Glenshee
Enclosure (Post Medieval), Long Cairn (Neolithic)
Site Name Glenshee
Classification Enclosure (Post Medieval), Long Cairn (Neolithic)
Canmore ID 17333
Site Number NJ44SW 5
NGR NJ 4445 4217
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/17333
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Glass
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Gordon
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NJ44SW 5 4445 4217
See also NJ44SW 4 (information about beaker).
(NJ 4445 4217) Cairn (NR)
OS 6" map, 1959.
A large, unnamed mound of earth and stone.
Name Book 1871.
A beaker, which was preserved in the Brander Library, Huntly in 1906, came from one of the cairns at Cairnmore - ie this cairn, NJ44SW 4 and NJ44SW 6
or NJ44SE 11 which had been 'partially explored' some years before. It was broken in removing it from the cairn.
F R Coles 1906.
A mutilated turf-covered cairn of earth and stones about 25.0m in diameter and 4.0m high. It is truncated in the SW by a modern enclosure partly set into it whilst ploughing has confused the edge elsewhere. The top is partly quarried. Extending to the WSW of the cairn for about 25.0m is a "tail" of turf-covered quarried debris.
Its condition is such that it is difficult to say with certainty whether this is the tail of a long cairn or modern field clearance, but it is likely to be the former.
No knowledge of the beaker at Huntly.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (ISS) 29 November 1972.
This is undoubtedly a composite monument, probably a long cairn of multi-period type (Henshall 1972).
Visited by OS (ECW) 1 February 1973.
Field Visit (22 March 1990)
What are probably the remains of a long cairn are situated on a gentle SE-facing slope at the head of a small valley which runs into the hills on the N side of the Deveron between Parkhall and Cairnborrow Lodge.
The grass-grown cairn measures 49m in overall length and tapers from 5m in breadth at the W end to 2.7m at the E end. The W part of the cairn has been severely robbed, the mounds of quarried debris standing 0.7m in maximum height, but the E end is largely intact and measures 2.5m in height on the uphill side and 4m on the downhill side. The S side of the cairn has also been destroyed by the construction of a rectangular walled enclosure. The present appearance of the cairn suggests that it is a composite monument with a round cairn built on its E end, but this may be the result of the devastating pattern of robbing. Nonetheless, at the E end the upper part of the cairn has a much higher proportion of stone visible than the lower part, possibly indicating the presence of a superimposed round cairn some 14m in diameter. The NE corner of the long cairn is very angular, but this is probably the result of later land-use around the cairn.
Visited by RCAHMS (SH) 22 March 1990.
