Go to the Main Scottish Cave and Mine Database Search Page

Gawin Moor (Cairny Cave of)

Auchencairn Forest, Part of Forest of Ae, NW of Ae Village, N of White Hill, Dumfriesshire.

Chambered Cairn, appears entire & complete, stones huddled together without reference to arrangement, hollow underneath, & blue smoke seeking way in tiny jets through thousand apertures. Room for 4 or 5 individuals. Beneath, few plaids & bed-covers, with old chair, stool, & seats of stone. Likewise fire-place & some peats, extracted from adjoining moss. But no entrance in this direction. Entrance round by brow of hollow, overhung by heather; insert your person into small orifice, from which you escape into dark but roomy dungeon, then through narrow passage, into heart of seemingly solid accumulation of stones. Light such as Milton gives to Pandemonium-just as much as to make darkness visible, through small, &, on outside, invisible crevices betwixt stones. Should any accident or search bring considerable weight above you, to break through slightly supported roofing-you can retreat to ante-room or dungeon, and from thence, if necessary, make your way into adjoining linn, along bottom of which, you may ultimately find shelter, or pathway to a more inhabited district.

Alternative Names: Covenanters' Cave [4], Cairny Cave of Gavin Muir, Gavin Muir (Cairny Cave of), Cairny Cave of Gawin Moo)

Notes: Large number of tumuli (cairns) suggest this may not be a cave as previously recorded.

Reference to Gavin Muir may just have been an over-enthusiastic spell-checker but it is also a legitimate two way translation. Gavin for Gawin from Scots to English and Moor to Muir from English to either a older form of English or to Scots. To be completely consistent, it should be either Gavin Moor or Gawin Muir but who cares? The Anglo-French (Norman?) name Gavinis was confused with Gawain (linked to the Welsh Gwalchgwn - white hawk or Gwalchmai - battle hawk) but just to confuse things further Arthurian legend names Gawain as the son of Lot (the putative 5th century AD king of the Lothians).