Well sited within rocky pasture overlooking the north-eastern end of Loch Craignish, with the wondrous Kintraw monolith and associated cairns located across the water to the approx east, I found the exposed chamber of Clach an t-Sagairt a joy to behold. Truly I did. As mentioned by those who came before, access is complicated a little by the proximity of housing. Although I'm not exactly enamoured with the thought of knocking on people's doors, being a somewhat typically reticent Englishman, I would nevertheless recommend doing so here since this is a spot to simply chill out for a while without distractions.
Travelling south-west upon the B8002 at Adfern, take the 'Soroba road' uphill to the right near the bus stop. A little way along this look, again, to the right for 'Bluebell Cottage' (hopefully I've recalled this correctly) and duly ask at the house at the top of the cul-de-sac for access... i.e. not any of those beyond further to the right. The young lady answering the door knew what I was after before I had the chance to utter a word.... the 'standing stones', before you have the opportunity to infer any ungentlemanly motive ... readily agreeing to my pre-empted request, as of course a charming young lady would. Now this could have been due to my 'devastating charm'. But I doubt it. Why, she's even left a short length of her back fence free from the dreaded barbed-wire to kindly ensure stoneheads avoid damaging the soft bits when entering the meadow.
The monument is worth the effort, three uprights supporting a capstone ('1.8m by 1.6m and up to 0.3m thick' [RCAHMS 1988]) to form a pretty substantial chamber within the remains of what appeared to be a circular cairn, albeit not that well defined a cairn. A chambered cairn, then. A couple of other stones stand close by including an 'upright slab.. 1m by 0.15m and protruding 0.45m' [RCAHMS 1988], together with what I took to be evidence of a secondary burial within the cairn. Then again maybe not? What is beyond dispute, however, is the manner in which the teeming downpour that greeting my arrival morphed into a beautiful, sunny late morning. Yeah, there are certainly many worse places to be than sat above Loch Craignish at Clach an t-Sagairt, hidden away in semi-obscurity. It seems the chamber was 'cleared' - as opposed to excavated - in the 1920's when 'ashes and splinters of bone', together with fragments of pottery 'said to resemble Food Vessels', were discovered.
The monument deserves to be better known, I guess. But then again is doing pretty well as it is, thank you very much.
Although surrounded on two sides by modern housing, the hills and loch on the other two still give this ruined cairn a pleasant outlook. It's just a pity that some of the pleasure is destroyed by the litter at the site.
It appears to have a S orientation and to have been housed in a round cairn.
This was worth the visit while we were up visiting Kintraw in Feb. 2000.
This is a simple cairn, with capstone still attatched.
We got directions from an eccentric, elderly woman who smelled of whisky and we didn't expect to find it. The Cairn sits above the hamlet of Ardfern which is on the shore of the (sea) Loch Craignish, in a field beside a newish private house. The owners were helpful and we had the company of thier happy little collie dog for the duration of our visit.
Take the Road uphill from the village (towards Craobh) for about a hundred metres, then the private house is up a drive on the right hand side.
Clach an t-Sagairt is Gaelic for 'The Sacred Stone(s)' or possibly 'Stone(s) of the Priest'. Sagairt derives from the Latin 'sacerdos' where we get the word 'sacred' from.
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Posted by GLADMAN
Posted by greywether
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