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Museums and history
in Easter Ross.

It’s 20:54 in Easter Ross.
Easter Ross

Pictish cross-slabs and a pilgrim saint.

Easter Ross was Pictish country, and its carved stones still stand in the fields and above the sea. At Shandwick, a great cross-slab of spirals and beasts keeps watch from a glass shelter, and at Hilton of Cadboll a full-size copy shows a hunt with a woman on horseback at its centre. At Edderton, a sharp sandstone pillar carries a fish and a double disc. The old church at Portmahomack stands on a Pictish monastery and holds its craftsmen's moulds. Tain's museum follows the pilgrims who came to St Duthac's shrine, King James IV among them. Wear boots, as most of the stones stand in fields.

Little Garve Bridge→
Clach Biorach→
Tain Museum→
Shandwick Stone→
Tarbat Discovery Centre→
Hilton of Cadboll Stone→
From our guide18 hours ago

Shandwick Stone.

On the hillside above Shandwick, a great slab of carved sandstone stands in a glass shelter, looking out to sea. The Picts raised it around 780, and it may still be on the very spot they chose. Both faces are covered. One side has a cross studded with raised bosses, and the other has a hunting scene, a strange Pictish beast and a whole panel of tight spirals. A storm blew it down in 1846 and broke it, and it has been mended and kept under glass since 1988. Park at the pull-off on the road and walk up the short path.

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Newly discovered16 hours agoEaster RossCromarty Brewing CompanyAttractionEaster RossKirkmichaelAttractionEaster RossUdale Bay ViewpointAttractionEaster RossLittle Garve BridgeAttractionEaster RossBlack Water FallsAttractionEaster RossArdmair BeachAttraction

Some good places to go, newly added to the site.

The newest places on our pages in Easter Ross.

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Lunch14 hours agoEaster RossGreens Restaurant4.8 milesEaster RossPlatform 18644.8 milesSutherlandCocoa Mountain Dornoch6.2 miles

Lunch near Clach Biorach.

The three good places closest to it: Greens Restaurant, Platform 1864 and Cocoa Mountain Dornoch.

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Place of the day9 hours ago

Hilton of Cadboll Stone.

A full-size replica of one of the great Pictish cross-slabs, standing where the original stood by a medieval chapel above the sea at Hilton of Cadboll.

Read about it
From our guide5 hours ago

Tain Museum.

For centuries Tain drew pilgrims to the shrine of its own saint, Duthac, and the museum in the churchyard of St Duthus Collegiate Church tells their story. The most faithful of them was King James IV, who came about eighteen times. The collection also holds fine silver made by Tain's own silversmiths and a hoard of foreign coins, and the Clan Ross Centre is here too. By the door stands the Ardjachie Stone, a boulder carved with Bronze Age cup marks and two Pictish symbols. Step into the old church while you are here.

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From our guide3 hours ago

Kirkmichael.

Across the Cromarty Firth on the Black Isle shore, a small church of red sandstone stands in its old graveyard above Udale Bay. For years Kirkmichael was a roofless ruin, until local people formed a trust, raised the money and restored it stone by stone. The work won them a Scottish Heritage Angel Award. Inside is a display of carved medieval crosses, and outside the old gravestones have been repaired, with panels explaining their symbols. Hugh Miller, Cromarty's stonemason and geologist, once worked on a gravestone here.

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From our guide1 hour ago

Tarbat Discovery Centre.

In the 1990s archaeologists began digging round the old church of St Colman above Portmahomack, and they found a Pictish monastery. It was founded around 550 and burned around 800, perhaps by Viking raiders. The white church is now a museum of what they found. There are pieces of finely carved cross-slabs, covered in beasts, patterns and people, and the rarer traces of the monks at work: the moulds and tools they used to make sacred vessels of precious metal and glass. The volunteers love to talk about it, so ask away.

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Museums and historyJust now

Little Garve Bridge.

A high-arched stone bridge of around 1762 over the Black Water near Garve, built for the military road to the west coast and known, wrongly, as Wade's Bridge.

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