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Publication Account
Date 1995
Event ID 1016777
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016777
This cairn is a well-preserved passage grave of Clava type. As usual, the cairn is retained by a ring of large boulders. A long passage leads through the cairn material into the small central chamber, and part of this passage is still roofed with the original stone slabs, whereas at Clava these are missing. The passage is only about one metre hi gh, and so can only be entered crouched or crawling. The walls of the chamber have a basal ring of boulders, above which is drystone walling that oversails in its higher courses but is now open in the centre. The roof was originally corbelled inwards until the rop could be closed with one large slab, and then covered with the stones of the cairn. The massive cup-marked slab now lying on top of the cairn was probably the capstone. The passage and chamber had a cobbled floor. In the 19th century the chamber had been dug out down to this floor and refilled. New excavations in 1953 discovered the stain of a single crouched body buried below the cobbled floor.
A ring of eleven standing stones surrounds the cairn, and though there seems to be space for a twelfth it may never have been erected. The four circle stones closest to the passage entrance have been re-erected at some time, and the two west of the entrance are not original, but made out of two lintels from the passage roof.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Highlands’, (1995).
