Fantastic. The whole Kilmartin Valley is such a fantastic place. It rained, rained and rained again. But despite this I had a great day (soaked to the skin) and I can't rate this place highly enough. I hope to visit again when (hopefully) the weather will be better! Stayed all day but only managed to see some of the sites as there are so many. The Great X is just one of the wonderful things to see. If you are anywhere near this part of Scotland, allow at least a day of your holidays to enjot this very special place. So far, my favourite place in Scotland. For me this is on par with Avebury in England. Fantastic.
We visited this site in Feb. 2000. We just wandered around this valley floor all day - you need loads of time for all the jewels that the people left us here. The great X is one of them. We wandered and wondered round this unique monument.
The overall alignment of this whole monument is approximately the same as the cairn cemetry, the valley and the river. I cant say any more - it's like much of this valley - a beautiful mystery.
If there were ritual processions north up this glen - which seems almost certain - this seems to be the place where eveything starts to get 'focused down' a bit, as the valley floor starts to narrow approaching the linear cemetery of cairns. However, the 'X' is aligned roughly NE-SW, and doesn't line up with the cairns as you might expect.
Plenty has been said about the tall standing stones, I took a wee bit more interest in the wee four poster or kerb cairn nearby and wondered if there had a been a standing stone set inside. One of the standing stones looks like it has a kerb surrounding it as well, perhaps there are hints of something at another.
Like other contributors the cairn at Ri Cruin had no visitors when we arrived, a fine place to reflect on previous sites visited on the way here, a fine place to think about the sites yet to come, a fine place full stop.
The cairn has seen a fair amount of the 'recycling' treatment but retains its almost 20m width, some kerbs in situ, three cists along with plenty cairn material.