About 600m E of the present investigations at
Pitkerro is the upstanding prehistoric mound of Cairn
Greg on the Linlathen estate, excavated in the 19th
century and found to be of Bronze Age date but reused in the Pictish period (Stuart 1866). A Pictish Class
1 symbol stone was found at Cairn Greg (Stuart 1866,
101) but is now lost.
Ray Cachart and Derek Hall
However
Cairn Greg was excavated in 1834. The central cist rested on ground level and neasured 4’10” x 2’9” x 2’10” deep, and the joints were luted with clay. The large capstone, 7’ x 4’6”, was separated from an upper capstone by a layer of soil 1’ thick. In the cist were a rivetted dagger (present whereabouts unknown), and a beaker – type S4 – now in Dundee Museum. A fragment of a Pictish symbol stone is said to have been found between the capstones, and removed to Linlathen House.
J Stuart 1867; A S Henshall 1968; D L Clarke 1970.
But
Herbert Coutts’ ‘Ancient Monuments of Tayside‘
The stone was displayed in the grounds of Linlathen House at least until the 1950s. The house was abandoned shortly after that, largely due to damage caused by billeted troops during the war.. The central part of the house itself was demolished in 1958 and both wings followed in the 1980s. There is now a nursing home on the site. Most of the rubble was buried in a quarry to the north.