Temple Wood

Stone Circles in the Glen

Temple Wood lies on the flat ground of Kilmartin Glen in mid-Argyll, a few hundred metres west of the Nether Largie cairns, screened by trees and hedgerows from the minor road that threads the valley. The site consists of two stone circles -- the main circle (Temple Wood North, or simply Temple Wood) and a smaller, more ruinous circle to the south (Temple Wood South). Together, they form one of the most important stone circle sites in western Scotland and one of the most richly carved.

The name "Temple Wood" is relatively modern, reflecting the Victorian tendency to associate stone circles with temples and the fact that the circles stood within (or beside) a plantation of trees. The Gaelic name for the area is less certain, though the nearby farm name provides the conventional identification. Whatever they were called, these circles were built and used over a period of roughly two thousand years, from the late Neolithic into the middle Bronze Age, making them among the longest-used monuments in Kilmartin Glen.

Temple Wood is a place of spirals. The carvings on its stones -- concentric circles, double spirals, and cup marks -- are some of the finest examples of megalithic art in Scotland, connecting this small glen on the Argyll coast to a tradition of stone-carving that extends across Atlantic Europe from Iberia to Orkney.

Temple Wood North: The Main Circle

The main circle at Temple Wood consists of thirteen upright stones arranged in a ring approximately 12 metres in diameter. The stones are relatively small compared to the great circles of Callanish or Brodgar -- the tallest stands about 1.5 metres -- but they are set with care, forming a well-defined circular enclosure on the flat valley floor.

The circle has a complex structural history, revealed by excavations conducted by Jack Scott in the 1930s and by John Coles and colleagues in the 1970s and 1980s. These excavations showed that the monument went through several phases of construction and modification over approximately fifteen hundred years.

Phase 1: Timber Circle (c. 3000 BCE)

The earliest phase of the monument was not a stone circle at all but a timber circle -- a ring of upright wooden posts set in the ground. The post holes were identified during excavation beneath and between the later stone settings. Timber circles are known from many Neolithic sites across Britain, including Woodhenge near Stonehenge and the timber phases at the Stones of Stenness in Orkney. The Kilmartin timber circle suggests that the site was already a place of ritual significance before any stone was raised.

Phase 2: Stone Circle (c. 2500 BCE)

The timber circle was replaced by the stone circle, with thirteen stones erected in a ring of similar diameter. Some of the stones may have been positioned to correspond with the earlier timber post holes, suggesting continuity of plan if not of material. The transition from timber to stone -- from the impermanent to the permanent -- is a recurring theme in British Neolithic architecture and may carry symbolic significance: the fixing of ritual practice in enduring form.

Phase 3: Cairn and Cists (c. 2000--1500 BCE)

In the Bronze Age, the interior of the circle was partially filled with a cairn -- a mound of stones -- and stone cists (box-like burial chambers) were inserted among and around the circle stones. One cist, set against the northern side of the circle, contained a crouched inhumation burial. The insertion of burials into the circle transformed its function from an open ceremonial space to a funerary monument, a pattern seen at many stone circles across Britain as Neolithic ritual practices gave way to Bronze Age funerary ones.

The Spiral Carvings

The most celebrated feature of Temple Wood is the carved decoration on several of its stones. The carvings include:

• Double spirals -- two spirals joined at the centre, forming an S-shape or a figure resembling a pair of eyes
• Concentric circles -- rings-within-rings, closely related to the cup-and-ring marks found across Kilmartin Glen
• Cup marks -- simple circular depressions pecked into the stone surface

The most famous carving is a double spiral on the north face of one of the circle stones, clearly visible to visitors. The spiral is carved with precision: two tight coils rotating in opposite directions, joined at a central point. The quality of the carving -- its regularity, its depth, its confident execution -- suggests the work of a skilled and practised hand.

