Images

Image of Cleiteadh (Chambered Tomb) by Merrick

Bovine excavation job: cows clambering on to the top of the mound have revealed the stones of the mound. The destruction will presumably get worse as this untended monument is left in the hands of farmers and the hooves of cattle.

Image credit: Merrick

Articles

Cleiteadh

How shocking are the differences in site preservation.

This is a monument of the same age and type as Torrylin, so close you can almost shout to it, and they’re lumped together with one ‘Chambered Cairns’ on the OS map, yet Torrylin gets signposts from the road, an info board and bought for posterity while this is lost among gorse and the wallstones are being pulled out by cows clambering to the summit.

A round mound about 2m high and 10m across, only two stones are visible, a pair of uprights in the chamber sticking up about 6 or 8 inches out of the grass. This is enough to show that it definitely doesn’t align on Ailsa Craig, nor Torrylinn, nor anything else so neat and romantic.

The chamber’s on a roughly NE/SW axis.

The view today has the Scottish and Irish mountains, the tip of Kintyre, Sanda and Ailsa Craig.

Directions. It looks a bit tricky to find, but it’s not that bad really. From Kilmory and Lagg, head west for half a mile. There’s a sign ‘Cart Track Cleats Shore’. Go down this track. After the gate, it bends right. The sharp cliff-drop in the land comes in to join the track 200m further on. It’s between the gate and the cliff-join that you want to head east. Go down the slope to the open flat fields, cross the stream, and halfway between that and the big buttressed wall, head uphill. It’s a cleared mound among gorse just at the top of the slope.

visited 11 June 05

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