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Chambered Tomb (Destroyed)
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| On an 1882 map the only likely candidate is an unlabelled earthwork (HY43240863). This is a site I have often mused on when I have walked past the broch and the possible early wall remains. From Scapa beach if you look across to the house it is in a region of disturbed ground just below the latter [some of which appears to relate to previous (pre-1882) field boundaries]. From the coastal walk below the feature you see it sitting on a ?platform at the top of a broad U that comes down from the field fence there. You see an area of rocks above a low mound showing bare earth and small stones, with one or two isolated slabs towards the ends and several smaller ones on the hillside below. Climbing carefully over the drystane wall I snuck under the barbwire fence - I would suggest going by the metal gate at the top of the field for anyone else, you can always go down the hill then to gain a proper sense of the lie of the land on your way up. It is difficult to ascertain if the stones before you reach the earthwork are buried into the earth or evidence for rocky outcrops. Once you get there it is )like Kier Fjold) a disappointment, though if this is the place you should bear in mind it has been double-dug. There is no evidence of structure in the side of the mound you stand on, and the site does resemble a natural quarry - a flat 'wall' at the RH back above which the field fence (boundary not shown on oldmaps 1882) is seperated from by a couple of metres of earth and stone in section, a tooth-edge wall of stone to the right, and a large (relatively) shallow rectangular 'pit'. The LH end of the depression is big stones and earth. In front of the back 'wall' LH side two large slabs are partially buried, in the rest of the depression there are some smaller ones covered by the grass. In the RH corner between the two outcrops there is what appears to be a cairn of drystane wall remains, definitely not slump. Below this in the furthest part of the corner is an anomalous foot thick chunk of pink stone.
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Posted by wideford
15th August 2005ce
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