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Hawk Law
Cairn (Period Unassigned), Cinerary Urn(S) (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Hawk Law
Classification Cairn (Period Unassigned), Cinerary Urn(S) (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) Hillhead Of Barra
Canmore ID 18861
Site Number NJ72SE 10
NGR NJ 7912 2486
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/18861
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Bourtie
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Gordon
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NJ72SE 10 7912 2486
(NJ 7911 2487) Cairn (NR) (site of).
OS 6" map, Aberdeenshire, 2nd ed., (1928)
A cairn containing two urns in a cist and situated on the Hawklaw was opened between 1832 and 1842. The cairn originally covered 'nearly half an acre, and was surrounded with a circle of small stones set on end.'
NSA 1845.
The Hawk Law is a small knoll 'on which stood, about the year 1833, a low sandy conical tumulus of aqueous formation'.
OS OS Name Book 1867.
'In the year 1833 there stood at this spot a large circular mound of earth about 4 feet in height'. It contained 'large quantities of charred bones and broken pottery - there was also a number of large boulders placed round the mound at short distances from each other.'
A ploughed down mound at NJ 7912 2486 is almost certainly the remains of this cairn. It has a maximum height of 0.9m on the west and merges with the natural hill-top on the east.
Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (NKB), 5 March 1964.
OS Name Book 1867
At NJ 7916 2386 there is a stone set on end.
NMRS, MS/712/72.
All that now remains of this cairn is a low spread of stones in a cultivated field about 200m W of Hillhead farmsteading (NJ72SE 256). A standing stone (NJ72SE 107) is situated immediately E of the cairn and may be one of the stones that originally surrounded the cairn.
The present whereabouts of the fragments of pottery that were found in the cairn in the early 19th century are not known, though there are fragments of an 'urn' (PEHMS: I 6978) from 'Bourtie' in Inverurie Museum.
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, IF), 6 March 1996.
