Clava Cairns

Cairns in the Shadow of Culloden

In a grove of ancient beech trees beside the River Nairn, about a mile east of the Culloden battlefield, three Bronze Age cairns stand in a line. They are surrounded by standing stones, linked by low kerb walls, and oriented with a precision that speaks of careful astronomical observation. This is Balnuaran of Clava -- the Clava Cairns -- one of the most important and best-preserved prehistoric burial complexes in Scotland.

The site is disarmingly beautiful. The beech trees, planted in the 18th or 19th century, create a canopy of dappled light in summer and a carpet of copper leaves in autumn. The cairns sit beneath the trees in a quiet enclosure, removed from the traffic of the nearby B9006. It is a peaceful place, contemplative, and entirely unlike the bleak moorland settings of many Scottish prehistoric sites. The beauty of the setting, however, should not distract from the significance of the monuments. Clava is one of the key sites for understanding Bronze Age funerary and ceremonial practice in the Scottish Highlands.

The Three Cairns

The complex consists of three cairns arranged in a roughly southwest-to-northeast line, flanked and enclosed by standing stones. The two outer cairns are passage graves (though they are more accurately described as passage-type cairns with short passages), and the central cairn is a ring cairn -- a cairn with no passage and an open central space.

Each cairn is built of water-rounded cobbles -- boulders and pebbles gathered from the River Nairn, which runs nearby. The cobbles are graded by colour in some sections: reddish stones on the south and west sides, greyer and darker stones on the north and east. This colour-grading is subtle but unmistakable once noticed, and it has been observed at other Clava-type cairns across the region. It implies a symbolic association between colour, direction, and perhaps the passage of the sun across the sky.

The Passage Graves

The two passage graves -- southwest and northeast -- are similar in form. Each consists of a roughly circular cairn of cobbles, about 15 metres in diameter, with a short passage leading from the outer edge to a central chamber. The passages are oriented to the southwest, opening toward the direction of the midwinter sunset.

The chambers are modest in size -- roughly 3-4 metres in diameter and originally roofed by corbelling (overlapping stones building inward to close the space). The corbelling has partially collapsed in both cairns, but enough survives to show the technique. The interiors are cool, dim, and enclosed -- spaces designed for the dead rather than the living.

Human remains were found in both passage graves during 19th-century investigations, though the excavations were not conducted to modern standards and the finds were poorly recorded. Cremated bone and fragments of unburnt bone were recovered, along with traces of pottery.

The Central Ring Cairn

The central cairn is different. It has no passage and no enclosed chamber. Instead, it is a ring cairn: a circular platform of cobbles with an open, unroofed space at the centre. The central area is roughly 3 metres in diameter, bounded by a low kerb of larger stones but open to the sky.

Ring cairns are less common than passage graves in the Clava tradition, and their purpose is debated. The open centre may have served as a ritual space -- a place where ceremonies were conducted in view of the sky, in contrast to the enclosed darkness of the passage graves. Alternatively, the ring cairn may represent a different stage in funerary practice, or a monument dedicated to a different purpose entirely.

The Standing Stones

Each cairn is surrounded by a ring of standing stones, set at intervals around the perimeter. The stones range from about 1 metre to over 2.5 metres in height, and they are graded in size: the tallest stones stand on the southwest side of each ring, and the shortest on the northeast. This grading reinforces the southwest orientation of the passages and the overall emphasis on the midwinter sunset direction.

In total, approximately 28 standing stones survive across the three rings, though some are fallen or displaced. The stones are of local rock -- a mixture of sandstone, conglomerate, and other materials available in the glacial deposits of the Nairn valley.

Between the cairns, low kerb walls or rays of stone connect the standing stone rings, linking the three monuments into a single complex. These connecting features emphasise that Clava is not three separate monuments but a unified design, conceived and built as a coherent whole.

The Midwinter Alignment

The most striking feature of the Clava Cairns' design is their orientation toward the midwinter sunset. The passages of the two passage graves open to the southwest, and on or near the winter solstice (around 21 December), the setting sun shines directly along the passages and into the central chambers.

This alignment is not unique to Clava -- many passage graves in Scotland and Ireland are oriented toward significant solar events. The most famous example is Newgrange in Ireland, where the midwinter sunrise illuminates the passage and chamber. At Clava, the effect is reversed: it is the midwinter sunset that enters the tombs.

The symbolism of directing the dying light of the year's shortest day into the chambers of the dead is powerful and, to many interpreters, deliberate. The midwinter solstice is the turning point of the year -- the moment when the days begin to lengthen again. Aligning the tombs with this moment may have connected death with renewal, darkness with the return of light.

The Clava Tradition

Balnuaran of Clava is the best-preserved example of a distinctive regional monument type known as the Clava cairn. Approximately 50 Clava-type cairns have been identified across the Moray Firth region and the eastern Highlands of Scotland, concentrated in the valleys of the Nairn, Spey, and Beauly rivers.

Clava cairns share a set of characteristic features:

• Circular cairns of water-rounded cobbles
• Standing stone rings surrounding the cairns
• Southwest orientation of passages (in passage-type examples)
• Colour grading of cairn stones
• Height grading of standing stones (tallest to the southwest)

These shared features suggest a strong regional tradition with consistent cosmological beliefs. The emphasis on the southwest -- in passage orientation, stone grading, and colour symbolism -- is remarkably consistent across the group and sets the Clava tradition apart from other cairn-building traditions in Scotland.

The cairns are dated to the Bronze Age, approximately 2000--1800 BCE, making them later than the great Neolithic passage graves of Orkney and Ireland. They represent a distinct Highland tradition, drawing on older ideas about passage graves and stone circles but combining them in a way that is unique to the Moray Firth region.

Visiting the Clava Cairns

The site is easily combined with a visit to the Culloden Battlefield visitor centre, which is a short drive away. But give the cairns their own time. Walk the length of the complex, from the southwest cairn to the northeast. Look at the colour grading of the cobbles. Stand in the open centre of the ring cairn and look up through the beech canopy. If you visit near the winter solstice, stand behind the southwest passage grave in the late afternoon and watch the sun set along the axis of the passage.

The beech trees, though not original to the site, have become part of its character. Their roots have grown around and through the cairn stones over two centuries, and in autumn the combination of copper leaves and grey cobbles is extraordinarily beautiful. Clava is a place where the Bronze Age and the 18th century and the present moment coexist -- where the trees, the cairns, and the light of the midwinter sun come together in a setting that feels both ancient and immediate.