation of the ground beside the stone. The furrow avoids the stone, suggesting the stone was already in position in the medieval period. The excavation revealed nothing to suggest that the stone had been erected in 1617 and the best evidence for the date of its transformation into a memorial stone comes from the documentary evidence which appears to indicate that this probably occurred at the end of the 18th century or beginning of the 19th century.
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Historic Environment Records (HER)