Strathblane

NS57NE 7 c. 56 79

The site was destroyed a few years before the following account was written in 1793. The mound 'was 60yds in length; 14ft in height, and of a considerable breadth. It was composed of gravel, and lay E and W. In the bottom were a great many coffins of stone, placed in a row, and separated from one another by a single flag. Every coffin contained an urn, that was full of earth and burnt bones. Beside each urn was a pillar about 3ft in height, and 8in in thickness. They were fragments of basaltic five-sided columns, a few rocks of which are found in the parish. Most of the pillars are built in a dyke adjoining to the church. The urns on being touched fell in pieces.' Nothing now remains of the monument, which Ure mentions as being in Strathblane parish and by implication near the church; RCAHMS in 1963 records it as having lain between Broadgate Farm (NS 568 794) and the parish church (NS 563 793) (probably following the local tradition mentioned by Smith).

The description of the 'cists' suggests a segmented chamber of Clyde type, but the mound composed of gravel (instead of being a cairn) suggests a natural feature. A long mound, probably natural, exists on Broadgate Farm in which a restricted excavation produced a cist of Bronze Age type (NS57NE 5). Possibly Strathblane mound was similar; it may have contained a segmented chamber (cf. Cultoquhey (NN82SE 38)

where a chamber has been built into a natural mound), or it may have contained cists of later type for single burials.

D Ure 1793; J G Smith 1886; RCAHMS 1963; J G Scott 1969; A S Henshall 1972