Frederick Coles

After his first wife died he married Margaret Neilson Blacklock (sister of the artist) of Kirkcudbright and they had two daughters and three sons.

Until 1910 he received annual Gunning Fellowships allowing him to embark on archaeological field trips every year and eventually taking his children along with him after his second wife’s death.

[1][4][3]: xiii, 7, 269  Coles was the first person to highlight the contrasting colour of some of the stones, caused by the differing petrology, which was then neglected again until recent years.

He was also the first archaeologist to speak to local inhabitants to try to understand the histories of the circles, including those that had been damaged or destroyed in living memory.

He says that Coles was disdainful of archaeoastronomy,[note 5] and he did not take part in speculation on the purposes of the stone circles – he restricted himself to recording their details.