Archaeology Notes

Event ID 666992

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/666992

NJ40NW 4 4113 0633.

(NJ 4113 0633) Blue Cairn (NR) Remains of: Supposed Stone Circle.

OS 6" map, Aberdeenshire, 2nd ed., (1902)

A mutilated stone circle, defined by a large cairn of stones, 90ft in diameter. 6ft inside the edge of the cairn in the SW is a huge recumbent stone, 11ft long by 5ft broad. The only upright stone remaining is in the N (A on plan) and is 2ft high, two others of the same height are leaning, and 27 other stones up to 5 or 6ft long which have once formed the customary ring of erect stones, are fallen and displaced. An excavation in 1875 revealed only animal bones and fragments of a clay urn (A Ogston 1931) All the upright stones had been removed by 1866 except the recumbent stone (Name Book 1866).

Name Book 1866; A Ogston 1931.

Blue Cairn, a mutilated recumbent stone circle mainly as described above. The upright block in the NE ('A' on Ogston's plan) seems to have been erected later. To the E of the recumbent stone is a large stone leaning outwards which may be the only one of the ring of standing stones left, most of those described by Ogston being merely large stones.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (N K B) 4 September 1968.

The monument is situated on a moderate SE-facing slope at an altitude of about 285m OD.

NMRS, MS/712/44.