The Brecks Cairn(s) View all content for The Brecks

RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 9 consists of two cairns at HY28591427 and 28601422, both N/S aligned, with no finds known. Call them i) and ii) I shall. In 1880 i) measured six feet high and some fifty feet across, being almost sub-rectangular, now it is down as a grassy N/S oval 23.7m by 15.7m and 1.7m high of many small stones having a slight depression in its top. Item ii) was described as eighty feet around and four-and-a-half high, now is an oval 20.6m by 15.7m varying from 2.5m high on the uphill side to only 1m on the downhill side - not what you would expect from a level mound on a hillside. At its centre many small stones are exposed in a not quite circular depression some 6mD. Could the basin of burnt ?soapstone [HY21SE 44] found in 1926 have come from this vicinity ? In the 16thC Jo Ben saw the complete skeleton of an alleged 14' giant who had been found in a tomb on a small hill near the loch of Stenhouse, with coins beneath his head [presumably Viking], and I wonder if this relates to the "stone coffin" the 1880 ONB records on being found on an eminence described as being "thrown [up] by the Brecks" 1/4 mile S of Bookan and almost 1/2 mile SW of Bockan. Usually for coffin one should read long cist. The cairn looked to be a smaller version of Skae Frue so there must have been something distinctive they then both held in common, most likely a large robbed depression in the centre. Unfortunately no such site exists now [or there was a reluctance to identify it with a recognised site] so the best guess is that it should be identified with a mound on the other side of a defunct farm track from HY21SE 9 ii) which merges with the quarry's E side [could the quarry have 'swallowed up' the actual site if this was not it ?]. RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 24 at HY28571426 is some 13mD and like the cairn over the way is higher on the uphill side, varying from 1.7m to 0.8m [could they sit in a larger depression that perhaps preceded the quarry ??]

Posted by wideford 26th March 2010ce

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