Did you know
More than 5,000 years.
The Camster cairns were built more than 5,000 years ago.
Caithness
Grey Cairns of Camster
Two Neolithic chambered tombs, more than 5,000 years old, on a lonely moor in the Flow Country of Caithness, reached by a boardwalk; you can go inside.
Welcome
On a lonely road across the moor north of Lybster, in the great open bog of the Flow Country, two grey mounds of stacked stone rise from the heather.
The Grey Cairns of Camster are Neolithic tombs, built more than five thousand years ago, and among the oldest stone monuments in Scotland.
There are two of them. The long cairn stretches out along the moor with two chambers inside, and the round cairn beside it holds a single chamber of three compartments. Their remoteness has kept them safe from the plough, and though they were rebuilt in modern times, they look much as they would have done to the people who raised them.
A boardwalk leads across the wet ground from the road. The best part is going in: stoop, or crawl, down the low stone passages into the chambers, where the people of Caithness laid their dead. Bring a torch.
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Before you go
Open all year, in the care of Historic Environment Scotland.
A boardwalk crosses the moor from the road; the passages are low and you crawl in.
- Where
- The moor road north of Lybster.
- Age
- More than 5,000 years.
- Inside
- Low passages to the chambers.
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Did you know
Step inside.
You can go inside the chambers of both cairns.
Ben Lerwill
From our guide to Caithness
Few prehistoric remains are so imposing as this pair of Neolithic tombs, lying on a lonely moor and restored to show the scale and craftsmanship of the 5,000-year-old originals. Both structures – there’s a long cairn and a round cairn – have chambers and compartments inside, standing testament to customs long gone.
Read moreGraeme Johncock
The hole in the top of the round Camster Cairn was made after a Victorian woman got stuck inside and needed to be hoisted out.
Read moreWhat is on
What is new across Caithness, day by day.
New places, news and stories, as we find them.
What is on in CaithnessWhere it is
On the moor road north of Lybster, in the Caithness Flow Country.
Close byLybster.
Lybster6 miles 14 min by road
Lybster Harbour and Lighthouse6 miles 14 min by road
Lybster Harbour7 miles 16 min by road
Dunbeath BayThe harbour and bay down the coast.14 miles 24 min by road
Castle of Old WickThe oldest castle in Caithness.17 miles 29 min by road
Castle Sinclair GirnigoeA clifftop ruin north of Wick.22 miles 45 min by road
Stay nearby
Places to stay near the cairns, and when each is next free.
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Find out more
For further reading, before you go. The details on this page were checked on .
- Grey Cairns of CamsterThe tombs.historicenvironment.scotHistoric Environment Scotland↗
- Caithness and SutherlandBrochs and cairns of Caithness.caithnessandsutherland.comCaithness and Sutherland↗
- Castle of Old WickAnother HES site.historicenvironment.scotHistoric Environment Scotland↗
- DunbeathThe coast south.undiscoveredscotland.co.ukUndiscovered Scotland↗