Description

The monument comprises the remains of a Neolithic chambered cairn. The cairn was originally scheduled in 1928, and again in 1963, but on both occasions the designated area was poorly defined in the documentation. The current rescheduling proposal rectifies this.

The King's Cairn lies at around 225m OD on a S facing slope, looking down the Kirkennan Valley. It is slightly oval on plan, measuring about 30m N-S by 38m E-W. Lying on a slope, it stands around 3 high at its S end, but only 1m high at the N. The cairn has been subject to stone robbing, which has revealed the large stones defining the two internal chambers. The chambers run roughly NNW-SSE with entrances on these respective sides of the cairn. The chambers are long, rectilinear and narrow, with little differentiation in width between the chambers and their entrance passages.

The cairn was excavated by Curle in 1928. The chambers are recorded as being full of debris but no artefacts or human remains were recovered. The name "Kings Cairn" comes from a local tradition that the cairn was the burial place of an important local chieftain, but there appears to have been no attempt to locate the remains of the "King" prior to Curle's investigations.

The area to be scheduled is a circle, 60m in diameter, centred on the cairn, to include the cairn and an area around it where material relating to its construction and use may be expected to survive, as shown in red on the attached map.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography
No Bibliography entries for this designation

Source: Historic Environment Scotland