Knowes of Lingro Round Barrow(s) View all content for Knowes of Lingro

The present 1:25,000 shows them just past Garlaine but there is now a bungalow nearer still. Before I reached the gate my eyes were taken roadside by a standing stone and setting HY28452894. A mini s.s. at only 0.9x0.17x0.1m, though probably extending underground which would make it even slimmer. Modern ?? Made me wonder if some bigger stone had been removed at some stage - this day I saw several modern concrete pillars in similar associations, passing curious. Like Via this setting is in front of the stone. The visible base of the standing stone is level with its top. Both standing stone and the abutting stone (0.45m long) are at right angles to the road, and then a stone 0.5m long is parallel to it. 0.47m from the abutting stone what I read to be one end of the setting is mostly buried - what shows a mere 5cm above the grass is 0.2m long. Underfoot you can feel the stones of a wall beyond the setting. I always prefer to climb over gates, but this one is chained anyway. The downhill mound has a scrape in the top, though this could be rodent damage (rabbits are rodents too). At the top of the hill are the other two mounds. That on the left is another disappointment. Though there are more patches of bare earth this could still be the results of animal, rather than human, excavators. Probably the latter making digging easier the the former. Looking to the last mound from this one I was heartened to see a few stones protruding from the far side. Still it came as a very pleasant shock to find that these were part of a cist (Usually new observations from a watching brief are passed on by Historic Scotland to RCAHMS, but 8 years ago this one slipped the net, hence its none appearance on the NMRS till my observation). The two uphill slabs are virtually complete, giving a size of 1.2x0.8m. The longer slab points fairly straight uphill, so a N-S orientation I think. These two slabs are only slightly out of joint, the cause in the long ago perhaps a 0.6x0.1m stone showing not far above the lower end. I saw no sign of the other end slab but 0.35m of the other long slab can still be seen standing up 0.2m. Soil and grass comes maybe halfway up the inside of the cist. Coming off the mound HY284290 you could see the roundness of it and there is a ditch. At first I thought this too curved around the mound, but then it went over to the corner of a drystane wall - perhaps it is a robber trench ? However further down the road there is a ridge going across the hill. Could it and the ditch both be part of the site, a demarcation about the site ? I do feel there is more going on here than just those three mounds, a barrow cemetery would be luverly.

Posted by wideford 31st July 2004ce

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