Dumtradden Standing Stones

If you are in the Machars for a few days then Dumtradden Standing Stones and Torhouse Stone Circle are the areas pre-historic highlights, however looking at The Moden Antiquarian website (here) there are many more sites, sites with stanes marked with cup and ring marks. Indeed adjacent to this, 400 yards away are Dumtrodden Cup and Ring marked rocks.

The stones are easy to find on the B7085, head about two miles inland from Port William, park by the road and take a short walk up a track.

Originally there were four stones, now just three remain and one stands - approx 3 metres tall, the stones erection date up to 2000 BC.

The position of Dumtradden is windswept and open with views across the Machars and towards the Galloway Hills in the North East. And the stones, are set on a east/south-west alignment which may have been used to mark the position of the position of the midwinter sun and rising sun in summer.

Generally only the oldest stone circles/menhirs tend to be be the tallest or biggest and have associations with cup and ring marks (taking into account the nearby ring marked stones), and tend to have alignments with the Winter/Summer solstice. This is the case in Cumbria at Long Meg and Her Daughters stone circle, with 'Long Meg' a single tall stone with ring marks and positioned for the setting of the Winter solstice sun.

Many speculate about what these sites were for, but lets think about who? In the Machars, these sites exist because the area is so undeveloped, it is also great farm land, and is adjacent to other lands over the water, there must of been a movement of people through here over time bringing similar art like ring marks that can be found carved in rocks all the way to the Mediterranean.

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