The Kilmartin Standing Stones: Nether Largie’s 5,000-Year-Old Setting

The Kilmartin Standing Stones: Nether Largie’s 5,000-Year-Old Setting

The Nether Largie standing stones in a field south of Kilmartin.
The Nether Largie standing stones — a mysterious arrangement of great slabs on the floor of Kilmartin Glen.

Overview

In a quiet farm field just south of Kilmartin village stands one of the most atmospheric prehistoric sites in Scotland: the Nether Largie standing stones. Five great slabs of stone, some over three metres tall, set in a deliberate arrangement that has puzzled and delighted people for thousands of years. They’re part of the extraordinary Kilmartin Glen landscape, and you can walk right up and touch them.

What they are

The stones form a setting of five uprights — a central group flanked by outliers, arranged roughly in the shape of an X — standing right on the line of the glen’s famous linear cemetery of burial cairns. They are thought to be around 3,200 years old, raised in the Bronze Age, and many archaeologists believe the alignment was used to track the movements of the moon across the surrounding hills — a giant astronomical instrument in stone.

A standing stone with grazing sheep at Nether Largie, Kilmartin Glen.
A standing stone keeping the sheep company — here for over 3,000 years.
A tall standing stone at Nether Largie, Kilmartin Glen.
One of the great slabs, taller than a person.
A pair of standing stones at Nether Largie, Kilmartin Glen.
The central pair of the setting.
The group of standing stones at Nether Largie, Kilmartin Glen.
The stones spread across the field in their strange formation.
Standing stones aligned across the field at Nether Largie.
Aligned along the floor of the glen.

The ancient carvings

Look closely at the stones and you’ll find they are not blank. Several carry cup-and-ring marks — mysterious carved hollows and rings, pecked into the rock with stone tools thousands of years ago, whose meaning is still unknown. The central stone is the most heavily decorated. It’s a spine-tingling thing, to lay your hand on a mark made by someone thirty centuries gone.

A cup-marked standing stone at Nether Largie, Kilmartin Glen.
Look closely and several stones carry ancient cup-and-ring marks.
A close view of a Nether Largie standing stone.
The weathered face of one of the stones.
A standing stone against a big sky at Nether Largie.
A single stone against the sky.
Standing stones and drystone dyke at Nether Largie, Kilmartin.
The stones and the old drystone dyke.

Seeing them

The stones stand in a working field, reached by a short walk and a kissing gate off the minor road south of Kilmartin. Access is free and open all year — just close the gates, keep dogs under control around livestock, and take nothing but photographs. Come at sunset if you can; the low light rakes across the carvings and the stones throw long shadows down the glen.

The Nether Largie standing stones at sunset, Kilmartin Glen.
Sunset behind the stones — the best time to see them.
Standing stones silhouetted at dusk, Kilmartin Glen.
Silhouettes at dusk.
Evening light on the Nether Largie standing stones.
Evening light across the setting.
A weathered standing stone at Nether Largie, Kilmartin Glen.
Thousands of years of Argyll weather.
A standing stone beneath dramatic clouds at Nether Largie.
Under a big Argyll sky.

Nearby — the rest of Kilmartin Glen

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