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Muckle Burn
Cairn (Bronze Age)
Site Name Muckle Burn
Classification Cairn (Bronze Age)
Alternative Name(s) Boghole
Canmore ID 15524
Site Number NH95NE 2
NGR NH 97014 55249
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/15524
- Council Highland
- Parish Auldearn
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Nairn
- Former County Nairn
NH95NE 2 9702 5524.
(NH 9702 5524) Stone Coffin on Cairn (NR)
OS 6" map (1906)
This is a cairn of stones, entirely overgrown with whins. On the top of the cairn 'there is a stone coffin. It is about 5 feet long, and about 2 broad, and is now full of loose stones. It is not known when it was discovered, nor if it contained any human remains ... The cairn has no name.'
Name Book 1869
A cairn, situated on a knoll above the steep bank of the Muckle Burn. It is composed of earth and small stones, measures about 18.0m in diameter by 1.7m high, and has a flat top about 8.0m in diameter, on the SE side of which there is a small depression filled with stones, which may be the site of the 'coffin'.
Around the SW periphery there are three large stones set on edge and another in the NW, probably the remains of a peristalith. A section of the northern side of the cairn has recently been removed but no significant finds were made.
Resurveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (RD) 23 August 1965
This cairn has been destroyed. It was bulldozed away c.1968 to make way for a piggery. According to the farmer, apart from a few flattish stones it contained nothing of interest.
Visited by OS (AA) 12 March 1971
Field Visit (1869)
This is a cairn of stones, entirely overgrown with whins. On the top of the cairn 'there is a stone coffin. It is about 5 feet long, and about 2 broad, and is now full of loose stones. It is not known when it was discovered, nor if it contained any human remains ... The cairn has no name.'
Name Book 1869
Field Visit (22 September 1943)
This site was included within the RCAHMS Emergency Survey (1942-3), an unpublished rescue project. Site descriptions, organised by county, vary from short notes to lengthy and full descriptions and are available to view online with contemporary sketches and photographs. The original typescripts, manuscripts, notebooks and photographs can also be consulted in the RCAHMS Search Room.
Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 10 December 2014.
Field Visit (23 August 1965)
A cairn, situated on a knoll above the steep bank of the Muckle Burn. It is composed of earth and small stones, measures about 18.0m in diameter by 1.7m high, and has a flat top about 8.0m in diameter, on the SE side of which there is a small depression filled with stones, which may be the site of the 'coffin'.
Around the SW periphery there are three large stones set on edge and another in the NW, probably the remains of a peristalith. A section of the northern side of the cairn has recently been removed but no significant finds were made.
Resurveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (RD) 23 August 1965
Field Visit (12 March 1971)
This cairn has been destroyed. It was bulldozed away c.1968 to make way for a piggery. According to the farmer, apart from a few flattish stones it contained nothing of interest.
Visited by OS (AA) 12 March 1971
Field Visit (May 1978)
Muckle Burn NH 970 552 NH95NE 2
Nothing now remains of this cairn which was first noted in 1869 when a cist about 1.7m long was visible at the centre of the mound. In 1965 the cairn measured 18m in diameter and had traces of a kerb on the SW and NW arcs.
RCAHMS 1978, visited May 1978
Name Book, Nairn, no. 3, p. 72
