DR. CHRISTOPHER BOWLES ON THE YARROW STONE

The Yarrow Stone

I wrote to Scottish Borders Archaeology for information on the Yarrow Stone and received the following wonderful response from Dr. Christopher Bowles.  As my readers my know by now, I have identified the Liberalis of this stone with Senyllt father of Neithon/Nethawc father of Uther.

I'm currently corresponding with Dr. Bowles on the location and extent of Rheged.  He has recently, based upon excavation work, offered Trusty's Hill in ancient Novantae territory as the capital of Rheged.  I had previously shown that Rheged is semantically related to the name of the river Annan, and that the references to Mabon and Modron in connection with Urien of Rheged's family again points to Annandale, in and near where we find the Mabon cult center and place-names.  It may be that are respective discoveries complement each other, as the Annavionenses of Annandale seem to have been a sub-group of the larger Novantae tribe.  I will post any interesting conclusions we reach during our discussion of this kingdom.   

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Many thanks for getting in touch regarding the Yarrow Stone. Your e-mail certainly highlights one of the many unanswered questions about the early historic period in the area. You’re correct in saying that there are no major settlements in the vicinity of Annan Street. This begs quite a few compelling questions about the nature of the site, its status in the early medieval and how the sons of Liberalus came to be buried there in the first place.

The nearest settlements of possible early historic date (bearing in mind that precious few of our hillforts or other sites have been excavated) are in the Tweed Valley, with a scattering of other possible candidates in the Ettrick and Ale Water valleys. That said, there was an ogham inscribed stone found near Selkirk, itself an oddity as an outlier, and there is a large complex that is thought to be Anglian at Philiphaugh which is in the valley to the west of Selkirk. The Philiphaugh settlement saw some small excavation, but this located later medieval buildings. There’s supposedly a cemetery and a number of Roman period finds have come from the site. But none of this conclusively says the settlement would be contemporary with the broadly 5th-6th century AD date of the Yarrow Stone.

We did have all the fields around the Yarrow Stone undergo geophysics survey which was largely inconclusive, although there are hints of possible circular structures further to the east near the cottage called Warrior’s Rest. Just next to Warrior’s Rest cottage is another standing stone thought to be Neolithic/Bronze Age. The name Warrior’s Rest supposedly links to the burial of a warrior having been found with weaponry nearby. This could be Bronze or Iron Age in date, but no archaeological record was made of the discovery. Another standing stone sits in the Glebe field to the west of Warrior’s Rest and is, again, ostensibly prehistoric.

The discovery of the Yarrow Stone was recounted in the 2nd Statistical Account of Scotland (I believe) and it seems clear that the stone formed a cap to a burial which may still exist. The inscription was seemingly face down. This suggests the stone was either never meant to be seen in the landscape OR that it was taken down and re-used in burial at a later date. But I have no doubt that the stone was originally one of the prehistoric standing stones in the valley. Where it was placed in relation to the other two is unknown, but its current location is a Victorian decision taken when it was found.

So, what is it? My ‘feeling’ is that Liberalus’ family were expressing profound and complex meaning when they carved the stone. As a re-used standing stone in a valley with others suggests that the stone complex retained (or was re-inscribed) a meaning into the early medieval period. Who knows what the meaning was – ancestral, spiritual, or a combination? Another possibility, and similar to what is thought about Pictish stones, is that it was a boundary marker for some polity. If this is the case then based on evidence it’s likely that the people who carved the stone came from the Selkirk area, rather than from further up the Yarrow valley. It could be that the standing stones always formed a traditional boundary between the Ettrick/Tweed and the Yarrow/Ettrick Forest. The burial and stone is thought to be Christian because of the name Liberalus, use of Latin and the phrase ‘hic iacet’ (here lies). But this is by no means certain as there’s no overt Christian symbolism in the stone, its placement or its location. The only thing that’s reasonably clear is that the stone, meant to be seen or not, was very special.

Dr. Christopher Bowles
BA, Msc, PhD, MCIfA, FSA(Scot)
Archaeology Officer
Regulatory Services
Scottish Borders Council

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For more on the ancient cemetery on Annan Street Moor, see https://canmore.org.uk/site/53056/annan-street, https://canmore.org.uk/site/53078/whitefield-yarrow-stone, https://canmore.org.uk/site/53061/the-glebe-stone-whitefield and https://canmore.org.uk/site/53054/warriors-rest.

According to https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/108609.pdf:

"The name 'Annan Street' in the Yarrow valley, which is also accompanied by a road-side cemetery, may indicate the presence of another lateral route, paralleling those in the valleys of Tweed and Lyne, and to the south over Craik Moor to Raeburnfoot, connecting Trimontium to the head of the Annan."