Monument record MHG45574 - Tom A' Chladha

STONE CIRCLE (NR) (Remains of)
Stone Cists, Urns and Human Remains found here AD 1860.
OS 6"map, Inverness, 2nd ed., (1903)

Tom a'Chladha: Applies to a small hill feature. Mr Paul Grant, tenant of Altlarie, when improving the land, removed what was considered a very perfect stone circle. The stones were all broken up and built into a new house in course of erection nearby. Very little remains but a mass of "debris". In trenching the land in and about 'Tom 'a Cladh', a number of stone cists, urns and human bones were found but were re-buried where they were found.
Name Book 1870.

Altlarie (Tom a'Chladha): a cairn 48ft in diameter, with a depth of 2-3ft of turf-covered cairn material. It is enclosed by a number of kerb-stones just protruding through the turf. A hole on the NW side exposes two upright slabs at least 2ft deep, set about 13ft within the apparent edge of the cairn. The stones are contiguous and do not appear to form part of a cist. Together with another on the SE side it is possible that they may belong to the interior setting of a ring-cairn of 'Clava' type, but this is not certain although strengthened by the site being marked 'Stone Circle' by OS. The cairn has been much robbed, probably at the time when the railway was built.
A S Henshall 1963, visited 1958.

A much robbed and mutilated cairn, generally as described by Henshall. It is impossible to say by ground inspection whether or not it is a ring cairn.
Visited by OS (R D) 23 September 1965.

The robbed remains of this circular cairn are situated on a low grass-grown knoll to the N of the railway. Circular on plan, it measures about 14m in diameter by 0.3m in height, and several kerb stones remain in situ around the perimeter. The set stones identified in the interior by Henshall (Henshall 1963) belong to a kiln and a rectangular building, which have been inserted into the body of the cairn, but there is no evidence to suggest that this may have been a chambered cairn (see above, Henshall).
The remains of a rectangular building straddle the SE side of the cairn; it measures 8.8m from WSW to ESE by 3m within a stony bank 0.2m in height. A local tradition states that shortly after the construction of the building two of the family living there died and the house was knocked down (Ross Noble, pers comm.).
A kiln, which has been let into the body of the cairn a little to the NW of the centre, measures 2.7m in diameter within a coursed-rubble face about 0.5m in height.
(King95 506)
Visited by RCAHMS (DCC) 9 November 1995
A S Henshall 1963