Cairnholy 2

Clyde Cairn - Kirkudbrightshire

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Lacking an elaborate façade, Cairnholy 2 is perhaps less spectacular than its companion Cairnholy 1 which lies only 150m away. Here, only two tall portal stones grace the entrance to the outer chamber, their fallen blocking stone lying prostrate before them. Like its neighbour, Cairnholy 2 is a Clyde Cairn of complex structure, and behind its portals is an outer chamber thought to have been a later addition to the primary burial chamber. Unlike Cairnholy 1, the huge capstone of the primary chamber is still in place here, and with the lack of a distracting façade, we thought that this tomb gave a clearer illustration of the Clyde Cairn chamber layout.

Finds here included an arrowhead, stone tools, and fragments of a late bronze age beaker. The cairn here was smaller than that at Cairnholy 1, measuring only about 22m by 13m, but in common with the other site the covering mound has all but disappeared due to stone robbing over the ages.

Cairnholy 2 is also known as King Galdus' tomb, a notion that is a little difficult to believe considering that the monument predates that Caledonian chieftain of the first century AD by at least a millennium or two.