The lure of standing stones

In common with an awful lot of people, I've always had a fascination with ancient standing stones. Quite apart from their age and mystery, their visual appearance, especially if they stand tall against a wide-open sky, makes them prime photographic subjects! 

The ancient peoples of this country erected many stone constructions. Some were tombs, stone uprights supporting one or more capstones, over which soil and turf were piled to form large mounds with a hollow centre that only privileged community members could enter. These are the 'long barrows' dotted around the uplands of England, such as Wayland's Smithy in Oxfordshire, as seen in these shots from 2016:

There are examples of these stone tombs everywhere that stone is readily available - in Cornwall, for instance. Trethevy Quoit in 2010:

And, of course, Lanyon Quoit, also from 2010:

More shots of Lanyon Quoit, this time from 2020. It proved impossible to shift the capstone.

The best-preserved stone tombs I've seen so far were on Guernsey in 2010. Such as Le Trepied:

And, especially, Le Dehus, which like Wayland's Smithy is covered over by earth and grass, giving a good idea of what these things looked like when first built. Usually the overcovering of earth and turf has eroded away. 

This was not the only way to make a stone tomb. Up in Caithness, there are the Grey Cairns of Camster, which were made not from a few massive stones, but many smaller slabs carefully positioned to form a roof over the burial chambers within, as in these 2019 shots:

But standing stones, whether solitary, in circles, or in rows, are my personal favourite. Top dog here is Stonehenge in Wiltshire, shot by me in 1974 (when you could still walk among the stones): 

And in 2008 (when you had to keep your distance):

Not far away are the stones at Avebury, seen here in 1993:

They were unchanged in 2005:

On a revisit in 2013 I discerned faint traces of ancient runes on some of these stones, and carefully noted them down:

Who knows what they mean. 

Cornwall has a number of stone rows and circles, such as the Merry Maidens in this 2004 shot:

Or The Hurlers on the south side of Bodmin Moor, looming out of the mist at Christmastime in 2010:

Lucky Cornwall also has its stone oddities, such as Men-an-Tol, the Stone with the Hole, yet another must-see in 2010. The blue wellies (by Joules) were my pride and joy that year.

Tradition has it that anything passed through that hole will be cured of its maladies. Typically that must have been an ailing child. I wasn't ill, but it seemed a great idea to squeeze through if I could, although a moment's reflection convinced me that I'd get stuck unless I stripped off my jacket. As it was a freezing December afternoon, I chickened out. Probably the right decision.

But all this is preliminary to showcasing what I saw on Orkney in mid-September this year.  

Orkney has historic (and notably, prehistoric) sites in abundance: you couldn't get round to seeing them all in just a day or two. It might take weeks to do proper justice to every one, for many are offshore on the smaller islands, such as Rousay. The main island (which Orcadians call Mainland) has three world-class prehistoric sites: Maeshowe, the Stones of Stenness, and the Ring of Brodgar. I went to see them all on 14th September, but as I accidentally deleted all the many photos I took of them late that evening, I went back to reshoot the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar next day. It sounds like a desperate second-best, but actually the weather was better, and fewer people got in the way. I used LXV, my Leica X Vario. I was very pleased indeed with the results from LXV's first deployment at an archaeological site. 

Let's get Maeshowe out of the way first. I only had a very quick look at it on the first day, from a distance. It's one of those burial mounds, but a particularly big one, particularly finely constructed. Passing through Stenness, I noticed the Maeshowe Visitor Centre in a side-road, almost a mile short of Maeshowe itself. Here's a screenshot of it, taken off Google Street View. 

It's where you have to park - for you have to leave your car there and go to Maeshowe by coach with an official guide, having pre-booked a tour. It's all explained on the website at https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/maeshowe-chambered-cairn/prices-and-opening-times/. Even for someone of sixty-five or older, it would cost £7.50, and being parsimonious in these matters I wasn't prepared to pay that much. Besides, I really couldn't allocate over an hour of my precious Orkney-time to seeing the interior of a burial mound, however wonderful the construction technique, and whatever else there was to see. Apart from that, I don't as a rule like guided tours: inevitably you are stuck with a knot of people who get in the way of the shots you want to take. In any case, my right knee wouldn't stand up to any crouching, if the entrance was (as is common with these things) a long low stone tunnel. 

So I drove past the Visitor Centre, to see if I could get a shot from the side of the road, much closer to Maeshowe. It was clear that the visitor car park used to be where the white bus is standing (the official tour coach?) in this screenshot taken from Google Street View. It's more or less what I saw:

Maeshowe was that green hump off to the left. It didn't call to me with a siren voice. I merely took a picture from my car - accidentally deleted later on, of course - and noted what Maeshowe looked like at a distance. I put it on my B list of places to check out, if I ever returned to Orkney - and if my right knee ever got better!

The standing stones were my main business. All the following shots were taken next day, on 15th September. I really think they are better than the first batch. So from the point of view of securing decent souvenir pictures, the reshoot was a Good Thing. But the time spent on it meant that I couldn't go to another A list site, the famous Skara Brae. Perhaps then it's not 'if I ever return to Orkney'. It's actually, and most definitely, 'when I next go to Orkney'.  

