Pier Arts Centre

Orkney


This gallery has really rejuvenated the Orkney modern-art scene with its sleek lines and upbeat attitude. It’s worth a look as much for the architecture as for its high-quality collection of 20th-century British art and changing exhibitions.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Orkney attractions

1. Stromness Museum

0.38 MILES

This superb museum, run with great passion, is full of knick-knacks from maritime and natural-history exhibitions covering whaling, the Hudson's Bay…

2. Unstan Chambered Cairn

2.39 MILES

This atmospheric neolithic tomb, on a smaller scale than nearby Maeshowe, is a site that you may well get to yourself. It's a very tight squeeze down the…

3. Graemsay

2.54 MILES

This tiny, low-lying agricultural island between Hoy and Stromness once supported a healthy population of crofting families (more than 200 people in 1841)…

4. Ring of Brodgar

3.61 MILES

A mile northwest of Stenness is this wide circle of standing stones, some over 5m tall. The last of the three Stenness monuments to be built (2500–2000 BC…

5. Ness of Brodgar

3.79 MILES

The spectacular finds from ongoing excavations at this archaeological site between the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar have…

6. Standing Stones of Stenness

3.87 MILES

Part of this Mainland area's concentration of neolithic monuments, four mighty stones remain of what was once a circle of 12. Recent research suggests…

7. Barnhouse Neolithic Village

3.98 MILES

Alongside the Standing Stones of Stenness are the excavated remains of a village thought to have been inhabited by the builders of Maeshowe. Don’t skip…

8. Maeshowe

4.57 MILES

Constructed about 5000 years ago, Maeshowe is an extraordinary place, a Stone Age tomb built from enormous sandstone blocks, some of which weighed many…