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High Gillespie is a Neolithic long cairn located in Wigtownshire, south-west Scotland, situated on bedrock of the Gala Group formed during the Telychian period. The monument sits upon wacke, a hard metamorphic rock that would have presented substantial labour demands for Neolithic communities quarrying and positioning the massive stones that form the cairn's structure. Long cairns of this type, dating to the early Neolithic period around 4000–3000 BC, served as communal burial monuments, with evidence from comparable sites suggesting successive deposits of human remains within internal chambers or passages.
The monument is protected by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM1939, reflecting its significance as a rare survival of a Neolithic funerary monument in this region. The Wigtownshire landscape, shaped by glaciation and lying close to the Irish Sea coast, offered Neolithic communities established patterns of settlement and use. Long cairns were monumental expressions of territorial identity and ancestral connections to the land.
The specific geological character of the site, underlain by wacke bedrock, would have influenced both the form and construction of the cairn. The durability of this stone has enabled the monument to survive millennia of weathering, preserving evidence of one of Scotland's earliest communities and their ceremonial practices.
High Gillespie,long cairn 475m SSE of is a scheduled monument protected by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM1939. View the official record →
High Gillespie is a Neolithic long cairn located in Wigtownshire, south-west Scotland, situated on bedrock of the Gala Group formed during the Telychian period. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Historic Environment Scotland under reference SM1939.
High Gillespie,long cairn 475m SSE of dates from the neolithic period, and is classified as a long cairn. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
High Gillespie,long cairn 475m SSE of is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Historic Environment Scotland — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Scotland. The official designation reference is SM1939.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Craignarget, cairn 800m ENE of (1.2 km), Garheugh,cairn 1050m NW of (1.7 km), Cairn Buy,cairn 720m NW of Garheugh (2 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of High Gillespie,long cairn 475m SSE of's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
High Gillespie,long cairn 475m SSE of stands on Gala Group, bedrock that formed in the Telychian. The rock here is wacke.