warehouse west Cairn
Warehouse West in 2004. Note the two walkers' cairns
Warehouse West in 2026, looking SE
Note the circular feature left after the 2013 excavation
a Summary
The first archaeologists to describe this cairn. finding that it is smaller than the other cairns on the top of Warehouse Hill, thought that smaller might mean earlier. They conjectured that this might have been the first cairn to be built on the hill. In fact, subsequent surveys and scientific analysis suggests that it is probably Bronze Age, and therefore the last cairn to have been built on the hill.
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Different from the other cairns on the hill, the mass of stones forming the cairn covered a cist, not a chambered burial space as with the other Neolithic cairns on the hill. A cist - a box- or coffin-like container, made of flat slabs of stone - is typical of Bronze Age burials. When the cist was discovered and opened it was found to contain a single skeleton lying on a bed of sea shingle. This burial cairn has many similarities to the Camster round cairn found a few miles to the south.
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The tall tower-like cairn on the SE edge of the cairn is not pre-historic, but dates to Victorian times, see below. The circular space you now see within the mound of the cairn seems to have been consolidated and left in view after the 2013 excavation of the cairn.
A bit more...
​The written archaeological reports relating to this site are confusing. Many authorities say that it was explored in 1865 by Rhind and then later Anderson in 18the 1860's (Anderson 1886). However, there is considerable uncertainty as to whether any of their excavation reports describe this particular cairn. Heald & Barber in their book "Caithness Archaeology: Aspects of Prehistory" state that Rhind did not excavate this "Warehouse 5" cairn, but it was later excavated by Sinclair. However, no reference is given for this.
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During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a walkers' cairn measuring approximately 3 m high above the top of the cairn was built onto its SE edge, and now forms part of the monument. Surveys in 2004 describe this walkers' cairn as well as another one, 1.35m high, on the NW edge. The smaller NW cairn did not survive the excavation of the cairn undertaken by John Barber of AOC in 2013. The larger cairn was however stabilised at that time.
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By the time of a 2004 survey, the central area of the cairn was covered in stony rubble, with two large upright stones just visible, perhaps remnants of the cist slabs. The rubble represented what had been left after 140 years of excavation, robbing, collapse, and perhaps "borrowing" of some of the stones to make the tower. During the 2013 excavation, the interior of the cairn was cleared out down to former ground level. The evidence for a cist was confirmed. That excavation also revealed a low, cambered wall or kerb that may indicate the existence of an earlier smaller cairn that was later re-used and enlarged. Could this have been a Neolithic cairn? Furthermore, the presence of partially upright, large, flat angular stones placed around the cist, supported by the outer cairn material, may indicate that the cairn material was partly constructed before the interment, or that the cairn was opened and re-used in a later period, with the large stones used to hold back the unexcavated cairn material.
Warehouse West during the 2013 excavation
Warehouse W - the central cist revealed during the 2013 excavation