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High Auchenlarie

Burial Cairn (Prehistoric)(Possible), Stone Setting (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)(Possible)

Site Name High Auchenlarie

Classification Burial Cairn (Prehistoric)(Possible), Stone Setting (Neolithic) - (Bronze Age)(Possible)

Canmore ID 63759

Site Number NX55SW 8

NGR NX 53956 53421

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/63759

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Dumfries And Galloway
  • Parish Anwoth
  • Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
  • Former District Stewartry
  • Former County Kirkcudbrightshire

Archaeology Notes

NX55SW 8 5395 5342.

(NX 5396 5342) Stone Circles (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

Cairn Circle (NR)

OS 1" map (1965)

At this site, there are the remains of a stone circle, associated with the site of a cairn 22' in diameter. (Coles describes the vestiges of the cairn as a circular stony, grassy rim, 36' in diameter). Around it, in 1912, were eight stones, two of which had fallen, and the two behind the cairn site merely protruded above the ground. Five of these stones lay approximately on the arc of a circle 45' in diameter which would almost pass through the centre of the cairn. The other three stones lay well S of this circle, though two of them are almost on the arc of an outer, concentric circle 20' away - an unusually large distance. The highest stone, E of the centre of the inner circle, was 4'6" high.

F R Coles 1895; RCAHMS 1914, visited 1912

This is apparently the remains of a cairn but it is not wholly certain without excavation. The majority of the material has undoubtedly been robbed to build the nearby walls and this may be the severely mutilated remains of a long cairn c/f Cairn Holy I - NX55SW 2 the three large standing stones at the E end being the surviving stones of a facade. Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (RD) 20 March 1972

The mutilated remains of a probable cairn 7.3m in diameter and now 1.0m high are situated on a sub-oval area of unploughed ground within arable land. The feature is completely overlaid by large stones from modern field clearance which renders ground interpretation impracticable.

On the eastern edge of the unploughed area (approxiately 20.0 by 15.0m) are three upright stones (A, B, C on the plan) of average height 1.4m which form a vague arc in plan. A boulder (G) 1.5m long by 0.4m by 0.5m lies at the foot of stone B. Along the northern edge is one upright stone (D) 0.9m high and two irregularly shaped boulders (E,F) 0.4m high. The two stones noted by authority 3 lie to the south; one (H) is a fallen monolith 2.1m long whilst the other appears to be a small natural outcrop.

The 'cairn' and stones may be the remains of a long cairn but there is no trace of a passage or chamber and although the stones may have formed a facade (6) this suggestion cannot be substantiated without excavation. Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (BS) 31 May 1977

Activities

Field Visit (23 February 1994)

This site is located in an improved-pasture field about 300m NE of High Auchenlarie farmsteading. It appears to consist of a robbed cairn measuring 13m in diameter and 0.5m in height with a row of three stones running ENE from its N edge and another three stones to the E, forming a rough N to S line. The cairn is partly obscured by modern clearance, and its NE arc is ill-defined, but it seems to have measured 13m in diameter and is 0.5m in height. The stones are generally as described and planned by the OS surveyor in 1977, although the 'fallen monolith' which then lay to the S has now been moved onto the cairn. As they now stand, the stones of the setting do not form any sensible pattern, and it is not certain that they are all in situ: two of the stones in the N row could have been cleared from the field. The stone setting is unlikely to be the remains of a stone circle, and there is hardly enough evidence to warrant the suggestion that the cairn is chambered: the remains may simply be of two converging field dykes, almost entirely robbed out.

(Cree94 116)

Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) 23 February 1994

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