Monument record 1875 - DRUIM DUBH, LEWIS

NB33SE 9 3826 3053.

An unrecorded stone circle was discovered consisting of an oval or elliptical ring, about 28m long and 21m wide, of 16 megaliths, all of which are prone and none are missing. Nine are totally buried in peat. The buried stones were probed and the whole ring surveyed in July 1992. As many of the stones have an associated cluster of packing stones it is considered that they once stood upright. It is possible that they were all felled in antiquity.
The ring stands centrally on a low but prominent flat topped hillock of solid rock. About 0.5m of peat covers most of the hillock and has built up slight mounds over the buried stones. Peat cutting has taken place in some parts, thus exposing 7 of the stones. In this year's drought 2 of the buried stones were partly exposed by the shrinking peat cover. Bare rock is exposed on several sides of the hillock, which are highest and steepest on the NW side. The land is rough hill grazing with extensive peat cuttings.
The hillock stands on the NW side of the A859 Stornoway to Tarbert road some 50m from the 'Halfway Garage'.
M R Curtis and G R Curtis 1992.

'The monument...comprises an elliptical ring of fallen standing stones, partly peat-covered, standing on a low, flat-topped, hillock just N of the A859 public road. The area to be scheduled is a rectangle, 65m ENE-WSW by 60m transversely, bounded on the SE by the public road and on the SW by a track. This includes the stone setting and an area around in which traces of other prehistoric constructions may survive below the peat.'
HS Scheduling Document 15 December 1992.

M R and G R Curtis and Curtis, 1992a, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 84 (Bibliographic reference). SWE25401.