Lesmahagow, Knocken

NS84SW 7 8142 4059.

(NS 8142 4059) Bronze Age Burial Ground (NR)

OS 25" map (1969)

More than sixteen cists were discovered at the end of the 19th century just below the summit of a small hill at Knocken, to the N of Lesmahagow. The dimensions of the cists are not recorded, but in one there was a Food Vessel and what appears to have been an inhumation; in the others were found cremated bones and two further Food Vessels. The Food Vessels are now in Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.

An unusual stone setting was found on the summit of the hill; a level area, 2.1m in length and between 0.7m and 1.1m in width, had been paved with flagstones and surrounded by dry-stone walling up to 0.6 m in height. One end of this structure appears from the account (J Young 1899) to have been straight but the other was rounded. On the floor was found a deposit of black material (up to 0.1m in thickness), which was mixed with charcoal and fragments of bone. In the vicinity of this setting a number of flat slabs on the old land-surface were found to be covering deposits of animal bones, including many jaw-bones of sheep. It is possible that the setting was the site of a pyre and that the bone deposits were the result of some associated ritual.

RCAHMS 1978

The site of these finds was pointed out at NS 8142 4059 on the 6" map by Mr J Y Brown, 29 The Crescent, Lesmahagow, whose father discovered them.

Visited by OS (JD) 25 March 1955

The little hill at Knockan was removed during the construction of a new road about 1963. There is no local knowledge of any other finds.

Visited by OS (RD) 4 August 1966