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Edinchip

Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)

Site Name Edinchip

Classification Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)

Canmore ID 24120

Site Number NN52SE 10

NGR NN 5750 2185

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/24120

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Administrative Areas

  • Council Stirling
  • Parish Balquhidder
  • Former Region Central
  • Former District Stirling
  • Former County Perthshire

Archaeology Notes

NN52SE 10 5750 2185.

NN 5750 2185. A Clyde-type long chambered cairn was discovered on the estate of Edinchip, 1 1/2 miles (2km) SW of Lochearnhead, at the head of Strathyre.

It is situated at 162m OD on a natural terrace in birch and oak woodland on a S-facing slope, and is some 30m W of the disused Callander and Oban railway and the old military road from Stirling to Fort William.

The cairn is 56m in overall length, exaggerated by some spreading of the cairn material which is lightly grassed-over; some white quartz stones show here and there. It is oriented ENE-WSW, each end being about 2m high and spread to 16m wide, while about midway, quarrying has reduced its height to about 1m and 13m in width. Later structures (enclosures and walls of a farmstead) have been built onto the cairn mutilating it considerably; the SW end particularly shows no cairn features, but a large boulder measuring 2.1 x 1.2m may have been utilised as a kerb stone. There is another large boulder on the S side near the NE end. At this end is an axial chamber divided into two compartments, the E one being some 2m long and separated from the W compartment by a thin broken slab. The W compartment is slightly skew to the other and measures 1.5m square. It is formed by massive side slabs 0.6m high above the silted interior, and covered by a large capstone some 2m square tilted at an angle of 45 degrees, its S end being raised 1m above the top of the cairn resting on the rear slab of the chamber. The chamber is central to what appears to have been a V-shaped facade. Four broken upright slabs can be traced on the S side, and there is one loose slab possibly indicating the position of the N side. The entry to the E chamber is between two stones 0.75m apart.

5m to the SW of the main chamber are two sides of another - three overlapping slabs (one of which seems to be an outcrop of rock in situ) on the N side, and a large broken slab on the E side, probably the back-slab. Other displaced slabs may be parts of a capstone or corbel stones. 7m SW of this are two thinner slabs almost at a right angle to one another - probably the last vestiges of a lateral chamber. Beyond this is the disturbed area of later activity.

This is now the most westerly of Clyde cairns in Perthshire (Full report forthcoming in PSAS).

Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (J L D) 4 November 1980; OS revision October 1980.

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