Qualla: Machrie Moor Stone Circles

Machrie Moor Stone Circles: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kelly, CC BY 4.0. Walk east from the derelict Moss Farm on the Isle of Arran and the heather opens onto a flat moor. The first thing you see is a standing stone — red sandstone, weathered, taller than a person. Then another. Then another. Six stone circles are visible here, each one made by people who lived more than four thousand years ago. The most prominent stones at Machrie Moor 1 reach close to five metres into the wet Hebridean sky. Radiocarbon dating of the timber circle that once stood at the same site puts its construction at around 2030 BCE — give or take 180 years. These people were doing something deliberate. At the summer solstice, the rising sun strikes a particular notch in the hills beyond, illuminating the circles. The placement was not casual.

Image: Kelly | CC BY 4.0

Machrie Moor Stone Circles: Granite and Sandstone

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Law, CC BY-SA 2.0. The six circles on Machrie Moor were built from two different stones. Some are made of granite boulders, rounded and hard, dragged by glacial action from elsewhere on the island. Others are formed of tall red sandstone slabs, quarried from local outcrops and stood upright like ri...

Image: Richard Law | CC BY-SA 2.0

Machrie Moor Stone Circles: What the Circles Held

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rowyn flowerdew, CC0. When excavators dug into Machrie Moor 1 in 1861, they found a cist near the centre — a stone-lined burial chamber, evidence that whatever ceremonial purpose the circles served, it included connection with the dead. The inner circle is 12 metres in diameter and consists of eight g...

Image: Rowyn flowerdew | CC0

Machrie Moor Stone Circles: Buried and Forgotten

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rowyn flowerdew, CC0. Many of these monuments were lost to peat. Peat grows slowly, but over four thousand years it grows enough to bury whole rows of standing stones. When a further stone circle was discovered almost completely submerged in 1978, it was given the number Machrie Moor 11. There is no t...

Image: Rowyn flowerdew | CC0

Machrie Moor Stone Circles: Why Here

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vincent van Zeijst, CC BY-SA 3.0. What we do not know about the people who raised these stones could fill libraries. Their language, their gods, their reasons for choosing the alternation of granite and sandstone — all of it has been lost. What survives is the result of their decisions. The summer solstice alignm...

Image: Vincent van Zeijst | CC BY-SA 3.0