Overview
Here the past does not feel distant, with Neolithic stone circles ever present and lost villages uncovered after centuries beneath the ground.
A modest ferry ride from the northernmost edge of the Scottish mainland, lies the remote Orkney Islands. A group of seventy islands of which only twenty are inhabited.
Origins
Dating to prehistory, the Neolithic period left its mark in stone on the land. By 3200 BC farming communities had settled here shaping the land with a permanence that still defines it.
In 1999, UNESCO recognized this legacy as ‘The Heart of Neolithic Orkney’ granting World Heritage Status to four sites: Skara Brae, Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, and the Standing Stones of Stenness.
Centuries later, Norse settlers arrived and transformed the islands into a powerful earldom in association with Scandinavia rather than mainland Scotland.
1. Skara Brae
Built around 3100 BC Skara Brae remained buried until a 19th century storm revealed it. So well preserved it has been called the ‘Scottish Pompeii’ and reads less as a ruin than as a complete village. Low stone passages link the houses, sheltering them from the Atlantic wind.
What distinguishes Skara Brae is not only its age but the survival of its interiors. Each dwelling is organized around a central hearth that was used for heating and cooking along with stone dressers facing the entrance. The beds and shelves are also carved from the same material as the wall. And you can stand inside these rooms today.
The settlement predates the first stones at Stonehenge by a century and the pyramids at Giza by roughly half a millennium. Sometime around 2500 BC the settlement was abandoned, the reason unknown. What remains is a picture of pastoral life as it was 5000 years ago.
2. Ring of Brodgar
Forming part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney, the Ring of Brodgar is located 5.5 miles inland from Skara Brae.
Situated on a narrow strip of land between the Loch of Harray and the Loch of Stenness the landscape compresses into a single line. And there is a stone circle at each end anchoring the wider ceremonial setting that includes the Stones of Stenness and Maeshowe.
Built sometime between 2500 BC and 2000 BC the stones are thought to have been quarried from the hill at Vestrafiold eight miles away. The circle measures 340ft (103.5m) in diameter and originally built with around 60 stones. By the 19th century only 14 stones remained standing but another 13 have since been re-erected. The stones range from 6.5ft - nearly 15ft (2m - 4.5m) high.
The diameter of the bank the stones are set in is almost exactly the same size as the great circle at the passage tomb Newgrange, in Ireland, suggesting a shared architectural language of Neolithic Britain and Ireland.
Its purpose remains uncertain. Some refer to the nearby Standing Stones of Stenness as the temple of the Moon and the Ring of Brodgar as the temple of the Sun, though each claim is disputed.
Local legend claims that the stones were once giants who danced through the night and were turned to stone by the first rays of sunlight. And the outlying stone (the Comet stone) is said to be the fiddler who stood outside the group and also turned to stone once the music stopped.
3. St. Magnus Cathedral
In the capital city of the Orkney Islands, St Magnus Cathedral is known as the ‘Light in the North’. Built in the 12th century under the Norse Earls of Orkney it is Britain’s most northernly cathedral.
The story behind it begins with a murder. In the early 12th century, Magnus Erlendsson, the joint Earl of Orkney at the time was killed by his cousin on the island of Egilsay, who had arrived for a negotiated peace. Magnus was quickly venerated by the Orcadian people and later canonized. His nephew Earl Rognvald began construction with the promise to build the finest church the north had ever seen.
The cathedral is predominately Romanesque defined by its rounded arches and heavy masonry. Its distinctive patterning comes from alternating red and yellow sandstone. Like many Romanesque cathedrals, St. Magnus Cathedral later layered in Gothic additions and introduced vertical emphasis to its earlier form.
The bones of Magnus were interred within one of the cathedral’s pillars and hidden there for protection during the Reformation. The bones were rediscovered in 1919.
Present Day
With a population of 22,000 and the majority concentrated in Kirkwall and Stromness the Orkney Islands maintain a cultural presence that extends beyond their scale. Each midsummer, the St. Magnus International Festival brings music and performance across the islands.
And in Neolithic Orkney the past continues to emerge. At the Ness of Brodgar, ongoing excavations are still revealing new discoveries and suggest a ceremonial complex only now beginning to be understood.
Orkney is not a place that accommodates the distracted. The permanence of the Neolithic landscape, the weight of the cathedral's history, and the quality of the northern light all ask the visitor to slow down. The places to stay that understand this sentiment are made of centuries old stone and contain expansive views. And you have the sense that the building you’re staying in has been sheltering people against the winds for a very long time.
Where to stay is why the Architecture Atlas Historic Hotel Guide is being written. Coming soon.
Deep Dives
For the prehistory behind everything the Neolithic section of this essay can only gesture at Orkney: A Historical Guide by Caroline Wickham-Jones is a detailed account of the historic sites of interest.
For the medieval layer and the Norse world that built the cathedral read Magnus by George Mackay Brown, Orkney's own novelist and poet.
Slow travel and architectural travel ask the same thing: stand still long enough to actually see. Renee | Dream Plan Experience has been slowly traveling through Europe for three decades and her European dispatches are for the traveler who wants to experience a place, not just pass through it. She captures European facades with the same slow intention and is absolutely worth a subscribe.
Next Thursday: another destination through architecture and history.
Mary
P.S. A village older than the pyramids at Giza, a ring of standing stones, a cathedral born of a Viking feud. Send this to someone who travels for the history.
Would love to visit Skara Brea sometime! So interesting.
Super intrigued by these! Thanks for sharing!