Skara Brae Prehistoric Village - Stromness

Andrew C.

Huge amount of archaeological interest. Well preserved and organised by Historic Scotland.. Well worth the effort. An excellent introductory film and thoughtful walk displays. You need to walk past the mock up of one of the village houses but do look as it’s really helpful to set the scene. A longish walk then to the site. Well preserved and signed. Worth the effort

Arthur N.

Utterly crap management by Historic Scotland.

Paid for audio tour, but they don't give you a device to listen through like literally anywhere else would, instead they expect you to download their app and download the enormous audio tour onto your own phone and listen to it through your device.

They failed to send us a confirmation email so we had no idea about any of this, and obviously haven't brought headphones with us.

Even the reception desk staff told us they have "endless issues" with this awful audio guide system. All they could suggest is that we buy a cup of coffee and wait while our phones struggle to download everything (45 minutes so far). We are waiting in the coffee queue now and it isnt even moving.

Oh and the cafe is cash only, just to add to the inconvenience. Customers are having to offer to pay for each other's drinks. Again, even the staff are suffering, taking coins from the tip jar to make up the balance when someone is short of 30p. It's atrocious.

Whole place is a complete shambles. Haven't even seen the neolithic settlement yet but I'm giving 1 star already because it is the worst run attraction I have ever been to. You might think with the number of visitors they get that they'd have come up with an efficient system by now, but they haven't.

Historic Scotland are useless and incompetent.

Gave up on downloading the audio tour in the end (they've promised us a refund, apparently it should be free anyway, so not clear why we were made to pay for it in the first place).

Summoned all the politeness we could for the staff and went on to have a look at Scara Brae - utter disappointment; no access to the actual ruins, you can only look at them from a walkway, BUT you can PAY MORE for an evening tour. As this was the only way we would actually get to properly see the village and we're unlikely to ever come back to Orkney given the distance travelled, we paid and went on the evening tour as well. Evening tour was better, as you actually get to walk among and touch the houses (finally), although you STILL don't get to see inside house 7 (the best preserved) it's unclear who they are trying to preserve it for of no one ever gets to see it anyway.

To anyone visiting - don't bother with the audio tour, don't bother visiting in the day time with the coach loads of foreign tourists, just book the evening tour.

Vlad S.

I understand the historical aspect of this and its significance so I would encourage you to go see it. However it's really not that impressive in person so best to adjust your expectations. In the price of the ticket you'll also get access to Skaill House and we found that more interesting, so make sure you visit that as well.

We were very surprised however by the huge number of bunnies in the fields nearby - there must've been hundreds of them, so make sure to look for them while you're there.

Sally W.

Beautiful at all times of year. Reconstruction of house 7 helps illustrate what it might have looked like when people lived here. Interesting exhibition and film. Amazing so much is left of this 5000 year old village. Skaill beach is beautiful too.

Charles C.

Waited 40 years to come and see a place I heard about when I was about 8 years old and i wasn’t disappointed. Amazing experience, a lot of time and effort has been put into to this experience. Loved it.

Robert F.

A really great visit and is a bucket list place for me. It was well staffed with knowledgeable staff and has a small
but informative museum at the main entrance. The site is well kept and has amazing views of the ocean. The cafe however is only open in the summer months.

Silvia B.

The place is very nice to visit but they decided to close the access to the settlement and you can see it only from outside, following a pathway around it. They recreated the main house in the visitor center's garden, but it is not the same thing obviously.

Jason F.

Absolutely wonderful!. Definitely worth a visit when you go to orkney highlights so far for me. Even dogs are allowed to walk around the site which was wonderful. But not in the cafe where you buy your tickets.