Monument record MHG11166 - Lochan Dubh Cul na h-Amaite

Renumbered from NC71SE0022B
JHooper, 22/10/2002
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NC71SE 22 7533 1487.

NC 7533 1487. A well preserved, turf-covered Orkney/Cromarty type chambered cairn, measuring about 12.0m in diameter and 1.2m high was found during field investigation in open moorland. On the SE side an entrance passage, 0.9m wide and apparently of drystone walling, is visible for a length of 1.8m. One lintel stone, 1.3m long, lies outside the entrance, and another, 1.0m long and displaced, lies on the passage walling. The chamber itself is buried beneath the turf, and the uneveness of the cairn summit suggests that the roof has collapsed. Abutting on the north edge of the cairn are two heaps of stones, now turf and heather-covered, which may be spoil from a former excavation, or they may be stone clearance associated with a nearby settlement of three hut circles (NC71SE 21).
Surveyed at 1:10,560.
Visited by OS (N K B) 1 December 1975.

This large and complex burnt mound is situated on the SW bank of the Feith an Lochain Duibh overlooking Strath na Seilge. It measures 17m from N to S by up to 15m transversely and stands 1.5m in maximum height. Lifting a sod revealed cracked stone and charcoal set in a black soil. At least three phases of mound formation can be identified.
The S half of the mound was probably the first section to have been formed; it contains a considerable amount of stone-work, which may have led to its former identification by the OS as a chambered cairn. A stone-lined trough, measuring 2.2m from E to W by 1.5m transversely, lies at the E edge of the mound, immediately to the W of a stone-faced channel which runs along the side of the burnt mound, presumably bringing water from the burn to the S. To the W of the trough, and set into the mound at a height of about 1m, there is a substantial, lintel-like stone, suggesting that there may be a structure within the body of the mound, of which several earthfast stones in the top of the mound may be a part. Three boulders around the S of the mound may have formed part of a revetment.
The relationship of the S and N parts of the mound is uncertain, but it is likely that on the N a C-shaped mound, opening out towards the burn on the E, represents a second phase of construction. A further phase may be represented by a dump of material across the mouth of the C-shaped mound. The channel which runs past the E side of the primary mound continues to just short of the N end of the complex.
Visited by RCAHMS (DCC) 14 May 1995