‘Horned Cairn’, (32) Ballynichol Road, Ballynichol, Comber, Co. Down, BT23 6NW

The remains of a prehistoric burial cairn, known locally as the ‘Five Sisters’ or ‘Horned Cairn’, stand approximately 1.5 miles south of Comber, County Down. The monument is now situated within a private garden and consists of five large, undressed stones of varying height, the tallest measuring roughly 1.5 metres. These stones are arranged in an arc, which excavation in 1955 revealed to be part of the curved facade of the forecourt of a larger, long cairn; no other parts of this cairn appear to have survived. The site was not noted on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834, but may correspond with a ‘circle of stones’ mentioned in the contemporary Ordnance Survey memoirs. Interestingly, a small Roman Catholic chapel is marked on a 1834 map adjacent to the cairn, which subsequently disappeared by 1858. There's a suggestion that the proximity of the chapel may indicate the site's pagan significance was deliberately neutralised by later Christian influence. An excavation in 1955 uncovered human remains, including an adult, and pottery artefacts.