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Knapperty Hillock
Long Cairn (Neolithic), Rig And Furrow (Medieval) - (Post Medieval)
Site Name Knapperty Hillock
Classification Long Cairn (Neolithic), Rig And Furrow (Medieval) - (Post Medieval)
Alternative Name(s) Knapperty Hill
Canmore ID 20758
Site Number NJ95SW 6
NGR NJ 9460 5032
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/20758
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Old Deer
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Banff And Buchan
- Former County Aberdeenshire
NJ95SW 6 9460 5032
For nearby cairn and stone circle, see NJ95SW 10 and NJ95SW 11.
(NJ 9460 5032) Long Cairn (NR).
OS 6" (Prov.) map, 1959.
The remains of this long cairn are not now very impressive in themselves, but are of interest in that Neolithic pottery (now lodged in the Arbuthnott Museum, Peterhead) was found in them.
R W Feachem 1963.
A long horned cairn situated just below the crest of a hill at 410ft OD. The mound, grass covered and composed of earth and stone, has been much robbed, particularly at the E end, which has been removed to ground level, and its original form cannot be traced. The cairn lies with its long axis ENE-WNW and could hardly have been less than 300ft long.
The width across the E is 67ft and in the centre is 36ft. Horns, at least 12ft long, are at the W end where the width is 75ft. The cairn averages 5 to 6ft in height but is reduced to a slight rise at the W end.
Evidently up to about 1850 a cairn, higher than the body, stood at each end of the oblong mound. These were both removed for building dykes. There were a number of cist burials and a cist can be seen 47ft from the W end. Made of rounded stones it measures 1ft 6ins wide, 3ft long and 1ft deep. Finds include several urns, quantities of bones and sherds of neolithic pottery.
A S Henshall 1963.
As described and planned by Henshall.
Re-surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS 17 April 1968.
Long Cairn [NAT]
OS 1:10,000 map, 1973.
(Location cited as NJ 9460 5032 and nominated as Site of Regional Significance). A superbly sited and substantially intact long cairn of great potential; situated on a crest at an altitude of 120m OD and partially excavated by R Fielden in 1987.
Pottery sherds found in 1840 are in NE Scotland Museum [Peterhead]; pottery sherds and a flint flake found in 1957 are held in the NMS under accession numbers EQ 970 and EQ 971, respectively. [The precise locations of these discoveries are not specified].
NMRS, MS/712/35, visited 13 December 1978.
Field Visit (14 February 2002)
This horned long cairn lies in a pasture field immediately to the W of the summit of Knapperty Hillock, and forms an impressive skyline profile when approached from this direction. It measures 86m from ESE to WNW by 11m across the centre of the cairn, but splays to a width of 19m at its WNW end, where horns some 6m in length by 3.5m in breadth project from its corners. A quarry has been dug into the ESE end of the cairn, leaving a large U-shaped hollow opening towards the ESE. Although this has removed much of this end, the edge of the cairn appears to have survived largely undisturbed, including the N horn, which is visible as a low grass-grown bank extending for a distance of 6.5m from the end of the quarry. The cairn is composed mainly of earth and small stones, with some large quartz boulders visible along the outer edge towards the centre of its NNE side. The cist referred to in Henshall's account can still be seen 15.5m from the WNW end, set into the body of the cairn near the top; this was probably covered by the round cairn, now much robbed, that was formerly superimposed on the WNW end. Tree stumps of an earlier plantation can be seen around the cairn, but before this the cairn had been preserved within a rig-and-furrow system. Shallow hollows flank both sides of the cairn, that on the S side marking the edge of a headland of rig-and-furrow cultivation running downslope to the S, while that on the N side is the first furrow of a plot aligned with the axis of the cairn.
Visited by RCAHMS (ARG,SPH), 14 February 2002
