The Dwarfie Stane, Hoy: A Tomb Carved from a Single Rock

Why it matters

Orkney is full of Neolithic tombs, but every one of them was built: slabs stacked into chambers and buried under mounds. The Dwarfie Stane is different. Around 5,000 years ago someone took a giant block of red sandstone, left behind in a bleak Hoy valley by the glaciers, and hollowed a tomb out of solid rock, working with stone and antler tools. It is the only rock-cut tomb in Orkney and may be the only Neolithic one in Britain. It sits alone in the heather under the hills, and it is one of the strangest and most memorable ancient sites in Scotland.

Inside the stone

The block is about 8.6 metres long, 4 metres wide and up to 2.5 metres high. A square entrance about a metre across on the west side leads into a short passage about 2.2 metres long, with a small cell opening off each side, each roughly 1.7 by 1 metre and only about a metre high. The southern cell has a raised kerb of uncut rock at its end, like a stone pillow. A large stone that once sealed the entrance now lies on the ground outside.

At some point, probably long ago, treasure hunters broke a hole through the roof. It was noted by the 16th century and patched with concrete in the mid-20th century.

Dwarfs, giants and a homesick captain

The name comes from Orkney folklore that a dwarf called Trollid lived in it; others said it was the home of a giant and his wife, who slept in the two cells. Sir Walter Scott put it into his novel The Pirate in 1821, and visitors have been coming ever since.

One of them left a remarkable mark. In 1850 William Mounsey, a former army officer who had served in India, camped here and carved an inscription in Persian on the south side, which translates as “I have sat two nights and so learnt patience”. Above it he cut his own name, written backwards in Latin. It is still there.

Getting there

Passenger ferries run from Stromness to Moaness on the north of Hoy, and a car ferry runs from Houton to Lyness in the south. The stone is beside the single-track road from Moaness to Rackwick, with a small parking area and a boardwalk across the bog to the stone, a walk of a few minutes. It is free and always open. Combine it with the walk to the Old Man of Hoy sea stack from Rackwick.

Around Orkney

From the Dwarfie Stane you look across Hoy Sound to the Orkney Mainland and its World Heritage sites, the great henge of the Ring of Brodgar and the even older Stones of Stenness. In Kirkwall, Highland Park still malts some of its own barley over Orkney peat, and Scapa overlooks the wartime anchorage of Scapa Flow. The Orkney Distillery makes its gin by Kirkwall harbour. For the full island trail see our Orkney whisky trail. Orkney was ruled for centuries by Norse earls, and later by the Sinclairs. For more stones with a story, see our guide to the famous stones of Scotland.

Sources

• Historic Environment Scotland — Dwarfie Stane.
• Canmore — Hoy, Dwarfie Stane.
• Wikipedia — Dwarfie Stane (dimensions, Mounsey inscription, folklore).