Maeshowe Cairn (Orkney) Access at Winter Solstice

“I would think that a site with astronomical significance would be popular on certain dates, including the winter and summer solstices.”

Hmmm….well. Or does it have astronomical significance? The sun (if shining, haha) shines down the entryway for something like 2-3 weeks at the winter solstice according to the docents the 2 times I have visited. I can’t remember if the astrological piece was a Victorian idea or not.

The cairn IS gated and locked at all times except when one of the official tours is there. From the nearby Visitor Center you board a shuttle bus to ride the short distance down this busy road. The group and guide walk over to the cairn. The docent unlocks the gated entry then relocks it when everyone is out before you walk back to the shuttle bus.

There will be wind as well as near freezing temps.

According to Historic Scotland yes the site is open daily with tours at 10, 12 and 2, in winter from 1 October to 31 March.

You apparently need to take the 2 pm tour to see the alignment with the setting sun between the end of November and mid January, when it happens.

So no obvious reason to think the site would be closed.

I wouldn't expect the site to be popular because of what would be more than likely to be inclement weather. It's not so much the temperature but the likely rain and wind as well.
It could of course be a gloriously sunny but cold day!!
If it's wet then nothing much to experience anyway.
But no tourist economy can survive on a few months in summer. I've been on Orkney at that time of year (not Maeshowe, general island hopping). It's certainly a challenge due to weather and very short days, but wear the right clothes like the locals do and it works. And be totally flexible.
So, in terms of what the site would be like, I wouldn't expect it to be mobbed.
Too much uncertainty, time and expense to make it worthwhile as a trip specifically for that.
If you were there anyway and got a good day by chance I imagine it would be totally worth it.

Thank you, both! I suppose there is a fair chance that on 21 December the site could be accessible but not crowded, making it a possible setting for a murder.

Exactly, a good book should be plausible, and the setting in my opinion seems pretty plausible, especially as it says it happens in a big winter storm.

Having just looked at the precis of the book I see this is Jimmy Perez again.

Hopefully Orkney isn't going to get a (literary) crime wave now!! Shetland already has a higher per capita murder rate (in the books) than any North American city.

Neither Orkney or Shetland get really cold normally, parts of inland Scotland get far colder. The last two winters of heavy snow in both archipelagos have been somewhat atypical.

Even I gave up sightseeing in Shetland one January- but due to the wind not the cold. Also I had a lot of research I needed to do in Lerwick Library- so the wind was a good cover excuse to do research instead- rewriting some really bad catalogue entries in the Shetland Archives catalogue for IWM use. The Archives cataloguing was in a style we moved on from in England at least 40 years ago.

NYC Librarian, I read that book also, and I guess I didn't really think too much about having a murder there. I've read so many murder mysteries that have taken place on historic sites (some sacred) that I didn't really think anything about it, but I get your point. Although it does make sense that it would be locked since they have to to take a guided tour..

I like her books in general, although they aren't my favorites. I like books that I can really sink myself into, and I've never been able to do that with hers. I do think it's interesting how they changed so much of the books when they created the series, especially Shetland, but even Vera. I liked Vera's character in the books much more than in the series. She was much kinder and treated her colleagues a lot better than her character on TV showed, although she still had some idiosyncrasies. And Vera in the books didn't live on Holy Island, which I always thought was one of the stupidest ideas the TV series had. Imagine placing the leading character, who heads a police department, on an island where you're blocked off from entry and exit for 10-12 hours a day.

The Jimmy Perez stories don't seem to have transferred to Orkney very well. I don't think they are as good as those set on Shetland...

Take the story about Maeshowe with a pince of salt. There's quite a bit of poetic licence there. Historic Scotland say the cairn is securely gated and locked at all times, unless there is a guided tour . Access to the interior is strictly regulated and only permitted via officially guided tours .

The only days Maeshowe is shut are December 25th and 26th and January 1st and 2nd. There are guided tours on every other day. So Maeshowe would have been open if Archie Stout was killed just before Christmas...

Did it explain how the murderer managed to get a key?

WasleyS, there was, in my opinion, a half baked explanation for how the victim procured the key to Maeshowe's cairn. He chose the site as the place to meet the person who, it turned out, became his murderer.

Mardee, there was a lot I did not like about the book, like the way the author pulled the murderer out of her hat at the last moment without giving any clues in the preceding pages as to their motivations. A better writer would have dropped some hints along the way so that the reader had a fighting chance of solving the mystery on their own.* An even better writer would have alluded throughout the book to the wider societal issues that the murder ultimately raised, such as bullying, misogyny, and evolving models of masculinity.

*I recognize that the "twist" in the story might have been obvious to readers who are sharper than I am!

"And Vera in the books didn't live on Holy Island, which I always thought was one of the stupidest ideas the TV series had. Imagine placing the leading character, who heads a police department, on an island where you're blocked off from entry and exit for 10-12 hours a day."

Oh gosh, Mardee, I so agree. That was so very dumb that I wondered if the writers had actually ever been to Lindesfarne! Even watching the YouTube videos of people getting caught on the causeway on the incoming tide should have warned them.

I have not read this book set on Orkney. One of my favorite things about Maeshowe are the Viking Runes which liberally decorate the inside of the cairn. You're in a chambered cairn built in neolithic times and yet, previous "tourists" broke in, got bored and scrawled graffiti about Farmer Olaf's daughter on the interior.

More realistic murder-wise would have been to have the murder take place in one of the nearby chambered cairns which are open 24/7 and not gated in the least. Well, they have fencing around them to keep out the sheep but not to keep out people. The 2 others I've been in are Unstan Chambered Cairn and Cuween Hill Chambered Cairn but really, the landscape is littered with other neolithic sites.

Has this piqued your interest in visiting during more clement weather? It is one of my favorite places on the planet.

*I recognize that the "twist" in the story might have been obvious to readers who are sharper than I am!

Not to me, NYCL. I didn't guess it at all. Of course, I also very rarely guessed who the murderer was in the Agatha Christie books. 😂

That said, this is a frequent criticism I've heard about Ann Cleeves, and especially this book in that it did not give enough clues to the reader so that they could potentially guess who the murderer was.

Pam, I was planning to go to Orkney long before this book was written, and I still want to go, clement or inclement weather be damned, lol!

Could the murder have taken place where and where it takes place in the book? Yes. Easily!

I've dabbled in writing crime stories a few times, and one of the main bits you are aiming at is 'verisimilitude'. Ie it can stand on its own legs and be believable within the world you've created. Even if you give your fictionalised Orkney, or Oxford, or wherever a murder rate that would bring down a mayor of a dangerous US city! There were 45 homicides in Scotland in 2024 - 2025, our accounting year is 1st April to 31st March, a legacy of the old calendar. You would not believe that if you read any of the myriad of crime novels set in Scotland.

But to be fair, the audience generally knows it is not reading something set on Orkney. It is set in an Orkney, where Orkney is playing Orkney.