stirling-1963-vol-1/05_153

Transcription

No. 126 -- ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS -- No. 127
For it is possible that what the excavators actually found
was merely the junction between a loop road, skirting
round the S. side of the fort, and the road that issued
from the S. gate. Loop roads were commonly employed
on the Antonine Wall to enable through traffic to avoid
passing through each of the forts; and at Castlecary such
a loop road may well have been required to make a wider
detour than usual owing to the morass that covered the S.
front of the fort.

1-inch O.S. map, Popular Edition, sheet 73
17 April 1956

126. Roman Temple, "Arthur's O'on", Stenhouse
(Site). This remarkable building (Fig. 48), which
survived until 1743, was situated on the N. side of the
road from Carron to Stenhousemuir, opposite the N.W.
corner of Carron Iron Works and just inside the grounds
of Stenhouse (No. 200). Its date and purpose have been
the object of much speculation in the past, and the
present account is a summary of a detailed study which
has recently been published by one of the Commission's
officers. ¹ The O'on was built of dressed freestone and in
appearance was shaped like a beehive, being circular on
plan with a domed roof: the internal diameter was
19 ft. 6 in. and the original height over 22 ft. The wall
was about 4 ft. thick at the base but narrowed as it rose,
and the dome was constructed of overlapping horizontal
courses with their faces dressed to the proper curve. An
opening in the centre of the vault, which measured 11 ft.
6 in. across by the 18th century, was probably not an
original feature, but may have been caused initially by
a finial breaking off, and subsequently enlarged by the
collapse or removal of some of the stones. The doorway,
a round-arched opening measuring about 9 ft. in height
and 5 ft. in width, was situated in the E. side, and
immediately above it there was a nearly square window.
Round the interior of the building there were two string-
courses at distances of 4 ft. and 6 ft. respectively above
the paved stone floor, and in several places, notably over
the door, there may have been much weathered carvings
in which eagles and the goddess Victory are said to have
been represented.
Although the design of the dome has no precise
parallels in Roman architecture, the identification of the
O'on as a Roman temple or shrine can hardly be doubted
in view of its isolated position 2 miles from the nearest
Roman fort or road, the fact that it faced E. in accordance
with ritual practice, and the discovery in a chink of the
masonry of a brass finger which had presumably been
torn from a cult statue. It may be thought, however, that
a structure of this kind, which bears the unmistakable
stamp of legionary workmanship, is too elaborate for a
purely local or private sanctuary; and since it appears to
have been deliberately sited to be visible from the
Antonine Wall, it seems possible that the O'on was
primarily a triumphal monument, or trompaeum, erected
to commemorate a victory - and presumably the victory
that was crowned by the construction of the new frontier
line between the Forth and Clyde. Such at least is
the traditional explanation recorded in a gloss in the
Historia Brittonum, ² and it is worth recalling that on
Hadrian's Wall a war-memorial was also apparently set
up a short distance in advance of the barrier. ³+

879827 -- NS 88 SE -- 19 August 1958

ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS

127. Old Church and Graveyard, Logie. Of the old
parish church only a fragment now remains (Pl, 13 A).
It stands on the right bank of the Logie Burn, close to
the point where this must have been crossed by the old
road described under No. 509 and some 350 yds. NW.
of its successor (No. 128). All that survives is a W. gable,
24 ft. 6 in. wide externally, and the W. part of the S. wall,
extending to a length of 30 ft. 6 in.; the original length
of the building seems to have been about 56 ft., and
it had a N. aisle. ⁴ The surviving part of the S. wall
contains, about its centre, a square-headed door with a
back-set and widely chamfered architrave, and above this
a small round-headed window divided by a mullion into
two lancet-shaped lights with glazing-grooves. To the
E. there is a large round-headed window showing two
similar lights but subdivided by a transom; the lower
part of the E. light has been checked and hinged exter-
nally for a shutter. West of the door there is a small
window, evidently not original as it is formed of hetero-
geneous materials including, as the window-sill, a stone
bearing the date 1598 in raised letters on a sunk panel;
this was found in 1874 "in the ruins near the old Session
House, at the east end of the church", ⁵ and had no doubt
come from an earlier church. Close to the gable, and at
an upper level, there is a gallery doorway with a back-set
architrave, and checks for an external door; it must have
been reached by an outside stair, now removed. On the
SW. angle of the building there is a tabular sundial,
bearing the date 1684, very probably the date of the
building. The W. gable has plain skews and, on the S.,
a rolled skewput; it is topped by a square bell-cote with
Classical pillars and a pyramidal top. A square-headed
door, checked and hinged externally, has been broken
through the centre of the gable, and high up in it there
is a small round-headed window similar to the one in the
S. wall. Reset above the door there is a panel with a

1 Arch. F., cxv, 99 ff.
2 The passage runs as follows. Carutius postea imperator
reedificavit et VII castellis munivit inter utraque ostia; domumque
rotundam politis lapidibus super ripam fluminis Carun, quod a
suo nomine nomen accepit, fornicem triumphalem in victoriae
memoriam erigens construxit (See. F. Lot. Nennius et l'Historia
Brittonum, (Paris 1934) 165, note 5). The ascription of the
monument to Carausius is not to be taken seriously.
3 Arch. Ael., 4th series, xxi, 93-120.
4 Fergusson, R Menzies (Logie, A Parish History, i, 205 n),
gives the internal dimensions as approximately 56 ft. by 21 ft.
and states that the aisle was 19 ft. square.
5 Ibid., 11, n. 3.

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