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25 places
Shetland Scotland's far north, where the sea rules and stone endures. At Jarlshof four thousand years of settlement lie stacked in a single dune-cut section, Bronze Age houses, an Iron Age broch, a Norse farmstead, while the Broch of Mousa still stands taller than any other, a drystone tower raised against the Atlantic wind.
Free · open access Photo: Langus (talk) / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain Fortified place · Iron Age
Shetland Islands
The only broch - a drystone tower, round and hollow-walled, built in the Iron Age, from about 800 BC until the Romans came - still standing nearly…
Near Sandwick 3.2 km from car park Some walking Ticketed Photo: Nigel Duncan / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Settlement · Prehistoric
Shetland Islands
Jarlshof preserves an unusually complete sequence of human occupation, with remains dating from about 2500 BC to the seventeenth century AD.
Near Sumburgh 3 min walk from car park Some walking Free · open access Photo: Des Blenkinsopp / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient place · Prehistoric
Shetland Islands
Benie Hoose lies in Nesting parish, towards the north-east of Whalsay, laid out in the unusual form of a figure of eight rather than the single rou…
Free · open access Photo: David Stanley / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 Fortified place · Iron Age
Shetland Islands
On a small promontory jutting into the Loch of Clickimin, three-quarters of a mile south-west of Lerwick on the road to Sumburgh, stands one of the…
Free · open access Photo: Rob Farrow / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Fortified place · Iron Age
Shetland Islands
Very little survives above ground of the broch (a tall circular tower of unmortared stone, found only in Scotland) that once stood on a shoulder of…
Free · open access Photo: Van de Beek / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Fortified place · Iron Age
Shetland Islands
A massive triangular lintel stone still spans the entrance of the Broch (a tall circular tower of unmortared stone, found only in Scotland) of Culs…
See all 25 places in Shetland → 52 places
Orkney The Neolithic heart of the north. Long before Stonehenge was finished, Orkney's farmers built the village of Skara Brae, raised the Ring of Brodgar and cut the great chambered tomb of Maeshowe to catch the midwinter sun. The brochs, the Picts and the Norse all followed, but it is the deep past that makes these islands feel like the beginning of everything.
See all 52 places in Orkney → 22 places
The Outer Hebrides A long chain of islands facing the open Atlantic. The standing stones of Calanais were raised five thousand years ago in a cross of weathered gneiss, older than the pyramids; nearby the broch of Dun Carloway still rises in tapering drystone courses, the Iron Age written plainly into the land.
Free · open access Photo: Unknown / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.5 Sacred place · Prehistoric
Outer Hebrides
Erected around 2750 BC, before Stonehenge, and laid out so that none of its three stone rows actually points at the centre of its own circle.
Near Calanais 107 metres from car park Easy path Free · open access Photo: Tom Parnell / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Tomb or burial place · Prehistoric
Outer Hebrides
Two massive slabs form the roof of Barpa Langass, with a third slab laid on top of them, capping a stone burial mound on the Isle of North Uist tha…
Photo: Otter / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Fortified place · Medieval
Outer Hebrides
On the machair at the south-west tip of Benbecula, in the Western Isles, the ruined shell of a three-storey tower house stands with its north wall…
Free · open access Photo: Original uploader was Tumulus at en.wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Sacred place · Prehistoric
Outer Hebrides
Seven thin standing stones rise from a ridge overlooking Loch Roag, on the western side of Lewis, set out in an ellipse measuring 21.6 by 18.9 metr…
Free · open access Photo: Tumulus at English Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Sacred place · Prehistoric
Outer Hebrides
Two concentric ellipses of stone stand on the moor above Loch Roag on the Isle of Lewis, forming Callanish III: Gaelic name Cnoc Fillibhir Bheag. T…
Free · open access Photo: Tumulus at English Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Sacred place · Prehistoric
Outer Hebrides
Five stones stand today at Callanish IV, arranged in a pronounced oval measuring 13.3 by 9.5 metres on open moorland southeast of the main Callanis…
See all 22 places in The Outer Hebrides → 67 places
The Highlands Mountain, moor and the long empty north. Here the prehistoric dead were honoured in stone: the passage graves of Clava, aligned on the setting midwinter sun; the drystone chambers of the Grey Cairns of Camster; and the strange fan of small stones at Hill o' Many Stanes, whose purpose is argued over still.
See all 67 places in The Highlands → 17 places
Moray A fertile coast that was a seat of Pictish power. At Burghead the largest Pictish fort in Scotland once crowned the headland, its ramparts guarding a royal centre where carved bulls and a rock-cut well speak of ceremony and kingship on the southern shore of the Moray Firth.
See all 17 places in Moray → 72 places
The North-East Pictland's carved-stone country. Aberdeenshire holds the densest scatter of Pictish symbol stones anywhere, the Maiden Stone, Brandsbutt, Picardy, set among the recumbent stone circles unique to the north-east and hillforts like Tap o' Noth, whose ramparts were fused to glass by ancient fire. On the coast, Dunnottar keeps its impossible cliff.
