Skara Brae

A storm in 1850 stripped the sand off a mound above the Bay of Skaill and exposed stone walls. What emerged over the following century was a village of ten linked houses, occupied for roughly six hundred years from around 3180 BC. Because Orkney has almost no trees, everything was built in flagstone, and the furniture survived along with the walls: a stone dresser facing each doorway, box beds either side of a central hearth, tanks set into the floor that were probably for shellfish. You look down into the rooms from a walkway rather than entering them, but the layout is legible in a way no timber settlement in Britain can be.

The main sights

• House 7 - the best preserved, with its stone dresser and box beds intact.
• The covered passages - low corridors that linked the houses under one roof.
• The replica house - a full-size reconstruction you can actually walk into.
• Skaill House - the seventeenth-century laird's mansion whose grounds hid the site.

When to go

Orkney's ferries and flights run all year, but the long opening hours and the Skaill House visit belong to April through September. Summer light stretches past ten at night. Winter days are short, the wind off the bay is constant and the walkway is fully exposed. Book a timed ticket ahead in July and August.

Practical notes

You view the houses from above, roped off, which disappoints anyone expecting to step inside; the replica only partly compensates. Coastal erosion is a real threat and the sea wall is a visible modern intrusion. Getting to Orkney costs time and money in both directions, and weather can cancel the crossing. The interiors are dark and hard to photograph.

Nearby

The Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness and Maeshowe, all part of the same inscription.

Key facts