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Dalcross Mains
Chambered Cairn (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Site Name Dalcross Mains
Classification Chambered Cairn (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Canmore ID 14150
Site Number NH74NE 15
NGR NH 77985 48466
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/14150
- Council Highland
- Parish Croy And Dalcross (Inverness)
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Inverness
- Former County Inverness-shire
NH74NE 15 7798 4846.
(NH 7798 4845) Stone Circle (NR)
OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1906)
Dalcross Mains, a Clava passage grave, has had most of the cairn material removed flush with the top of the chamber which is almost 12ft diameter. The kerb is 40-42ft diameter. One monolith survives with a slab to the west of it.
J Fraser 1884; S Piggott 1958; A S Henshall 1963, visited 10 April 1957.
Situated in a small copse, this cairn is as described above. It has been quarried in the NW segment. 10.0m NE of the latter, a further stone, 0.7m high, has possibly been displaced from the inner kerb. Two portal stones remain in the SW, and the outline of the central chamber may still be seen.
Resurveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (N K B) 11 September 1964.
Site recorded during a survey at Dalcross Estate under the Historic Scotland Ancient Monument Survey Grant Scheme.
NH 7798 4846 Dalcross Mains Chambered cairn
Sponsors: Historic Scotland, Mr Robin Buchanan.
T Rees 1998
Field Visit (20 August 1943)
Chambered Cairn, Dalcross castle.
In a narrow wood on the crest of a ridge rather above the 400’ contour, 200 yds NE of the castle, there are some remains of a chambered cairn with a free-standing circle round it. Of the latter only one stone south of the cairn’s centre is still in position, standing 4’ high x 3’6” x 1’8” with its base partly buried in cairn material. SSW of the centre lies a prostrate stone 6’3” bearing some rather doubtful cupmarks. The cairn proper is surrounded by a ring of slabs on edge with a gap 2’ wide on WSW, but the stones of the cairn now extend beyond the peristalith at many points even to the line of the outer ring so that the uprights of the peristalith in places barely project above the stones. Exposed uprights measures 2’9” x 4’7” x 2’3” (on W) or 2’6” x 3’6” x 1’3” (on N), but the upright S of the entrance gap has fallen outwards and is therefore fully exposed has a total length (i.e. height) of 4’3”. The ring thus formed has a diameter of about 40’ and, the surviving upright being radially 16’ outside, the outer circle should have measured 72’ across. The gap on the WSW seems to have given access to a gallery forming the entrance to a chamber or cist, but this is now too much blocked up with cairn material for its length to be estimated. The cairn near the centre seems to be about 5’3” high above the surrounding ground and about 4’0” to the top of the peristalith.
Visited by RCAHMS (VGC, AG) 20 August 1943.
Map ref: v (‘Stone circle’)
Field Visit (April 1979)
Dalcross Mains (INV 26) NH 779 484 NH74NE 15
A Clava passage-grave, with only two stones (one erect, one fallen) of the surrounding circle surviving. The cairn measures 12.5m in diameter over a kerb of graded boulders, and the chamber, about 3.7m in diameter, is entered from the SW.
RCAMS 1979, visited April 1979
(Henshall 1963-72, i, 374)
