Description

The monument comprises two prehistoric burial cairns and two standing stones, also probably of prehistoric date. All but one of the standing stones are already scheduled, but the protected area marked on the original scheduling maps is inadequate. This re-scheduling corrects this deficiency and adds the second upright stone.

The two cairns stand close beside the A856 public road. The more northerly cairn has been partly cut away by road construction some years ago. It comprises an elongated mound of cobbles, largely overgrown, measuring 24m NW-SE by 12m across and standing up to 2m high. There is a large hollow in its crest. The second cairn lies to the SSE, just back from the road, and is only about 4.5m across and 0.3m high, defined by edge-set stones. In the centre is an open stone cist, about 0.8m along each side and just under 1m deep. Some 10m to the SE is a standing stone, 1.3m high, with a possible fallen stone nearby. A second standing stone, about 1.2m high, is situated some 180m to the NE, across moorland.

The area to be scheduled is in three parts, to include all of the above features and areas around them in which evidence relating to their erection and use is likely to survive. Around the northerly cairn the scheduled area is approximately rectangular, bounded by the edge of the roadside cutting on the SW, and measures 22m WSW-ENE by 41m transversely. Around the southerly cairn and the first standing stone, the area is circular, 22m in diameter, centred on the stone.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance as a small group of ritual monuments of probable Bronze Age date, with the potential to provide information about prehistoric ritual and funerary practices and, from deposits which will lie sealed beneath the cairns, about contemporary land-use and environmental conditions.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

The monument is RCAHMS number NG 45 SW 14.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland