Bellshiel Law Long Cairn

If you haven't had a pootle around the Otterburn Ranges before then it's well worth a visit. You can find bastles, trig points, waterfalls, memorials, chunky hills and also some burial cairns.

But not just any burial cairn, the Bellshiel Law Long Cairn is a pretty big lad and is probably one of the largest in the UK.

In the Neolithic period (around 3400-2400 BC) when it was time to lay someone to rest you would often be placed in a pit or hollowed-out area and then covered in earth and stone.

Some cairns had special spots for certain folk (maybe the elders or big cheeses of the tribe), but Bellshiel Law's simpler style suggests a more communal approach.

Its size suggests that the Bellshiel Law Cairn would have been used as burial site for a large farming community.

These kind of burial cairns weren't emergency burial pits like you'd get after a battle or plague. Instead they would have been deliberate, ritualistic places, probably used by early farming communities to bury their dead and honour their ancestors.

Like an old fashioned graveyard, people were buried directly in the earth or shallow pits and over time the cairn was gradually built up as more folk joined the party.

You can see Belshiel Law in the background of the above photograph.

In the 1930s there was a dig where a flint tool was discovered, so there was at least one burial here. The cairn is fenced off and is now an official Scheduled Monument so no more digging to find out who is under there. You can walk around the perimeter of the fence and still get a grand view.

For the statisticians out there the Bellshiel Law Long Cairn is 109m long, 8.8m wide at the west end and widens to around 15m at the east, with a height up to 1.6m.

Fortunately there is a big parking area right next to it. And don't forget you can only head on to the Otterburn Ranges on a non-firing day. Check the Otterburn firing timetable for more information.