Qualla: Croft Moraig Stone Circle

Croft Moraig Stone Circle: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Fourteen timber posts. Then eight standing stones. Then twelve. Over the course of centuries -- perhaps a thousand years -- the people who lived beneath the mountains above Loch Tay returned to the same patch of low ground near what is now Aberfeldy and rebuilt their sacred space, each generation choosing the same site but changing its form. When archaeologists excavated Croft Moraig in 1965, they discovered not one stone circle but three overlapping phases of construction, a palimpsest of belief written in timber, schist, and quartz.

Croft Moraig Stone Circle: The Timber Horseshoe

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The first structure was not stone at all. Fourteen wooden posts were arranged in a horseshoe pattern, roughly eight metres by seven, open to the southeast. A single post stood just inside the mouth of the horseshoe, as if marking a threshold between the everyday world and whateve...

Croft Moraig Stone Circle: Stone Replaces Wood

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the second phase, the timber horseshoe was replaced by a horseshoe of eight standing stones, slightly smaller than the wooden original at about eight metres by six. The builders surrounded this new arrangement with a stone bank roughly seventeen metres across. Pottery sherds r...

Croft Moraig Stone Circle: The Full Circle

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The third and final phase saw the most dramatic transformation. A full circle of twelve standing stones, approximately twelve metres in diameter, was erected around the existing horseshoe, enclosing the older structure within a grander one. An entrance was marked in the southeast...

Croft Moraig Stone Circle: Continuity Beneath the Mountains

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What makes Croft Moraig exceptional is not any single phase but the fact of rebuilding itself. The people of the second phase could have chosen any site for their stone horseshoe. They chose the exact spot where the timber posts had stood, preserving the orientation and approxima...