Images

Image of Ach A’ Chorrain (Chambered Cairn) by GLADMAN

Looking inward across the collapsed chamber

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Ach A’ Chorrain (Chambered Cairn) by GLADMAN

The exposed chamber, showing capstone....

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Ach A’ Chorrain (Chambered Cairn) by GLADMAN

The chambered cairn has been robbed to build an adjacent sheep fold, seen here in foreground.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Ach A’ Chorrain (Chambered Cairn) by GLADMAN

The cairn is unstable, containing a collapsed chamber.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Ach A’ Chorrain (Chambered Cairn) by GLADMAN

Ach A’ Chorrain from what became the night’s stop near the bridge carrying the A838 across the Allt Ach A’ Chorrain. The wondrous chambered cairn can be seen far centre left.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

Articles

Miscellaneous

Ach A’ Chorrain
Chambered Cairn

Wondrously located overlooking the Kyle of Durness, I had the good fortune to visit – albeit at the end of a long, packed day – under superb evening conditions. Contrary to usual procedure I’ve taken the liberty of listing successive Canmore entries to highlight how the fabric of our cairns are changing in the course of a few decades:

“A prominent round cairn, 15.5m in diameter and 2.1m in maximum height, which has been robbed to build an adjacent sheepfold. No chamber or cist has been exposed, nor is there any indication of a ditch or retaining circle”. RCAHMS 1911; Visited by OS (F D C) 2 May 1957.

“A disturbed passage of which two pairs of uprights and one capstone are exposed”. Information contained in letters from T C Welsh 24 July and 10 August 1972.

“A bare stone, chambered cairn approximately 14.0m in diameter and 1.6m high; early modern structures built of cairn material intrude on the NE periphery. The passage, in the SE, and the chamber have been partially cleared exposing in the former two sets of slightly displaced uprights, one with lintel slab in situ and the latter a single orthostat”. Visited by OS (J M) 16 November 1978.

Sites within 20km of Ach A’ Chorrain