Achuvoldrach Burn

NC55NE 14 5574 5901.

NC 5566 5901. A possible enclosed cremation cemetery lying on a flat-topped rise 36.0m across, and consisting of a mound 19.0m in diameter marked out by stones off-centre. Within it is a circular bank 3.5m to 5.0m wide enclosing an area 10.6m in diameter, entered by a 2.0m gap in the NW. Within this is an irregular low mound, 7.0m across, with at centre, a large block of stone almost buried, 2.3m N-S by 1.1m.

T C Welsh 1973; Information contained in letter and 6" map from T C Welsh to OS, 23 July 1973.

for further information see MS/737/12

At NC 5574 5901, scarped into the summit of a low but fairly prominent rise, is a sub-circular earthwork over-grown with peat and heather. It comprises a flat-topped platform measuring 18.5m by 17.5m overall, with a summit area of 13.5m by 12.5m, and stands about 0.9m high above a berm or peat-silted ditch, which is now uneven probably due to erosion of the peat and/or minor digging. There are a number of large stones lying on the slopes of the platform, but these form no identifiable pattern. The "entrance" noted by Welsh is fringed by grassy swellings and appears to be more likely the result of later digging; apart from at this point, there is no clear evidence of a bank around the summit area. There is no trace of a central mound but there is peat accretion around the large slab which lies about 1.0m off-centre; this slab, being largely buried, may be a protrusion of living rock.

The earthwork appears to be of some antiquity judging by the degree of peat silting, and it may be, as Welsh suggests, an enclosed cremation cemetery.

Surveyed at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (NKB) 8 November 1978