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Scotland
Grey Cairns of CamsterCairn(s)
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4 posts
1 site Camster Stone Row Stone Row / Alignment |
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Can't believe people find this a happy place. Coming back from the Orkney tombs which have such a loveliness, these tombs seemed dark and strange to us - particular the end chamber of the linked pair. Something sad happened here I think - and I had bad dreams for three nights afterwards! Extraordinary though.. |
Posted by tuesday24th June 2007ce |
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We visited this site on the way down from Orkney and were glad to turn off the A9 for a bit of a break. The site was spectacular in the summer sunshine and was very accessible being less than five minutes walk from the road. Luckily we were the only ones there and managed to explore and take some great pics without anyone else arriving. I don't know whether we were just lucky or whether the remoteness of the place keeps people away. I'm sure it would be swarming if it were better known. The raised platform at the front of the picture was, according to Historic Scotland, used for ritual purposes. The proximity of the ancestors no doubt added to the significance of the location. Although part of this site has been reconstructed this did not detract from it at all. A crawl into the interior of the cairn provided all the atmosphere and sense of otherworldliness you hope for in sites like this. |
Posted by ledlegz 26th February 2005ce Edited 26th February 2005ce |
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Moth had spotted this one in TMA but I had completely overlooked it. But we were so close we had to swing by. I had no expectations whatsoever. I thought maybe they were just another couple of unassuming cairns. But noooooo! These are Mighty Rock Monsters! And there are two of them. The main one is a long - really long!- cairn made of piles of stones and with rather neat edges that stretches on for about 50 metres I guessed, possibly even more. At the 'top' end it even has a horned forecourt effect. As I approached on the polite wooden walkways that take you over the boggy ground, I saw that the passage entrances to the long cairn (there are two entrances) had nasty iron gates on them. It didn't look promising. However, they were only shut rather than locked (presumably to keep animals out), so I bent over and shuffled in towards the huge interior chamber, built in the style typical of round these parts and on parts of Orkney, with neat flat stones, delicate corbelling and vertical stalls. A round cairn, build in the same way, of piles of grey stones stands about 500ms away and is equally as nice, but much smaller. Why isn't this fantastic place better-known?! I wanted to get off the paths and look for some standing stones marked on the map just to the south, but I had noticed that on virtually every tussock or bush was a large, fuzzy, brown caterpillar. Caterpillars freak me out, so I was unable to. In fact the more I looked, the more caterpillars I saw. I trod carefully back to the car. |
Posted by Jane9th July 2004ce |
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Grey Cairns of Camster, Caithness Saturday 17/8/96 On a beautiful Saturday morning we stopped off here, well, made a detour really, on our drive from Orkney to Killin. The long cairn of these two is real huge- apparently about 60 metres long. It's unusual to see cairns that have been denuded of their coverings like this, but they look great nonetheless. There's wooden walkways from the car parking area across the soggy marsh- which is just as well cos all I've got on my feet are my Vans! There are two entrances in the long cairn, both of which are a bit of a stoop. Not as much of a stoop as the round cairn entrance though which was another mucky knees job. |
Posted by Martin 8th September 2001ce |
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It wasn't just the sheep that were flocking around these - there were plenty of folk who'd made it a stop-off as they toured the area. I was keeping an eye out for the ice cream van as we tip-toed over the boggy marsh with the help of the trouser-saving wooden walkways to inspect the mounds. They've been lovingly restored which to my mind takes away little of their mystery. It allows you to clamber inside and get a real feel for them - even my Mum couldn't resist it. We ventured into the one with the tallest passage - it being wet underfoot and lacking in swimwear. The narrow passageway led into a wider chamber where it was actually possible to stand. Light filtered through the clear ceiling making it possible to see exactly what was inside. It was like a stone igloo with a large, flat stone leaning backwards on the outer wall. I felt like we could have sat and leant against it for a time looking out through the tunnell. However, sense got the better of us and we crawled back out to the warmth of the car. Who says modern life is rubbish! |
Posted by Emma 2nd October 2000ce |
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PSAS 127Excavation report of Camster Long |
Posted by greywether5th December 2003ce |
A Reinterpretation of The Grey Cairns of Camsterameilai Pannet, archaeologist sets out her paper on the Grey Cairns of Camster starting as follows - The Neolithic archaeology of Caithness is little known to most people outside northern Scotland, despite the wealth of evidence that litters the landscapes. This is no doubt a consequence of the relative lack of archaeological investigation in the area since the 19th Century when distinguished antiquarians such as Anderson and Rhind carried out ground-breaking excavations of many chambered cairns and Brochs. Here in lies the irony; the centre of antiquarian exploration is now considered by many as peripheral to studies of British Prehistory (Mercer 1992). That said, however, fieldwork carried out by Henshall, Corcoran and Masters, amongst others, has provided an invaluable corpus of data from which we can move forward and try to bring Caithness in line with the rest of British archaeology.......more |
Posted by Bill 23rd January 2002ce |
Latest posts for Grey Cairns of Camster |
Lower Camster (Stone Row / Alignment) — Links |
Ancient Scotland |
Posted by tumulus14th October 2004ce |
Lower Camster (Stone Row / Alignment) — Images (click to view fullsize) |
  
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Posted by tumulus 14th October 2004ce |
Lower Camster (Stone Row / Alignment) — Fieldnotes |
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Three fairly small stones - CANMORE thinks one of them might just be a random boulder rather than part of a setting with the two definite megaliths. The stones are near the road and in a very empty bit of flat moor, but they're low enough to be easily missed when the heather is thick. "Small stones in flat featureless moor" sounds pretty dull, but it's a lovely site! |
Posted by tumulus 14th October 2004ce |
Camster Stone Row (Stone Row / Alignment) — Links |
Ancient ScotlandMy web page for this site. |
Posted by tumulus 14th October 2004ce |
Camster Stone Row (Stone Row / Alignment) — Images |
 
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Posted by tumulus 14th October 2004ce |
Camster Stone Row (Stone Row / Alignment) — Fieldnotes |
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This stone row is just a few hundred yards from the Grey Cairns of Camster. According to CANMORE there are actually six rows here but they're disappearing under the peat. I found two of the rows. A couple of stones are maybe a metre proud of the peat. Others have only a few centimetres showing. Don't go hunting in wet weather or you may get sucked into the bog and never seen again!! |
Posted by tumulus 14th October 2004ce |
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