Field Visit
Date 9 September 1914
Event ID 921129
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/921129
Chambered Cairn (ruined), Tigh Cloiche, South Clettraval.
On the south-eastern slope of South Clettraval, some 750 yards north of Loch Vausary, at an elevation of about 225 feet above sea-level, is Tigh Cloiche, a ruined chambered cairn. What survives is a mere fragment of the mound with the remains of the chamber quite exposed. The cairn seems to have been of the circular variety with a diameter of at least 60 feet, but it is now an irregular mass of stones measuring some 56 feet from east to west, 53 feet from north to south, and 5 feet in height, with two detached heaps of stone lying on the south or lower side.
The chamber, which has been curvilinear with a diameter of possibly 9 feet, has been formed of slabs set on end, six or seven of these on the south and west remaining near their original position. The largest of these slabs on the south of the chamber stands 4 feet above the debris in which it is embedded, and measures5 feet in width and 8 inches in thickness; its top stands 9 feet above the outer level on the south side of the cairn. Within the chamber are two large cover stones or perhaps one broken longitudinally in two; taken together they show a length of 8 feet 6 inches and a breadth of 7 feet 7 inches. The entrance passage is not traceable, but it seems to have run out from the chamber slightly to the north of east. A fine, large slab, 9 feet long, 3 feet 10 inches broad, and 11 inches thick, lying just outside the east of the chamber, which possibly may not have been disturbed, has the appearance of the inner lintel stone of the passage. Between it and the edge of the cairn and on the south-west and north slopes are many large slabs.
Some fragments of pottery were found by Dr. Beveridge on the floor of the chamber and the passage (North Uist, p. 252).
RCAHMS 1928, visited 9 September 1914
OS map: North Uist xxxiv.
