Arran, Sliddery Water, 'oscar's Grave'

NR92SW 3 9427 2375

(NR 9427 2374) Cairn (NR)

Urn and Flint Arrowhead found AD 1901 (NAT)

OS 6" map, (1924)

'Oscar's Grave': Clyde group, chambered cairn. Only the last vestiges of a cairn remain around the chamber, which is 19ft long, divided into three compartments by septal stones. The end of the chamber had been destroyed before Bryce's excavation in 1901. He emptied the chamber, finding it full of stones and black earth, with a layer of black matter mixed with charcoal, at the bottom. Artifacts found, now in the NMAS, were a bowl (EO 232), a leaf-shaped flint arrowhead (EO 233), a flint knife (EO 234) and a chert chip (EO 235). A fragment of unburnt bone was also found. One facade stone still remains. It seems to have been crescentic on plan. The earliest notice of this cairn in 1807, implies that the cairn had already been removed; Headrick also refers to what may have been a second, smaller, chamber to the E or SE of that existing today.

Sources: J Headrick 1807; T Bryce 1902; A S Henshall 1972.

NR 9427 2375. The remains of this chambered cairn are as described by Miss Henshall. The septal stones however are buried and no longer visible. There is no trace of a second chamber. The name could not be confirmed locally.

Surveyed at 1:2500 and 1:100.

Visited by OS (B S) 17 October 1977.