A huge Neolithic stone circle ringed by water on Orkney, one of the largest and finest in Britain
Open to visitorsa Historic Environment Scotland site — many are free to wander; staffed ones charge and keep set hours
Standing remainssubstantial fabric survives to stand in front of
Set on a narrow neck of land between two lochs in the heart of Orkney, the Ring of Brodgar is one of the biggest stone circles in Britain. Neolithic people — the farmers of the late Stone Age — laid it out somewhere around 4,500 years ago as a henge: a great circle marked by a bank and a ditch, with tall stones set up inside. The ditch alone was hacked more than three metres down into solid rock with stone and antler tools, which gives you some idea of the effort involved.
The circle is about 104 metres across. Of perhaps sixty stones originally, twenty-seven are still upright, some of them well over two metres tall, spaced around the rim with the water of the lochs on either side. Nobody knows exactly what people did here, but you feel the scale of the place the moment you walk in among the stones.
Historic Environment Scotland looks after Brodgar, and it is free and open at all times, with a car park across the road and a path that runs round the outside of the circle. It belongs to the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site along with the nearby Stones of Stenness and the Maes Howe burial mound, so it is easy to take in all three in a morning. The town of Stromness is a short drive away.
