Clava Cairns: the 4,000-year-old cemetery near Inverness

The Clava Cairns are a Bronze Age cemetery about 4,000 years old, on a terrace above the River Nairn just east of Inverness. Historic Environment Scotland (HES) looks after them, and they are free to visit at any time of year. Three big stone burial cairns, each inside a ring of standing stones, sit in a line in a small wood, with their passages pointing towards the midwinter sunset.

The site is 7 miles from Inverness and signposted 300 yards east of Culloden Battlefield, so most people see both in one trip. From Drumnadrochit on Loch Ness it is about 23 miles, a 40-minute drive.

Visiting at a glance

Checked October 2026 on the HES plan your visit page.

Entry	Free
Opening	All year, no set hours
Signposted from	The B9091, 300 yards east of Culloden Battlefield
Parking	Small car park at the site
Access road	17-tonne vehicle weight limit
Facilities	None listed by HES; do not count on toilets (the Culloden visitor centre has them)

What you see

The main group is at Balnuaran of Clava. HES lists two passage graves, a ring cairn in the middle, a smaller kerb cairn, and the standing stones around them. Each of the three big cairns has a central chamber. The two outer cairns have a passage running into the chamber. The central cairn’s chamber is closed, with no passage.

Look closely at the stones in the cairns. Many carry small cup-shaped hollows (cup marks), which HES thinks may have come from an older sacred site and been reused.

A short distance south-west, Milton of Clava has the remains of a medieval chapel of unknown date and traces of another cairn and possible standing stones.

The midwinter alignment

This is the detail that makes Clava more than a pile of stones. The three main cairns run in a line from north-east to south-west. The passages of the two outer cairns point south-west too, towards where the sun sets at midwinter. The standing stones are graded in height, and HES notes that the tallest face the setting sun in the south-west.

HES reads this as a sign that midwinter mattered to the people who built the cemetery. Many monuments across the British Isles share a similar alignment with the midwinter sun.

Who built them, and when

HES dates the row of three large cairns to about 2000 BC. There may once have been two more. The chambers were cleared out long ago, but similar monuments suggest only one or two people were buried in each cairn, which, given the work involved, points to important individuals.

About a thousand years later the cemetery was used again. New burials went into the existing cairns, and three smaller monuments, including the kerb cairn, were built.

Clava also gives its name to a whole type of monument. HES counts about 50 “Clava cairns”, found only around the Moray Firth and Inverness, which combine features of ring cairns, passage graves and stone circles. One example is the Corrimony Cairn in Glen Urquhart, about 14 km from Drumnadrochit, where, unlike at Clava, much of the passage roof survives.

The Outlander connection

Clava is a popular stop for Outlander fans. VisitScotland says the site “inspired Craigh na Dun”, the stone circle Claire travels back in time through. Visit Inverness Loch Ness, the area’s tourism body, puts it more carefully: one of the standing stones is much like the stone at Craigh na Dun in the TV series, and another is a split rock, as described in the first book.

The cairns are not a filming location. In 2017 a VisitScotland director told The Scotsman that “the Clava Cairns don’t feature on screen”, while HES reported a surge in visitors to the site from the series. Diana Gabaldon’s own account of where Craigh na Dun came from is not something we could confirm, so treat claims that she named Clava as unproven.

The battle at the heart of the story was fought next door at Culloden, and Visit Inverness Loch Ness also links the Corrimony Cairn to the books.

Getting there and parking

• By car from Drumnadrochit: A82 to Inverness, then the A9 and B9006 east past Culloden, following the brown signs. About 23 miles, 40 minutes.
• By car from Inverness: about 7 miles, 15 minutes. From Culloden Battlefield it is a three-minute drive.
• Parking: a small car park beside the cairns. Coaches and large motorhomes should note the 17-tonne limit on the lane.
• By bus: there is no stop at the site. The nearest is the Culloden Moor Inn (Stagecoach 1B, 13 and 112 from Inverness), then a walk of more than a kilometre by road. Check times on Traveline Scotland.
• On a tour: without a car, a day tour is the simplest option. The Glen Affric, Culloden and Clava Cairns tour from Inverness starts here in the morning, and the cheaper Loch Ness, Castle and Outlander day stops at Clava, Culloden and Urquhart Castle.

Tips

• Treat the stones gently. HES runs a project called Monument Monitor at Clava, asking visitors to send in photos so it can track changes to the site; look for the signs.
• Visit late on a winter afternoon if you can. Around the shortest day the sun sets in the south-west, the direction the passages face.
• Culloden’s visitor centre, three minutes away, has toilets and a café if you need them.

Clava fits easily into a day from Loch Ness. Stay in Drumnadrochit and you can do Clava and Culloden in the morning and be back by the loch for the afternoon.