Blackhammer Chambered Cairn

Blackhammer Chambered Cairn is a Neolithic stalled tomb of about 5,000 years ago on the hillside above the coast road of Rousay, looking out over Eynhallow Sound. Its long central chamber was divided by upright slabs into seven stalls, until at some point a wall was built across the middle, removing four of the slabs and shrinking the usable space. The most striking feature is outside: the slabs of the outer wall were laid in a deliberate decorative pattern, like designs incised on stones at other Neolithic sites. Excavators in the 1930s found the skeletons of two adult men, animal bones, a bone pin, a polished grey-green stone axe and Neolithic pottery. The original low passage is no longer used: visitors slide open a hatch in the modern roof and climb down a ladder into a chamber lit by skylights. Reviewers like being able to walk about inside and warn that the short, steep climb from the roadside lay-by can be muddy.