Literally just down the road at Glendaruel, there's a sign to St Modan's well so we thought we'd check it out on one of the days in our late January trip. Overcast but dry meant we were soon just walking with a thin fleece and no coat.
Setting off from Glendaruel, leaving the car at the poly tunnels we'd seen way back in September, we followed the sign: 1m - along the glen and river (ie. flat) before the path took us off and up the steep hillside.
Well inevitably, the 1 mile marker was a bit optimistic, and with a few hundred feet of climb it took us probably the best part of an hour to get to the well (at the top of the walk) and the Lephinkill chambered cairn - but it was a lovely walk with superb views.
St Modan's well is apparently a holy well (more info below if you're interested) and the supposed original well is ringed by stones. The water then trickles down to another pool, over which someone has positioned a cheap wooden garden well. It looks incongruous and brings a comedy element to something that could and should feel quite spiritual.
The walk took us back down the hillside into the Stronafian community forest which we'd like to understand better (can you volunteer to help maintain the paths etc?), Auchategan settlement remains and some ancient carvings on a stone known as a cup and ring stone - this part of Argyll has literally 1000s of these neolithic things!
We were thrilled to enjoy the walk in solitude, the fresh air, the fresh mountain water and the amazing history right on our doorstep.
Here is some more information about the amazing history, taken from the Stronafian Community Forest website:
In the mid 1800s, an ordnance survey map shows a small, Holy Well on the hillside above St Modan’s Church, Kilmodan in Glendaruel. The well, named St Modan’s Well, after the 6th century saint who was reputed to be the son of an Irish Chieftan. Modan became a monk and eventually built a chapel at Dryburgh, in 522AD which he used as a base for several years while he travelled the country. This chapel was later to become the site of a larger monastery, Dryburgh Abbey. Modan worked in the Stirling, Falkirk areas and along the Forth until he was elected Abbot, a post he is said to have accepted ‘reluctantly’. After a number of years as Abbot, Modan resigned and became a hermit, settling quietly in the Dumbarton area where he eventually died. The Well was still accessible on the hillside in the early 1960s but by the 1970s, commercial forestry had covered the site and the well had disappeared from view and was unable to be located. It was rediscovered in 2015.
Remains of the Neolithic Lephinkill Chambered Cairn are situated in a clearing within a forestry plantation; and at a height of 140m. The cairn appears as an irregular heather-clad mound of stones measuring about 25m x 11m, and around 2m in height. It appears to have been disturbed over the millennia and stones have been moved to provide material for several sheep-shelters, one of which survives almost intact on the mound itself. Although carbon-dating has not been undertaken on site, Clyde-type chambered long cairns of this style are thought to have been common around 3000 BC. The burial chamber is at the north end of the cairn and is entered through a concave facade, now partly hidden by blocking material. The eastern portal stone measuring 1.0m by 0.25m, and typical of Clyde-type long cairns, still protrudes about 0.5m above the surface of the mound. A small semi-buried stone situated behind the eastern portal and set parallel to it, might indicate a second portal. An excavated hollow on the line of the continuation of the chamber suggests that it was originally between 3m and 4m long overall. No human remains or artefacts were found during archaeological visits in 1976 and 1984.
The settlement of Auchategan has been in use since Neolithic times. Detailed excavations, undertaken between 1967 and 1970, initially revealed three hut circles, possibly early shielings, with nothing to date them but half a quern (a simple hand mill). Beneath the huts was found a rectangular house and under this, the post holes of an earlier rectangular hut, which was built over the site of an early bloomery or smelting hearth. Underneath the floor of the rectangular house lay a small Bronze Age cist (pronounced kist) or burial chamber, containing fragments of burnt bone. Outside the area of the house and near to the edge of the settlement site was an unusual semi-circular cairn in which was found another Bronze Age cist. When this cairn and the other later buildings were removed, two Neolithic occupation levels were revealed. Each had post holes and hearths. Among the finds were many pottery fragments, a flint knife, a flint arrowhead and two polished stone axes. Material taken from the lowest Neolithic level gave a carbon-14 dating of 2300 BC +/- 110, whilst material taken from the rectangular hut gave a date of AD 660 +/- 100. All that remains at the settlement are the foundations of a stone-built rectangular house, measuring 5.0m x 2.4m. Elsewhere, however, the settlement was removed by the excavation 50 years ago, with all finds being handed to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland for cataloguing and safekeeping.
Archaeological analysis of a boulder in the lower reaches of the community forest, has found evidence of Neolithic rock carvings in the form of cup and ring marks. Such symbols are typical of the period between 4000 BC to 1800 BC, and are thought to be a form of abstract rock art, in that they are symbols as opposed to pictures. Special cameras were used to identify 10 cup engravings in total, with one surrounded by a complete ring, and another by a keyhole shaped ring. Such features would have been created using tools made of stronger rock, such as quartz, and by way of a pecking action. The true meaning of these symbols has been lost in the mists of time, but some believe they may have been used to share local information, or even be related to rituals.
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