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Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1016256
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016256
Surrounded by a modem retaining dyke, a circular mound of earth over 30m across and 3m high stands on a slight rise 46m above sea-level. It is maybe 3500 years old. Stripped of our contemporary roads, villages and industrial units, the site would have had a certain prominence. A bronze rapier was recovered when it was opened in 1830.
Of particular interest at Huly or Heeley Hill is its stone circle, around 100m diameter. Whether it was indeed a 'circle' and if so, how many stones there once were, is unknown. Certainly it would not have been concentric since the cairn is a little north-west of centre. There are three stones-one at 30.5m north-west, over 2m high; a second nearly 49m south-west, 2m high; the third over 53m east, about 1.3m high but apparently broken. The stones are massive, rough and unpolished just like that standing nearly 3m high, 320m or so east across the roundabout in an industrial estate (NT 126726). This Lochend Stone may well be unconnected with cairn and circle; alternatively it may be an outlier?
A few kilometres north-north-east of New bridge, close to the shore walk from South Queensfeny to Cramond, there is a further impressive cairn, the Earl Cairnie or Harlaw Cairn (NT 158791) standing in woodland 400m south of Hound Point Described in 1791 as almost 49m across by 7.5m high, it has been reduced by stone-robbing to about 30m by 4.6m, though a stony mound some 12m from the base may indicate its original perimeter.
Information from 'Exploring Scotland's Heritage: Lothian and Borders', (1985).
