Scotland Guide
Orkney and Shetland
Maes Howe
Address: Less than a mile northeast of the Stones of Stenness
Opening time: April– Sept guided tours daily every 45min 9.45am–5.15pm; Oct– March Mon– Sat 9.45am–4.30pm, Sun 2–4.30pm
Telephone: 01856/761606
Price: £5
Website: www.historic-scotland.gov.uk
Maes Howe is one of the most impressive Neolithic burial chambers in the whole of Europe. Dating from around 3000 BC, Maes Howe is in an excellent state of preservation, partly due to the massive slabs of sandstone it was constructed from, the largest of which weighs over thirty tons. Perhaps its most extraordinary aspect is that the tomb is aligned so that the rays of the winter solstice sun reach right down the passage to the ledge of one of the three cells built into the walls of the tomb. The Vikings entered in the twelfth century, leaving large amounts of runic graffiti, cut into the walls of the main chamber and still clearly visible today. When Maes Howe was opened in 1861, it was found to be virtually empty, thanks to the work of generations of grave-robbers who had left behind only a handful of human bones. In summer, to visit the tomb, you must buy a timed ticket for a specific guided tour, either over the phone or direct from the nearby converted nineteenth-century Tormiston Mill, by the main road, which houses the ticket office; in winter, you can wander around the site freely.