Database Update
Date 25 September 2010
Event ID 629120
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/629120
This chambered long cairn is situated in open and relatively remote moorland, with its ESE end resting on a natural scarp that forms the leading edge of the underlying knoll, and its tail extending down the gentle slope to the WNW. Overall it measures 50.5m in length, tapering from a maximum of 16.8m in breadth and 1.7m in height on the ESE to 6m and 0.5m respectively on the WNW. The shape of the cairn is obscured by heather and peat, the former encroaching differentially onto the cairn material, and the surface of the latter dipping in along either side, but contrary to Henshall’s plan it is clear that the NNW side at least forms an almost straight line. On the axis of the cairn at the ESE end three large side slabs of a chamber can be seen and though its configuration is not entirely clear, the combined length of chamber and passage is at least 8.6m, measured from the outer edge of a large slab lying horizontally across its line immediately within the ESE margin of the cairn, and presumed to be a lintel; this slab measures at least 1.9m in length by up to 1m in breadth and 0.3m in thickness. Behind it some 0.8m to the WNW, the first of the three upright slabs visible measures 2.1m long by up to 0.25m thick and rises 1m above the cairn. This probably belongs to the SSW wall of the passage or chamber or passage, as does a slab some 1.5m long by 0.2m thick, of which only the very top is visible a further 3.3m into the mound. Of the NNE side of the chamber only the top of a slab 1m in length by 0.15m in thickness can be seen, protruding 0.4m through the cairn material roughly opposite the gap between the other two. Another large block lies on the natural slope just below the NE angle of the cairn and measures 1.7m in length by 1.1m in breadth and 0.4m in thickness.
Visited by RCAHMS (SPH) 25 September 2010
