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Fieldnotes
| As usual I left this monument with more questions than answers! After a tremendous 5 mile walk through Forestry Commission tracks and some easy OS navigation, this Scheduled Cairn was one that I've wanted to visit for a while. Lying on an elevated platform in the Morangie Forest, its certainly in a quiet and peaceful spot. A wee bit of a climb from the track through fairly open pine woods leads to this impressive Long Cairn opening out nicely as you puff and pant upwards. The extant of this monument is fairly impressive. It maintains a regular height/length/breadth throughout. The body of the Cairn is interspersed with at least 15 large,deep and uniform (robber?) holes. There is also the remains of a very old building wall disecting part of the cairn about midway down its length. Strangely (from my limited knowledge) there is no evidence of this building anywhere else on the cairn. The cairn maintains its shape throughout. What kind of building it could have been on such an elevated slope is a mystery - Although there are the remains of 2 Historic townships and field systems on the floor of the Glen not very far away. But the strangest mystery to me was a little bunch of (very old) artificial flowers sitting in a little oasis atop the highest part of the monument - it was one of those "what the.......? moments. So totally out of place, I'm still wondering who would have put them there and why. Forestry Commission plantations seem almost timeless and its easy to forget that up until fairly recently land-use in many of these remote Glens was totally different. These Glens were once the home and workplaces of many families. But there is something about this cairn that seems to cross the ages. Difficult for me to put into words, but my impression of this Cairn was that it meant something to people until fairly recently. With every Cairn I visit, I feel I learn a little more, BUT, I also feel there is even more I dont understand!! |
Posted by strathspey12th October 2010ce Edited 12th October 2010ce
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