Skara Brae, Orkney Islands

A winter storm in 1850 was arguably the best thing that ever happened to archaeology. When ferocious gales stripped the earth from a grassy mound along the Bay of Skaill on Orkney’s west mainland, they revealed the outline of stone houses that had been buried for roughly 4,500 years. The local laird’s son, William Graham Watt, started digging. What he and later excavators found was Skara Brae: Europe’s most complete Neolithic village, older than Stonehenge, older than the Pyramids of Giza, and in some ways more intimate than either.

Why Skara Brae Is Different

Most prehistoric sites leave you squinting at a row of standing stones or a ditch and trying to imagine lives. Skara Brae doesn’t require much imagination. The eight surviving stone houses have walls still standing, passageways roofed with original stone slabs, and interior fittings that tell you exactly how these people organised their lives. Stone dressers (almost certainly used to display prized objects), stone beds that would have been stuffed with heather or animal skins, stone hearths, built-in tanks sunk into the floor that researchers think were used to keep limpets alive as fishing bait. These people made furniture from stone because timber was scarce on Orkney, and in doing so, they inadvertently preserved their domestic world in extraordinary detail.

The village was occupied from around 3180 BC to about 2500 BC. When it was abandoned, the inhabitants seem to have left in a hurry. Beads from a broken necklace were found scattered near one doorway, as if someone dropped them fleeing fast. No one knows why they left.

That uncertainty is part of what makes the place compelling. Skara Brae is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, grouped with the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness, and Maeshowe as “The Heart of Neolithic Orkney,” but the village has a specificity the other monuments lack. You can stand above the roofless houses and look directly down into spaces where people cooked, slept, argued, and raised children five millennia ago. The Bay of Skaill glitters behind you. The wind, typically, is doing what Orkney wind does.

Getting There

Orkney is reached by ferry from Scrabster (near Thurso) or Aberdeen to Kirkwall, or by short flights from Edinburgh, Inverness, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. Kirkwall is the capital, and Skara Brae is about 19 miles west on the B9056. You’ll want a car or taxi; public transport to the site is unreliable. Driving from Kirkwall takes around 30 minutes.

Practical Information

The site is run by Historic Environment Scotland and is open year-round. Summer hours (April through September) run from 9:30am to 5:30pm, with last entry at 4:30pm. Winter hours (October through March) are 10am to 4pm, last entry 3pm.

Ticket prices as of 2025: adult £14 online, £16 walk-up. Children £8.50 online, concessions £11 online. The ticket includes entry to Skaill House, the 17th-century laird’s mansion immediately adjacent (the same Skaill House whose owner first excavated the site). In winter, Skaill House closes and the ticket covers Skara Brae only. Booking online in advance saves you money and guarantees entry on busy summer days.

The visitor centre does its job well. Touch-screen displays explain the archaeology without dumbing it down, there are artefacts from the 1970s excavations, and a mock-up of a house interior you can walk through. There’s a cafe and a gift shop with locally made work. The path around the site itself is on uneven ground, so proper footwear matters.

Where to Eat

After you leave Skara Brae, your nearest serious eating option is Kirkwall, 30 minutes east.

The Pompadour at the Lynnfield Hotel is reliable for dinner, with locally sourced beef and fresh Orcadian seafood in a room that punches above its weight for a town this size. Mains run around £18 to £25.

Judith Glue’s Real Food Cafe on Kirkwall’s Broad Street is the better daytime call: homemade soups, local crab sandwiches, Orkney cheese on everything. If you are in Kirkwall between 10am and 4pm and hungry, go here first.

The Reel bar on Shore Street does good fish and chips and has the kind of atmosphere that makes you want to stay for a second drink.

One thing worth knowing: the Orkney Brewery is in Quoyloo, not Kirkwall, and while you can buy their ales (Dark Island is the one everyone talks about) all over the island, the brewery itself does not offer regular visitor tours. Don’t drive out there expecting a tasting room.

Where to Stay

The Lynnfield Hotel in Kirkwall is a comfortable mid-range option, reliably run and close to everything. Rates typically £110 to £150 per night for a double.

Skaill House itself offers holiday cottage accommodation on the grounds adjacent to Skara Brae, which means you can wander to the site at dawn before other visitors arrive. That alone is worth it. Check their website directly for availability, as cottages book well in advance in summer.

For something cheaper, Albert Hotel in Kirkwall is a solid choice with good bar food downstairs.

Beyond Skara Brae: What Else to Do

The Ring of Brodgar is worth two hours of your time. These standing stones, arranged in a wide circle on a narrow strip of land between two lochs, have a scale that photos don’t capture. There are no visitor facilities, no entry fee, and often no other people. Go in the late afternoon if the light is decent.

Maeshowe, a Neolithic chambered tomb a few miles from Brodgar, requires a timed guided tour booked through Historic Environment Scotland. In winter, the setting sun shines directly through the entrance passage and illuminates the back wall. The Vikings who broke in during the 12th century left runic graffiti on the walls (“Ingigerth is the most beautiful of all women” is one of the better ones). Book the tour in advance.

The Broch of Gurness on the northeast coast is less visited than Skara Brae and genuinely impressive. It’s an Iron Age broch (round tower) surrounded by the remains of a village, and the combination of structures gives you a sense of community life that a single tower doesn’t. Entry is around £6 for adults. You can cover Gurness and Skara Brae in the same day without rushing.

If you have a full week on Orkney, the island of Hoy deserves a day trip: the Old Man of Hoy sea stack is a four-mile walk from the ferry at Moaness, and the WWII naval base at Lyness has a small museum that’s better than you’d expect.

Practical Tips

Pack waterproof clothing regardless of the forecast. Orkney weather changes fast, and the west coast exposure around Skaill means the wind can cut hard even in June. A light thermal layer underneath is sensible from September onwards.

The summer solstice brings crowds. If your dates are flexible, late April and early May are quieter, the light is extraordinary, and puffins are starting to appear on the coastal cliffs. October is underrated: most tourists are gone, storm light over the Bay of Skaill is dramatic, and you often have sites to yourself.

Hiring a car is the only practical way to see the Neolithic monuments spread across West Mainland. Cycle hire in Kirkwall exists but the distances are significant and the wind is frequently against you in every direction simultaneously.

One final thing most guides skip: inside the visitor centre, look carefully at the stone balls found at Skara Brae. These perfectly round carved stone spheres appear at Neolithic sites across Scotland, and nobody agrees on what they were for. Some may have been used for measuring, others for ceremony, others possibly for counting. They are small, intricate, and completely baffling, which makes them the most honest symbol of what Skara Brae ultimately is: a place where the evidence is clear but the meaning keeps its distance.