Torrylin Cairn

In a secluded spot above the shore below Kilmory, on the south coast of Arran, Torrylin is a Neolithic chambered tomb of the Clyde type, used for ritual and burial for more than 1,000 years. Cairns of this kind had a crescent-shaped forecourt framed by tall slender stones, with a long burial chamber divided into compartments behind it. Torrylin has been robbed for stone, ploughed and used as a dump for field stones, so it has lost its forecourt and much of its bulk, but the exposed chamber survives well, and an information board shows how it once looked. Excavations in the 1800s and in 1900 found four human skulls and the bones of several adults, part of a Neolithic bowl, a flint knife and animal bones. One excavator wrote that islanders regarded the cairns with dread. Walk about 450 m on a woodland path from Kilmory village hall; the path carries on to a quiet beach, with views to Kintyre.