Meams Hill ring cairn was a totally unexpected but wonderful discovery after making a pretty big mistake. In a return to climbing the wrong hill form I climbed the wrong hill. From the Caddam Stone I headed west and then headed north at the junction. Just after Meams farm there is a quarry with plenty of parking space. Thinking that Meams Hill was heading east up the track I promptly climbed and looked all over the hill finding nothing except quite a few left overs from glaciers. At this point I looked at the OS map and discovered I'd gone wrong. I should have taken the next track east which is fairly flat and had two other cairns.
The track is in pretty good condition and starts by going through what looks like a graveyard for torn down barns. Once past that keep going until the trees, the remnants of Meams Wood, with the ring cairn on a small rise being slightly to the south of the track.
This cairn has 18 boulders all of which are earthfast forming the outer circle, still standing proudly looking all over Angus. The inner circle, still there, is covered in grass sitting amongst the cairns 10 meter diameter. Like a lot of sites nearby this area is covered in prehistory, 2 cairns further east and a fort and hill to the west.
With the map reading skills returned to normal these proved fairly easy to find. Great site!!!
Head east from the Meams Farm cairn basically following a track made by cows. This leads straight to the battered remains of the Balnagarrow cairn. Nothing much to see except a couple of kerbs remaining in place in a site which once stood at over 10 meters. Still it has good views to the north of Kirriemuir and eastern Angus.
With that done it was over to Castle Hill for yet more wonderful scenery.
To the north east of the ring cairn you can see the top of a small hill. On this there is a 17 meters wide cairn which stands at just under 1 meter tall. Several boulders mark a kerb on the east. In fact several boulders are at the rest of the cairns edge but most of the stones seem to have gone except for some in the centre.
Once again a very easy walk, of no more than 200 meters, if you are on the correct hill.
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Posted by drewbhoy
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