Ardchonnel Chambered Cairn - Loch Awe

3D Model

The early Neolithic Clyde cairn of Ardchonnel (SM 4173; NM 9932 1275) was built around 6000 years ago and is situated in a forestry clearing on the east side of Loch Awe. A huge mound of stone, it is trapezoidal on plan, measuring about 25 m NE-SW and is 18 m wide at one end and 12 m to the SW. There are traces of a curved forecourt with low square ended horns and a centrally placed burial chamber. It has been opened and only the rear capstone remains in place.

The descendants of the early Neolithic settlers, who arrived in what is now SW Scotland and north of Ireland just after 4000 BC, built megalithic monuments known as Clyde cairns and court tombs, and the story of these chambered cairns is told within The Bare Bones (Forestry and Land Scotland 2023). Their architecture suggests their use both as a place for the dead; and as a place for the living, where people could pay their respects within the forecourt outside the cairn.

Created for Forestry Land Scotland