The Standing Stones & Stone Circles of Scotland
Older than the pyramids, older than Stonehenge
Scattered across Scotland — on windswept moors, above sea-lochs, in quiet fields — stand some of the oldest and most mysterious monuments in Europe. Nobody has ever counted them all: there are hundreds of stone circles and many thousands of standing stones, raised between roughly 5,000 and 3,500 years ago, in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age. Some — the Stones of Stenness in Orkney, the Callanish stones on Lewis — are older than the great circle at Stonehenge, and older than the pyramids of Giza. This page gathers the twelve most famous, mapped and explained, plus the two we’ve stood among ourselves.
What were they for?
The honest answer is that we don’t fully know — and that’s a good part of the magic. But patterns emerge. Many are aligned on the sun or the moon: the passages at Clava catch the midwinter sunset; Callanish seems tied to the moon’s great 18.6-year cycle; the recumbent circles of the north-east frame the low southern moon. Many mark the dead, standing over burial cairns and cists. All were clearly places of gathering and ritual — the cathedrals of their age, built by farming communities over many generations. Scotland even has monument types of its own: the recumbent stone circles of Aberdeenshire, with a great stone laid on its side between two uprights, and the Clava cairns around Inverness.
Where they all are
The twelve great sites run from Galloway in the south to Orkney in the far north. Tap any pin for its name and a link to the full story.
The twelve at a glance — oldest first
Dates are approximate; many of these places were built and rebuilt over centuries.
| Site | Region | Type | Built | Notable for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stones of Stenness | Orkney | Henge & circle | c.3100 BC | Possibly Britain’s oldest henge |
| Callanish | Isle of Lewis | Circle & avenue | c.2900 BC | The unique cross plan; “Stonehenge of the North” |
| ★ Kilmartin (Temple Wood) | Argyll | Circles & stones | from c.3000 BC | Heart of Scotland’s richest prehistoric glen |
| Croft Moraig | Perthshire | Multi-phase circle | from c.3000 BC | Grew from timber ring to stone circle |
| Cairnpapple Hill | West Lothian | Henge & cairns | later Neolithic | 5,000 years of use stacked on one summit |
| Ring of Brodgar | Orkney | Henge & circle | c.2500 BC | Largest circle in Scotland (104 m across) |
| Loanhead of Daviot | Aberdeenshire | Recumbent circle | c.2500 BC | Circle with an excavated cremation cemetery |
| The Twelve Apostles | Dumfries | Stone circle | ~4,500 yrs old | Largest circle on the Scottish mainland (~86 m) |
| Machrie Moor | Isle of Arran | Six circles | c.2000 BC | Six circles with 5 m red-sandstone pillars |
| Clava Cairns | near Inverness | Bronze-Age cairns | c.2000 BC | Midwinter-aligned; the “Outlander” stones |
| Easter Aquhorthies | Aberdeenshire | Recumbent circle | c.2000 BC | Best-preserved recumbent circle, all stones original |
| Torhouse | Galloway | Stone circle | c.2000 BC | 19 graded granite boulders, beautifully complete |
★ = one we’ve stood among ourselves (see below).
The ones we’ve stood among
Kilmartin Glen — Nether Largie & Temple Wood
The great Nether Largie standing stones, the Temple Wood circles and a 2 km line of burial cairns in the richest prehistoric valley in mainland Scotland — and one we’ve walked ourselves.
Links: the cairns & Temple Wood · the carved stones · Kilmartin Glen · the Crinan Canal
The Kinnell Stone Circle, Killin
A complete little circle of six Bronze-Age standing stones on the Kinnell estate at Killin — the ancient seat of the MacNab chiefs. Quiet, whole, and a world away from the tour buses — we’ve stood among these too.
Links: Killin · the Kinnell estate & MacNabs · nearby Croft Moraig
The twelve, by region
Orkney — the World Heritage heart of Neolithic Britain: the Ring of Brodgar and the older Stones of Stenness.
The Outer Hebrides — the incomparable Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis.
Argyll & the Isles — Kilmartin Glen on the mainland and the six circles of Machrie Moor on Arran.
The Highlands — the atmospheric Clava Cairns beside Culloden.
Perthshire & central Scotland — the multi-phase Croft Moraig and the Kinnell circle at Killin on Loch Tay, and the layered summit of Cairnpapple Hill in West Lothian.
The North-East — Aberdeenshire’s unique recumbent circles: Easter Aquhorthies and Loanhead of Daviot.
The South-West — Galloway’s complete little Torhouse circle and, near Dumfries, the mainland’s biggest ring, the Twelve Apostles.
Explore the rest
- The families who came after: Scottish Clans.
- Their strongholds: Castles of Scotland.
- Their holy places: Kirks, Cathedrals & Abbeys.
- The waters they lived beside: The Lochs of Scotland.
Sources
- Historic Environment Scotland, Canmore/RCAHMS & the individual site records (dates, alignments, monument types), cross-checked with Undiscovered Scotland and site-specific research. Kilmartin and Kinnell are first-hand from our own visits; the other sites are written from research, with our own photographs and notes to follow as we reach them.