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26 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.
See all 26 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 → 26 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.
See all 26 places in The Outer Hebrides → 65 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 65 places in The Highlands → 16 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 16 places in Moray → 77 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 → 31 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.
Explore the full directory → 91 places
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.
Free · open access Photo: Martin Addison / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Argyll and Bute
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Phil Champion / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Argyll and Bute
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Otter / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Carved stone · Prehistoric
Argyll and Bute
Achnabreck's rock surfaces were carved with cup and ring marks in prehistory — the purpose, and even the precise date, of the markings is uncertain…
Near Lochgilphead 6 min walk from car park Easy path Free · open access Photo: Otter / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Tomb or burial place · Prehistoric
Argyll and Bute
Ballymeanoch is a complex of Neolithic structures in Kilmartin Glen: an avenue of two rows of standing stones (of four and two stones), a stone cir…
Near Kilmartin 6 min walk from car park Easy path Free · open access Photo: Patrick Mackie / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Fortified place · Medieval
Argyll and Bute
Castle Sween, on the eastern shore of Loch Sween in Knapdale, Argyll, is thought to be one of the earliest stone castles built in Scotland — and is…
Near Achnamara 466 metres from car park Free · open access Photo: Otter / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Fortified place · Iron Age
Argyll and Bute
Dunadd is a hillfort in Argyll and Bute, occupied from the Iron Age and into the early medieval period, and believed to have been the capital of th…
Near Kilmartin 237 metres from car park Some walking Explore the full directory → 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.
Free · open access Photo: Ralph Greig / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Perth and Kinross
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Euan Nelson / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Perth and Kinross
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Rob Burke / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Perth and Kinross
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Ralph Greig / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Perth and Kinross
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Bill Henderson / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Perth and Kinross
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Niall Benvie / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Perth and Kinross
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
See all 38 places in Perthshire → 30 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.
Free · open access Photo: A Nasmyth / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain Ancient tree · Medieval
Falkirk
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Richard Webb / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Fortified place · Roman
Falkirk
Rough Castle was built as a Roman fort on the Antonine Wall, which dates from about AD 143. It stands against the southern rear face of the Wall, d…
Near Bonnybridge 15 min walk from car park Some walking Free · open access Photo: Unknown / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Fortified place · Medieval
Stirling
Cambuskenneth Abbey, a provostry of canons regular on land enclosed by a meander of the River Forth near Stirling, was founded by order of King Dav…
Near Stirling 263 metres from car park Free · open access Photo: Adrianmckie / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 Fortified place · Iron Age
Stirling
Dumyat is a hill (418 metres) at the western extremity of the Ochil Hills in central Scotland, with two principal summits: Castle Law on the west a…
Near Blairlogie 947 metres from car park Some walking Ticketed Photo: Bubobubo2 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Building or ruin · Medieval
Stirling
The priory was founded in 1238 by Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, for a small community of Augustinian canons (the Black Canons). There is some evi…
Near Port of Menteith 998 metres from car park Free · open access Photo: Lairich Rig / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Carved stone · Prehistoric
Falkirk
Tappoch Broch is an Iron Age broch set in a remote spot in dense woodland near Falkirk; the dry-stone walls, about six metres thick, still stand tw…
Near Torwood 20 min walk from car park Some walking Explore the full directory → 31 places
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 31 places in The Kingdom of Fife → 38 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.
Explore the full directory → 50 places
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.
Free · open access Photo: Rosser1954 / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
East Ayrshire
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Ancient tree · Medieval
West Dunbartonshire
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Richard Webb / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Renfrewshire
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Gordon Dowie / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Renfrewshire
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Raibeart MacAoidh / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Inverclyde
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Richard Sutcliffe / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Renfrewshire
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Explore the full directory → 41 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: Gordon Brown / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 Ancient tree · Medieval
Scottish Borders
A named, long-standing tree carried in local memory as a landmark — included for its place in the landscape, with age and superlative claims held f…
Free · open access Photo: Rosser1954 Roger Griffith / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain 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 2.3 km from car park Some walking Ticketed Photo: LeCardinal / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 Building or ruin · Medieval
Scottish Borders
Dryburgh Abbey was nominally founded on 10 November (Martinmas) 1150 under an agreement between Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland, and the Pr…
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 was occupied by 1000 BC, in the Bronze Age, with ramparts built and rebuilt in three phases. The 296 hut platform…
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 Explore the full directory → 64 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 64 places in Dumfries & Galloway → 