Braeantra, Strath Rusdale

There is a stone circle at the west end of Strathrusdale.

R MacLean 1886.

Local enquiries during field investigation regarding this stone-circle proved unsuccessful.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 7 May 1963.

This Orkney-Cromarty chambered cairn is situated on a river terrace overlooking the Black Water about 150m SE of Braeantra farmhouse and 20m SW of the public road up Strath Rusdale.

Most of the cairn material has been removed but the mound was probably circular or oval on plan and did not exceed 6.5m in greatest diameter. Six stones of an oval chamber are visible, although only stones B, D & G (0.56m, 0.76m and 0.58m in height respectively) (see DC5929/po) are still upright, the others having fallen. Stone C is a slab projecting through the turf and it may be a large stone robbed from the upper courses of the chamber wall. The chamber was probably entered from the E, the gap on the NW resulting from the removal of a side slab. Surrounding the cairn there are at least eight large stones, three of which (H, L and Q) are upright, resembling standing stones but they are probably glacial erratics and these may be the stones referred to by Maclean (R Maclean 1886,339) as a stone circle somewhere 'in the west end of Strath Rusdale'.

Visited by RCAHMS (JBS) 17 April 1980

1:100 plan

RCAHMS surveyed the chambered cairn at Braeantra by plane-table and alidade at a scale of 1:100 on 17 April 1980.

No additional information.

Visited by RCAHMS (DCC) 18 November 1989

The site is on a turf-covered hillslope strewn with large boulders. Amongst these is a small setting of boulders, too irregular to be part of a chamber, and probably remains of a bothy or pen. There is no evidence of a cairn, and the surrounding boulders, suggestive of a disturbed stone circle, appear to have been deposited naturally. This is probably the structure referred to as a ‘Druidical circle’

Visited 26 May 1994