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Field Visit
Date 9 August 1915
Event ID 1103468
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1103468
Long Chambered Cairn, Barpa, Carinish.
This long cairn, which is in a very dilapidated condition, lies about 1 ¼ miles east of Carinish, and about 300 yards east-north-east of the stone circle (NF86SW 1), at an elevation of about 50 feet above sea-level. Much of its material has been used to build houses in the neighbourhood and the shielings which encroach on the cairn. Its original dimensions cannot be determined, but it has been more than 158 feet in length and 50 feet in breadth across the centre, where the mound still rises 9 feet in height. Its main axis is almost east and west. The western end tails away sharply, both in width and height, for the last 25 feet. The chamber has probably been in the eastern end, but as this portion has suffered most its position cannot be located. Five slabs varying from 1 foot to 4 feet 3 inches in height, placed on edge in line along the eastern end of the northern border, over a distance of 32 feet 6 inches, seem to indicate a marginal setting of such slabs. From either side of the eastern extremity two horn-like banks of stone run out north-east and south-east with a slight curve backwards, their extremities terminating about 148 feet apart. The northern horn for some 40 feet at its extreme end measures some 4 to 6 feet in breadth and 1 foot in height, and the other on the south shows about the same dimensions for the 33 feet it extends outside the cairn. From the extremity of the latter the ruined wall of a later enclosure re-curves sharply. There are very few large slabs left in the cairn. One measuring 4 feet 4 inches in height above the stones, 4 feet 9 inches in breadth, and 17 inches in thickness, stands in a tilted position at the south of the east end of the cairn, and two smaller stones appear nearer the centre of this extremity. While there is not sufficient evidence, owing to the destruction which has taken place, especially at the eastern end of the cairn, to say that this is a horned cairn, the horn-like projections differ entirely in character from the late walls of enclosures seen adjoining the cairn
RCAHMS 1928, visited 9 August 1915.
OS map: North Uist xl.
