Livingston Stone Circle

Situated just beyond Livingston Village, a sprawling suburb some 40 miles west of Edinburgh, lies a configuration of nine vertical stones. One would be forgiven for mistaking this formation, of rocks of varying heights and materials, as being from the Stone Age or Neolithic period. For there is no signage or information to alert the viewer that they are looking at a very modern facsimile of an ancient stone circle. 

Even though the township of Livingston dates back to the 1100s, this ring of seven stones dates to a more recent time. Just as the reason and purpose of ancient stone circles remain a bit of a mystery, so too does the placement of this particular arrangement. The most logical reason is the city planners installed this stone circle along the banks of the Lochshot Burn, as a beautification scheme.

There is an outer circle of stones reaching several feet in height. They encompass what is known as a recumbent stone, or sacrificial stone. This smooth flat horizontal slab is joined by two other smaller similar ones. Their presence is unknown, and maybe for more for decorative purposes rather than functional ones. It just goes to show, that not everything in Scotland is as ancient in origin as it might appear.