Corrimony Chambered Cairn

Entrance to the cairn

Corrimory Cairn, which is in Glen Urquart, about a kilometre and a half off the main A831 Loch Ness - Glen Affric road up a signed minor road. There is parking on the left side of the road just before the cairn, and information boards for both the cairn and the RSPB Corrimony Nature Reserve which is adjacent.

This is a spectacular example of a passage grave, which a huge mound of pebbles, collected from the river, stacked into a giant cairn, with a hollow chamber in the centre. The original roof of the burial chamber has collapsed, but the claustrophobic passageway leading to it is still intact, and can be crawled through for its length of seven metres.

Inner chamber

The cairn was discovered and excavated in 1952. Traces of the burial in the central chamber were found, though the skeleton itself had been dissolved by acid in the peat. There are many theories to explain the alignment of chambered cairns such as this one and those at Clava just east of Inverness; the passageways always face southwest, thought to be connected with the celebration of the winter solstice.

Pieces of the original capstone, decorated with cup-mark designs, are on top of the cairn, whilst the whole structure is enclosed by a stone circle. For a monument built four thousand years ago, Corrimony is remarkably well preserved.