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West Hatton Croft is a Neolithic long cairn located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and is protected as a scheduled monument by Historic Environment Scotland. Long cairns of this type were constructed during the Neolithic period as communal burial monuments, typically containing stone chambers and multiple interments. Their distinctive elongated mounds, often aligned north-south or east-west, served both practical and ceremonial functions within early farming communities.
The monument sits on bedrock formed from the Argyll Group, a sequence of Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks comprising psammite, semipelite and pelite. This metamorphic base would have influenced both the character of the surrounding landscape and the availability of stone for cairn construction. The underlying geology is typical of the Grampian Highlands region, contributing to the challenging terrain through which Aberdeenshire's earliest agricultural settlers established their communities.
The cairn's position within the Aberdeenshire landscape places it within one of Scotland's most significant concentrations of Neolithic monuments. Such structures offer crucial evidence for understanding settlement patterns, burial practices and social organisation among the first farming populations of northeastern Scotland during the fourth and third millennia BC.
West Hatton Croft, long cairn 155m WNW of is a scheduled monument protected by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM53. View the official record →
West Hatton Croft is a Neolithic long cairn located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and is protected as a scheduled monument by Historic Environment Scotland. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM53.
West Hatton Croft, long cairn 155m WNW of dates from the neolithic period, and is classified as a long cairn. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
West Hatton Croft, long cairn 155m WNW of 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 SM53.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Cup and ring marked boulder, 40m S of Treetops House (2.7 km), Contlaw Mains, hut circle 355m ENE of (4.1 km), Binghill House, stone circle & cairn 200m WSW of (4.7 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of West Hatton Croft, long cairn 155m WNW of'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.
West Hatton Croft, long cairn 155m WNW of stands on Argyll Group, bedrock that formed in the Neoproterozoic. The rock here is psammite, semipelite and pelite.