| Stenhousemuir | |
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Stenhousemuir
Stenhousemuir shown within the Falkirk council area |
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| Population | 10,351 |
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| OS grid reference | NS872832 |
| Council area | Falkirk |
| Lieutenancy area | Stirling and Falkirk |
| Country | Scotland |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | FALKIRK |
| Police | Central Scotland |
| Fire | Central Scotland |
| Ambulance | Scottish |
| EU Parliament | Scotland |
| List of places: UK • Scotland • | |
Arthur's Oven or O'on was a Roman temple which until 1743 stood on rising ground above the north bank of the River Carron not far from the old Carron ironworks in Stenhousemuir, near Falkirk, Scotland.
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Henry Sinclair, Dean of Glasgow about 1560, calls it 'Arthur's Huif'; and Alexander Gordon's speaks of it as 'Arthur's Hoff'.[1] Julius's Hoff is also recorded. Hoff and Huif are Scots for a house or hall.
It has been suggested that the name 'Arthur is probably derived from the old Gaelic words Art, a house, and Om, solitary-meaning a retired dwelling or hermitage. [2] The term 'oven' relates to the similarity in shape to the clay bread ovens of the 18th century.
In a Charter to Newbattle Abbey (Midlothian) in 1293 a reference is made to furnum Arthur, indicating that it was a well established feature and of unknown origin even at that relatively early date.[3]
A road to Alloa and Airth passed by the back of the Forge Row and through the Stenhouse estate; Arthur's O'on stood on the north-east side of this road.[2]
The building was on the declivity of rising ground, supported by a basement of stones, projecting out from below the lowest course of the building; it was so far from being upon a level area, that a great part of the basement, and four courses of the stones on the south side, were hidden in the earth. The marks of three or four steps, which may have formerly led from the ground to the entrance of the building, were visible at one time.[2]
The traces of a broad ditch could be seen at one time on the northern side; suggesting that a regular valum and fosse had once surrounded the building.[2]
The O'on was built of dressed freestone which were not mortised into each other. In appearance the O'on was shaped like a beehive, being circular on plan with a domed roof. The perpendicular height, from the bottom to the top of the aperture, was 22 feet; the external circumference at the base, 88 feet; internal circumference, 61 feet; external diameter at the base, 2 feet; internal diameter, 19 feet 6 inches; circumference of the aperture, 86 feet 1 inch; diameter of the aperture, 11 feet 6 inches; height of the door from its basis to the top of the arch 9 feet; breadth of the East facing door at the base, 6 feet inches; height, from the ground to the top of the key-stone of the door, 10 feet 6 inches breadth of the wall at the base, measuring at the door, 4 feet 3 inches; thickness of the wall where the arch springs, 3 feet 7 inches; and height of the basement on which the building stands, 4 feet 6 inches.[1] The door is said to have had an iron gate, the removal of which by the Monteiths of Cars brought a curse upon the family.
Round the interior of the building there were two string-courses at distances of 4 ft. and 6 ft. respectively above the paved stone floor, and in several places, notably over the door, there may have been much weathered carvings in which eagles and the goddess Victory are said to have been represented.[4] A huge stone stood in the interior, possibly an altar or the base of a bronze statue.[2] The O'on may date to the period of occupation of the Antonine Wall.[5]
The figure of a Roman eagle was at one time been visible, chiselled upon the pavement. Other insignia of the Romans are said to have formerly ornamented its walls, however When Edward I was destroying all important Scottish antiquities, he was only induced to spare the 'temple beside Camelon', after the inhabitants of the neighbourhood had already destroyed all the Roman sculptures, and inscriptions which existed upon it.[2] The initial letters J. A. M. P. M. P. T., were recorded by Sir Robert Sibbald, engraved on a stone inside the building, under a figure of Victory, with the head and part of the handle of a javelin.[6] The following reading was suggested :- Julius Agricola Magnae Pictatis Monumentumn Posuit Templum.[2] Holes in some of he blocks may have related to the method of raising the blocks into position during construction.[7]
Various remains of antiquity have been discovered near its site, such as the stones of Querns or handmills, made of a type of lava resembling that now obtained from the mill-stone quarries of Andernach on the Rhine; fragments of pottery, and the vestiges of what was supposed to have been a potter's kiln.[2] The horns of 'great cows, were found, suggesting deliberate burials of religious significance.
The discovery in a chink of the masonry of a brass finger from a statue, suggested that the O'on was primarily a triumphal monument, or tropaeum, erected to commemorate a victory. The quality of the structure bears stamp of legionary workmanship, being too elaborate for a purely local masons; and it appears to have been deliberately sited to be visible from the Antonine Wall.[4]
The building was unique in Britain, most likely a temple, being located too far from a fort or road to have been a bathhouse or mausoleum. Its proximity to a spring has resulted in the suggestion that it was dedicated to a water goddess. At the time of its destruction it was one of the best preserved Roman buildings in Britain.
A broken relief from Rose Hill on Hadrian's Wall depicts Victory, an eagle, and a round domed building under a tree, which may represent a structure like Arthur's O'on. Victory was normally worshipped in the forts, but the easiest interpretation is that the O'on was a tropaeum, an official monument dedicated to Victory, and also commemorating the campaign, led by Quintus Lollius Urbicus, that led to the establishment of the Antonine Wall.[5]
In 2000 a news report stated that King Arthur's legendary round table had been located in Scotland - the building housing it being Arthur's O'on.[8] The o'on has been named by Norma Goodrich as the round table/rotunda in the Arthurian knights sagas. In 1989, The historian, Archie McKerracher published an article in The Scots Magazine in which he claimed that 'The Round Table was at Stenhousemuir'. The article was partly based on Goodrich's research.[9]
It was demolished to line a mill dam on the River Carron by Sir Michael Bruce of Stenhouse in 1743. The stones were swept away in a flood the very next day.[2] The site of the original building has been localised to the garden of a modern house on a housing estate by the American academic Norma Lorre Goodrich (1917 – 2006).
In the late 1980s an American researcher, Robert Mitchell, claimed that the stones of the O'on were not scattered beneath the Carron waters at all but lay under a dismantled blast furnace where they were deposited when the river changed its course. He thus held up the possibility of recovery and reconstruction. No confirmation of the find has been made. The suggestion that the Carron has changed course in this area has been questioned by other researchers.[10]
Sir Walter Scott remarked, with respect to the destruction of this 'great glory of the Roman remains in Scotland,' that, had not the worthy proprietor thought fit to demolish it, it would have turned the heads of half the antiquaries in Scotland.[2]
Several members of the Society of Antiquaries tried to find out the foundation of the building in the 1870s, but without success. Its site, however, was thought to be a few yards to the north-east of the Forge Row, at the corner of an enclosure, about fifty feet square, on the estate of Stenhouse. The ground was then used as a washing-green.[2]
The deliberate destruction of Arthur's O'on so appalled Sir James Clerk, that in 1760 he decided to have a dovecote built, as an exact replica of the temple, on his stable block at Penicuik House.[11]
The first record is from the days of Nennius, a Welsh historian and monk in the order of St. Elfodd, gave a brief description of the building, and asserted, without hesitation, that it was erected by the usurper Carausius, who assumed the purple in Britain in the year 284. He also mentioned that a triumphal arch was built near it, in honour of the same individual.[6]
