Cummi Howe

  • Broch
  • Destroyed
  • HY28241039
Also known as:
Cummany Howe, Cummina Howe, Cumminess, Gamm:sea and Gimme's Howe
Nearest town:
Stromness (3km WSW)
OS reference:
HY28241039
OS sheet:
6
Latitude:
58° 58' 29.51 N
Longitude:
3° 14' 53.86 W
Added to TMA by

Sites in Cummi Howe

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Images

Image of Cummi Howe (Broch) by wideford

S-N profile as seen from main road, planticru visible

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford May 29, 2009
Image of Cummi Howe (Broch) by wideford

W-E profile seen from shore southwards, broch wall left planticru right

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford May 29, 2009
Image of Cummi Howe (Broch) by wideford

view from W of central mound with broch wall, dark patches to right ‘hide’ brown stones of base

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford May 29, 2009
Image of Cummi Howe (Broch) by wideford

cut from W with broch wall and ?floor (stones top right are of the planticru)

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford May 29, 2009
Image of Cummi Howe (Broch) by wideford

view from S of cut with highest point of mound top right

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford May 29, 2009
Image of Cummi Howe (Broch) by wideford

more complex eastern half of broch walling – note flags top right, below mound top

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford May 29, 2009
Image of Cummi Howe (Broch) by wideford

hollow from mound top with two wall courses visible right and other stones to its right in view but masked

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford May 29, 2009
Image of Cummi Howe (Broch) by wideford

buildings in distance site of The Howe tomb>broch>Viking settlement

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford May 29, 2009

Articles

Cummi Howe

wideford
wideford May 29, 2009

The mound is outside of the field fence, an unenclosure. Coming from Unstan I thought of going along the coastline but I reckon Dead Sand could well be quicksands, and the land beyond looked patchy – also I wasn’t sure where the mound lay in relation to the fields where kie were grazing. Instead I decided to go via Corn Hillock, taking the track that goes down to the north end of Cumminess Bay. Walk the shore as the clifftops though low are broken up in places. The planticru on the landward side is out of proportion to the surviving mound, and I wonder if has a more direct connection to earlier features than simple re-use of stones. Coming to the exposed fraction of the broch the cutting looks way too regular for erosion by sea. There is an area at the front of the cut covered by stones that could either have come from the wall or might possibly be a floor exposed by erosion. Standing above the wall still present gives the impression that it is only faintly curved near the mound’s periphery and then sweeps in where it is more fragmented, and then following on there are a few slabs (rather than blocks) in a line above the level of the wall top. Walked the grassy mound top directly behind the wall and found myself stumbling over hidden stones – the smal structure ?? – so watch your step there. Then in front of you there’s a big depression, a rounded hollow almost down to ‘ground level’, open seaward, that is probably an ovoid stroke lens-shaped area like those you’d expect between an outer broch wall and the tower. At the back can be seen just two courses of a wall, just two stones with another one a few inches away barely peeping out. Another, say, six inches to thesouth and there’s a brown stone behind a grassy veil and and another couple of feet another similar. Not much of a wall line but its there [just now I’m reminded (for the brown stones) of the two near the top of Howie o’ Backland in Deerness]. A couple of stones at the bottom of the hollow may or may not be loose. Between the mound and the shore the ground is flagstone with a slight incline and it is obvious that the broch has been built straight onto the rocks. Unlike Inganess and Berstane there is no cliff beneath, so it must have stood further back from the coastline than them. Near the base the odd brown stone can be seen, these being more obvious and frequent near the cut. If the mound has always been about its present height then the broch can never have been much more than three metres, perhaps four metres at most. So my thinking is more central tower than high tower.
I wonder if this entire stretch of coast could actually have once been called Gammi Sea, from the Knowe of Gemashowe (lost but near the Hall of Ireland) through Cummi Ness and the knowes of Gimme’s Howe to [or including] Gorrie Knowe just north of here.

Cummi Howe

wideford
wideford Feb 24, 2004

This broch was formerly within sight of the Howe which lay on the hill the other side of the water (just past the RH edge of the photo). The mound to the south, Corn Hillock, is now considered as of similar nature, giving a pair of brochs as seen elsewhere in Orkney.

Miscellaneous

Cummi Howe
Broch
wideford
wideford Feb 24, 2007

Highly unusual for us not to know the overall dimensions of a broch – if I’d known I’d ‘ave done it mi sen. So this is likely the cairn below Cumminess mentioned on 1907. Described as amorphous, however viewed from several directions it supplies the standard broch profile even if most of the west side has been lost to the sea and a planty creugh [also planti-crû or planticru, used to shelter young plants] built into the east. A few feet south of the highest surviving point of the mound is a 2m high cut (mound top less than a metre higher if that) measuring 25m by 14m is seen extending out to the seaward side. A curving broch wall 6m in length (in 1966 leastways) survives to eight courses of middling blocks in the western half of its northern edge, with more walling and slabs carrying on to the eastern end. Opinion is undecided as to what feature this represents – outer wall-face [of the tower presumably], intra-mural cell or a gallery’s inner face. In 1966 Ordance Survey believed there might be further traces of this wall to the north. Though the cut is ascribed to coastal erosion I would not rule out an unrecorded trench (or possibly even accidental survival of an original space) because it is such a regular shape. Sometime between 1846 and 1966 other features by here – consisting of a small structure and a very short passage – have either been lost or subsumed by vegetation. The passage, about 0.6m long and 1.12m in height, “adjoined” the seaward end of the wall. This led into a structure (perhaps later in date) 3m N/S by 2.4m E/W shaped like part of a circle.
Though this is unlikely to be a broch settlement mention should be made of Gorrie Knowe between here and the Brig o’Waithe. HY21SE 76 at HY28091059 appears in the Orkney Name Book as a house but the site is a circular/sub-oval structure originally 10m across surviving to three courses as a curving wall fragment. And given that The Howe had a Viking Era settlement an aerial survey found two rectangular cropmarks, HY21SE 101 at HY28101061, not yet located on the ground.

Sites within 20km of Cummi Howe

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