High Auchenlarie

  • NX53955342
  • Disputed
Nearest town:
Gatehouse Of Fleet (7km ENE)
OS reference:
NX53955342
OS sheet:
83
Latitude:
54° 51' 14.49 N
Longitude:
4° 16' 31.17 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of High Auchenlarie by Howburn Digger

The “stone setting” to the right of the field clearance cairn. The highest (nearest) stone of this possible “stone setting” is 90 centimetres high. The two rocks behind are 30cms and 40cms. In 1895 Coles felt confident that this was the remains of a stone circle.

Image credit: Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger Mar 12, 2013
Image of High Auchenlarie by Howburn Digger

The high, drystane dykes above High Auchenlarie “cairn” are founded on massive slabs from the crags above.

Image credit: Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger Oct 22, 2012
Image of High Auchenlarie by Howburn Digger

Apocalyptic skies from High Auchenlarie looking over Fleet Bay and Wigtown Bay October 2012. The roofs of the static caravans and holiday lodges at Mossyard glisten in the steadily falling rain.

Image credit: Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger Oct 21, 2012
Image of High Auchenlarie by Howburn Digger

The eastern possible “stone setting” at High Auchenlarie.
OS state “The ‘cairn’ and stones may be the remains of a long cairn but there is no trace of a passage or chamber and although the stones may have formed a facade this suggestion cannot be substantiated without excavation.” Surveyed at 1:10 000.
Visited by OS (BS) 31 May 1977

Image credit: Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger Oct 21, 2012
Image of High Auchenlarie by Howburn Digger

The ‘cairn’ at High Auchenlarie. The last three site visits from OS and RCAHMS have cast doubts on its antiquity. There is no trace of any passage, chamber or cist within the structure. Most of the cairn is modern field clearance. It has two possible “stone settings” to the left and right of this picture, which Coles in 1895 declared to be the ruins of two stone circles.

Image credit: Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger Oct 21, 2012

Articles

High Auchenlarie

Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger Oct 21, 2012

High Auchenlarie – October 2012 – Notes in Grey Weather.

Three days and nights of unrelenting rain have rendered what is normally a well-drained, steeply-sloping pleasant field of springy upland pasture into a flowing quagmire of muddy goo. My climbing boots skite left and right as I clamber up like a novice ice-skater. The possible “cairn” lies uphill, in the top right corner of the first field above High Auchenlarie Farm (best park at the wide point below the farm road-end where the Auchenlarie Burn flows under the Laggan Outdoor Centre B-road). Follow the track up from the minor road and turn left through a metal gate just before the farm.
The “cairn” is disappointing, being formed of a number of large slabs and boulders dumped on top of a low mound of smaller stones. It is not quite a metre high now. The whole thing looks exactly like a low pile of field clearance and the fields around here are full of such field clearance cairns – some much larger. The views down over the roofs of the static caravans at Mossyard and out over Fleet Bay to Wigtown Bay and beyond are spectacular. The view hung like an apocalyptic storm-scene as painted by a depressed Turner, nursing the mother of all hangovers. I have seen this site in beautiful summer and autumn weathers many times and the views out to the Isle of Man are spectacular. The walk over from Cambret over Cairnharrow and Barholm Hill via Cauldside takes in a few sites well off the track and worth of a few hours stiff walking. Half a mile or so above the disputed cairn in unimproved hill-sheep land is a spectacular cairn, quite undisturbed and standing over 10 feet high proud and confident of what it is. Not this place though. Without excavation I think it must remain a site of disputed antiquity – albeit one surrounded by authentic sites and with an outlook worthy of Galloway’s best.

The cup and ring marked outcrop 15 yards SW is well turfed up and once the deluge started again I quit and slithered back down the hill to my car. I’ll take my trowel the next dry day I am up there!

Sites within 20km of High Auchenlarie

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