Audleystown Court Cairn 1.83

Audleystown Court Cairn is a dual court grave situated near the south shore of Strangford Lough, north-west of Castle Ward, 1.75 miles from Strangford village in County Down, Northern Ireland, at grid ref: 562 504). It contained human and animal remains, as well as pottery and flint implements.FeaturesIt is a, now roofless, trapezoidal long cairn, with the sides revetted by dry-stone walling almost 27m long and a shallow forecourt at each end opening into a burial gallery of four chambers. The cairn material of local stone, survives to a height of 2–3 ft and was probably originally filled sufficiently highly to cover the heavy flags which roofed the burial galleries. The basic unit of a forecourt giving access to a gallery divided into four burial chambers is repeated at each end of the long, wedge-shaped mound, so that the two individual units almost, but not quite, meet back to back near the centre of the mound. There is an intervening gap of just over 2m. Traces of at least partial corbelling of the galleries was found. The galleries are each about 10m in length, 1.2m in width and about 1.2 to 1.5m high.HistoryThe dual court grave was discovered in 1946 by a farmer.