Field Visit
Date June 1979
Event ID 1101447
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1101447
This cairn (Campbell and Sandeman 1964) is situated 190m N of the cairn Achnagoul 1 (NN00NE 8) on a slight rise in a clearing within a forestry plantation; now heavily robbed and crossed by a ruined field-wall, it measures 18m by 12m and 1.2m in greatest height. At the NE end there is a concave forecourt, where the two outermost and three other stones of the facade, and the portal stone, remain in position, projecting up to 0.85m above the level of the blocking material in the forecourt. The top of the portal stone, however, is 1.35m above the floor of the now roofless chamber, which is entered from the centre of the facade, with a sill-stone lying immediately behind the portal stone. Each side of the chamber is composed of three slabs, the central stone in each case overlapping its flankers and wedged by the septal slab so as to buttress the otherwise poorly supported side-slabs*. The stones on the SE side appear to have been slightly displaced. The septal slab divides the chamber into two compartments, the outer rectangular on plan, the inner trapezoidal, and each of them is about 0.8m deep. A slab lying beneath the septal stone may indicate that the floors of the compartments are paved.
Visited June 1979
RCAHMS 1988
*For a discussion of the significance of jamb-and-septal construction see Scott, J G, 'The Clyde Cairns of Scotland', in Daniel and Kjaerum (eds), Megalithic Graves and Ritual (1973), 119-22)
