St Orland's Stone (otherwise known as the Cossans stone or the Cossins stone) is a Class II Pictish Cross-Slab at Cossans, near

Kirriemuir Kirriemuir, sometimes called Kirrie or the ''Wee Red Toon'' ( gd, An Ceathramh Mòr; IPA: nˈkʰʲɛɾəvmoːɾ, is a burgh in Angus, Scotland. It reaches back to earliest recorded times, when it is thought to have been a major ecclesiastical ...

and

Forfar Forfar ( sco, Farfar, gd, Baile Fharfair) is the county town of Angus, Scotland and the administrative centre for Angus Council, with a new multi-million pound office complex located on the outskirts of the town. As of 2021, the town has a po ...

Angus, Scotland Angus ( sco, Angus; gd, Aonghas) is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross. Main industries include ...

Location

The cross-slab stands in situ, approximately south-west of the A926 road at its midpoint between

and

() in the former parish of

Glamis Glamis is a small village in Angus, Scotland, located south of Kirriemuir and southwest of Forfar. It is the location of Glamis Castle, the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. History The vicinity of Glamis has prehistoric ...

Description

The stone is a worked slab of

Old Red Sandstone The Old Red Sandstone is an assemblage of rocks in the North Atlantic region largely of Devonian age. It extends in the east across Great Britain, Ireland and Norway, and in the west along the northeastern seaboard of North America. It also ext ...

, tall wide and wide. The slab is carved on both faces in

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

and, as it bears Pictish symbols, it falls into

John Romilly Allen John Romilly Allen FSA FSAScot (9 June 1847 – 5 July 1907) was a British archaeologist. Life Allen was the son of George Baugh Allen. He was educated at King's College School, Rugby and King's College London. In 1867 he was articled to Geor ...

and Joseph Anderson's classification system as a class II stone. The cross face bears a ringed

Celtic cross The Celtic cross is a form of Christian cross featuring a nimbus or ring that emerged in Ireland, France and Great Britain in the Early Middle Ages. A type of ringed cross, it became widespread through its use in the stone high crosses e ...

decorated with interlaced knotwork and spiral designs. It is surrounded in the lower two quadrants by interlaced fantastic beasts. The border appears to have once borne knotwork designs, but is weathered and difficult to interpret. The rear face is bears crescent and v-rod and double disc and z-rod

Pictish Pictish is the extinct Brittonic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geographic ...

symbols. Below this is what appears to be a hunting scene, with four horsemen accompanied by two hounds, below this is a boat loaded with passengers and a depiction of a fantastic beast facing or attacking a bull. A quadrangular section between the Pictish symbols and figural carving is missing, and appears to have been cut out or a previously inlaid section has been removed. The carving is bordered by interlaced knotwork. At some point, the stone has been broken and has been repaired using iron staples, formerly on the faces of the stone, now on the edges, to reinforce it.

References

{{coord, 56.6382, N, 2.9785, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Pictish stones Pictish stones in Angus, Scotland Scheduled Ancient Monuments in Angus