Passage graves and balls of wool on four legs
Scotland #2: Day trip into local history
A prehistoric burial site as old as Stonehenge and Scotland’s longest railway viaduct—in the Highlands, history and culture are just around the corner. Now I just have to master driving on those countryroads to get there.
Driving in Scotland is a challenge. Not just because of the left-hand traffic: most country roads are single-lane. And I mean “truly” single-lane. Driving the wide SUV I’ve been given, I find myself breaking into a sweat at certain points during my initial outings. The roads aren’t just super-narrow; the properties lining them are often bordered by those typical little Scottish stone walls, meaning that steering even slightly too far to the left or right could result in a scratch in the paintwork.
Every few hundred yards, the roads feature a pull-out on the right or left. Sometimes there is a sign next to it: “Passing Place.” Drivers who have the pull-out on their left pull over and let oncoming traffic pass. It works seamlessly with people who know the system. Occasionally, however, someone is determined to squeeze their car past sideways. “Tourist,” I think to myself, and have to laugh—because that is exactly what I am: a tourist.
To the right and left, beyond the low stone walls and fences, lush green meadows drift past me, dotted with plenty of woolly, beige ovals on four thin legs. Quite a few of them currently have a lamb with them. I stop at a spot where I can see the road stretching out ahead and behind me—no car is approaching—and listen to the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cows. Beyond the meadow, I see the farmhouse, blending modestly into the landscape.
Just a few miles further on, I reach my favorite spot. By now, I recognize the curve as I approach—the bend that reveals the brown brick arches of the Clava Viaduct rising up before me. The structure opened in 1898. With a length of 600 yards and 29 stone arches, it is considered the longest masonry railway viaduct in Scotland. Fourteen of its arches stand on either side of the River Nairn, while a wider central arch spans the river itself.
The viaduct makes an impressive sight amidst the upland landscape, yet it strikes me as an unspectacular part of local daily life, too. Naturally, the locals have driven hundreds of times beneath the stone arch that vaults 128 feet above the road. I, however—a newcomer to the area—am fascinated anew each time I see the masonry arches looming ahead, only to drive past and beneath them. I spot a tourist couple strolling along the road toward the viaduct; and rightly so—one can probably only truly appreciate the scale of this structure by approaching it on foot.
The majestic masonry structure is also known as the Culloden Viaduct. This name refers to its location near the village of Culloden, where the British army decisively defeated the rebellious Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden on April 16, 1746. However, that historic monument is not my destination; I am far more interested in the Clava Cairns, after which the viaduct is also named. It would take the tourist couple I just saw walking along the road twelve minutes to get there on foot. By car, I arrive at the prehistoric burial site’s parking lot in barely two minutes.
The word “cairn” is a Scottish term (derived from the Gaelic *càrn*) denoting a pile of stones erected as a burial site or a waymarker. The Clava Cairns are unique to this region east of Inverness, and consist of stone chambers—resembling giant doughnuts with a diameter of around 50 feet—encircled by a ring of upright stone blocks. They date back to the Late Bronze Age, some 4,000 years ago, making them roughly contemporary with the massive sarsen stones that define the appearance of Stonehenge. However, the stone monoliths here in Scotland are roughly human-height, and thus significantly smaller.
The TV series “Outlander” comes to mind, in which the main character, Claire, is transported 200 years back in time—to the 18th century—after passing through just such a stone block at a cult site in Scotland. I feel a cool breeze blowing around me… Right, haha. When I look up at the crown of the mighty tree beside me, I see the wind making the leaves tremble. So, the breeze I felt is simply mundane reality, not a supernatural greeting from a bygone century.
I look around and see three Clava Cairns. They come in two types: passage graves and ring cairns. Both types feature a central chamber where the dead were buried. While a ring cairn is completely enclosed by stones and has no obvious entrance, passage graves have an access corridor.
I step into one of these narrow passages; the walls are roughly my height—about 5’2”. I estimate the wall of the central chamber to be two meters high. I turn around a few times to examine the structure of the stones. Above me, I watch the clouds drifting across the sky. Archaeological finds of human remains—such as fragments of burnt bone—suggest that the Clava Cairns were not cemeteries for the general population, but rather elite burial sites that served as “houses for the dead” for ancestor worship.
The remains that visitors can view today were once part of a larger complex. It remained a sacred site for millennia and now provides historians with insights into the beliefs of Bronze Age society. All evidence suggests the site was used for gatherings and rituals that honored the dead while strengthening the community’s connection to the cosmos. The builders also appear to have followed a sophisticated astronomical alignment; the passage graves, for instance, are precisely oriented toward the sunset at the winter solstice. On the shortest day of the year, sunlight streams directly through the passages of the outer cairns, illuminating their inner chambers. This alignment suggests that the site served as both an astronomical observatory and a calendar, helping the community track the solar year, determine the seasonal changes crucial for agriculture, and celebrate the cycle of death and rebirth associated with the sun’s return.
The builders of the Clava Cairns, I read on an information board, even selected the stones for the tombs based on their color. For the stones aligned with the sunset at the winter solstice, they used ones with red and pink hues. On the opposite side, facing the sunrise at the summer solstice, they preferred paler shades. Over the millennia, the stones’ once-vibrant red, pink, and white have weathered into shades of gray.
Well, that’s enough history carved in stone for me for today. On the drive back, I once again enjoy the sight of the beige balls of wool on the green meadows through the car window.
This text was first published on my German website and translated by me.