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Archaeology Notes
Event ID 710698
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/710698
NT04NW 15 0308 4953.
(NT 0308 4953) Long Cairn (NR)
OS 1:50000 map (1976)
This cairn has suffered severe damage from stone-robbing and the construction of a stone sheepfold at its E end, and what remains is now largely obscured by a thick growth of heather. Aligned with the long axis running from WNW to ESE, the cairn material is about 7 m broad at the W end, increasing to a maximum of about 12m at the most easterly point where a measurement can still be taken with any certainty. The E end has been mutilated to such an extent by the building of the sheepfold that without excavation it is no longer possible to determine the original length of the cairn. As shown on the plan, however, it can be seen to be at least 30m long, and it may originally have extended for a further 6m as far as the W arc of the sheepfold. Towards the W end, where it is best preserved, the cairn material survives to an average height of 1.2m. A number of large earthfast boulders belonging to a kerb can be seen intermittently round the edge of the cairn material, protruding up to 0.4m above it.
Towards the E end of the cairn, and aligned approximately at right angles to the long axis, there is a lateral chamber opening to the S, of which only the end slab and four of the side-slabs are at present visibly still in position; several other large slabs are lying dislodged within the interior. As exposed, the chamber measures about 1.0m in width by 3.0m in length, but if, as is likely, it extended outwards as far as the line of the kerb flanking the S side of the cairn, the total length would have been about 4.6m.
Three upright stones, situated 4.3m N of the chamber just described, may be the two portal stones and one of the slabs forming the E side of a second lateral chamber on the same alignment as the first, and opening to the N.
A S Henshall 1972, visited 1963; RCAHMS 1978, visited 1974.
