The Brandsbutt Stone: Inverurie’s Pictish Symbol Stone with an Ogham Inscription

Why it matters

In the middle of a housing estate in Inverurie, behind a low railing on a patch of grass, stands one of the oldest carved Pictish stones in Scotland. The Brandsbutt Stone carries two of the classic Pictish symbols and, unusually, a line of ogham, the alphabet of strokes and notches that came to Scotland from Ireland. Inscriptions are very rare on Pictish stones, which makes this one important well beyond its modest setting.

The carvings

Two symbols are cut into the face: a crescent crossed by a V-shaped rod, and above it a serpent crossed by a Z-shaped rod. What the symbols meant is one of the great puzzles of Scottish history; the most popular idea is that they stood for names or ranks. Up the side runs the ogham, read as IRATADDOARENS. It has been interpreted as a personal name and sometimes linked to St Ethernan, a local saint, though the reading is uncertain. Historic Environment Scotland dates the stone to around AD 600, among the earliest Pictish carvings.

A stone with a past

The Brandsbutt Stone was not always a Pictish monument. Historic Environment Scotland thinks it was probably a stone from a prehistoric stone circle that the Picts later carved. At some point it was broken up and built into a field dyke. It was put back together from the fragments, with the missing parts filled in with cement, and stood up again near where it was found. It was scheduled in 1924 and taken into state care in 1948.

Visiting

The stone stands in the Brandsbutt housing area on the north-west side of Inverurie and is signposted. It is free and always accessible. Read the information board, then look along the stone’s edge for the ogham strokes, which are easy to miss.

Around Inverurie

Inverurie sits in the middle of the densest group of ancient stones in Scotland. Just west of town is East Aquhorthies, the most complete recumbent stone circle anywhere, and a few miles further on is the 9th-century Maiden Stone, which shows how Pictish carving developed after Christianity arrived. Another stone that may have come from a lost circle stands in Aberdeen: the Lang Stane on Langstane Place.

Inverurie also has a turbulent later history. After his victory at nearby Barra in 1308, Robert the Bruce sent his brother to lay waste the Comyn lands in the Harrying of Buchan. In 1411 the Highland host of the Lord of the Isles met the Earl of Mar just north of the town at Harlaw. For whisky, Glen Garioch is ten minutes away at Oldmeldrum. For more stones with a story, see our guide to the famous stones of Scotland.

Sources

• Historic Environment Scotland — Brandsbutt Stone (history); scheduled monument SM90039.
• Aberdeenshire Council Historic Environment Record — Brandsbutt Stone, Inverurie (MAB18864).
• University of Aberdeen — Elphinstone Institute, Bennachie and the Garioch resources.