Torhouse Stone Circle

Torhouse Stone Circle stands in a walled field beside the B733 four miles west of Wigtown, one of the best-preserved stone circles in Scotland. Probably built about 4,000 years ago, though never excavated, it is a ring of 19 dumpy granite boulders about 20 metres across, graded in height so the tallest stand in the south-east, perhaps aligned on the rising moon or the setting sun. At its centre three boulders stand in a line, two upright and one lying flat, recorded in 1684 as King Gauldus's Tomb after a mythical Scottish king. Some see Torhouse as a link between the recumbent circles of north-east Scotland and those of Cork. It is part of a ritual landscape in the Bladnoch valley, with two standing stones just to the south, a row of three stones to the east and the remains of burial cairns. Historic Scotland says it seems to lurk in the landscape rather than dominate it. There are a few parking spaces right beside it.