Garbh Uisge Mhor
Refuge Stone (19th Century)
Site Name Garbh Uisge Mhor
Classification Refuge Stone (19th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Shelter Stone
Canmore ID 375655
Site Number NJ00SW 9
NGR NJ 00189 01593
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/375655
- Council Moray
- Parish Kirkmichael (Moray)
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Moray
- Former County Banffshire
Note (6 July 2022)
NJ00SW 9 NJ 00189 01593
The Shelter Stone is a massive boulder situated just S of the Garbh Uisge Mór among the extensive scree slopes below Shelter Stone Crag, on the N flank of Carn Etchachan (1120m) in the Cairngorm Mountains.
As early as the 1830s, the Shelter Stone was described as a cave capable of containing 12 or 15 men (NSA, Vol XIII, p.298). It was subsequently labelled but not clearly distinguished on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Banffshire, sheet xlvii, 1872) and was described at the time as ‘a very large rock, which from natural causes appeared to have become separated from the craig above it, in rolling down the precipice its course has been arrested by two other large rocks, on the top of which it became fixed, forming a cave capable of containing several persons, this cave is frequently made use of during the Summer Season by Game-Keepers Tourists & as a habitation for an occasional night’ (OS Name Book, Banffshire, No. 18, p.209).
Information from HES Archaeological Survey (D D M Bratt and G Geddes) 6 July 2022
(Allan 2017, 201)
