As you walk up the farm track to this site it look really promising. All the orthostats that face you are upright and support roof stones. It is not until you get to the monument that you see that it isn't actually perfect: the orthostats on the up-hill side have all collapsed under the rooslabs, pitching them up at an angle.
It's hard to imagine that this monument ever had a cairn covering it, as it has been built running east-west across a significant north-facing slope. The cairn on the north side would have had to have been huge.
All of the roofslabs seem to be present, as do all of the side stones, although, as mentioned above, some have collapsed. On the north side there is evidence of double walling and maybe even buttress stones - probably put there to stop the wall stones collapsing down the slope (shame they didn't put some inside the [glo:gallery].
Due to the slope the views are all to the north.
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This is an explanation of (and a bit of a disclaimer for) the coordinates I provide. Where a GPS figure is given this is the master for all other coordinates. According to my Garmin these are quite accurate. Where there is no GPS figure the 6 figure grid reference is master for the others. This may not be very accurate as it could have come from the OS maps and could have been read by eye. Consequently, all other cordinates are going to have inaccuracies. The calculation of Longitude and Latitude uses an algorithm that is not 100% accurate. The long/lat figures are used as a basis for calculating the UTM & ITM coordinates. Consequently, UTM & ITM coordinates are slightly out. UTM is a global coordinate system - Universal Transverse Mercator - that is at the core of the GPS system. ITM is the new coordinate system - Irish Transverse Mercator - that is more accurate and more GPS friendly than the Irish Grid Reference system. This will be used on the next generation of Irish OS maps. |