Cairn Holy II

Overlooking Wigtown Bay in south west Scotland, with the Isle of Man in the far distance, are 2 ancient chambered burrial cairns.

Cairn Holy I was a Chambered cairn

This chambered cairn has an impressive curved facade of eight tall uprights reaching to 3m in height. A closing stone, now fallen, was in front of the entrance. The cairn measures 43m x 10m, and has been robbed of most of its material. The chamber is built with an inner and outer compartment, the inner one built as a box, inaccessible from the outer one.

The site was excavated in 1949 and among the objects found in the outer compartment were part of an axe of jadeite, a rare green stone imported from the Alps and a leaf-shaped arrowhead. The axe is kept in the Royal Museum of Scotland, in Edinburgh. The acid soil conditions have dissolved the bones.

Some 150m up the lane is another chambered cairn .....

Cairn Holy II another Chambered cairn

This chambered cairn measures about 21m x 12m and is not as elaborate. A 2.9m tall portal stone flanks the entrance, the second stone is broken. In front of the entrance there is a closing stone. The double chamber survives almost intact. It consists of slab-lined inner and outer compartments, a large capstone survives over the inner chamber.

Cairn Holy II is said to be the tomb of the mythical King Galdus. Even today small rituals are carried out on the site with people leaving flowers and candles.

Excavation in 1949 produced a leaf-shaped arrowhead, a flint knife and Beaker pottery. The finds are now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Both chambered cairns were used as burial places for multiple bodies about 2500 B.C.

Folklore tells us that Cairn Holy II (in this photo) is the burial place of King Galdus, as is Torhouse stone circle 3 miles west of Wigtown, following a successful battle against the Romans. (Galdus is/was a mythical Scottish king and is wrongly assumed to have "Galloway" named after him.)

There is certainly evidence that this pictured chambered cairn was used as a burial place for a second time after the Neolithic period.