Nether Largie South Cairn

PricingFreeFree for all visitors

Free entry for everyone

Entry

Free for everyone

Pricing details

Free entry for everyone; no membership card is needed.

ParkingParking not known

The Trust's page does not say how parking is charged.

Parking details

Historic Scotland says parking is available at Lady Glassary Wood but publishes no charge or free statement, so the status is recorded as unknown; reviewers describe it as free. The same car park serves Temple Wood Stone Circle and the Nether Largie standing stones.

Driving pin: Lady Glassary Wood car park, 363 m south of Historic Scotland's own pin on the cairn. The cairn is about 1 km south of Kilmartin on a road off the A816. Historic Scotland gives journey planners only.

About

Nether Largie South Cairn is the oldest of the five burial cairns that run for two kilometres along the floor of Kilmartin Glen, a linear cemetery from Glebe Cairn to Ri Cruin. Unlike the other four, which are Bronze Age, it is a Neolithic chambered tomb built more than 5,000 years ago. It began as a long trapezoidal cairn with a chamber set into its broad end, divided by slabs into four compartments to hold many burials. About 4,000 years ago it was enlarged into a round cairn more than 30 metres across to hold two new stone cists. Today it is a low spread of rounded stones with the roofed chamber open at its heart, which visitors can enter, crouching or crawling into the dark. It is a walk of a few hundred metres across sheep fields from the Lady Glassary Wood car park, with Temple Wood close by.

Check today’s timesSee all times

Nether Largie South CairnOpen all year; an unstaffed open site, no hours published

Opening times may change at short notice.

Historic Scotland: 'Nether Largie South Cairn is free to visit and open year-round.' No hours, closures or notices on 20 October 2026; not on Historic Scotland's closures page. Historic Scotland's directory lists it as 'Kilmartin Glen: Nether Largie South Cairn'.

The cairn is reached through working farmland with livestock, so follow the Scottish Outdoor Access Code. Its central chamber is open and can be entered by crouching, and is low and dark inside. An information board stands by the cairn; no toilets or other facilities.

Photo: The open stone chamber of Nether Largie South Cairn with its capstones and a large lichen-covered slab, set in a spread of rounded cairn stones with hills behind. Bob Embleton, CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nether_Largie_South_Cairn_-_geograph.org.uk_-_2572555.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.