Garrochar Quarry

NX55NW 10 5004 5867.

Three clusters of boulders and stones have been found on the western of two sand pits on the farm of Garrochar. They lay in a line SE - NW, 14 1/2ft long (four similar clusters to the SE were destroyed before their significance was realised) and about 6 ins below the surface. The stones are either rounded boulders or angular slabs of soft greenish stone and the two clusters described, each enclosed a deposit of dirty sand containing fragments of charcoal but no sign of bone, burnt or unburnt. Unless the stones formed sockets for posts, of a house or ritual structure, their purpose cannot be explained.

A few months later, on the 11th August, Mr McSkimming, the foreman, found a flat-rimmed cinerary urn, full of calcined bones, which had been set on a flat stone which in its turn had rested on a layer of charcoal some 5ins thick, about 4ft below the surface.

The urn, dated to 500-600 BC by Childe, was restored at the NMAS but is now in Kirkcudbright Museum. (Information from A S Henshall, NMAS)

R C Reid 1946; A Morrison 1968

The clusters of stones and the urn were found in 1944, a few yards apart at NX 5004 5867. Mr Palmer (Quarrymaster) was present at the time of the finds.

Visited by OS (RD) 19 September 1970