Moss Farm Road Stone Circle

Moss Farm Road Stone Circle is a Bronze Age ring cairn, damaged by the road and fence which cut through it, and by centuries of stone robbing and dumping. It hasn't been fully excavated, but we know it was used for burials.

The cairn is low and made of large boulders. It was once surrounded by a ring of upright stones about 22 metres across, with a stony bank around the outside. Today, only seven upright stones remain, each about 1.3 metres tall.

The earliest activity on Machrie Moor goes back around 6,000 years, when people dug simple pits and gullies. Before the stone circles were built, there were large timber circles here about 4,500 years ago.

Archaeologists have also found signs of ancient fields that were later created and farmed on the same ground. Around 4,000 years ago, the stone circles were built in the same places as the earlier timber ones. These stone circles were used for religious and ceremonial purposes for more than 1,500 years.

Later on, the land was farmed again, possibly by the people who lived in the hut circles that still survive on the moor.