name 'Ogier' is a Normanised version of the Scandinavian name 'Holger'. Brandleside may be a Scandinavian name and suggest that 'Brandale' was once the name of this valley. It is recorded that even as late as "the time of Popery" the devotees of that religion, in doing penance, used to crawl on their knees round this stone and cry, O thou grit stane from a belief that the Deity was in a peculiar manner present at that hallowed relic. Farmers from Brandleside Farm were bound to protect, by not removing it or ploughing within a set distance of the stone, possibly because of a tradition of pagan burials around this monument. Some recollections of May Day events being held at the site are current and the site is listed and protected by Historic Scotland. A fine view of Dunlop or Borland Hill, the site of Dunlop Castle once held by the De Ross family, can be seen from the stone. Monastic settlement The history of the monastic settlement and the chapel of Saint Mary (NS 4080 5032) at the Thurgartstone is a parallel example to the Chapel Hill site at Chapeltoun, where a Christian centre was established to supplant the pagan significance of the site. Monastic cells, a chapel and a graveyard are all lost to view, constructed by the monks of Kilwinning, only the name 'Saint Mary's' given to the nearby 'modern' dwellings, built on the site of the chapel record past significance. Chapelhouse Farm is located beside the road nearby. The Holy Well still exists, the nearby houses pumping water up from its source. The water from the well used to run under the road and emerge in a trough surrounded by a metal fence. Only a concrete manhole indicates this trough now (2006). In 1856 the water for baptism in Dunlop Kirk was still drawn from this Holy Well. The small chapel had an endowment for the support of a chaplain. It was abandoned at the time of the Reformation in Scotland led by the ex-Roman Catholic priest John Knox (1514 to 1572). The stones were robbed / mined by locals and the last remaining stones were taken away by a farmer in the 1830s. It stood on a rock from which a beautiful stream of water gushed into a small rivulet, this originally being crossed by steps, called the Lady's steps before the Chapelhouse Bridge was