Chambered Cairn (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NS 58 76
Also Known as:
- Blochairn 2
- Canmore ID 44421
- STR 3 (Henshall)
Archaeology & History
Close to the ruined Craigmaddie Muir cairn could once have seen a companion, of roughly the same size and structure and made up of thousands of small stones, covering a long internal chamber. It was described in David Ure’s (1793) early history work on the area which, even then, thanks to “frequent dilapidations, will soon be annihilated.” The cairn was included in A.S. Henshall’s (1972) magnum opus in which she wrote:
“There was a second cairn in the vicinty of Craigmaddie Muir I. It was also ‘of an elliptical shape.’ Writing in 1793, Ure says that it ‘was laid open last year, and, though not so large as the other, was of the same construction, which seems to be Danish. Some of the stones placed in the rows at the bottom are considerably large… Among the contents, upon opening…were urns… One of the fragments of an urn is ornamented, near the mouth, with two shallow grooves. The diameter of the circle of which it is a segment seems to have been at least 20in.”
Fragments of human bones were also found within the site, but the entire cairn was sadly destroyed a long time ago. In the Stirlingshire Royal Commission report (1963:1) it was speculated that the urn found herein,
“must have been either a neolithic vessel or a cinerary urn. In view of the method of construction of the chamber it may be assumed that both cairns were related to the Arran or Clyde-Carlingford types.”
References:
- Henshall, Audrey Shore, The Chambered Tombs of Scotland – volume 2, Edinburgh University Press 1972.
- Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Stirlingshire – volume 1, HMSO: Edinburgh 1963.
- Ure, David, The History of Rutherglen and East Kilbride, Glasgow 1793.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian
