Shinnery

ND05NE 17 0638 5646.

(ND 0638 5646) Chambered Cairn (NR)

OS 6" map, (1963)

Shinnery: Orkney-Cromarty, Round. Situated on flat moorland, this chambered cairn has been much robbed and is now a low grass and heather-covered mound with a rather irregular edge 30 to 40ft across. In the centre there are exposed what appear to be a pair of transverse slabs 16ft from the SW edge and 2ft 3ins apart. The SW stone is much larger than its partner, now 3ft high and split vertically by weathering. The NE stone is 1ft 3ins high. Inside them the chamber is represented only by a slab on the N side, now 6ins high but 5ft long.

RCAHMS 1911, visited 1910; A S Henshall 1963, visited 1956.

The remains of this chambered cairn measure 11.4m in diameter by 0.6m high, and are as described by Miss Henshall.

Visited by OS (W D J) 13 April 1962.

No change to the previous reports.

Visited by OS (N K B) 15 September 1981.

This chambered cairn is in flat heather moorland at 125m OD, at the foot of Beinn Freiceadain, and 200m from the enclosed pasture of Shinnery. ND05NE 14 is 240m to the SSW. The cairn, covered by turf and some heather, survives as a low rim 1m high at the maximum and hollowed in the centre to ground level. The edge of the cairn is clear, measuring 13m NW-SE by 11.5m transversely. Somewhat SE of the centre of the cairn is a pair of slabs set slightly obliquely to each other 0.75m apart. The SW slab is 0.9m long and 0.9m high; originally it was 0.4m thick but it has split into three pieces giving it a thickness of 0.6m. The NE slab is 0.8m long, 0.4m high and 0.1m thick. A third slab 0.8m to the NW is 1.4m long and protrudes 0.1m. The upper edge appears to be intact so the slab has always been very low. The first two slabs appear to have formed the portal into a large chamber, its NE side defined by the third slab, and contained within a relatively small cairn.

J L Davidson and A S Henshall 1991, visited 22 September 1987.