Muir Of Allangrange, Cairnside

NH55SE 73 5606 5255

The cairn is at the side of a field in flat agricultural land. It is at 140m OD, and has wide views. Carn Urnan (NH55SE 10) is 650m to the ESE, and Muir of Allangrange (NH55SE 7) is 100m to the W.

The cairn is aligned N to S, with the wider end to the N. It is evident that the cairn has been reduced in height; and it has been used as a dump for field-gathered stones. It remains as a low, untidy, and much disturbed rise, with the N half overgrown with gorse, and the S part mainly covered with coarse grass. A track, with an old wall and fence along its E side, runs beside the E edge of the cairn for much of its length. The straight N end and the W side can be traced a little within the present limit of ploughing. The cairn fades away to the S, and its southern extent is uncertain. The cairn was at least 52m long, and may have been as much as 65m long. The N half is almost parallel-sided, 16.5m wide at the N end and slightly wider further S; the S half gradually narrows to about 13m wide at the least definable point. From the N end the cairn rises for about 13m to a maximum height of a little over 1m, which height it retains for about 16m, and then it gradually dwindles towards the S end.

The cairn is indicated on a survey of 1816 (Reduced plan of the survey of the Commons of Milbuy, Cromarty etc' by Peter Brown, SRO RHP 4045) by a row of four dots, and is titled 'Grey Cairn'. The nearby house is named Cairnside. However, the cairn was not recorded on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Ross & Cromarty), surveyed in 1872-3. (We are grateful to D Alston, Curator, Cromarty Courthouse, for drawing our attention to this cairn).

Information from A S Henshall and J N G Ritchie, visited 23 May 1997.