Mountmarle
Burial Cairn (Prehistoric)
Site Name Mountmarle
Classification Burial Cairn (Prehistoric)
Alternative Name(s) Mound Marl; Mountmarle Animal Research Centre
Canmore ID 51809
Site Number NT26SE 2
NGR NT 27895 63707
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/51809
- Council Midlothian
- Parish Lasswade
- Former Region Lothian
- Former District Midlothian
- Former County Midlothian
NT26SE 2 2789 6370.
(NT 2789 6370) Tumulus (NR)
OS 6" map (1938)
Cairn (NR) (Site of)
OS 6" map (1957)
A small circular mound of earth where it is said several urns filled with burnt bones have been dug up.
Name Book 1853
This circular cairn, on the summit of a small rise, is composed of sand and stones, some of the latter being of considerable size. It measures 56' in diameter and 7' in height. It is slightly hollow on top, and part of its W arc suggests that it may have been a bell-shaped cairn, but it has been planted with trees, of which two rowans remain, and its contour has been much disturbed.
RCAHMS 1929, visited 1913
This cairn now forms part of an arable field and is indistinguishable from the surrounding land.
Visited by OS (SFS) 31 October 1975
Field Visit (27 August 1913)
Cairn near Roslin.
About 300 yards south-west of Mountmarle, on the summit of a small rise on rolling ground at an elevation of about 500 feet above sea-level, the highest point in the neighbourhood, is a circular cairn of sand and stones, some of the latter being of considerable size. It measures about 56 feet in diameter and 7 feet in height. It is slightly hollow on the top, and a portion of the western arc suggests the possibility of its having been a bell-shaped cairn, but it has been planted with trees, of which two rowans remain, and its contour has been much disturbed.
RCAHMS 1929, visited 27 August 1913.
OS map: vii S.E.
Note (1988)
Mountmarle NT 2789 6370 NT26SE 2
All that is visible of this cairn is a slight scarp around the S side of a low knoll 100m S of the Mountmarle Animal Research Centre. In 1913 the cairn measured about 17m in diameter by 2m in height and had a bell-shaped profile on the W. A 19th-century record of urns and burnt bones found in a 'tumulus' of earth half a mile SSE of Dryden possibly refers to this cairn (but see also NT26NE 36).
RCAHMS 1988
(Name Book, Edinburgh, No. 32, p. 30; RCAHMS 1929, 116, no. 146)
