Monument record 880 - BACHDANAN, VALLAY, NORTH UIST

NF77NE 24 7862 7701.

(Area : NF 786770) Burthag Lir (the tent of Lir), at Geo na Ceardaich, is the traditional site of a temporary habitation of a shipwrecked Norseman. Close to the shore, a sandheap 20ft in diameter by 3ft high is surrounded by the remains of a 'walled enclosure' which encompasses (towards its west end, immediately above the beach) a megalithic slab 11ft 9ins by 53ins by 9ins.
A little to the west there seem to be the remains of a building with imported stone, but, a hundred yards to the south, there is a more conspicuous mound of sand 3 to 4ft high, its outline indicated by the foundations of a 'rect- angular walls', 20 by 16ft internally. Slag and ashes were found in the mound and, to the west, 'exactly outside' its walled edge and a foot below the surface, was a cist which contained an extended inhumation, oriented N-S.
E Beveridge 1911.

The enclosure and 'megalithic slab' are siuated at NF 7867 7716. They do not appear to be of any antiquity. Some 150.0m to the south, at NF 7862 7701, there are the vague outlines of a possible rectangular structure oriented E-W with a pile of stones near its west side. This is probably the other site referred to be Beveridge but there is little evidence of a sand mound. The pile of stones may cover the cist.
Visited by OS (W D J) 22 June 1965.

Erskine Beveridge, 1911, North Uist: its archaeology and topography, 233-4 (Bibliographic reference). SWE12876.

Centre for Field Archaeology, 2005, Coastal Zone Assessment Survey, North Uist (Bibliographic reference). SWE41070.