Monument record 587 - AIRD VEENISH, BARRA

NF70SW 4 702 039.

(Group : NF 702 039) Six burial cairns. The stones covering the burial chambers have been removed, exposing the chambers. All are on low ridges and appear as bright green patches at a distance.
(Information {including sketches} from C F Tebbutt, 1959)

The pecked lines on Tebbutt's sketches represent stone artificially arranged and still in situ.
'A' is three cists 'in line along a narrow ridge and could well be all part of a long cairn or a round and a long cairn'.
'C' is probably a round cairn.
The secondary cists in 'D' are in the north or north-west quadrant. Information from C F Tebbutt (AO/Scot/XT) to OS, 31 October 1959.

Of the six alleged cairns described and planned by Tebbutt, A, B, E and F (NF 7017 0400: NF 7003 0398: NF 7021 0399: NF 7012 0402, respectively) are shielings, oval, circular, and D-shaped on plan, varying from 2.0 m in diameter to 4.0 by 2.0m.
'C' (NF 7029 0377) and 'D' (NF 7031 0373) are amorphous grass-covered cairns 1.3m and 1.6m in height respectively. C has been mutilated by the construction of shielings and stone robbing: D, which is roughly circular, has also been robbed on its east side and a drystone building and shielings have been built on the top.
No chambers are visible but a short passage-like arrangement of upright slabs, 0.3m high, on the east side of C suggests that it may be a chambered cairn of Hebridean type.
Further down the slope towards the road there are more shielings and there is a depopulated farm settlement by the roadside (Misc. Inf.)
C and D surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (N K B) 16 May 1965.

A93 (NF703038) Well-embedded and complex remains of stone structures covering an area c. 14 x 11.5 m, on a raised hillock. The only structures of which the form can be recognized are two small rectangular buildings 3.7 x 3 m and 3.2 x 2.6 m on the summit of the mound. There are suggestions of a substantial circular structure beneath the debris but no clear wall face. Prehistoric house and secondary structures including two shelters type B?
Branigan and Foster 2000, 14

A94 (NF703038) Almost a twin of site A93, just 50m to the north and standing on a second hillock. A mass of building debris much of it completely embedded, covering an area c. 16 x 11 m. Fragments of straight wall facing can be traced on a north-south axis and we suspect there may be a blackhouse here. It is unusual, however, for a blackhouse to be so ruined that it is not recognizable as such. The uppermost structure, whatever it may have been, appears to overlie remains of earlier stone structures. Possibly a prehistoric occupation site with a blackhouse superimposed.
Branigan and Foster 2000, 14.

[NB 6 fig grid ref. only, so presumed to be same features as described previously by OS. CSB 19/03/01].

Keith Branigan & Patrick Foster, 2000, From Barra to Berneray: Archaeological Survey and Excavation in the Southern Isles ... (Bibliographic reference). SWE41033.