Archaeology Notes

Event ID 648439

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/648439

NC35NE 1 3735 5797.

(NC 3735 5797) Cairn (NAT)

OS 6" map, (1961)

On the side of Beinn Spionnaidh is a building 12 ft square, called 'Carn an Righ' - the King's Cairn, said to be where the King of Scots lodged while hunting and where he stood to view the gathering of the deer. According to Torfaeus, the king that Sweyn or Suenos from Orkney waited for, may have been Malcolm II.

T Pennant 1774; G A Cooke 1810; J Mackay 1891.

NC 3735 5797. Situated on a very prominent rock outcrop at the N end of Carn an Righ at 2075ft OD is a dilapidated cairn. The remains are roughly circular on plan and consist of a tumbled mass of stones measuring 9.5m in diameter and 1.0m high with a large depression in the centre. The general appearance and extremely high situation of the cairn suggest that it is possibly modern, but the traditional association (above) may make it an antiquity.

Visited by OS (A C) 3 June 1959.

No change to the previous field report. The cairn may be commemorative; it does not resemble a burial cairn.

Visited by OS (J M) 15 April 1980.