Claywarnies

NX17SW 2 1034 7171.

(NX 1034 7172) Stone Circle (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

A stone circle about 12 yds in diameter.

J Smith 1895

NX 1035 7172. On a slight natural rise is a mutilated cairn 20.0m in diameter and 0.8m high. A field wall runs around the S edge while in the middle of the cairn is a modern enclosure. There are also other small modern enclosures to the N and E of the cairn. There are no significantly large stones at this site and no evidence of a stone circle.

Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (BS) 28 April 1976

This cairn is situated on a low hill known as Claywarnies and commands extensive views towards the SE down the valley of the Penwhirn Burn. The cairn, however, which measures 19m in diameter by 1m in height, is set back from the crest of the hill and is invisible from this direction.

At the centre three slabs of a possible chamber measuring at least 2.5m in length protrude through the cairn material. One of the slabs, which is triangular in section and measures 0.5m by a maximum of 0.2m, marks the SE end of the chamber, while the other two form part of the SW side; each of the latter measures about 0.5m by 0.15m. Nothing is visible of the entrance passage which presumably approached the chamber from the NW. The surface of the mound has been extensively disturbed, but its edge is well-defined everywhere except the SSE, where the cairn material has been spread down the side of a stony bank which rides up on to the cairn at this point. An irregular scatter of stones which fringes the E half of the cairn may also be the result of later disturbance, but on the NNE there is a thin slab set upright amongst the stones; the slab is aligned roughly N and S and measures 0.85m in length by 0.15m in thickness. The stony bank which rides up on to the cairn on the SSE forms part of an enclosure measuring about 30m from N to S by 23m internally; it is probably of relatively recent date and there are also four sheep pens built on and around the cairn.

This is the 'large cairn, 27 paces in diameter, and 4 feet 6 inches high' described by Smith although his directions would place it considerably further to the W.

RCAHMS 1987, visited (SH) March 1985.

Scheduled as Claywarnies, cairn.

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 13 December 2000.