Rousay has around fifteen Neolithic chambered cairns strung along its south and west coast, enough for Orcadians to call it the Egypt of the North. The best known is Midhowe, a stalled cairn — a tomb divided into compartments by upright stone slabs — built around 3500 BC and now kept dry inside a large shed, with raised walkways that let you look down into the stalls where the remains of at least 25 people were found. A short walk on, Midhowe Broch is an Iron Age tower on a rocky point, its double walls still standing over four metres high. Both lie on the Westness Heritage Walk, a coastal path past further Pictish and Norse remains. Inland, Taversoe Tuick has two burial chambers stacked one above the other, and Blackhammer is another stalled cairn nearby.
Orkney Ferries sails from Tingwall on the Mainland to Trumland pier, with the same boat continuing round to Egilsay and Wyre. Rousay’s population, over 900 in the mid-19th century, fell below 200 by the 1970s after decades of clearance and emigration, and has since recovered to around 236.
