Longhillock Cottages, Clashfarquhar

NO99NW 13 9213 9553 and 9214 9552.

The various accounts of cists found on Mains of Clashfarquhar farm in the 19th century has led to considerable confusion as to the number of cists involved and their locations. The OS Name Book locates a cist found in 1817 on the line of the public road 40m SSW of Longhillock Cottages (NO 9213 9553) and also notes that 'several stone coffins containing human bones and urns'had been found ' at various times' (before 1864) in a gravel pit immediately to the SE (NO 9214 9552). The cist found in 1817 measured 1.8m in length by 0.7m in breadth at the SW end and 0.55m at the NE end and varied from 0.4m to 0.6m in depth; in it there was an extended inhumation accompanied by two Beakers (AUAM 240/5, the other lost). The second location probably covers at least two other cists found in 1816 and 1822 respe ctively. The former, which contained a skull was 'not very far from' the 1817 cist; the latter, which contained an inhumation, accompanied by a small pile of flints in each corner was'within a few yards' of the 1817 cist.

Subsequently Jervise confuses the accounts by referring to 'cists and urns found at Banchory and Clashfarquhar in 1817 and 1823', which were 'reported upon by the late Mr Thomson of Banchory to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland ' (Jervise 1875-9).

Besides the 1817 cist, the only burial reported by Thomson (1831) is the discovery of 1822 at Clashfarquhar, (part of the Banchory estate) which is described in a letter dated 1823. Jervise goes on to describe two cists found'about 1847,.. at the same place, also in a gravel hillock, each containing an urn of baked clay, and in one of them a gold ring'. One of the urns was broken, but the other was preserved in a house at Arbeadie. What is almost certainly a drawing of the latter, a Beaker, was donated to the Society of Antiquaries, whose proceedings note that it was found in a cist in 'Longhillock', parish of Portlethin, in 1845 (PSAS 1875); and these are probably the 'urns' referred to in the Name Book entry for the gravel pit at NO 9214 9552. The 1817 and 1822 cists are reconstructed at Banchory House NJ 9135 0229 (NJ90SW 10).

A Thomson 1831; D Wilson 1863; Name Book 1864; Information from MS Notes in Aberdeen University Anthropological Museum Banchory House Museum Catalogue; A Jervise 1875-9; D L Clarke 1970; RCAHMS 1984.