The little girl here is sitting on a rock covered in cup & ball markings which may be thousands of years old.
The discovery of these markings led to a substantial archaeological investigation over several summers and the discovery of an ancient Broch with its associated midden.
Deep in a wood in Leckie Estate a small girl sits on a rock with strange carvings on it…..
The story I have is that one day Lady Younger was out walking her dogs in the woods when one of them became snagged in a thicket of rhododendrons. While rescuing it she noticed the markings on that rock and later passed word of her find to contacts in Glasgow. That resulted in an archaeological dig which uncovered evidence of a large, circular, stone-
Dr Louisa Campbell
“A large array of locally-
Euan W MacKie, BA, PhD, FSA -
“Some of the results of the excavation of the broch at Leckie between 1970 and 1978 are briefly described. The clear stratigraphy and the many closely dateable Roman finds allow new conclusions to be drawn about the date of some Iron Age artefacts and about the origin of the southern Scottish brochs. For example it seems now that some of these brochs were built, presumably with the approval of the Roman Army, during the Flavian period (AD 80-
The richness of the finds at Leckie, and the many valuable imported items, support the view that the southern broch builders were originally allies of Rome. Later, soon after the start of the Antonine period, things became different and this broch, probably with others, was destroyed -
Sadly the forest has recovered its own. The rhododendrons and scrub birch have once again overgrown the area and the last time I looked the carved rock had regained its anonymity under a thick covering of moss.….. And the little girl? My daughter, Allison. She’s now a wife and mother of our two fine grandchildren.