Drive up almost to the top of the hill, park and walk down to the tomb. It's a horrible walk on a rough, well marked track for about 3/4 of a mile, but by christ, it's worth it. What a fabulous tomb!
Nestling into the hillside, the crouching, squashy pancake layers of the mound don't come into view until you're quite close. It has a little passage entrance at the front - too low to get through - but on the top of the mound, which you just can't resist climbing on, is a large horizontal metal sliding door. I pulled it back to reveal a dark gaping space with a metal ladder, inviting me to get in! I'd already grabbed the torch which Historic Scotland had politely left in a weatherproof box next to the information board, so down I went.
What magnificent construction! Corbelling just like at Maeshowe and Fairy Knowe - tight, precision engineering and a tall, tall chamber, boxy and with three side chambers and the front passageway going off it.
This was probably my favourite tomb of all on Orkney. Tons of character, fantastic views, beautiful construction, lots to discover and poke about with. It wasn't long before Moth and Hob were inside, too, crawling into side chambers, squealing with delight, taking photos and generally having the sort of great time that only modern antiquarians do. Jacqui descended into the tomb and even Cloudhigh and claustrophobic Jamesie got in. It was quite a party.
The walk from the road at the top of the hill is rough. I can't imagine it would be much fun in wet weather, as it is a rut through about a foot of peat. Could be quite tricky.
However, it's worth the effort. This is a fantastic space. The slidey metal hatch, the useful torch in a box, the superb quality corbelling and the ladder down into it all contribute as does the excellent view.
The passages are very low and muddy knees seem to be the order of the day to get into the side chambers.
I visited four tombs (5 if you include Mine Howe), on Orkney, this was the best by far. It isn't as grand as Maeshowe, but it has a superb beehive corbelled chamber, and a much more emotive sense of place.
"Orkney Today" and "The Orcadian" of June 4th 2009 reported the discovery by tractor wheel of an otherwise undetectable potential tomb at Heathfield, beehive shaped and built straight into the bedrock,with a lintelled space opposite the corbelled cell. The farmer is leaving the field unused for any purpose until funds can be obtained for it to be investigated further - geology means geophysics has produced little result [if I had been the farmer I'd put a fence round an area the size of the known tomb and cultivate the rest - as long as he leaves it alone they will procrastinate unless he does a Ronnie.
Passed by what looks to be the site today, a piece of rough land, along a line of telegraph-type poles in what is now a field of low pasture. Not what you could call a hillcrest but rather a small plateau. This is an area often well-drenched (one reason the new route is such a pain as the tourist doesn't find out until the top of the new bit) and more like somewhere to find a souterrain like Rennibister. The top is level with ground level and even if there had been something above this isn't much of site to look onto things or be looked up to, kind of the minimum required for positioning a chambered tomb. The farm drains where an earlier subterranean structure was found, so we could be looking at an area of these similar to Hatston (2 each at Grain and the aerodrome runway). So to me a likely example of the old 'gallery grave' earthhouse class.
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