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Site of a long barrow. It was intact when first recognised by Dr Wifred Dally of Edzell and was excavated in advance of destruction by the Dept of Archaeology, Edinburgh University. Before excavation the barrow, which lay east-west, appeared to be an unploughed, grass-covered mound. The barrow was composed of layered turf and top-soil derived from wide shallow lateral scrapes which partially removed a ditch, and was revetted by a drystone wall along its edges, basically trapezoidal in plan but curving outwards to the east to a probably width of 20m. The barrow had a massive three-phased mortuary structure of timber and stone, the first phase antedating the barrow, and phase II being given a radiocarbon date of 3240 +/- 105 BC. Finds included a plano-convex knife, a cup-marked slab, one Neolithic potsherd, two beakers, and some struck flints. A small square stone cist containing a cremation and a bronze fragment (possibly an awl) had been inserted in the mound 40m from the east end. Five other secondary burials, two of which were beaker type, were also found in the barrow. No trace now. The cup marked stone, broken on arrival at the NMS, is a flat sandstone slab, the main surface bearing nine well-defined cupmarks, measuring between 4cm and 7.5cm in diameter, alongside random pecking. The reverse side of the block has random peckmarks that may sketch put a motif that was never fully carved.
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Historic Environment Records (HER)