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Ham Chambered Cairn is a Neolithic burial monument situated 180 metres north-west of Brough in Caithness, Scotland. The cairn stands on bedrock of Middle Old Red Sandstone, a geological formation dating to the Middle Devonian period comprising conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone and mudstone. This sturdy foundation provided the local building material for its construction and reflects the landscape available to its Neolithic builders around five thousand years ago.
The monument is a chambered cairn, a type of communal burial structure characteristic of Neolithic Scotland. Such cairns typically consist of a rubble mound enclosing internal stone-built chambers and passages, serving as focal points for the ritual disposal of the dead over extended periods. The rock deposits at Ham would have supplied convenient building stone, allowing the construction of substantial dry-stone chambers beneath a covering cairn of rubble and earth.
The site is protected as a scheduled monument by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM454, recognising its archaeological significance as evidence of early farming communities and their burial practices in the far north of Britain. The cairn survives as a visible monument on the Caithness landscape, testament to the permanence which Neolithic peoples sought to impose upon the monuments housing their dead.
Ham,chambered cairn 180m NW of,Brough is a scheduled monument protected by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM454. View the official record →
Ham Chambered Cairn is a Neolithic burial monument situated 180 metres north-west of Brough in Caithness, Scotland. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM454.
Ham,chambered cairn 180m NW of,Brough dates from the neolithic period, and is classified as a chambered cairn 180m nw of,brough. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Ham,chambered cairn 180m NW of,Brough is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Historic Environment Scotland — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Scotland. The official designation reference is SM454.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Scarfskerry,Kirk o'Banks (1.5 km), Earl's Cairn,chambered cairn N of Hollandmake,Inkstack (4.8 km), Dunnet,two cairns on W side of Dunnet-Castleton Road (5 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Ham,chambered cairn 180m NW of,Brough's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Ham,chambered cairn 180m NW of,Brough stands on Middle Old Red Sandstone (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Middle Devonian. The rock here is conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone and mudstone.