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MHG10028 - Long cairn & Neo Axe, Lothbeg Bridge

Summary

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Type and Period (2)

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Full Description

Chambered Cairn (NR) OS 25"map, (1969)

The remains of a long cairn which appears to have been about 130ft in length, but is now reduced to about 65ft, western half having been removed at no distant date. It lies with its longest axis WNW-ESE. At west end it appears to have been 37ft broad, and at east end from 65-70ft. At 32ft in from extreme east end is a large lintel stone, fully exposed, supported on two upright stones 2ft 4ins apart. About 5ft to east of it a portion of the passage is exposed, 2ft in width. In rear of the lintel the back wall of chamber, partly formed of a large slab and partly built is just visible among the debris with which the chamber is filled. The length of chamber is 6ft 10ins. Though excavations have been made in several places, no other chamber is exposed. Towards E end cairn is about 12ft high on side where ground slopes away. RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909.

Long cairn of the Orkney-Cromarty group. The features of this site were more evident when RCAHMS visited 1909; bu top of back slab, about 5ft 6ins long, and the two divisional slabs to E of it are exposed.
In Dunrobin Castle Museum, is a polished stone axe about 7 ins long, oval in cross-section, with a square butt and rounded cutting edge, said to be from this cairn (Accession No 1862-1).
A S Henshall 1963.

This cairn, re-examined in May 1967, may be a round or heel-shaped cairn with a series of enclosures, of later date, built onto the side, which were mistaken for the remains of a badly robbed long cairn. Info from A S Henshall to OS, 13 July 1967.

The chambered cairn is a mound of bare, boulder rubble, about 20m NW-SE by 18m and 2m high. The only structural feature which can now be identified is the back slab of the chamber; round south periphery there are some earthfast slabs, which may be of a perimeter kerb. The cairn material, generally, bears signs of excavation disturbance. Immediately outside the cairn in the NW and extending for about 21m in a NW direction are tumbled and overgrown walls of an enclosure of an 18th/19th century abandoned settlement, wrongly supposed by RCAHMS to be the original bounds of west end of cairn.
Revised at 1/10,000 and 1/2500.
Visited by OS (E G C) 5 June 1961 and (J M) 17 February 1976.

The axehead was catalogued during an inventory of Dunrobin Castle Museum's collection in 2019 by ARCH. Listed under Acc. No. 1862.1. It is on display in case 31, shelf C. <1>

Sources/Archives (4)

Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NC 9463 1048 (100m by 100m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NC91SW
Geographical Area	SUTHERLAND
Civil Parish	LOTH

Finds (1)

Related Monuments/Buildings (1)

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