EAB20704 - Field Visit - TOMNAGORN

This recumbent stone circle stands on a terrace on the W flank of the hill overlooking Tamnagorn from the E. Now in a grass-grown clearing at the edge of a modern coniferous plantation, the circle encloses a well-defined ring-cairn and measures about 21m in diameter, comprising the recumbent setting (1–3) on the SSW and nine orthostats (4–12), though one of the latter is leaning so steeply as to be almost prone (8) and another five are lying flat (5, 6, 9, 11 &12). The recumbent block (2) measures about 2.15m in length by 1.5m in height and has a relatively even summit. While both flankers remain standing, the western (1) has sheared off obliquely to a stump and what are probably fragments belonging to its top lie immediately behind it. Nevertheless, the two stones evidently presented contrasting profiles, the western being a slender pillar and the eastern (3) a much broader slab, its E edge rising inwards to a rounded point and giving the impression that it leans over the end of the recumbent. In contrast to the W flanker, which is set flush with the leading edge of the recumbent to extend its long axis, the E flanker stands back and is turned inwards slightly towards the recumbent. At 2.1m, the E flanker is the tallest stone in the circle, and the measurements of the rest of the orthostats, both standing and prostrate, show that they reduced in height and spacing round towards the N, where orthostat 7 on the NE is the shortest surviving upright. The heavily-robbed ring-cairn within the interior measures 15.5m in diameter over a kerb of heavy boulders up to 0.6m high. At least twelve of the kerbstones remain in place, one of which is a slab 1.7m in length set almost at right-angles to the general line of the kerb behind the E flanker, and serving to link the ring-cairn to the back of the recumbent setting. At least three of the four earthfast stones visible at the centre probably belong to the kerb of the inner court, though the status of the fourth, a rather lower stone on the NW side, is uncertain, for if this is indeed part of the kerb it would suggest that the court was little more than 2m in length by 1m in breadth, whereas more probably the line extended round by the displaced stones some 4m to the N.