Explore the full directory → 29 places
Angus & the Mearns The great carved crosses of the Picts. At Aberlemno a battle is fought forever across the face of a cross-slab; at Eassie and St Orland's the same confident hands worked stone into scripture and symbol. Above them rise the vast ramparts of the Caterthuns, Iron Age hillforts holding the mouths of the glens.
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Argyll The cradle of Christian Scotland and a valley thick with the prehistoric dead. Iona sent its monks and saints across the north, and Islay's Kildalton Cross still stands whole after twelve centuries. Older still is Kilmartin Glen, where a linear cemetery of cairns, cists and carved rock marks one of the richest prehistoric landscapes in Britain.
See all 91 places in Argyll → 38 places
Perthshire Where the Highlands meet the fertile straths. The stone circle of Croft Moraig was rebuilt and reoriented across centuries of prehistoric worship, while the medieval chapel of Tullibardine survives almost untouched: a small, perfect record of the faith that followed.
See all 38 places in Perthshire → 29 places
Stirling & the Forth The waist of Scotland, fought over in every age. Rome's Antonine Wall ran through here, its best-preserved fort surviving at Rough Castle, and Iron Age forts still crown the Ochil edge. Later came the abbeys: Cambuskenneth by the river, Inchmahome on its island in the Lake of Menteith.
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The Kingdom of Fife A peninsula between two firths, once a kingdom in its own right. Fife carried Scotland's church and crown: the vast ruined cathedral of St Andrews, the royal abbey of Dunfermline where kings lie buried, while high on the inland hills the ramparts of Norman's Law recall the older powers that held this ground.
See all 32 places in The Kingdom of Fife → 40 places
The Lothians & Edinburgh The rich farmland south of the Forth, held from the heights. Traprain Law was a great tribal capital of the Iron Age, its summit yielding a hoard of Roman silver; at Cairnpapple a hilltop served for burial and ceremony across three thousand years, from henge to Bronze Age cairn.
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Greater Glasgow & the Clyde The lower Clyde, a frontier and a stronghold. Dumbarton Rock was the fortress-capital of the Britons of Strathclyde, held for centuries above the river; a little to the north the bath-house at Bearsden survives from the Antonine Wall, the northernmost bath Rome ever built.
Explore the full directory → 39 places
The Borders Abbey country, and the great hillforts before it. The border abbeys, Melrose, Kelso, Jedburgh, raised soaring Gothic churches that the wars would ruin and beauty outlast. Long before them, thousands lived within the ramparts of Eildon Hill North, the largest hillfort in the land, above the road the Romans would later drive north.
Free · open access Photo: Ewen Rennie / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Scottish Borders
Concrete, brick and timber now hold together a sessile oak reckoned at about a thousand years old: one of the last trees of the Jedforest, and the…
Free · open access Photo: Gordon Hatton / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Fortified place · Iron Age
Scottish Borders
Two Iron Age forts crown the Cademuir ridge. The larger, Cademuir I, on the summit, enclosed about 2.25 ha within a single 3 m thick stone wall and…
Near Peebles 4.4 km from car park Some walking Ticketed Photo: LeCardinal / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Building or ruin · Medieval
Scottish Borders
A monastery under an abbot on the banks of the Tweed, nominally founded in 1150 by agreement with Hugh de Morville.
Near St Boswells 363 metres from car park Free · open access Photo: Oehoe at Dutch Wikipedia (Original text: Van de Beek) / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Fortified place · Iron Age
Scottish Borders
The hilltop on the northeast slope of Cockburn Law was first fortified in the pre-Roman Iron Age, when double ramparts and ditches enclosed an oval…
Near Duns 1.8 km from car park Some walking Free · open access Photo: Jenny Gumbrell / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Fortified place · Iron Age
Scottish Borders
Excavation has shown the hillfort: a defended settlement on high ground: was occupied by 1000 BC, in the Bronze Age, roughly 2500–800 BC, when meta…
Near Melrose 1.7 km from car park Some walking Free · open access Photo: Andrew Curtis / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Carved stone · Prehistoric
Scottish Borders
C. M. Piggott's 1948 excavation at Hownam Rings became a landmark in the archaeology of northern Britain. It produced the 'Hownam model' (or 'Howna…
Near Hownam 1.2 km from car park Some walking See all 39 places in The Borders → 61 places
Dumfries & Galloway The south-west, where Scotland's Christianity began. St Ninian worked from Whithorn while Rome still ruled, and his cave still draws pilgrims to the shore; at Ruthwell stands one of the masterpieces of early medieval Europe, a preaching cross carved with runes and vine. Older mysteries wait inland at the chambered cairns of Cairn Holy.
See all 61 places in Dumfries & Galloway → 