Cairnpapple Hill

Neolithic rituals began around 3500 BC with signs of small hearths, and precious objects left on the hill, presumably as offerings, including fine pottery bowls and stone axe heads imported from Cumbria and Wales. Probably around 3000 BC a Class II henge was constructed with the hilltop being surrounded by a bank outside a ditch about 12 ft wide cut over 3 ft into the rock, with wide entrances from north and south. Inside this an egg-shaped setting of 24 uprights (thought to have been timber posts, or possibly standing stones) enclosed an inner setting of similar uprights. Some time later a Bronze Age ritual added a small stone and clay cairn just off-centre inside the monument, with a 7 ft…

The site is open to the public April to September and has a small visitor centre. The 1940s excavations have been partly covered by a concrete dome replicating the second cairn (although the dome is much higher than the cairn) so that visitors can go inside what was once a solid cairn and see the reconstructed graves, and outside this the surrounding post holes and graves are marked by being filled with colour-coded gravel like an archaeological plan, with the red gravel indicating upright pits, and the white gravel denoting the alleged Christian burials. The current display attempts to show all the main phases of the site at the same time. Cairnpapple Hill is the 445th highest Marilyn (sub…