Knap of Howar

Top choice in Orkney


By the seashore, this sturdy stone-built farmhouse and storeroom are solidly built testimony to crofting life on Papa Westray island…5500 years ago. An astonishing sight, it's one of the best-preserved neolithic houses in northern Europe. As with Skara Brae, you can see various stone furnishings and compartments in the house; the adjacent building was an add-on that appears to have been used to store food and perhaps tools. It's a half-mile stroll from Beltane, down the bottom of a cow paddock.