Carn Glas Chambered Cairns and Essich Farm, Inverness: An Interim Report

by Jonathan Wordsworth

The gorse covered mounds of Carn Glas on the skyline looking south west with a ploughed out roundhouse site in the foreground.

Background

In early march NOSAS members helped clear part of the gorse scrub encroaching onto the major Neolithic Cairn Carn Glas (Grey Cairn NH 6493 3830) sited on Essich Farm in Stratherrick above Inverness.  Sitting on a shallow saddle-shaped ridge on Essich Moor and overlooking the Moray Firth to east, the three interlinked cairns that form this monument make this, at 116 metres, the longest in the Highlands. Though now obscured by a modern forestry plantation, it is in a commanding position looking down the Moray Firth. For comparison the better known and partially reconstructed Camster Long Cairn in Caithness, itself comprising two round cairns, measures just under 70 metres in length.  This relative scale of the two cairns can be seen in the plans below drawn for Audrey Henshall’s Chambered Cairns of Scotland, where Camster is the second and Carn Glas the fourth image.

History of the site

The cairn lies on farm of Essich, one of the major tacks or holdings of the Mackintosh family with references to the land at least back to the 16^th century. 

The cairns at Carn Glas have been heavily robbed and the chambers emptied, probably as a source for stone dykes and other agricultural improvements dating to the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.  V Gordon Childe in 1943 suggested stones may have been taken from here to build the section of the Military Road (built from 1725) that lies to the west and runs towards Loch Ashie.

The first known mention of the cairn itself is on a sketch plan of the farm by an unknown surveyor dating to 1834. Forming part of the muniments of the Mackintosh of Mackintosh family, it is stored with other documents dealing with Essich in the National Archives in Edinburgh.

Crown copyright. Papers of the Family of Mackintosh of Mackintosh, National Records of Scotland, RHP2187

The surveyor has probably (the text and image here are a little obscure) described the site as:

Glaischcairnmore so-called

a collection of stones on the summit of three hillocks

He has also shown three separate cairns, the easternmost and still most prominent today, is labelled Cairn. There is a suggestion of four stones ringing the middle cairn but other details are obscure. However it does seem the site had already been heavily robbed by this time.  The wider plan shows the boundary of the farm defined by a row of boundary stones some of which still survive today and date to 1794 suggesting this was a time of major works on the farm when stones for dykes and buildings might be needed.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception, Whitebridge

by Marion Ruscoe (NOSAS)

During a recent NOSAS field trip to archaeological sites on the east of Loch Ness, our attention was drawn to the Roman Catholic Chapel near Whitebridge (NH 49496 17045 – HER ID MHG47419) which is situated close to the Pictish Cemetery there (see separate Blog Post). The architectural style is deceptively simple, suggesting an earlier building date than was actually the case, and perhaps also reflecting a continuity with the croft buildings which must have preceded it. The following is the result of my research into the history of the site and its architecture.

By the middle of the 19th Century there was perceived a need for a chapel to serve the small number of Roman Catholics who lived in Stratherrick.  Lord Lovat offered a site for this purpose at the croft at Bridge of Loin and a collection, which raised £49, was undertaken to pay for the new building.  Alexander McDonell, a native of Fort Augustus, who had recently returned to Scotland from Australia, contributed a further £391 and in March 1859 there was a call for estimates from masons, carpenters, slaters, plasterers and plumbers for work on the new Roman Catholic Chapel and Clergyman’s House to be built at Dalcraig (Dalcrag) in Stratherrick. The chapel, seating 130, was consecrated in December 1859 and dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.

At a time when other denominations in Stratherrick were building substantial churches in a traditional style and in prominent positions, the Roman Catholic church at Whitebridge is simple, rather modest and set back from the road, so that it is not immediately obvious to passing traffic.  It is a single storey building which resembles a croft house.  The door is in the west gable and only the lancet windows betray its religious purpose.   At the east end there appears to be domestic quarters and this may have been the original clergyman’s house which was superseded by a more substantial dwelling house at a later date.  In A Country called Stratherrick Alan Lawson suggests that this larger house was built around 1900.  However, although the two buildings are very different in style, the 1st edition 6” OS map shows the footprint of a building which is very like the present one in its entirety so it’s more likely that they were designed and built together.