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Midtown

Clearance Cairn(S) (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Midtown

Classification Clearance Cairn(S) (Period Unassigned)

Canmore ID 13265

Site Number NH63SW 32

NGR NH 621 332

NGR Description Centred at NH 621 332

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/13265

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Highland
  • Parish Dores
  • Former Region Highland
  • Former District Inverness
  • Former County Inverness-shire

Archaeology Notes

NH63SW 32 621 332.

(NH 6206 3312 & NH 6207 3314) Cairns (NR)

OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1905)

These are both 5.0m in diameter and 0.5m high and consist of bare stone rubble. Apart from their being on top of a slight ridge and not covered with heather they are not unlike the many stone clearance mounds to be found in this area, and more so from the fact that they lie in an area of former cultivation. Both cairns show evidence of excavation.

Visited by OS (R D L) 3 September 1963.

Two mounds of bare rubble stones as described by Loader (OS field surveyor), which are similar to the mounds about 250.0m to the SW (NH63SW 39), and to others in the area (NH63SW 23 & NH63NW 19) one of which is sited within a hut and is therefore later. They are probably stone clearance heaps.

In the vicinity of the mounds centred NH 621 332 is an area of stone clearance heaps, with occasional lynchets and field walls which are almost certainly of IA period, though no huts or distinct cultivation plots are discernible.

Visited by OS (N K B) 6 Feburary 1970.

Activities

Field Visit (19 August 1943)

Cairns etc, SW of Loch Ashie.

On the crest of the same ridge, SSW of the dun is a line of 9 small cairns, mostly about 20’ in diameter. But No.6 (from the N) at the highest point of the ridge is at least 25’ across. No 9 about 3/10 mile WNW of West Town farmhouse is also about 24-26ft in diameter. It is situated near the centre of a ring framed by a peat-covered bank interrupted by a gap at the ENE and defined externally by slabs which measures 42’ to 45’ in overall diameter. This ring certainly resembles a typical hut-circle and the small cairn seems to have been heaped within it and to be posterior to its use. A perfectly distinct hut-circle measuring 31’ overall is visible on a strip of level ground below the crest of the ridge E of cairn 9. The E flank of the ridge is traversed by several very ruinous enclosure baulks of stones, the last named hut-circle itself standing within an irregularly rectangular enclosure thus bounded. In cairn 2 there are traces of a built cist.

[NH63SW 32 and NH63SW 39]

On the next ridge to the NW and WNW of the fort [NH63SW 1] are numerous small cairns 12’—15’ in diameter, again on the E flank of the ridge near the 800’ contour. These seem to have been disturbed and dug into.

[NH63SW 23 and NH63SW 28 ?]

Further to the NW there is another group of similar small cairns on the small ridge on the E flank of the ridge that is followed by the high road from Inverfarigaig to Inverness, as noted on the OS map.

[NH63SW 44?]

Visited by RCAHMS (AG) 19 August 1943

Map ref: xix (‘Cairns’)

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