Archaeology Notes

Event ID 727551

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/727551

NX59SE 2 5594 9245.

(NX 5593 9245) Cairn Avel (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

Cairn Avel, a long cairn, is about 118ft E by S to W by N. For about 50ft from the W end, the cairn has been so completely demolished that this area rises only 1ft above ground level, though the edge is obvious. Presumably this part of the cairn has been used for building the nearby walls, one of which runs along the N side of the cairn. The rest of the monument remains as a fine steep-sided cairn of bare stones 10ft high. The width at the E end is about 73ft but at the NE corner the cairn material extends about 10ft outside the steeply rising point of the cairn at a gentler pitch. As the ground dips into a hollow at this corner, this extension of the cairn may be a platform foundation for the main cairn, on the other hand it may be that the cairn has been much robbd round this corner, and the original width of the cairn was about 83 ft. The sides of the cairn taper westwards to about 30ft across at the W end. Three slabs, set on their edges and projecting 1ft high, may be parts of a peristalith. Two slabs are at the W end about 3 ft within the cairn edge, and the other is 5ft within the S edge 27ft to the E. These stones suggest a strictly trapezoidal plan with squared W end, though the cairn edge at the W end is now rounded in plan. The E end of the cairn is curiously irregular, being concave towards the SE corner, and it has not obviously been robbed.

A S Henshall 1972, visited 1962; RCAHMS 1914

NX 5594 9245 A long cairn as described and planned by Miss Henshall. Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (BS) 15 February 1978