Archaeology Notes

Event ID 645638

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/645638

HY44NW 16 4286 4705.

(HY 4286 4705) An Orkney-Cromarty type stalled cairn lies 125 yds south of the 'Craw's Stane' (HY 4285 4717) and near the summit of Knucker Hill.

All that is now to be seen is a low stony mound about 3' high and of indefinite outline, but apparently oval in plan, measuring about 40' by 30'. Six slabs set on edge appear above the turf, probably some of the divisional slabs of the chamber.

Two slabs set on edge lie some distance south of the cairn and may have some association with it. The more southerly of the two stands on the periphery of a heap of small stones. (RCAHMS say this may be the same as HY44NW 17, which cannot be identified elsewhere).

A S Henshall 1963; RCAHMS 1946, visited 1935.

This chambered cairn is a spread, turf-covered, near-circular mound measuring c.14.0m in diameter and c.1.3m maximum height, with its top dug into revealing six slabs on edge, as described and illustrated by Henshall.

24.40m to the S is a slight, turf-covered stony mound measuring c.8.0m in diameter, and c.0.2m in height, with an earth-fast slab on edge protruding through the turf near the centre. This is almost certainly a cairn. One of the earth-fast slabs noted by RCAHM protrudes through the turf on the edge of the cairn in the NE and the other is about 3.0m N of it.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (RL) 27 June 1970.

The tip only of the W slab of the second pair from the S was recorded in 1971 (by A S Henshall), but by 1983 it had been covered by a marker cairn.

Surface erosion has exposed a 2m length of a single course of flat stones on the NW side of the small cairn to the S. This would appear to indicate the outer edge of the cairn.

Visited by OS (JLD) 10 May 1983.