Kemps Cairn

Nearest town:
Aberchirder (6km ENE)
OS reference:
NJ56425141
OS sheet:
29
Latitude:
57° 33' 2.76 N
Longitude:
2° 43' 41.74 W
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Kemps Cairn

drewbhoy
drewbhoy Aug 24, 2009

Syd Halkett, the owner of Knauchland farm, kindly showed me an OS map from 1904 showing the original position of Kemps Cairn. The lid of the cist is kept beside a dry stane dyke up the small hill to the east of the steadings. It is 11/2 (approx) meters in length. Whoever was buried here must have been important as the views are wonderful.

Going south from Glenbarry, on the B9022, take the second minor road east and stop at Mid Knauchland farm. Ask permission from Syd and his wife, who are nice people and will give plenty of local information when asked.

Rhiannon deserves most of the credit as she pointed out that the cist was there in folklore notes for the nearby Conjure Cairn. Thank you!

Visited 24/08/09.

Folklore

Kemps Cairn
Cist
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Jan 15, 2011

I think this curious story could well be about Kemp’s Cairn. First he talks about Knaughland and how on top of the hill there are the ‘faint indications of an old cairn’. Then:

Mr Cruickshank is between sixty and seventy, and remembers the removal of another cairn, much farther down the hill, in 1816. Part of it, however, had been removed a century ago, and a cist disclosed, which was allowed to remain entire till 1816, and of which the cover yet remains. He says the cist was built of small stones, and was about 1 1/2 foot deep, or high, and covered by the large stone yet remaining.

He mentioned a curious thing. The farm has been in their family two hundred years. In the rebellion, his grandfather, on the approach of the rebels, buried his cheese in the stone grave, raising the lid with a “pinch,” and letting it down again. He has heard him tell of it.

In 1816 the whole was removed by Mr Cruickshank’s father, and the cover only preserved. It is fully 6 1/2 feet long by 4 to 4 1/2 broad, and about 6 inches thick – like a strong flag.

He also mentions a suspected ‘Pict’s House’ (an underground chamber) and also a stone with 13 or 14 cupmarks – the RCAHMS record shows the latter couldn’t be found in the 1960s, but if you read the description it makes you wonder if it’s not so far from Conjure Cairn.

From PSAS v7 (1868), ‘Notes of Early Remains on the Farm of Knaughland, Rothiemay’ by James Hunter.
books.google.co.uk/books?id=h0wGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA572

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