When we were in Aberdeenshire last weekend we visited quite a few ancient stones such as standing stones and Pictish symbol stones. They’re all in rural locations and there were probably far more of them than you can see today, each community would have had their own, they’re probably a place of worship. Tomnaverie Stone Circle is the largest site that we visited.

I think I’ve only been to one other which has a large recumbent stone, you can’t help thinking that it looks exactly like an altar, I did have a fleeting thought that it might be a good idea to lie down on it – just to see what it felt like – but I decided against it, just in case it was bad luck!

Lochnagar, which confusingly is actually a mountain can be seen in the distance and it’s thought that whoever built the standing stones may have aligned the altar stone with the mountain. This type of monument is only found in north-east Aberdeenshire.

This area is very rural, it’s in the middle of nowhere, but you have to hike past the nuclear bunker in the photo below to get to the standing stones!! I wonder who was supposed to use it.