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Turdale Water
Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)
Site Name Turdale Water
Classification Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)
Alternative Name(s) Ara Cleff
Canmore ID 752
Site Number HU35SW 1
NGR HU 31219 52838
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/752
- Council Shetland Islands
- Parish Sandsting
- Former Region Shetland Islands Area
- Former District Shetland
- Former County Shetland
HU35SW 1 3121 5283
(HU 3122 5285) Cuml (OE)
OS 6" map, Shetland, 2nd ed., (1903).
A heel-shaped chambered cairn, on a small natural knoll, turf-covered and much robbed but still 3ft high in the region of the chamber.
Its edges merge into the sides of the knoll and are very indefinite but the measurement from front to back appears to be about 36' and the maximum width 50'. On the SSE are the remains of a facade, probably 32' wide and 10' deep. The area in front of the facade is covered with cairn material below the turf, and a number of lower set stones running from the SW in a rather irregular line seem to revet part of it.
RCAHMS 1946; A S Henshall 1963, visited 1957.
A heel-shaped chambered cairn as described and illustrated by Henshall. Immediately to the N is an enclosure, now ruinous, defined by a line of large boulders. Probably modern, but constructed from the cairn material.
Re-surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (AA), 18 June 1968.
Field Visit (10 July 1931)
Heel-shaped Cairn, near Turdale Water.
This monument, situated on the top of Ara Clett and about a quarter of a mile to the E. of Turdale Water, is now represented by a cairn of stones which is covered for the most part with turf. An excavation on the crest has, however, revealed a chamber, so much destroyed and filled with debris that its true outline cannot be determined nor any exact measurements given. On the S.W. side three stones set edge to edge, with a fourth that is not earth-fast, apparently represent one end of a concave facade, while two others, placed in alinement in front of the chamber at a distance of 15 ft., may indicate the outer end of a passage of approach. The interior has a recess on each side of the entrance, and thus resembles the trefoil-shaped chambers which appear to be characteristic of the "heel-shaped" type of cairn.
RCAHMS 1946, visited 10 July 1931.
OS 6" map, Shetland, 2nd ed., (1903).
Measured Survey (1931)
A measured sketch by RCAHMS of the heel-shaped cairn at Turdale Water taken c.1931 was redrawn in ink and published at a reduced size (RCAHMS 1946, fig. 624).
