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Giant's Dome

Covesea, Lossiemouth, parish of Drainie, Moray, (Elginshire).

Raised beach sea cave.

There is an approx 10 m high bank of earth in front of the 10m wide entrance, partly obscuring it.

"There is large main chamber 44 m long and 32 m wide. From a niche in the NE corner of the main chamber, partly blocked by rubble, a slightly sloping passage leads across boulders wedged in a cleft. At the end of the boulders is a man made wall which has now collapsed. An adjacent passage 1m high and 4.5m wide contains no further signs of man's intervention. The ceiling is wet, with running water in some places, and the sandy ground along the N wall gives the impression that it might be under water in a high flood. After about 12 m the passage changes and becomes much narrower and square in cross section. After 3 m it becomes only 0.5 m wide, but after 8m a high narrow passage can be followed. Climbing into this cleft, a further passage seems to go to the E and become wider, but was not explored. At the end of the cleft is a chamber where one can stand comfortably. The chamber has been formed by several parallel cracks; it is about 5 m long, 3 m wide at its widest and 2m high. An opening in a parallel cleft is reached via a squeeze over an unpleasant pile of decaying blankets and mattresses. After a 9m crawl in this chamber, the end of the cave is reached where there is a small chamber in which one can just turn round."

This cave and the one immediately to the W of it have since been dug by archeologists. (slightly reduced from BC110; surveyed 1989)

Alternative Names: Covesea 1, SC1

Notes: Altitude is above Chart Datum and an estimate of the floor level away from the talus pile on the inside.

Note that access is tricky because it is easy to get cut off by the tide and the foreshore is fairly rugged.