Carn An Roin

NN02SE 15 0648 2237.

(NN 0648 2237) Carn an Roin (NAT) Crannog (NR)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1976)

Investigation in 1972 by a naval sub-aqua team under the direction of Dr T D McArdle of Edinburgh University confirmed that the island in Loch Awe known as Carn an Roin, 520 metres east of Achnacarron and about 70 metres off the west shore, is a crannog. There is no evidence of either harbour or jetty, though a smooth, curved plank found embedded in the surface stones might be a re-used canoe bottom. In the SW, in the angle between the crannog slope and the natural glacial ridge on which the crannog was built built, is an accumulated refuse heap in the shape of a semi-circle. In its vertical edge, it is possible to trace strata of various materials, including a line of trimmed timbers, about 0.3 metres from the top of the midden, lying in a stratum of twigs, grass and leaves. One of the timbers has a circular half-check cut out of it and McArdle thought it possible that what is now visible in this section may be the remains from the destruction of a house which once may have stood on the crannog, the twigs etc being perhaps the original thatch, preserved underwater.

RCAHMS 1975; T D McArdle and C M McArdle 1972.

In 1972 underwater archaeological survey revealed what was possibly the bottom of a logboat 'embedded in the surface stones' on the NE side of a crannog and about 5m from the waterline. It lay radially, with the visible pointed end towards the centre of the crannog, and may have formed an outer structural timber. The remains were left in situ and not recorded in detail.

The crannog is situated 480m E of Achnacarron farmsteading, near the NW shore of Loch Awe, a major freshwater loch which is situated in a glaciated valley at an altitude of 36m OD.

DES, (1972), 11-12; B L Hardy, T D McArdle and D L Miles 1972; C M McArdle and T D McArdle 1972; C M McArdle and T D Mc Ardle 1973; RCAHMS 1975; R J C Mowat 1996; information from Dr D McArdle.