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Loch Erisort, Beinn Chleiteir

Cairn (Period Unassigned), Stone Circle (Neolithic)-(Bronze Age)

Site Name Loch Erisort, Beinn Chleiteir

Classification Cairn (Period Unassigned), Stone Circle (Neolithic)-(Bronze Age)

Canmore ID 296383

Site Number NB21NE 43

NGR NB 2918 1950

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/296383

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Western Isles
  • Parish Lochs
  • Former Region Western Isles Islands Area
  • Former District Western Isles
  • Former County Ross And Cromarty

Activities

Measured Survey (2007)

NB 2918 1950 We discovered an unrecorded stone circle (Callanish 36) in 2006. The buried megaliths, packing stones and socket holes and cairn were probed and the site surveyed in 2007. The circle was about 10m across and consisted of six megaliths spaced unevenly around the perimeter. The circle seems to have been badly damaged some two centuries ago, and again more recently. Packers were removed from four stones

and left lying on the (then) peat surface. Two megaliths were removed from their sockets, either taken away whole, broken up or trimmed, and the pieces left on the (then) peat surface. An attempt was made to dig deep on the N side of one erect stone (the last stone listed below) to remove it. A similar monolith has been used as part of ‘gateway’ in a dyke at the Abhuinn na Muilne, 475m distant, at NB 288 191 (Northamptonshire

Archaeology, Loch Seaforth Head Gazetteer, March 2004, 6.2, 22).

There are now, clockwise from N:

Erect stone, 0.7 x 0.4 x 1.3m tall, above till level, broken off above present ground level, with 2 or 3 displaced packing stones.

Erect stone, 0.75 x 0.4 x 0.9m tall, above till level, broken off at present ground level.

Empty socket hole with complete or part megalith lying at its S end, and 1 displaced packing stone.

Empty socket hole with complete or part megalith lying at its S end, and 1 displaced packing stone.

Empty socket hole with broken megalith lying to SE, with 2 original in situ packers and 2 displaced packers returned to socket.

Erect stone, 0.85 x 0.6 x 1.45m tall, above till level, broken at sides only.

Erect stone, 0.35 x 0.3 x 1.2m tall, above till level, undamaged, with 1 displaced packing stone to NE. Trench (not shown) in till on N side dug in attempt to remove stone.

Subsequent peat growth has covered the displaced packers and broken megaliths which now ‘float’ low in the peat. As the depth of peat is 0.7 to 0.9m and as several of the tops of the standing stones have been broken off, they now appear much shorter than they were. There is a stone and earth cairn inside the circle, about 4.5 x 4.5 x 1.0m high. It is no central to the circle and is covered x 0.5m of peat. The circle is on the S side of Beinn Chleiteir, on the top of a natural green mound, about 70m N of the old road built in 1925. A N/S fence (not shown)

runs through the site and there is a field gate less than 10m N of the circle.

Field Visit (2008)

NB 2918 1950 The horizon survey showed that, seen from the stone circle (Callanish 36) (DES 2007, 201) the early prehistoric midwinter sun skimmed the Sleeping Beauty’s ‘forehead’ set into an angular hill, Sgaoth Losal, 20km away, then re-appeared briefly at the right (W) side of the hill. This suggests that the stone circle may have been set up between c3300–c2300 BC, when the midwinter sun would have totally disappeared behind Sgaoth Losal. The horizon profile shows the path of the sun in 1550 BC. Observation and photographs

taken at midwinter currently need to allow for the sun’s path being higher than in prehistoric times by approximately the diameter of the sun.

G R Curtis and M R Curtis, 2008

References

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