Balfarg is a prehistoric monument complex in Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland. It is protected as a scheduled monument. [1] With the development of Glenrothes new town in the latter half of the 20th Century an adjacent residential area was developed around the complex carrying the same name.
The Balfarg henge, located at grid reference NO282031 , is part of a larger prehistoric ceremonial complex. It contains the remnants of a stone circle which has been partly reconstructed.
The Balfarg henge was excavated between 1977 and 1978 by Roger Mercer prior to the development of a new housing estate, work which established that the two extant standing stones were part of a circle that stood within the henge. The two surviving specimens lined the north-west oriented entrance to the henge. [2]
Within the 64.9 metres (213 ft) diameter henge were found broken Neolithic pottery, burnt wood and bone which had been dumped on the site prior to the erection of a 25 metres (82 ft) wide timber circle of 16 wooden posts. Two especially large portal timbers stood on the west side of the circle. It is likely that the henge was built after these phases of activity. Grooved ware pottery found in the postholes dates to around 2900 BC. Some of the vessels may have been used to hold black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) which is a poison but also a powerful hallucinogen. [3]
Five further concentric post rings had also been erected outside and inside the main wooden circle although these were made from narrower timbers and may have supported hurdling or a palisade.
Later during the site's use the timber circle was replaced by two concentric stone circles, again with an entrance to the west and some time after this the henge was constructed. Around 1900 BC a pit was dug in the centre of the stone circles and in it was placed the body of a young man along with a flint knife and a handled beaker.
Later excavation between 1983 and 1985 by Barclay and Russell-White demonstrated that there were scatters of earlier Neolithic pits round the Balfarg henge. These excavations also discovered a second henge, which surrounded a Neolithic timber mortuary enclosure. A second such timber structure lay just outside the henge, partly overlain by a complex of two burial cairns. [4]
Nearby is the Balbirnie Stone Circle, which is also part of the complex.
The Balfarg Henge now serves as a centre piece greenspace for the local area with modern housing developed in crescents around the monument. A modern residential area which was started in the late 1970s and was later expanded over subsequent decades now surrounding the henge. Former traditional steadings and farm buildings within the area have also since been converted into housing and now form part of the larger modern estate. The streets in the original parts of the estate developed by the former Glenrothes Development Corporation were named after lochs in Scotland, for instance Affric Road and Tummel Road.
The Gilvenbank Hotel, Bar and Restaurant (formerly Jaguars (1982 to 1988) and The Snooty Fox (1988 to 2006)) is also located in the area close to Gilvenbank Park. Located adjacent to the hotel is the Balfarg care home. In 1995 a tradition left Balfarg when the local fete moved from the henge to nearby Gilvenbank Park. The Coul burn flows southeast through Balfarg on to Balbirnie Park and then joins the River Leven further east near Windygates.
Buses run every twenty minutes to and from Balfarg and the Kingdom Shopping Centre in Glenrothes town centre. The area is in the catchment of Pitcoudie Primary and St Pauls Roman Catholic Primary schools. High Schools Glenwood and Glenrothes High and St Andrews RC in Kirkcaldy have students from the area.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones, held in place with mortise and tenon joints, a feature unique among contemporary monuments. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli.
The Ring of Brodgar is a Neolithic henge and stone circle about 6 miles north-east of Stromness on Mainland, the largest island in Orkney, Scotland. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney.
Woodhenge is a Neolithic Class II henge and timber circle monument within the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in Wiltshire, England. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of Stonehenge, in Durrington parish, just north of the town of Amesbury.
A henge loosely describes one of three related types of Neolithic earthwork. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ditches would have served defensive purposes poorly, henges are not considered to have been defensive constructions. The three henge types are as follows, with the figure in brackets being the approximate diameter of the central flat area:
Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in south-west England. One of the best-known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans.
Glenrothes is a town situated in the heart of Fife, in east-central Scotland. It had a population of 39,277 in the 2011 census, making it the third largest settlement in Fife and the 18th most populous locality in Scotland. Glenrothes is the administrative capital of Fife, containing the headquarters of both Fife Council and Police Scotland Fife Division and is a major service centre within the area.
A stone circle is a ring of megalithic standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Great Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built between 3300 to 2500 BC. The best known examples include those at the henge monument at Avebury, the Rollright Stones, Castlerigg, and elements within the ring of standing stones at Stonehenge. Scattered examples exist from other parts of Europe. Later, during the Iron Age, stone circles were built in southern Scandinavia.
Grooved ware is the name given to a pottery style of the British Neolithic. Its manufacturers are sometimes known as the Grooved ware people. Unlike the later Beaker ware, Grooved culture was not an import from the continent but seems to have developed in Orkney, early in the 3rd millennium BC, and was soon adopted in Great Britain and Ireland.
Durrington Walls is the site of a large Neolithic settlement and later henge enclosure located in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site in England. It lies 2 miles (3.2 km) north-east of Stonehenge in the parish of Durrington, just north of Amesbury in Wiltshire. The henge is the second-largest Late Neolithic palisaded enclosure known in the United Kingdom, after Hindwell in Wales.
The Sanctuary was a stone and timber circle near the village of Avebury in the south-western English county of Wiltshire. Excavation has revealed the location of the 58 stone sockets and 62 post-holes. The ring was part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, over a period between 3300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that the stones represented supernatural entities for the circle's builders.
Cairnpapple Hill is a hill with a dominating position in central lowland Scotland with views from coast to coast. It was used and re-used as a major ritual site for around 4000 years, and in its day would have been comparable to better known sites like the Standing Stones of Stenness. The summit lies 312 m above sea level, and is about 2 miles (3 km) north of Bathgate. In the 19th century the site was completely concealed by trees, then in 1947–1948 excavations by Stuart Piggott found a series of ritual monuments from successive prehistoric periods. In 1998, Gordon Barclay re-interpreted the site for Historic Scotland. It is designated a scheduled ancient monument.
Mount Pleasant henge is a Neolithic henge enclosure in the English county of Dorset. It lies southeast of Dorchester in the civil parish of West Stafford. It still partially survives as an earthwork.
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Markinch is both a village and a parish in the heart of Fife, Scotland. According to an estimate taken in 2008, the village has a population of 2,420. The civil parish had a population of 16,530. Markinch is east of Fife's administrative centre, Glenrothes, and preceded Cupar as Fife's place of warranty and justice prior to the 13th century.
C. Joshua Pollard is a British archaeologist who is a professor of archaeology at the University of Southampton. He gained his BA and PhD in archaeology from the Cardiff University, and is a specialist in the archaeology of the Neolithic period in the UK and north-west Europe, especially in relation to the study of depositional practices, monumentality, and landscape. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London
The stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany are a megalithic tradition of monuments consisting of standing stones arranged in rings. These were constructed from 3200 to 2000 BCE in Great Britain, Ireland and Brittany. It has been estimated that around 4,000 of these monuments were originally constructed in this part of north-western Europe during this period. Around 1,300 of them are recorded, the others having been destroyed.
Winterbourne Bassett Stone Circle is the remains of a stone circle near the village of Winterbourne Bassett in Wiltshire, South West England. Investigations in the 18th and 19th centuries found evidence of an outer and inner ring, and a single central stone; today six stones are visible although none remain upright.
The Catholme ceremonial complex is an archaeological site of the Neolithic period in Staffordshire, England, near Barton-under-Needwood. It is a scheduled monument.
Balbirnie Stone Circle is an archaeological site, a stone circle on the north-eastern edge of Glenrothes, in Fife, Scotland. The site was in use from the late Neolithic period to the late second millennium BC.