The Stones of Stenness first. Entry was free. These were unexpectedly impressive, because they were much taller than I thought. Historic Scotland (Scotland's equivalent of English Heritage) put much useful information on easy-to-read boards. (Click on them to read the detail)

The point was well made that the Stones of Stenness are just one part of a prehistoric complex of sacred sites, situated on land between two magical stretches of water, the whole in a wide bowl of land hemmed in by hills, so that the sea cannot be seen, and you are not aware of it at all. This was clearly a very special place in ancient times. Even today, with modern roads running past, and modern buildings dotting the landscape, the locality seems like a focus of some sort, where through many millennia the people of the time gathered to do unusual things. I can easily imagine fire-beacons lit in the night sky on all the surrounding hilltops, and ritual goings-on at the Stones, or inside the close-by Ring of Brodgar.

The Stones are like sharp blades pointing up at the sky. From the side, they look heavy and substantial, just as the stones at Stonehenge and Avebury do. But in fact the main uprights are almost wafer-thin - well, as thin as the span of my hand anyway. This gives them a strong likeness to swords thrusting up from underground, challenging the heavens.

Here are more views:

Those two were 'fatter'. This one was oddly shaped. It must have meant something:

This group was actually a bodged modern attempt at restoration, after a collapse:

The Stones made a fine picture, set against the surrounding countryside, or the ever-changing sky:

It was all too tempting to play around with some of the shots afterwards, on the laptop, to create an air of drama, mystery, or other-worldliness:

Next, the Watchstone. This lies between the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar, guarding the narrowest part of the isthmus between the two lochs. It's a tall, imposing, solitary sentry.

This is the view south-west from the Watchstone. Those are the mountains on Hoy.

And now, finally, to the Ring of Brodgar. Here I'm approaching the Ring from the north-west, having come from the Earl's Palace at Birsay. You can easily appreciate the 'bowl-of-land-inside-a-ring-of-hills' terrain that I mentioned earlier. Also the fine Orkney cattle. Orkney is a lush green place, offering superb grazing for beef cattle, who seem to outnumber sheep by some margin. 

Like the Stones of Stenness, there was free entry. In fact there was a rather fab car park, great information boards, and an attractive approach pathway which went past a mobile exhibition room, where cheerful and chatty young ladies (Rangers?) helped the many visitors to understand the Ring, and also took turns to organise and guide any coach parties around it.

I've helped out my own pictures by showing screenshots from Google Street View. As you can see, the car park is some way from the Ring itself - doubtless so that the cars and coaches don't intrude on the prehistoric landscape. Like the set-up at Stonehenge, but on a smaller scale, and without the same rather drastic degree of separation - you need to board a shuttle bus to get from the Stonehenge Visitor Centre to the site itself. Not so at the Ring of Brodgar, but it's still a walk of a few hundred yards.

When I was here on both the 14th and 15th September, there were lots of people fresh off a tourist coach. They were all in a cluster, listening intently to one of the guides, and seemed surprised as I sped past this throng and walked at speed towards the stone ring. without the benefit of a briefing beforehand. I was surprised myself at my sprightliness. My right knee was having an exceptionally good day! But it was easy ground for walking. Hoy apart, Orkney is mostly low-lying, and its slopes are gentle. 

These were the information boards. (Once again, click on them to read the detail)

There you go! It's official. Some of these stones had runes scratched on them. Those Avebury runes must have been genuine!

And this is the leaflet one of those helpful ladies gave to me:

The Ring of Brodgar was all you could wish for in an ancient stone circle. I was most impressed.

During my visit, everyone was requested not to approach the stones closely, because of turf and heather erosion by visitor footfall. So it caused some annoyance that one or two individuals ignored that request, merely to get furtive shots of the stones - with or without selfies - presumably for their Instagram accounts. Not me, I hasten to say! 

Although you were not supposed to go up close to any of the stones, you could walk all the way around, and it was easy to get very nice pictures of the stones set against the sun, or some landscape feature in the far distance. This is where LXV's sharp zoom lens was a great advantage, combined with its large, detail-capturing APS-C sensor.

These are some of the pictures I bagged for my souvenir collection.

Some of the stone shapes were the same as those I saw at the Stones of Stenness. This must be significant.

The heather was a lovely colour. No wonder Historic Scotland discouraged people tramping through it.

The shot just above, looking slightly down on the Ring, was taken from the top of one of the burial mounds on the edge of it. This one:

Next, I pointed LXV away from the Ring, and south-west across the loch towards Hoy. It was fascinating to watch and record the fast-moving clouds. Sky-watching - at least on a sunny day like this - would never be boring on Orkney. I wondered what sunset would look like here. Pretty spectacular, I should think, with reflections on one or other of the two lochs on either side as an added bonus. Yes, definitely a special place! 

I began to try some black-and-white shots. Stone, with its special gritty texture, shows up especially well in monochrome pictures. I waited for people to walk behind a stone and fleetingly 'disappear', so that I wouldn't have to remove anyone in post-processing.  

Later on, back in the caravan with my laptop, it was difficult to restrain myself from using false colour to get certain effects:

I didn't waste time. I worked very fast. I gave the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness only forty-five minutes between them, which includes the short car ride and all the walking. Forty-five minutes was all I had time for. Even this left me with only two and a half hours to walk around Stromness, including a long-desired visit to the famous Pier Arts Centre, before joining the queue to board the car ferry back to Scrabster. 

I'll just have to return to Orkney. Not in 2023 though.