Archaeology Notes

Event ID 730368

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/730368

NY48SW 1 4295 8391 to 4300 8390.

(Name: NY 4296 8389) Long Cairns (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

For nearby cairns and standing stone, see NY48SW 6 and NY48SW 7.

A Clyde-type long cairn is situated in an unplanted area near the edge of a Forestry Commission plantation, at 1,000 ft OD. It is about 120 ft long, on average 25 ft wide and 5 ft in maximum height. The width and height are probably greater as the cairn is surrounded by a deep growth of peat and vegetation. Three small, semi-circular shelters have been built by shepherds along the sides of the cairn. The E end of the cairn has probably been truncated as it is erected into a rough wall, part of a circular enclosure 45 ft in diameter, noted by the RCAHMS. This is now obscured to the N and S by trees, but the foundation of its E side may be seen. Four stones of what has been a straight facade remain at the W end of the cairn; the chamber, built of orthostats supplemented by dry-walling, and measuring 21 3/4 ft long, is entered from the centre of the facade.

About 50 ft E of the cairn described above are two mounds of cairn material, probably belonging to one cairn aligned on the same axis as the main cairn. It is greatly robbed and disturbed. It has measured about 72 ft long and roughly 25 ft wide. A few upright stones at the E end indicate that there may have been a chamber or some other structure, but the plan is not evident.

RCAHMS 1920, visited 1920; A S Henshall 1972, visited 1956

NY 4295 8391. The chambered long cairn is as described; it is gradually being encroached upon by vegetation cover.

NY 4300 8390. The spread of cairn material, as stated, is so distrubed that its original form cannot be interpreted from the surviving ground evidence but it was probably once part of the main cairn.

Surveyed at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (MJF) 1 August 1979.

Scheduled (with NY48SW 7) as 'Whisgills, long cairn and standing stones 2230m W of...'

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 23 January 2008.