Cairn Holy Chambered Cairns

Cairn Holy is a pair of Neolithic burial monuments on a hillside above Wigtown Bay, Clyde cairns of the kind found across south-west Scotland and built in the fourth millennium BC. Both stand open to the sky because their covering stones went into field dykes by the 1700s, which only makes them more impressive: Cairn Holy I has a curving facade of tall pillar stones fronting a forecourt where fires were lit, perhaps for ceremonies, before an outer and an inner chamber, the inner a closed stone box with cup-and-ring marks on two of its stones. Cairn Holy II, a short walk up the lane on a rocky knoll, is said in legend to be the tomb of the mythical king Galdus. Excavations in 1949 found Arran pitchstone, Beaker pottery and part of a ceremonial jadeite axe from the Alps. Reviewers praise the information boards and the sea views, reach the small car park by a narrow lane off the A75, and often have the place to themselves on weekdays.