Cairn: OS Grid Reference – NR 84009 90709
Also Known as:
- Cairnbaan
- White Cairn
Getting Here

Take the A816 out of Lochgilphead and head north as if you’re going to Kilmartin. Nearly 2 miles along, take the left turn along the B841 Crinan road. A few hundred yards along, go over the canal bridge and about 70 yards along there’s a left turn onto the track into the Knapdale Forest. Go along here (there’s a parking spot) for 200 yards until your reach the grasslands on your left. If you walk into this bit of scrubland, you’ll see the rounded fairy-mound over the fence in the adjacent field, almost overlooking the canal. Y’ can’t really miss it.
Archaeology & History
Carn ban, or the White Cairn, from which the hamlet of Cairnbaan gets its name, is a good-sized round cairn, now much overgrown in vegetation, though is still accessible and easy to see. Just above the water-line of the Crinan Canal, the mound is about ten yards across and more than six feet high and is in a good state of preservation. Originally, according to J.H. Craw (1930), the tomb was 12 feet high and 40 feet across!


In the 1850s, the site was examined by a Dr Hunter of Lochgilphead, and Mr Richardson Smith of Achnaba, and a cist that had been built straight on top of the bare rock was uncovered near the centre of the cairn, nearly four feet long and aligned northeast to southwest. Inside it a thin slab of stone—“2 feet long, 17 inches broad, and 2½ inches thick”—had been slid up against the western end of the chamber and on it was a curious petroglyph design comprising “several incised diamond-shaped figures, one within the other”—five altogether, and the commencement of a sixth—similar to ones found at Newgrange in Ireland. This carving was removed and given to the Scottish National Museum where it still resides. Inside the cist, Hunter and Smith found a deposit of some “yellow sand with some black charcoal and several burnt bones lying upon its bottom”, and a subsequent search unearthed some flint fragments.
The Carn Ban is a good site—but if you’re wanting something bigger, something more impressive, I suggest heading just a few miles north…
References:
- Beckensall, Stan, The Prehistoric Rock Art of Kilmartin, Kilmartin Trust: Kilmartin 2005.
- Campbell, Marion & Sandeman, M.L.S., “Mid-Argyll: A Field Survey of the Historic and Prehistoric Monuments”, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 95, 1964.
- Craw, J. Hewat, “Excavations at Dunadd and at other Sites on the Poltalloch Estates, Argyll”, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 64, 1930.
- MacBrayne, David, Summer Tours in Scotland, D. MacBrayne: Glasgow 1886.
- Royal Commission Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland, Argyll – volume 6: Mid-Argyll and Cowal, HMSO: Edinburgh 1971.
- Simpson, J.Y., “On Ancient Sculpturings of Cups and Concentric Rings,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 6, 1866.
- Simpson, James, Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, etc., Upon Stones and Rocks in Scotland, England and other Countries, Edmonston & Douglas: Edinburgh 1867.
Acknowledgements: Huge thanks for use of the Ordnance Survey map in this site profile, reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Scotland.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian