Stemster

ND16SE 11 1708 6315

(ND 1708 6315) Mound (NR)

OS 6" map, Caithness, 2nd ed., (1907)

Stone Cist containing Human Remains found AD 1840 (NAT).

(Undated) annotation on OS map.

This is apparently the remains of a cairn. One large slab, some 5ft long and 6 to 8ins thick, protrudes from the back of a hollow caused by the removal of stones (RCAHMS 1911). The cairn was opened in 1840 when 'human remains and a stone coffin were found in it (ONB 1872).

Ordnance Survey Name Book (ONB) 1872; RCAHMS 1911, visited 1910.

This feature, situated on a ridge, about 300ft OD, is almost undoubtedly the remains of a long cairn although it is impossible to determine its exact dimension; it is considerably mutilated and covered in gorse. The slab and a setting of stones 3.0m to the SE at the edge of a hollow suggest the remains of a chamber.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (R D) 11 November 1965

(ND 1708 6315) Cairn (NR)

OS 25" map, (1968)

On a slight rise is a long cairn, turf-covered and whin-overgrown, and considerably penetrated by quarry hollows. It measures an estimated 60.0m N-S, along the main axis. The rounded S end measures approximately 13.0m across and stands 1.2m high. The remainder of the cairn tails

away to 0.4m high and 10.0m across in the W. No stonework suggestive of a chamber was noted.

Revised at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (J M) 28 October 1981

Chambered cairn. Length: 65m. A long cairn 2m high situated on a ridge with two depressions on its W side one of which contains a slab set on edge. It appears to have originally consisted of two round cairns which have been conjoined into a long cairn. Orientation NE-SW.

R J Mercer, NMRS MS/828/19, 1995.