Warehouse

ND34SW 72 30931 42339.

A cairn, one of the group of five known as Cairns of Warehouse which may have been opened by Rhind in 1853 and Sinclair about 1862.

It is a low, grass-grown mound, 27ft in diameter with a hollow in the centre but no structure exposed. If it is the cairn which was opened by Sinclair it was found to be 'of an entirely different structure from those in the immediate neighbourhood... ...This one was simply a huge pile of stones raised over a kistvaen composed of very massive slabs. The sides of the kistvaen were unfortunately so much broken up in the opening that its dimensions cannot now be accurately ascertained; but it seems to have been at least 8ft in length, about 4ft high and 3ft broad. In it were found the skull and bones of a human skeleton, lying on a quantity of sea beach. The bronze spearhead recorded as found in it is apparently an error. Although unlike the other cairns on the hill, the proportions of the structure seem very large for anything but a chamber of some type.

A S Henshall 1963; RCAHMS 1911; J Rhind 1854; J Sinclair 1865.

The small diameter, 9m, suggests that this cairn was not chambered. There is no trace of the central 'kistvaen'.

Survey at 1:10,000

Visited by OS 13 March 1972.

Anderson records that the cairn contained a 'kist-vaen' in which were a skeleton and a bronze dagger or spearhead, now in the British Museum (Anderson 1870) Coles quoting Anderson classifies the weapon as an Early Bronze Age dagger or knife, although Miss Henshall (supra) queries the find.

J Anderson 1870; J M Coles 1971.

This cairn is not chambered.

J L Davidson and A S Henshall 1991.

This grass-grown cairn lies in heather moorland 7.5m to the NE of the chambered cairn Warehouse East (ND34SW 69). It measures 8.8m in diameter and 0.8m in height and has a circular depression dug into its centre.

(YARROWS04 421)

Visited by RCAHMS (ARG) 28 July 2004