The Orkney Islands drift just off the north coast of Scotland, and their miles of rocky coastline are teeming with wildlife, home to puffin and sea colonies, giant Arctic seabirds and dolphins. The UNESCO World Heritage-listed islands are also famous for their fascinating array of Neolithic monuments, stone circles and tombs, including the Standing Stones of Stennes, four giant megaliths that may be the oldest henge site in the British Isles, believed to be part of an original ring of 12 that date from the third millennium BC. Orkney’s most famous landmark, the Old Man of Hoy, is an imposing 450-foot sea stack on the island of Hoy carved from layer upon layer of Old Red Sandstone. Its shaping can be traced back through the centuries through maps and paintings – in 1750, it was depicted as a headland, but just 70 years later the stormy seas had carved the rock into a stack and arch, with the two legs giving it the name of Old Man.
