A north-east golf club uncovered a mysterious stone cairn after slicing away a dense thicket of trees whilst remodelling its course.
Extensions to the tee-off for the 16th hole at Braemar Golf Club meant that green keepers had pitched higher up the hill and therefore deeper in the trees during the works.
The mystery cairn has now been exposed by removing even more foliage in order to allow people a better view.
Braemar Golf Club captain, John Kinsella, said: “We really know very little about it.
“It has been suggested to us that it could have been a ‘clan’ boundary marker as there are other cairns in the area all within ten miles of each other, but we really don’t know.
“There were about 200 hundred trees around it, and we saw loads of stones, which looked like a cairn, but it was just a rumble of stones. When we got through the trees, it was a great surprise.
“Before we rebuilt the cairn, we were able to see the bottom of it and we couldn’t see anything under it at all. There were no markings whatsoever. We would love to know more about it.”
The discovery in Braemar, has left golfers on the course reaching for the history books.
Eve Soulsby wrote a book on the golf club ahead of its centenary in 2003.
Mrs Soulsby, 79, a retired geography academic said: “I decided to write the book to give me something to do after I ended up in plaster for three months. I had fallen through my garage roof whilst spraying it with sealant.
“Whilst I was laid up, I got a lot of visitors and we would get talking about the village history, so it grew from there. I was ladies captain for many years and had never heard mention of this cairn.
“I have found reference to the cairn on the 1903 OS map, but am waiting to receive a copy of the earlier 1861 edition to see if it is also on there.
“I don’t think it is a clan boundary marker or even a triangulation point, and it seems to far out of the way to be a commemorative cairn. I am very curious to find out about it.”
