Maeshowe

Continue east along the A 965 highway toward Kirkwall. Just east of the crossing B 9055 road you will pass the Barnhouse Standing Stone, at HY 312 121.

The Barnhouse Stone, at left above, was a sighting stone for Maeshowe, a large chambered cairn and passage tomb visible as a mound at right.

Maeshowe dates from around 3000 BC. An entrance, visible here, leads to a small entrance tunnel leading into a central chamber forming a rough cube shape about 4.5 meters on a side. There are other chambers off the other three sides.

The whole thing is aligned and constructed so the light of the setting sun shines down the entrance tunnel, about 1 meter wide by 1.5 meters high, and some 15 meters long.

For loads of details see: "Maeshowe and the Winter Solstice: Ceremonials Aspects of the Orkney Grooved Ware Culture", Euan W. MacKie, Antiquity 71(1997):339-59. That paper discusses the alignment of the Maeshowe passage with sunset having a final brief re-appearance at north ends of Ward Hill and the Cuilags on the island of Hoy at the first and fifteenth "sixteenths" and the second and fourteen "sixteenths" of the year (29 Nov and 12 Jan, 4 Feb and 4 Nov), respectively, at least in the period around 2700 BC. Precession of the Earth's axis has slightly changed the alignment, although the solstice sunset is still aligned with the tunnel.

The interior construction is laid out more or less like the below. Unfortunately, access to Maeshowe is only possible on guided tours, and no photography is allowed inside. The entrances to the side chambers and their floors are maybe a little over a meter above the floor of the main chamber. The main chamber is about 4.5 meters on a side, the entry tunnel is about 15 meters long. "X" marks the solstice light.

The Barnhouse Stone seems to be a sighting device, although it isn't clear if it was just used for initial construction or if it had some continuing use.

A henge construction, a circular combination of berms and ditches, surrounds the mound from 15 to 21 meters out.

The Maeshowe mound itself is 35 meters in diameter and 7.3 meters tall. The grassy mound hides a structure built of carefully crafted slabs of sandstone weighing up to 30 tons each.

Its original use ended during the Bronze Age. Centuries later, in the 800s through 1100s AD, the Norse Vikings dug into the mound in search of treasure. It was probably a reasonable guess, but there was nothing inside. The Norsemen used the mound as shelter during those centuries, and carved a number of runic inscriptions into the walls. It's the largest collection of runes anywhere outside Scandinavia.

My favorite Viking humor has to do with the small runes at the top of one wall, barely visible from ground level. Modern researchers finally noticed the faint runes, and carefully set up step ladders or scaffolding so they could examine them safely. They finally discovered that the runes said something like:

ᛒᛡᚾᛂ ᚦᚩᚱᛊᛊᚩᚰ ᚴᚨᚱᚡᛂᛑ ᚦᛅᛊ ᚱᚢᚿᛊ ᚡᛂᚱᛦ ᚺᛁᛢ
Bjorne Thorsson carved these runes very high

This view across the Barnhouse Stone, more or less to the northwest and at a right angle to its intended sighting direction, shows how thin it is.

Scotland and Orkney

An ascent of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain, overlooking Glen Nevis just outside Fort William.	The Road to the Isles, over 22 miles (37 km) overland across the high Scottish moors of Lochaber from Corrour Station to Fort William.	A trek through Glen Nevis and the Water of Nevis.
The Brealach Walk out of Pitlochry though the southern Highlands and past some megaliths.	Skara Brae, a Neolithic village on Orkney.	Neolithic Orkney: Maeshowe, the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness, and the Knowe of Onston.
West Coast Walk along the sea cliffs of Orkney's Mainland Coast.	Scapa Flow and the Churchill Barriers.	The Sousterrain, an underground Pictish dwelling in Orkney.
The Isle of Iona, and Oban and Mull.	The Grit Boxes of Scotland.	Navigating with the UK National Grid system and Ordnance Survey maps.

England

Walking along Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland.	Stonehenge, Woodhenge, and Durrington Walls.	Avebury, with its stone circles, Silbury Hill, the West Kennet Long Barrow, the Avenue and numerous tumuli, a much better collection of megaliths and structures than Stonehenge!
C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien at Oxford.	Dover's tunnels in the White Cliffs from World War II through the Cold War.	The Swingate Chain Home radar station near Dover.
The World War II glider base near Harwell, south of Oxford.	Bletchley Park, the secret installation where the British broke the German codes during World War II.	The Cabinet War Rooms, Churchill's emergency World War II government center underground in central London.
You could go to Lee Ho Fook's and get a big dish of beef chow mein.		What's the plumbing like?

Travel in the U.K. — places to stay, how to get around

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