Monument record MHG27549 - Muir of Allangrange, Cairnside

NH55SE 73 5606 5255
The cairn is at side of a field in flat agricultural land. It is at 140m OD, and has wide views. Carn Urnan (NH55SE 10) is 650m to ESE, and Muir of Allangrange (NH55SE 7) is 100m to W.
The cairn is aligned N -S, with wider end to N. It is evident that the cairn has been reduced in height; and it has been used as a dump for field-gathered stones. It remains as a low, untidy, and much disturbed rise, with N half overgrown with gorse, and S part mainly covered with coarse grass. A track, with an old wall and fence along its E side, runs beside E edge of the cairn for much of its length. The straight N end and W side can be traced a little within present limit of ploughing. The cairn fades away to S, and its southern extent is uncertain. The cairn was at least 52m long, and may have been as much as 65m long. N half is almost parallel-sided, 16.5m wide at N end and slightly wider further S; S half gradually narrows to c13m wide at least definable point. From N end the cairn rises for c13m to a max height of a little over 1m, which height it retains for c16m, and then it gradually dwindles towards S end.
The cairn is indicated on a survey of 1816 (Reduced plan of survey of the Commons of Milbuy, Cromarty etc' by Peter Brown, SRO RHP 4045) by a row of four dots, and is titled 'Grey Cairn'. The nearby house is named Cairnside. However, cairn was not recorded on 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Ross & Cromarty), surveyed in 1872-3. (We are grateful to D Alston, Curator, Cromarty Courthouse, for drawing our attention to this cairn).
Info from A S henshall and J N G Ritchie, visited 23 May 1997