If you’re passing, say from Stromness to Kirkwall or Finstown, Unstan is near the road, and has parking.
If you aren’t sure about dark dingy tombs, it’s neither, the whitewashed modern ceiling and the skylights make it quite dry, and well illuminated. To the point where the stones are a vivid green on a bright day, due to the algae growing on them.
There are many inscriptions, you could lose an hour or so trying to decipher if any are prehistoric. Most seem to be 19thC
Happily, Skara Brae can be visited after the visitor centre has closed, so you can have it to yourself, and peruse at leisure.
The glass roof over one of the houses detracts somewhat, but the others are pretty well preserved too, so it’s not that big a deal.
Keep eyes peeles for the carvings, covered by sheets of perspex.
If you’ve a leaning towards gratuitous pondering, also keep an eye out for the suspicious looking stone lying prone between the village and the visitor centre, just inland of the path.
A short hop acros the stile from the stones of Stenness, Barnhouse has two anomalous buildings. They certaintly are bigger than both those surrounding them, and the ones at Skara Brae. It has been suggested that they are not dwellings, but maybe some kind of communal space related to the Stones of Stenness.
There are more structures still under the surface, the whole site having not yet been fully excavated.
Visited 22nd March 2004: Ballin Tagart is a reconstructed court tomb, now situated behind Ulster Museum. Apparently it was rescued from destruction by quarrying in County Tyrone (thankfully this sort of thing isn’t a problem any more – ahem).
I understand that you can arrange to be shown the tomb my museum staff, or view it from the museum cafe. Time didn’t allow either of these options, so I went for the alternative and walked round the back of the museum where you can see the tomb from the Botanical Gardens. The magic is slightly spoiled by a six foot wire mesh fence, and people walking by give you very strange looks as you peer through the gaps. Still, well worth a visit if you’re in Belfast.
These stones are in Calums garden. They were part of a wall and when Cal dismantled the wall he left them standing. He knows that this is a popular feature of Lewis wall buiding (ie. to incorporate existing stones into walls which were previously built). See also Joolio Geordios incursions into Clach An Trusieals history and subsequent findings.
Cal has a good grasp of local knowledge and you can knock on his door anytime to discuss local megalithic lore. We are part of a growing group who are no longer prepared to wait for the so called ‘protecting authorities’ to act. We shall restore the stones to their previous state as we see fit. Historic Scotland has failed us.
Pretty impressive engineering! Big stones, especially the one in the entrance passage. Each of the side chamber blocking stones in isolation are a bit hefty, can’t see that they were shifted in and out very often.
Having said that, the presence of a tombful of other tourists sort of reduced the atmosphere a bit. It had more gravitas the previous evening in the dark, even though the entrance was locked.
Be prepared to crouch on the way in and out.
Still there and still faintly illuminated behind a smoky screen. The Overseas Bank of China building is now derelict – a sad sight.
Visited 22nd March 2004: I found it tricky to navigate in Northern Ireland, so our route out of Belfast to the Giant’s Ring was a bit circuitous. The site is signposted from some directions, but not from others, so the GPS turned out to be very useful.
Parking is easy, and access to the henge is reasonably good. This is prime dog walking territory for the locals. Definitely an amenity as much as a piece of heritage. The weather was rubbish, but we dutifully plodded around the top of the henge bank looking in at the tomb, and out at the surrounding fields (spotting Ballynahatty Stone). Half way round the henge we lost our resolve (the rain was getting very bad) and descended into the relative shelter of the interior. The tomb itself was my first glimpse of an Irish megalithic tomb. It’s a dollop of a tomb, like an over-weight caterpillar, or a Siamese twin dolmen. Compact and chunky.
I contemplated squeezing inside, but thought better of it. We walked the remaining half of the henge bank, then scuttled back to the car. Nice henge! Nice tomb! Horrible weather!
Visited 11th February 2004: This was the last on the list my local standing stones, left ‘til the end largely because it’s slap bang next to someone’s house. There’s a public footpath running past the stone and the house, but it’s not regularly used, and I was very aware that I might seem intrusive.
With Alfie on my back I cautiously approached the stone and the house. We were soon met by a small dog, closely followed by the gentleman who lives in the house and a second (much larger) dog. After the barking had died down a bit we chatted over the garden gate, and were invited in for a cup of tea. It was nice to have some adult company.
Afterwards I took a look at the stone, which leans at quite an angle. There’s a lot of erosion around the base of the stone and a green band indicates where sheep have rubbed against it, leaving paint from their wool. There’s a strong case for a relationship between Garrig Hir and the The Buwch a’r Llo Group. Situated at the head of the valley, the route from this stone would be a logical way to reach sites further east.
