Kempstone Hill is a

landform A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, ...

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially different boundaries. The Aberdeenshire Council area inclu ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

within the

Mounth The Mounth ( ) is the broad upland in northeast Scotland between the Highland Boundary and the River Dee, at the eastern end of the Grampians. Name and etymology The name ''Mounth'' is ultimately of Pictish origin. The name is derived from ...

Range of the

Grampian Mountains The Grampian Mountains (''Am Monadh'' in Gaelic) is one of the three major mountain ranges in Scotland, that together occupy about half of Scotland. The other two ranges are the Northwest Highlands and the Southern Uplands. The Grampian rang ...

. The peak elevation of this mountain is 132 metres above mean sea level. This hill has been posited by

Gabriel Jacques Surenne Gabriel Jacques Surenne FSA FASE (1777-1858) was a 19th-century French-born military historian living in Scotland who authored numerous publications in the fields of warfare and battle analysis and also in French grammar. Life He was born to Lo ...

, Archibald Watt and C.Michael Hogan as the location for the noted

Battle of Mons Graupius The Battle of Mons Graupius was, according to Tacitus, a Roman Empire, Roman military victory in what is now Scotland, taking place in AD 83 or, less probably, 84. The exact location of the battle is a matter of debate. Historians have long que ...

between the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

and the indigenous

Caledonians The Caledonians (; la, Caledones or '; grc-gre, Καληδῶνες, ''Kalēdōnes'') or the Caledonian Confederacy were a Brittonic-speaking (Celtic) tribal confederacy in what is now Scotland during the Iron Age and Roman eras. The Gree ...

. The major

Roman Camp In the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, the Latin word ''castrum'', plural ''castra'', was a military-related term. In Latin usage, the singular form ''castrum'' meant 'fort', while the plural form ''castra'' meant 'camp'. The singular and ...

Raedykes Raedykes is the site of a Roman marching camp located just over northwest of Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. National Grid Reference NO 842902. It is designated as a scheduled monument. A marching camp was a temporary camp used mainly for ...

is situated about three kilometres to the west. From Kempstone Hill there are fine views to the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

facing east and slightly to the north of

Muchalls Castle Muchalls Castle stands overlooking the North Sea in the countryside of Kincardine and Mearns, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The lower course is a well-preserved Romanesque, double-groined 13th-century tower house structure, built by the Frasers o ...

. There is a UK trigpoint installation on Kempstone Hill.

Geology and hydrology

Kempstone Hill is situated approximately 2.3 kilometers to the north of

Stonehaven Stonehaven ( , ) is a town in Scotland. It lies on Scotland's northeast coast and had a population of 11,602 at the 2011 Census. After the demise of the town of Kincardine, which was gradually abandoned after the destruction of its royal cast ...

;

surface runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow) is the flow of water occurring on the ground surface when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when t ...

and drainage from the northern and eastern slopes of Kempstone Hill flow north to the

Burn of Muchalls The Burn of Muchalls is an easterly flowing stream in Aberdeenshire, Scotland that discharges to the North Sea. Its point of discharge is on a rocky beach set with scenic sea stacks. Flowing principally over agricultural lands, the Burn of Mu ...

. Surface runoff from the south and west flanks flow to the

Burn of Monboys Burn of Monboys is a stream that rises in the Mounth, or eastern range of the Grampian Mountains, northwest of Stonehaven and south of Netherley, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Monboys Burn is a tributary to the Cowie Water. Hydrology The headwaters ...

, a very slightly alkaline stream These low pH levels (compared to other area streams) may be caused in part by the

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially Decomposition, decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, Moorland, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and ...

drainage from the

moorland Moorland or moor is a type of habitat found in upland areas in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands and montane grasslands and shrublands biomes, characterised by low-growing vegetation on acidic soils. Moorland, nowadays, generall ...

on Meikle Carewe Hill and Curlethney Hill. To the south the terrain falls rather sharply descending to Limpet Burn, which watercourse flows to the North Sea. Peripheral Route Environmental Assessment, Aberdeenshire Council (Kempstone characteristics)
/ref> The

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks a ...

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

along Limpet Burn has been classified as high value habitat by the

Aberdeenshire Council Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially different boundaries. The Aberdeenshire Council area inclu ...

Prehistory

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

traces of civilisation appear on the hill in the form of

standing stone A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be fou ...

s. Kemp-stane is Scots to describe prehistoric megalithic structures such as these. Kemp-stane Hill was written in the 18th century.

Wind farm proposal

Renewable Energy Resources Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable ener ...

had an application pending before the

to create a

windfarm A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turb ...

for

electrical power Electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billion ...

generation using Curlethney Hill, Meikle Carewe Hill (hills slightly to the west of Kempstone Hill to install 12 wind turbines. Each turbine would reach a height of 70 metres above grade level, and the entire complex could generate enough power to supply the equivalent of 5000 homes. Environmental concerns over the proposal included

noise pollution Noise pollution, also known as environmental noise or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise with ranging impacts on the activity of human or animal life, most of them are harmful to a degree. The source of outdoor noise worldwide is mai ...

, visual impact and ecological disturbance.

References

{{coord, 56.9978, -2.1992, type:mountain_region:GB, display=title Mountains and hills of Aberdeenshire

Geology and hydrology

Prehistory

Wind farm proposal

See also

References