North Uist, South Clettraval, Tigh Cloiche
Building(S) (Later Prehistoric) - (Post Medieval), Chambered Cairn (Neolithic), Cremation (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age), Roundhouse (Later Prehistoric)(Possible), Unidentified Pottery (Prehistoric)
Site Name North Uist, South Clettraval, Tigh Cloiche
Classification Building(S) (Later Prehistoric) - (Post Medieval), Chambered Cairn (Neolithic), Cremation (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age), Roundhouse (Later Prehistoric)(Possible), Unidentified Pottery (Prehistoric)
Alternative Name(s) Garry Hougary
Canmore ID 10081
Site Number NF77SE 14
NGR NF 7516 7101
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/10081
- Council Western Isles
- Parish North Uist
- Former Region Western Isles Islands Area
- Former District Western Isles
- Former County Inverness-shire
NF77SE 14 7516 7101.
(NF 7516 7101) Tigh Chloiche (NR)
OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1903)
Tigh Chloiche, South Clettraval, a chambered cairn, has been much disturbed by secondary buildings and its present form bears little relationship to its original plan.
The narrow and almost parallel-sided chamber is surrounded on the N, E and S by traces of what appear to be circular buildings. Four orthostats of the chamber remain on the SW but the northern part cannot be traced. The entrance was from the E but nothing can be seen of the passage walls. Large flat stone slabs lie displaced outside the chamber and, whereas the extent of the cairn is fairly well marked to the N. and E., it drops to an extensive low spread to the S and SE.
Finds of potsherds are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS).
A S Henshall 1972, visited 2 May 1962.
The remains of this chambered cairn are as described and planned by Henshall. At least two sub-oval buildings (the larger 5.0m by 4.0m) lie among the cairn stones and there are the possible outlines of another in the cairn debris to the south.
Surveyed at 1/10,560.
Visited by OS (W D J) 17 June 1965.
Lying immediately to the E of a modern fence in peat moorland, the remains are as planned by Henshall, though there are considerable doubts whether these relate to a chambered cairn or a round house. The sheer quantity of stones argues that this probably was a cairn, but it is not clear whether all of the four orthostats recorded on Henshall’s plan belong to the chamber. The lintels are set on piers within their line. While these may have been robbed from a chamber, in their present position they are more likely to roof a later domestic structure. Amongst the stone debris, there are traces of at least another two subrectangular buildings.
Visited by RCAHMS (ARG, SPH) 31 August 2009
Field Visit (9 September 1914)
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.
Field Visit (17 June 1965)
The remains of this chambered cairn are as described and planned by Henshall. At least two sub-oval buildings (the larger 5.0m by 4.0m) lie among the cairn stones and there are the possible outlines of another in the cairn debris to the south.
Surveyed at 1/10,560.
Visited by OS (W D J) 17 June 1965.
Desk Based Assessment (1965)
(NF 7516 7101) Tigh Chloiche (NR)
OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1903)
Tigh Chloiche, South Clettraval, a chambered cairn, has been much disturbed by secondary buildings and its present form bears little relationship to its original plan.
The narrow and almost parallel-sided chamber is surrounded on the N, E and S by traces of what appear to be circular buildings. Four orthostats of the chamber remain on the SW but the northern part cannot be traced. The entrance was from the E but nothing can be seen of the passage walls. Large flat stone slabs lie displaced outside the chamber and, whereas the extent of the cairn is fairly well marked to the N. and E., it drops to an extensive low spread to the S and SE.
Finds of potsherds are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS).
A S Henshall 1972, visited 2 May 1962.
Field Visit (31 August 2009)
Lying immediately to the E of a modern fence in peat moorland, the remains are as planned by Henshall, though there are considerable doubts whether these relate to a chambered cairn or a round house. The sheer quantity of stones argues that this probably was a cairn, but it is not clear whether all of the four orthostats recorded on Henshall’s plan belong to the chamber. The lintels are set on piers within their line. While these may have been robbed from a chamber, in their present position they are more likely to roof a later domestic structure. Amongst the stone debris, there are traces of at least another two subrectangular buildings.
Visited by RCAHMS (ARG,SPH) 31 August 2009
Measured Survey (17 September 2012 - 18 September 2012)
RCAHMS surveyed the chambered cairn at Tigh Cloiche, South Clettraval between 17-18 September 2012 with plane-table and alidade producing a plan at a scale of 1:100.
Note (2020)
South Clettraval #2
This burial site in Western Isles was a focus for funerary practices in the Neolithic/Bronze Age period, between 4000 BC and 801 BC.
Prehistoric Grave Goods project site ID: 60038
CANMORE ID: 10081
Total no. graves with grave goods: 1
Total no. people with grave goods: 1
Total no. grave goods: 1
Prehistoric Grave Goods project Grave ID: 74408
Grave type: Chamber
Burial type(s): Cremation
Grave good: Animal Bone (Other)
Materials used: Bone/Antler/Horn/Ivory/Tooth (Animal) [Bone]
Current museum location: Unknown
Further details, the full project database and downloads of project publications can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5284/1052206
An accessible visualisation of the database can be found here: http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/grave-goods/map/