Attempted Visit 15th December 2003: William and I tried walking to Bedd y Brenin from the road to the north west of it, but the terrain was very difficult. The footpath runs along a gap in the forestry plantation, and it was extremely muddy. Along with the gradient and the cold, this made it heavy going and William couldn’t cope. Frustratingly close to the cairn I decided we should turn back.
Watch out for the cows. There were two bullocks in the forestry when we visited, and when we returned to the car, one of them was standing threateningly close to it. It didn’t move as we approached, but just stared at us. I ended up posting William into the car through the hatchback, and sliding into the car very carefully myself to avoid getting between the car and the bullock.
Next time I might try approaching from a different direction, and not in the middle of winter with a tired four year old in tow!
Visited 15th December 2003: This is quite a large cairn, at least in terms of its diameter. What’s left of it really looks like a ring cairn, with quite an obvious hollow in the middle. Access is straight-forward, as there are no fences or walls between the cairn and the road (to the north at least). Although it’s a short walk from the road to the cairn, you’ll have to get out of the car to see it.
It’s possible (and easy) to gain access via Brane Farm. I was lucky in that someone was around to ask, I had no problem in getting permission, and the cows were safely locked away.
There is a path from the cowshed (obviously used by our bovine friends) down to the gate in the adjoining field, and again to the third field where the chamber lies.
From this direction, the first view is of the rear of the chamber (see photo), which consists of some large stones.
The actual chamber was quite overgrown with weeds and small shrubs on my visit, and I suspect some root damage may occur, as several smaller stones which had obviously come from the chamber were spread about near the entrance.
Visited 15th December 2003: Hafotty-Fach Stone II isn’t obvious from the road because it’s quite a way down the slope. It’s pretty unassuming, but worth looking for. The thin edge of the stone points down the valley, leading me to ponder whether there’s a connection between this cluster of Bronze Age sites and the stream.
Visited 15th December 2003: I spotted this stone as we drove along the road between the National trust car park and Carreg y Big. It’s on the eastern side of the road, not far from one of the rocky outcrops that sit between the road and the lake. I was immediately struck by the obvious packing stones around the base of the stone, especially those on the eastern side. I wonder whether anyone has recorded this site before.
Visited 15th December 2003: This standing stone (or cairn, or whatever it is) is clearly visible from the road that runs to the west of the lower Cregennen lake. A public footpath runs very close to the stone, but although this is the quickest way to get to it, the route involves climbing a ladder to get over a large dry stone wall (so not great for visitors with limited mobility).
It’s a beautiful spot, squeezed into the thin strip of flat ground between the lake and Pared-y-Cefn-Hir. Probably a good place for quiet contemplation, if you don’t have a four year old with you.
Went further down the Burn of Hatston (which flows over bedrock throughout its length) and found more water furniture where it greets the sea (HY43511300). Here the burn is ?deeper/wider and is bridged by two immense slabs (the nearer 2.2x0.4x0.25m, the furthest 2.5x0.8x0.3m ) with a reasonable 2.8m gap in between . On the right-hand side a lovely white drystane wall lines the burn but on the other side there is nothing but a few sandy stones in the bank until the bridge is reached (though a finger of sod and earth about the height of the wall projects out into the burn from it). Passing strange. The remains of a few large timbers can be seen betwixt and between the slabs and the bridge is wall-lined either side. Couldn’t get past the barb-wire fence to view it from the shore, and though the waters were low enough to walk under the bridge I could not risk slipping on the bedrock as I was on my own. It is 0.9m between the bridge walls, they are 1m high but the bedrock that the bridge sits on accounts for 0.2m of that on the left.
All told I wonder if this is the remains of a sea-wall sluice, grander and in better preservation than the one downstream of Tankerness Mill. In which case maybe the ‘structure’ upstream here is what Click Mill looked like before it was rebuilt in the 19th century ?? Which, unfortunately, though it further confirms the importance of the Burn of Hatston area would put the burnside furniture outwith TMA’s remit. But a later visit shows the main body of the bridge precedes the possibly early industrial features.
I don’t know how well accepted the idea that megalithic monuments are placed deliberatly at certain sites to relate to other features in the surrounding landscape is these days. If there’s any truth in it, then ones of the main focal points for this bunch of sites has to be the Isle of Hoy. It keeps popping up as you walk from the various monuments, from Maeshowe to Unstan, From the Barnhouse stones up to Bookan, it’s always there, as much a part of the setting as the Lochs.
If you have the chance to be here, and have the time, leave the car at the first site and walk to the others. Both on the way there and on the way back, each site seems to give out tantalising hints of it’s spatial relationship to the others, and to the area around them.
