The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Seefin Hill

Chambered Cairn

Fieldnotes

And so to Seefin once again… carrying an extra 3 stone more than the last time I was here. There's a few places on the way up where I thought I might not make it. Dear me, I felt a bit of a disgrace. Was it enough to make me do something about it? Well, I've tried over the last while to get out there at least once a week, but Seefin is a challenge, and it's not the gravest of challenges either, so while I was glad to be back, I looked over at the cairn on Sorrel Hill and promised myself that I'd 'do' it yet!

We had looked back down the hill at some hillwalkers below us and determined that we wouldn't be overtaken – no pasaran! Arriving at mama Seefin I dropped my bag and headed inside, climbing down through the collapsed chamber roof and into the passage itself. I get emotional here, enclosed in the dampness of this slowly crumbling sepulchre, the beauty of the corbelling in the subsidiary chambers and at the passage entrance, before the roof rises to the imagined height of the collapsed central chamber.

I'd fretted before about Seefin, threatened by well-meaning but misguided excavators, as well as insensitive barbecuers lighting their fire on the sillstone. A short conversation with the hillwalkers who told us of the time they arrived to find some arseholes on their scramblers riding all over the tomb didn't re-assure me.

We had a good root around this time. The opportunity for vaginal re-birth at the entrance to the tomb is something I never pass up, even in my newly more portly state. I did think 'what if i get stuck?', all the way up here etc. but still squeezed through.

The complexity of the construction of Seefin never ceases to amaze me, and that it was done at such a height all those 5 thousand years ago adds to its mystique. The commitment of the builders to construct and leave behind this memorial, this intricate structure, and then to maybe seal it up and leave it there, on top of the hill at Scurlocksleap, says something about our ancestors and their way of life that leaves me wanting to find out more and more and more.
ryaner Posted by ryaner
2nd July 2013ce
Edited 2nd July 2013ce

Comments (3)

This looks like a fine site. Good for you for making the effort and for writing us such lovely notes. thesweetcheat Posted by thesweetcheat
4th July 2013ce
Thanks tsc ryaner Posted by ryaner
5th July 2013ce
My older more portly status is waht I am worried about for my visit on monday :) Posted by sitonka
22nd March 2023ce
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