Chapelton

A single large cairn lies in a field about 150m east of Chapelton steading. It measures about 21m in diameter and about 3m in height.

This is the last of a group of at least three cairns that stood in this vicinity until the nineteenth century. In 1869 the Ordnance Survey recorded that a cairn had been removed in recent times, uncovering a cist, formed of circular stones set on end. In 1920, the tenant farmer described how the excavation of another cairn revealed a central chamber formed from four upright pillars or slabs supporting a large circular stone. This covered a small stone coffin or cist. No remains or artefacts are described as having been found within this cist.

Text prepared by RCAHMS as part of the Accessing Scotland's Past project

NJ13SE 3 1778 3044 to 1770 3039.

(NJ 1778 3044) Carna Bhodaich (NR)

(NJ 1770 3039) Site of Cairn (NR) (Stone Coffin Found)

OS 6" map, Banffshire, 2nd ed., (1905)

A large cairn measuring 15 to 20 yards in diameter and 15ft high, apparently unopened. Formerly another cairn stood about 50 yards due south, and a third about 30 yards to the west. The present (1920) tenant's father saw the middle cairn removed. In the centre was a large circular stone supported upon four upright slabs, and covering a small stone cist. The Name Book (1869) refers to a cairn removed before 1869 and found to contain a cist surrounded by a circle of large stones set on end.

Name Book 1869; J G Duncan 1921.

Carna Bhodaich, name confirmed, is a large cairn, much mutilated, measuring approx. 24.0m in diameter and 3.8m in height. It appears to stand on a grassy platform 32m E-W by 28m transversely.

Some 90m SW of this cairn, there is a circular grass-covered mound c.13m in diameter and 0.3m in height, probably the cairn described by the Name Book as having been removed before 1869. No trace of other cairns could be found.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (R B) 31 August 1966.

A cairn of bare rubble stone capping a rise in a cultivated field. It measures c 21.0m in diameter and about 3.0m high and has been howked in several places and a rough shelter constructed on the summit. There is no platform as described by Bruce but ploughing has accentuated the sides of the rise giving perhaps a platform effect. There is no trace of a kerb. Name confirmed.

At the position of the siting symbol on OS 6"map to the SW of the cairn, is a slight shelf with a little more stone scattered on its surface than elsewhere in the field. This is presumably the site of the cairn described by the Name Book (1869) but there is no mound as described by Bruce.

About 50 yards SSE of the large cairn is a clearance heap on the edge of a hollow which may be what Duncan refers to as a cairn.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (A A) 24 January 1972.