Camas nan Geall - 2

This view, looking northeast from the beach across the agricultural land to the road, shows the area occupied by the chambered cairn, on the left below the trees, and a later burial site in the right foreground. The standing stone is described as Bronze Age, perhaps 4,000 years old, a clear indication that, some 2,000 years after the chambered cairn was built, the bay was still an important settlement site, with religious significance.

However, a closer look reveals that, on the beach side, the stone has later been carved with a Christian cross. The detail is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish, but the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland website, here, has excellent photographs and a drawing to show that the cross has a dog carved above it. Historians suggest that these date to the time of the great pilgrimages of the Irish monks, amongst whom was St Columba, who came to Ardnamurchan in 563AD. In the roadside some 150m east along the road from the car park, a spring in the side of the road is called St Columba's Well.

The standing stone is on the south side of a walled area, a graveyard within which are these two headstones. The left one shows a crucifixion, the right a Campbell coat-of-arms which is reported to have the date 1737 inscribed on it, while both are topped by a head - an angel or a cherub - above feathered wings. A branch of the Campbells, who took over from the MacIains as the lords of Ardnamurchan, occupied Ardslignish Farm, just to the east of Camas nan Geall.

This site is supposed to have been built upon an earlier graveyard attributed, according to the RCAHMS, to St Claran mac an t-Saeir, an Irish monk who travelled to Scotland and died in 549: this may be where he was buried.