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Field Visit
Date April 1982
Event ID 1101934
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1101934
Cists have been found on several occasions in a sand-and-gravel pit 700m SSE of Kilbride.
(1) The List of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings in the County of Argyll prepared by Argyll County Council in 1915 records the finding of a number of 'graves' with 'burnt clay vessels' while sand was being extracted for the building of Arduaine House (ACC list 1914; Campbell and Sandeman 1964); the vessels no longer survive.
(2) In 1955 a fragmentary cist measuring about 1m by 0.5m internally was discovered; two other slabs (perhaps a side-slab and a capstone) and pieces of what were probably femurs were found in the collapsed material below the cist (Campbell 1956). Traces of two further cists were reported at this time.
(3) One of these cists was excavated in 1957; aligned N and S, it was found to measure 1.06m by 0.6m and 0.58m in depth, and to contain a fragmentary inhumation (Campbell 1957).
(4) A cist, measuring 1.7m by 0.9m and 0.9m in depth, was reported in 1971, but no details of its contents are known.
(5) A severely ruined cist was discovered in the course of the present survey in 1982; aligned NNW and SSE, it had measured about 0.8m by 0.5m and 0.45m in depth, and contained a cremation, possibly an adult female, accompanied by a flint knife (Campbell and Ritchie 1985). The ENE side-slab (probably of the local rock, the Craignish phyllites) appears to have been decorated with three roughly pecked triangular motifs, probably axes. The flint and the decorated stone are preserved at Craigdhu (NM 820 054).
Visited April 1982
RCAHMS 1988
