Croftcrunie

NH65SW 1 6106 5206.

(NH 6106 5206) Stone Circle (NR) (Remains of)

OS 6" map, (1959)

The feature consists of an oval mound, 24ft long by 15ft wide and '4 1/2ft deep', surrounded eccentrically by a circular wall of stones and earth, 78ft in diameter, 3ft wide and about 2 1/2ft high. The mound was excavated by Beaton on 22 April 1882; it was composed of earth with a covering of small boulders, and overlay four pits which contained charcoal, ashes and a few fragments of burnt bone. One also contained a 'weapon-sharpening stone', oval and smoothly ground, the edges showing marks of friction (Beaton 1882).

According to Woodham (1956) the feature consists of an oval, stony mound, 22ft N-S by 19ft E-W and 1ft high (and having a circular depression 6ft in diameter, caused by Beaton's excavation) set eccentrically within a circular bank of earth and stones, 86ft in diameter 1ft high and from 12 to 15ft thick. In view of the eccentricity of the setting, he suggests that bank and mound may not be contemporary.

A J Beaton 1882; A A Woodham 1956.

An enclosed cremation cemetery levelled into a slight SW slope and surrounded by a circular bank of earth and stones spread to c.4.0m in the N and c.3.0m elsewhere and measuring c.24.0m in diameter crest to crest. There is a gap c.4.0m wide in the SE arc which may be a mutilation. Within, in the SW half, is the muitlated mound excavated by Beaton which now measures c.9.0m N-S by c.7.0m transversely.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (A A) 11 November 1971.