Cnoc-Na-Cnavan

Also known as:
'Hill of Bones', Cnoc Na Cnamhan and Cnoc nan Ceannan
Nearest town:
Thurso (73km ENE)
OS reference:
NC38426566
OS sheet:
9
Latitude:
58° 32' 56.83 N
Longitude:
4° 46' 37.12 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Cnoc-Na-Cnavan (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

In the footsteps of J Horsburgh.... 146 years later. The monolith is unfortunately modern. The landscape is not.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jun 16, 2016
Image of Cnoc-Na-Cnavan (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

Approx south-west along the Kyle of Durness... a large, mutilated mound – the ‘Hill of Bones’.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jun 16, 2016

Articles

Cnoc-Na-Cnavan

C
CARL Aug 15, 2014

Visited 23.7.14

Directions:
A short distance north of Sarsgrum Cairn on the A838. Near the car park and sign for the Cape Wrath ferry.

Not much to report – a grass covered mound.

CANMORE state:
‘A cairn evident as a turf-covered mound, approx. 17m in diameter and 1.5m in height, quarried from the N and E. There is no trace of the second cairn noted by Horsburgh, but immediately N of the cairn are traces of a circular enclosure some 19m in diameter, mutilated by car parking, and in too poor a condition to classify’

Miscellaneous

Cnoc-Na-Cnavan
Cairn(s)
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jun 16, 2016

Field report to complement Carl’s:

‘A few miles from Durness, on the road to Gualan House, there are two cairns. One of them was opened many years ago and I was told that the bottom of a brass candlestick was found in it; this was no double an elliptical Scandinavian brooch. The other was opened by Professor Worsaae, who took away a skull from a small kist that was in it. The kist was full of bones when I saw it and I took a thigh bone out . . . it was remarkably fresh. The hillock on which they were placed is called Cnoc-na-cnavan.‘

J Horsburgh 1870.‘

Source: Canmore

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