25/03/2026
Clava Cairns are only 10 minutes drive from By the Brae; they are fascinating and very atmospheric.
The Clava Cairns are one of Scotland’s most evocative prehistoric sites. Set on a terrace above the River Nairn, the Cairns are about 4,000 years old and were built to house the dead. Nearly 200 years ago, mother-daughter duo Elizabeth and Thomasina Campbell undertook an archaeological investigation of the site.
The Campbells were living on an estate in Nairn by late 1828. Clava belonged to the neighbouring estate, and the dig there was ‘by direction of Mrs Campbell’, according to historian, writer and local landowner, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder.
Sadly, we only have Lauder's words on the archaeological findings of the Campbells. Women had previously illustrated antiquities, but unlike in this case, were not usually the main instigators of ‘barrow digging’. Two female proponents were even rarer.
The Campbells were not the only female 'trowelblazers' to explore Clava Cairns. In the early 1930s, around a century after Elizabeth and Thomasina opened the south-western cairn, Kathleen Kennedy re-excavated the passage graves. In the 1960s, Audrey Henshall, an expert in Neolithic chambered cairns, once again opened up the site. Henshall was one of the first women in Scotland to become a full-time professional archaeologist. She conducted surveys of around 600 Neolithic chambered cairns around Scotland.
Elizabeth Campbell and her daughter were among the first women archaeologists in Scotland, but they were certainly not the last. A lot of what we know of this fascinating site comes from the pioneering work of these archaeologists.
📸 Lee Howard
