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Mccole's Castle
Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)
Site Name Mccole's Castle
Classification Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)
Alternative Name(s) M'cole's Castle; M'coul's Castle
Canmore ID 9047
Site Number ND34SW 40
NGR ND 31612 43364
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/9047
- Council Highland
- Parish Wick
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Caithness
- Former County Caithness
ND34SW 40 31612 43364.
(ND 3161 4336) McCole's Castle (NAT)
Chambered Cairn (NR)
OS 6" map, (1960)
An Orkney-Cromarty type round cairn with a Camster-type chamber. Its diameter is about 70' E-W and 64' N-S and it is now partially grass-grown but the top, which has been much disturbed, is free of vegetation. Two stretches of walling of horizontal slabs are exposed on the south and SW. Slightly west of the centre of the cairn three upright slabs of the chamber, which was opened before 1867 and is entered from the east, protrude.
RCAHMS 1911; A S Henshall 1963.
A chambered cairn, "McCole's Castle', 19.0m in diameter as described and planned by Henshall.
Visited by OS (I S S) 14 March 1972.
This chambered cairn is situated on a gentle, N-facing slope in moorland and comprises a part-heather, part-grass-grown mound of stones and small boulders measuring about 20m in diameter by 2m in maximum height on the N. The cairn is essentially as described by Davidson and Henshall (1991, 126-7). At the centre of the mound there are the remains of a burial chamber, which is linked to the original W edge of the cairn by a passage some 4.5m in length. This passage is now no more than a shallow, stone-filled hollow, and two large slabs visible halfway along it are probably displaced lintels from the roof. The chamber, which contained three compartments separated by pairs of portal stones, measures about 4.5m from E to W by 1.7m transversely. However, only the two portal stones at the E end and the N portal stone between the E and central compartments are now visible, standing about 0.6m above the debris that is scattered throughout the length of the chamber.
(YARROWS04 044)
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS) 15 June 2004
