Tomnaverie Stone Circle

Tomnaverie Stone Circle sits on a low hill a mile south of Tarland, with a breathtaking view of Lochnagar and the Cairngorms. It is a recumbent stone circle, the type found only in north-east Scotland, with a great stone lying on its side between two uprights on the south-west where the midsummer moon would have been framed, and it was used for more than 4,000 years: cremation pyres about 2500 BC built up a low mound, a cairn still visible inside the ring followed, the circle was raised around it and people were still lighting fires at its centre in the 1600s. Beside it is an underground Royal Observer Corps post of 1960, manned until 1991 to report the effects of a nuclear attack, whose surface features can be seen. Reviewers find it peaceful and often empty, and say the signposted car park is further along the B9094 than online maps suggest, with a surfaced path and benches climbing the 250 metres to the stones.