Spiral carvings are found at megalithic sites across Atlantic Europe, but they are concentrated in a few key areas: the passage tombs of the Boyne Valley in Ireland (Newgrange, Knowth, Dowth), the chambered cairns of Orkney (Maeshowe and its satellites), the rock art of Galicia in northwestern Spain, and scattered sites in western Scotland and Wales. The Temple Wood spirals connect Kilmartin Glen to this wider Atlantic tradition and suggest that ideas, symbols, and perhaps people moved along the western seaways linking these regions in the Neolithic period.

The meaning of the spirals is unknown. They have been interpreted as representations of water, of the sun's motion, of the cycle of life and death, of hallucinatory patterns induced by altered states of consciousness, and of purely abstract aesthetic expression. None of these interpretations can be confirmed or refuted. The spirals remain what they have always been: marks made in stone by human hands, carrying a significance that was vivid to their makers and is opaque to us.

Temple Wood South: The Second Circle

Approximately 20 metres south of the main circle lies Temple Wood South, a smaller and more ruinous stone setting. This circle originally consisted of perhaps ten to twelve stones arranged in a ring approximately 10 metres in diameter, though several stones have fallen or been removed, and the circle's plan is no longer clearly legible on the ground.

Excavation revealed that Temple Wood South, like the main circle, contained cist burials and cairn material inserted in the Bronze Age. The southern circle is less well preserved and less visually impressive than its northern neighbour, but its existence doubles the monument's significance. Two stone circles in close proximity suggest a paired or complementary function -- perhaps the two circles were used by different groups within the same community, or for different phases of a ceremony that required movement between the two enclosures.

Paired stone circles are not unique to Temple Wood. The Hurlers on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall consist of three circles in a line; the Grey Wethers on Dartmoor are a pair; and numerous Irish sites feature paired or closely grouped circles. The phenomenon suggests that stone circle ceremonies were sometimes complex, multi-stage events requiring more than one enclosed space.

Excavation History

Temple Wood has been the subject of several archaeological investigations:

The Coles excavation was particularly important. It established the multi-phase construction sequence (timber to stone to cairn), documented the carved stones in detail, and recovered the cist burials that demonstrated the monument's long period of use. The excavation report remains one of the key publications on Scottish stone circles and has informed broader debates about the transition from Neolithic to Bronze Age ritual practice.

Temple Wood in the Kilmartin Landscape

Temple Wood sits within a dense cluster of monuments on the western side of Kilmartin Glen's valley floor. Within a few hundred metres are the Nether Largie cairns (the core of the linear cemetery), the Nether Largie standing stones, and the Ballymeanoch complex (a henge, standing stones, and cairns). The rock art panels of Baluachraig lie to the north, and the great carved surfaces of Achnabreck are on the hillside to the southwest.

This clustering is not random. The flat ground of the glen provided a natural arena for monument-building, and the proximity of so many different monument types -- circles, cairns, standing stones, henges -- suggests that Kilmartin Glen functioned as an integrated ritual landscape, a place where multiple forms of ceremony and commemoration coexisted and overlapped over millennia.

Temple Wood's stone circles would have been visible from the cairns and standing stones, and vice versa. Walking through the glen, you move from one monument type to another -- from the vertical stones to the horizontal cairns to the enclosed circles -- each offering a different kind of space and a different kind of experience. The circles are intimate, enclosed, inward-looking. The cairns are monumental, assertive, visible from afar. The standing stones are markers, punctuating the landscape with vertical accents. Together, they create a vocabulary of sacred architecture that is rich, varied, and clearly deliberate.

Visiting Temple Wood

The double spiral is the thing to look for. Find the stone on the northern arc of the main circle, and look at its outer face. The carving is there, cut into the rough surface of the metamorphic rock: two spirals turning in opposite directions, joined at the centre. It is a small carving on a small stone in a small circle in a quiet glen. But it connects this place to Newgrange and Knowth, to Orkney and Galicia, to a tradition of mark-making in stone that spans a continent and several thousand years. Someone stood here, holding a stone tool, and pecked that spiral into the rock. They knew what it meant. We can only look, and wonder, and be grateful that the stone and the carving have survived.

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