This place lives up to the hype.
This site is definitely worth a visit – although, as can be seen from the photos, better to avoid the bracken-growing season. I needed a good 15 minutes on the secateurs before there was any chance of a photo.
Not my first visit but it must be about 20 years since I was here. Much better than I remembered it to be.
Both chambers are well preserved and the SE is a good example of a simple Hebridean Passage Grave. On a good day, there are clear views over to Ben Cruachan.
There is not much room for parking in the village but you can drive up a well-surfaced access road for the houses near the farm and then onto the rough farm track for a few hundred metres after which there is a large area suitable for parking. Ask at the farmhouse from where the site is visible – fenced off in the corner of a field.
Visited 22 June 2004
After visiting the Bull Stone near Otley Chevin for the Midsummer Solstice, we made our way back to the car park at the Royalty pub. The footpath crossed a field holding a pair of frisky horses, so we decided to take a slight detour.
Spotting what we thought was a boulder, we headed for that to make the dry-stone wall easier to climb. Upon closer inspection we noticed that the boulder was one of a pair, and the one on the other side of the wall appeared much longer and narrower than the first, reminiscent of the nearby Bull Stone. In fact, it was positively ‘menhir-like’!
Could this one of the ‘lost’ stones described by Paulus?
There’s not much to see here. An impressive cairn with a hollowed out centre and a few enigmatic stones in the SE.
It is, sadly, all that remains of a major passage grave excavated in 1871. An 8m passage from the SE led to a 6m chamber in the centre of the 26m diameter cairn. None of the passage/chamber is now visible apart from a few stones around the passage entrance.
It is, I believe, the most southerly example of the Hebridean style of chambered cairn.
On a single track road but with parking room at the site.
Visited 22 June 2004
Although surrounded on two sides by modern housing, the hills and loch on the other two still give this ruined cairn a pleasant outlook. It’s just a pity that some of the pleasure is destroyed by the litter at the site.
It appears to have a S orientation and to have been housed in a round cairn.
Visited 22 June 2004
Visited 7th December 2003: This was the last site of the day, and it certainly had the biggest impact on us. Driving up towards the chamber we over-shot the obvious parking spot and ended up plonking the car down near the farm with the huge concrete silage silos (not recommended). The sun was setting, and I was panicking a bit, thinking it might be dark by the time we reached the chamber. After walking in circles for a bit we remembered the GPS, and got back on track.
The chamber is really enchanting (and I don’t use words like that very often). Tucked behind a ruined farmstead, and embedded in a tall dry stone wall, the chamber hides itself. At first it’s unassuming, but then the size of the thing hits you. Camouflaged by the wall, and in the fading light, this process took a few seconds. The sky was rose red and orange by the time we arrived, just missing the chance to photograph the sun set. Behind us the moon rose, and it got decidedly chilly. Magical though.
On the way back to the car I realised we should have parked further to the south, where there’s a footpath sign next to the road (green metal arrows pointing in two directions, but with the little image of the walking man peeled off). The entrance to the field where Gwern Einion and the farmstead stand is marked by a small rusty iron pedestrian gate. Once you get through this just head for the farmstead (on the horizon with the skeleton roof) and you’ll find the tomb behind it. GPS totally unnecessary, so long as you don’t get into a flap like I did.
A Historic Scotland site with all the usual features: information board, green metal fence and manicured grass.
Due, presumably, to the absence of any signposting, it’s less well known than the other HS cup-and-ring marked rocks in Kilmartin but well worth seeking out.
This was my first visit. On previous visits to Kilmartin it got dropped due to lack of time but this time other sites were dropped to make sure I finally got here.
Park at NR823977 then follow the track SW to the first junction. Turn right. Just before the house at the end, head N over rough ground and the fence soon comes into view.
Visited 22 June 2004
These stones are just “round the corner” from Kintraw.
No views to Jura from here though as higher ground lies to the E, S and W.
There is parking available just to the E of the access track.
Visited 22 June 2004
Although it is the 4m high standing stone which naturally attracts most of the attention here, the cairns are also interesting.
The largest (Cairn A) is 15m diameter and has a number of its kerbstones still visible. There was a false portal in the SW (no longer visible but it can be seen in 1699 sketch posted by Paulus) and in front of that lies a 2.3m recumbent monolith which may be in its original position as no stone hole was found.
A kerb cairn (Cairn B) lies to the SW of Cairn A. It is 7.3m in diameter and its kerbstones are still clearly visible.
There is space to pull off the road at the site and a new metal “kissing gate” has been installed.
Visited 22 June 2004
