Field Visit

Date 20 February 1962

Event ID 580545

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/580545

Carnbaan: This Clyde-type long cairn is situated at 300ft OD, on a sloping hillside. It lies E-W across the contour. Before 1820, a stone and turf wall with a ditch on the NE side was built across the NE end, destroying any features NE of it. From the wall, the cairn is 173ft long; the width is about 30ft, but may really be greater as a considerable quantity of leaf mould covers the real edges. The cairn is made of rounded boulders, free of soil, 4ft high; it has been much robbed and disturbed.

An amount of greatly disturbed cairn material stretches for 19ft in front of the wall; a mid-19th century account describes this cairn as extending 25ft in front of the wall. A stone, over 5ft long set on edge in this area may well be part of a frontal facade. There has been a chamber at each end of the cairn aligned along its main axis, and at least one lateral chamber on the SE side. Blain (1880) seems to imply that there were formerly more lateral chambers, but two later attempts to find them have failed (T H Bryce 1904; J Mackinlay 1862). However, at 62ft from the wall, there appears to be the remains of a trench running E-W across the cairn, which is more disturbed here, with various slabs lying about, as well as one which seems to be earthfast, all of which suggests the former presence of a chamber.

A S Henshall 1972; J K Hewison 1893