Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Auldearn
Burial Cairn (Prehistoric), Stone Row (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Site Name Auldearn
Classification Burial Cairn (Prehistoric), Stone Row (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)
Alternative Name(s) Kinsteary
Canmore ID 15597
Site Number NH95SW 3
NGR NH 9312 5486
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/15597
- Council Highland
- Parish Auldearn
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Nairn
- Former County Nairn
NH95SW 3 9312 5486
(NH 9312 5486) Stone Circles (NR)
Stone Coffin found AD 1903 (NAT)
OS 6" map (1959)
A cairn described as being surrounded by a "ditch and vallum and with a stone row extending from it in a SE direction". Cairn excavated in 1903 by Young and found to contain a cist.
Previous to excavation the cairn was a grass-grown mound surrounded by a ring of stones but digging showed the mound was only partly artificial composed of round stones, the base being a natural sandbank in which the unpaved cist 2' 5" by 1' 6" wide, was found. It was full of sand the there was no burial or grave goods.
The stone alignment consists of six conglomerate boulders, 7ft high and 27ft apart, except where one is missing, which Young speculates may have been double.
No description is given of the 'ditch and vallum' but the plan suggests that the 'vallum' may have been secondary.
Scot Antiq 1902; H W Young 1904.
A mutilated and overgrown cairn, c 13.0m diameter and c 2.0m high, with three kerb stones on the SE side. It stands eccentrically on a sub-circular platform measuring c 21.0m NNW to SSE, by c 18.0m tranversely and c 0.3m in height but is destroyed in the E by quarrying. At only one point is there any suggestion of the 'vallum' noted by Young, where there are traces of a bank for about 3.0m on the rim of the platform, but there is no trace of a ditch. This is almost certainly a Wessex-type bell-cairn.
Of the six stones (A-F) of the stone row only 'B' and 'C' remains upright, measuring respectively 1.3m and 1.0m in height. There is no evidence to support Young's theory of a double row.
Resurveyed at 1/2500 (by OS (RD) 26 November 1965)
Visited by OS (RL), 7 January 1971.
NH 93104 54717. A watching brief was undertaken between October 2003 and January 2004 on part of a house plot close to the site of a cairn and stone row (NH95SW 3). No archaeological deposits or features were revealed.
Report lodged with Highland SMR and the NMRS.
Sponsor: Mr D MacIntosh.
S Farrell 2004.
Field Visit (22 September 1943)
Cairn and Alignment, Kinsteary Lodge.
This monument, or group of remains, stands at the E end of the strip of trees that bounds the Kinsteary policies on the N, and close to the point where this strip joins the road from Auldearn to Moyness. The strip occupies a line of glacial hillocks, which terminates near this point; the surrounding land is cultivated. The remains consist of a cairn and an alignment of large boulders running in a general direction from WNW to ESE. The cairn, which is largely covered with woodland humus, appears to consist principally of small boulders with a few angular slabs. It measures 43 ft in diameter, stands 5 ft to 6 ft high, and shows two or three stones on its SE margin which might be part of a peristalith; though probably only one is undisturbed.
The alignment measures 250ft in total length from the margin of the cairn. The stone nearest to the cairn, Stone A, is 11ft out from the margin, but may not be in its original position as it shows some signs of having fallen towards the SW. As it now stands it is 3ft 3in high, 6ft 10in wide and 3ft 4in thick. Stone B, 25ft from Stone A, is 4ft 1in high, 5ft 1in wide and 2ft thick; and Stone C, 29ft further out, is 3ft 2in high, 4ft 1in wide and 2 ft 3in thick. Between Stones C and D there is a gap of 96 ft and Stone D is evidently displaced; the true height, not the exposed height, of the latter can however be measured as 5ft 3in, and its width and thickness are 3ft and 2ft respectively. Some displaced fragments of broken stone, not shown on the plan, lie close to Stone D. From Stone D to Stone E is 38 ft, and the latter measures 3ft 9in by 4ft 6in by 4ft 1in. The outermost stone of the alignment, Stone F, is 43ft from Stone E and 6ft NE of the general line of the remainder; it measures 3ft 8in by 4ft by 4ft 2in.
Visited by RCAHMS (VG Childe, A Graham) 22 September 1943.
Field Visit (May 1978)
Auldearn NH 931 548 NH95SW 3
This cairn, which measures 13m in diameter and 2m high, sits on an oval platform. Three kerb-stones are visible on the SE, and on the SW there are the remains of a cist which was excavated in 1903. Only two stones remain in situ of a stone alignment which formerly extended to the SE.
RCAHMS 1978, visited May 1978
Feachem 1972, 108
