Bicker’s Houses

Nearest town:
Rothesay (4km NNE)
OS reference:
NS061604
OS sheet:
63
Latitude:
55° 47' 52.08 N
Longitude:
5° 5' 37.33 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Bicker’s Houses (Chambered Cairn) by Rhiannon

From ‘The Isle of Bute in the Olden Time’ by James K Hewison (1895).

Image credit: J K Hewison?
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Jun 2, 2016
Image of Bicker’s Houses (Chambered Cairn) by GLADMAN

Looking ‘up’ the long cairn toward the chamber just before the rain front hit. And how!

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jun 2, 2016
Image of Bicker’s Houses (Chambered Cairn) by GLADMAN

If you’re going to tell me the mountains of Arran were not a focus for this tomb.... I disagree.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jun 2, 2016
Image of Bicker’s Houses (Chambered Cairn) by greywether

The slipped capstone and the surviving portal stone (2.0m high).

Looking roughly NE along the axial chamber.

greywether
greywether Jun 7, 2004
Image of Bicker’s Houses (Chambered Cairn) by greywether

A bit dark but it gives some impression of the view from the cairn.

Looking SW towards the Arran Hills.

greywether
greywether Jun 7, 2004
Image of Bicker’s Houses (Chambered Cairn) by greywether

The three-compartment chamber from the S.

Most of the interesting stuff is hidden under the vegetation centre left.

greywether
greywether Jun 7, 2004

Articles

Bicker’s Houses

thelonious
thelonious Jun 16, 2018

07/06/2018 – Starting from the viewpiont for Scalpsie Bay, we followed in the footsteps of Greywether (hard not to in the highlands and islands) and headed north to find Bicker’s Houses chambered cairn.

The path(!) to Bicker’s Houses is waymarked from the car park. I lay the challenge down right now. If you ever come here and can actually find and follow the waymarked path all the way to Bicker’s Houses, you win the pathfinder of the year award. Don’t know whether it was just because we were sleepy, it had been a long couple of weeks away (excuses, I know) but there just wasn’t one. We decided we were using up more energy looking for it than just bashing in a straightish line to the cairn through the bracken and grass. Luckily for us the ground was very dry from the good run of weather we’d been having.

It’s not a bad walk really and we did eventually get to the site of the cairn. Maybe not the best time of year as the bracken was starting to get high. Only the big stones were showing above it.

Got to admit, I liked this one. Maybe more for the setting and the walk but the stones that we could see were good as well.

We looped back via Barmore Hill and Quien Hill. A nice area for a potter, a little off the beaten (nonexistent) path.

Bicker’s Houses

greywether
greywether Jun 7, 2004

This is certainly the most remote chambered cairn on Bute and there is nothing especially great about it. Indeed, a large part of the floor plan is obscured by vegetation.

My way in was perhaps not the most obvious but it was determined by the weather. On a glorious day, by taking the track to the viewpoint at Scalpsie Bay and continuing N along the wide ridge, I was able to enjoy views E and W of Bute for most of the trip.

Visited 10 May 2004

Sites within 20km of Bicker’s Houses

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