Field Visit
Date July 1980
Event ID 1101619
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1101619
Situated on a terrace at the mouth of the Bealach Mor about 200m SSE of Kintraw farmhouse and commanding an extensive view down Loch Craignish, there is an important group of monuments comprising two cairns, a standing stone and what may be a prehistoric enclosure. The cairns were excavated in 1959-60 and in 1979 the socket of the standing stone was examined after the stone had fallen in the preceding winter; this account is based in part on the published reports (Campbell and Sandeman 1964, no.88; D D A Simpson 1968, 54-9; A Thom and A S Thom 1979, 27-31).
The larger cairn, which was rebuilt after the excavation, measured 15.5m in diameter and stood to a height of 2.6m. It was surrounded by a kerb of boulders, which rested on the old ground surface, and the stones were graded in size with the largest lying on the S and W. On the SW the kerb incorporated a setting of three slabs, which resembled a 'false portal'. The projecting slabs that formed the jambs of the portal (each about l.3m high) were set at right angles to the kerb, flanking a kerbstone of similar proportions. All three stones were set in ramped holes about 0.45m in depth. The space between the uprights was packed with layers of small stones and charcoal. Immediately opposite this setting a recumbent slab was found lying on the old ground surface. The body of the cairn was composed entirely of stone with larger stones towards the base and a preponderance of quartz around the rim, which the excavator suggested might have been the remains of a quartz capping to the cairn. At the centre of the cairn, and apparently resting on the old ground surface, there seems to have been a timber post which rose through the cairn material to a height of at least 1.02m; its function is unknown but it seems unlikely that it served simply as a marking-out post of the cairn. The only burial under the cairn came from a cist situated close to the kerb in the NW quadrant; it contained fragments of cremated bone and carbonised wood. Finds from the cairn were restricted to mussel- and cockle-shells and the teeth of ox and sheep or goat, as well as six fluted jet beads and a bronze buckle, which the excavator suggested had been dropped on the surface of the mound and had slipped down between the stones.
About 8.5m SW of the larger cairn there are the remains of a roughly circular kerb-cairn measuring 7.3m in diameter, which formerly stood to a height of 0.46m. Only three of the kerbstones remain in situ, several having been removed, and the remainder have fallen since the excavation. The only feature revealed in the interior was a small cist, 0.2m square, which had been built against one of the kerbstones in the NW quadrant; all that was found in it were fragments of carbonised wood. After excavation the cairn was only partially back-filled and the baulks are still visible criss-crossing the interior.
Between the two cairns there is a large standing stone which, before it fell in the winter of 1978-9, rose to a height of about 4 m and was aligned with its long axis NNE and SSW. Excavation of the stone-hole did not reveal any foundation deposit but showed that only 1m of the stone was set below the ground surface. The stone has now been re-erected and set in a concrete plinth, but it is no longer aligned on its original axis.
Situated 18m NW of the standing stone, there are the slight remains of a circular enclosure, which measures 17m in diameter within a low earth-and-stone bank up to 2m thick. Its date and purpose are not certain, but it and the other monuments are all shown on a copy of Edward Lhuyd's drawing of Kintraw made about 1699*, and it is clear that the enclosure was then already regarded as ancient (DES 1985, 65). The drawing also shows a circular stone setting within the enclosure and four stones extending from the exterior; neither of these features is now visible.
Besides the early monuments on the terrace, there are numerous traces of recent agriculture, including a good example of a stone-built sheep-fank, various small enclosures, clearance heaps, and earth-and-stone banks. The possibility that the standing stone may have had significance in astronomical observations in prehistoric times has been discussed on a number of occasions.
RCAHMS 1988, visited July 1980.
*The drawing is preserved in British Library (Stowe 1024, No. 80); Campbell, J L and Thomson, D, 'Edward Lhuyd in the Scottish Highlands' (1963), 306, pl. xiii. A further, but simplified, copy is in William Stukeley's manuscript Commonplace Book kept in Devize's Museum (see also PSAS, 99 (1966-7), pl. iv).
