Clach na Tiompan

Nearest town:
Crieff (11km SE)
OS reference:
NN829328
OS sheet:
52
Latitude:
56° 28' 21.75 N
Longitude:
3° 54' 4.17 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Clach na Tiompan (Chambered Cairn) by greywether

General view from N.

The cairn is c. 60m long with a modern marker cairn at its SE end.

greywether
greywether Jun 16, 2004

Articles

Clach na Tiompan

postman
postman Jul 23, 2013

Of all the chambered cairns in Scotland, why did he pick this one to name himself after. Who knows.
After the dusty and rickety ride down the badly laid track, we arrived eventually at this long chambered cairn and ruined four poster. At first glance it looks like there is only one stone left to the stone circle, but a stump still resides five meters away and a fallen stone is hiding just below the grass.

The cairn is very long and very thin, any visible chambers are slight and only just there. A small capstone is sited half way down near a three sided cist. The information board is very informative, as you’d expect. All in all, not the best of histories antiquities but it is in a very lovely part of Scotland, we only saw a few people and they were in the river. I kid you not.

Clach na Tiompan

greywether
greywether Jun 16, 2004

This Clyde cairn is interesting partly because of its location – at the extreme NE edge of the distribution of these cairns – and partly because of its layout. No axial chambers, a facade on the SE lateral chamber and a SE orientation (if that can be determined by the wider end).

These all point to a long cairn being added to a series of earlier small round cairns. Something found at other sites but probably not noticed here at the 1954 excavation since that was long before it became fashionable to look for multi-period sites.

Because of my later-than-planned start to the day, I had debated whether I should do the 6km walk or should I ignore the notices and just drive up. I decided to walk but I arrived at the gate at the same time as a garage breakdown truck on a call who gave me a lift. As luck would have it, I had just finished when he was on the return trip so I also got a lift back. Lix Motors – take a bow. Got me back on schedule.

Visited 15 June 2004

Clach na Tiompan

nickbrand
nickbrand Apr 24, 2003

A large chambered cairn, but very ruinous now. Enough remains that the general shape and size can be made out. It was excavated in 1954, when it was measured at 190 feet in length, with width varying from 38 feet at the SE to 20 feet at the NW – it is oriented along a SE-NW axis. Four lateral chambers were noted from the SW side. Even in its present condition it is quite impressive, although walkers in the Glen have started a small cairn near the SE end, visible in the photographs.

Sites within 20km of Clach na Tiompan

Like all websites everywhere, we use cookies.