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site open until Halloween, fiver charged. Follow signs for Banks of Orkney and Skerries Bistro
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RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21NE 29 is 62' across with an internal diameter of 32', Petrie calls it a broch with outworks (it has subsequently been robbed of stone for building dykes). A line of boulders crosses the neck of the promontory, and as there is no mention of Farrer coming across evidence of Viking use I imagine this is original [or possibly comes from turning it into a promontory fort as water levels rose]. Ignore the modern wall across the centre. Facing you, in the NE quadrant, there is an inner wall face fragment with a mural cell and a door entrance On the other side, in the SE quadrant, there is a 20' wall arc standing two foot high and some eight feet from the broch tower.
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Craw (as in Craw Stone) refers to an enclosure, other spellings crew/crue/creugh [and probably sometimes degraded into roo].
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Geometric designs have been found on several stones round about including one sticking out of the ground near the fifth chamber. Source this week's "The Orcadian". Hopefully Sigurd will be updating Orkneyjar soon [he is now busy as news editor].
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"The Orcadian" of 11/10/2001 says a geomagnetic survey that year found a concentric ditch survived around 70% of the base.
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Andrew Appleby (once an excavator of cists) found a possible circle of stones between the Grimeston and Stoneyhill roads.This sparked my interest in the 'Vola' mound, but this year I attended an Orkney Archaeological Society talk by an Orkney College student [name escapes me] on a site called Henge, 80m diameter and cut across one end by the road. Described as little known it rings no bells. Unfortunately I could not identify the place from either image shown as this site does not show up well even in person or photograph other than badly. One of these was of a putative entrance, though without scale the devil's advocate saw a passage into a field across a ditch. If I remember correctly geophysics had located several other interesting features round about. Dave Lynn [ex-Director of the CSA] came to see me and had visited the site, which is where the legend Staney Hill is shown on the 1:25,000 - he said it is by Henge Cottage. When he went water inside clearly defined the ditch, but as to the possible entrance he was of the opinion that this is due to one of the two tracks shown here on the first O.S. [when the present road did not exist].
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Recovered during this exploration were the remains of at least eight folk, and it is hoped to carry out a fuller excavation this summer [funds possibly an issue].
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This site was discovered in September 2010 by Hamish Mowatt of the Skeriies Bistro (hence early confusion over its whereabouts in South Ronaldsay) during work on his holiday homes at Banks. He found that one large flagstone to which no attention had been paid before covered a space in which a skull could be seen. It was soon realised that this was part of a chambered tomb that had suffered water ingress. Later reports added that this lay under a slight mound or ridge, partly removed by a JCB, that though much lower than that of the nearby Tomb of The Eagles would probably also have been seen from the sea. Not only had the tomb been built into the natural but it also started out as a rock-cut. Because this site is one of few found undisturbed in recent decades and it was feared material remains would deteriorate further under the standing water an emergency excavation was decided upon. This took place over two weeks October into November, though time was been lost to bad weather and nothing is yet known of the last few days [?abandoned as weather had worsened still further]. As a tomb entry lay through the short N/S leg of an L-shaped passage (a tee if you add the east chamber). There were five chambers altogether; one small cell off the north side, two small cells off the south side and two larger ones at either end of the long E/W section of the passage. The chambers used corbelled vaulting above courses of single stones. Many skeletal remains were found, chiefly skulls and fragments, but these as far as is known are all part of a final sealing of the tomb. This de-commissioning took place staccato over an extended period of time - basically slabs were placed over the cells, the human remains over these, and then further silty gray material completed the process.
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On the 1st 25" O.S. several slopes are shown. On it the site aligns NE/SW, with at the eastern side a rectilinear half (having a sub-rectangular pit [or perhaps stone] at right angles to the longer side half-way along), at the western side an arc of the same length, and at the northern side two arcs of almost similar sizes (the west one less curved) with a gap between them due north. The RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY41NW 6 describes a broch tower of internal diameter nearly 30' having a 19'6" long section of inner wall-face visible on the west side to a height of some 4'6" with an opening of over 2'6" blocked up in modern times. Inside the east ditch it mentions faint traces of the outer broch wall. The rectilnear half makes me wonder if it hasn't been re-used by the Vikings, like Castle Howe in Holm.
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With there being a possible boundary ditch south of the Tomb of the Eagles it is worth noting that an orthostatic slab south of the Banks Tomb is probably a boundary marker (RCAHMS NMRS record no. ND48SE 8 at ND459833, down as post-mediaeval though how they can be certain of one and not the other...). Also in the area Ronald Simison explored two out of six mounds at ND46128326 (ND48SE 4) both with kerbs and one apparently connected by a causeway to one of the others. He also found a kerb cairn at ND46338323 (ND48SE 3).
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In 1880 there is a reference to the close proximty to Mine Howe of "Lang Howe, Round Howe, Stoney Howe, Stem Howe and Chapel", from which I take Stoney Howe to be the burnt mound near Breck
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Having noticed photographically that a line from the Barnhouse Stone through Maeshowe passes on to the Setter tumuli below Sordon (NMRS record no.HY31NW 14 at HY34581544 & 34631543, to whit two Bronze Age burial mounds) I wondered about the relative position of the Ke(i)thesgeo stone (HY31SW 41 at HY30351136). Pencilling in the position of the stake showing its former position onto a 1:25,000 map a line passes from it through Maeshowe to the Setter barrows, though missing out the Barnhouse Stone rather. Makes a useful backstop up on the Clouston hillside.
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RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 3 at HY39731260. This site came to light on a Friday afternoon when a steam threshing mill broke through the surface and became stuck. John Mooney and WilliamTraill came the same day for a look over and on the next Traill and Dr.Marwick gave "a more thorough examination". Its walls are a mix of large ?natural boulders and small quarried stones. The corbelled roof sits on four stones a yard apart, slightly over a foot from the walls and and roughly foursquare [that they are unequal in height suggests to me a possible origin as standing stones]. This oval gallery chamber is 15'3" NW/SE by 8'6", with a 27"x30" passage running approximately 10' from the NW end that is lintelled by oversized untooled slabs. In the walls there are several rectangular niches [including a slot near the floor on the RH side] all of which were empty except for a skull in that opposite the entrance [I assume the one behind the ladder]. More skulls were found about the inner side of the "south pillar". A mass of other bones were also found. At the outer end of the passage was shell midden material [ritual sealing ?]. All of this from report in "The Orkney Herald" of November 17th 1926. Viewed from the new entrance running clockwise the stones are southerly [LH near], westerly [LH far], northerly [RH far], easterly [RH near].
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this season's dig has begun and they now have 30 ox skulls in the foundations for which they can find nothing similar in Scotland [though J.W. Cursiter mentions the 1901 uncovering by storm near Skara Brae of a 3' deep ox midden 100' long, beneath which another storm two years later disclosed a building].
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"This site has more than 420 stones is considered one of the most important of Central Brittany. Its construction dates back to more than 1,500 years. In 1989, after excavations, the majority of the standing at half-buried in the Heath there was discovered. The site extends over 7 hectares. Some stones weighing over 35 tons and can measure up to 5 meters"
Aubrey Burl has 22 schist stones (with three still standing) in two intersecting rows 55m N/S and 78m WSW/ENE [rather ragged on his plan]
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Low had a little excavate but found nothing
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Brand 1703 "the Minister of Sandwick's Manse is said to have been the residence of one of the kings of Picts... to this day called Koningsgar or the King's House... tho now kept in some repair... The figure thereof and the contrivance of its two Rooms or Chambers one above and one below, of narrow dimensions, and antick, and the Building hath been but coarse."
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Unemployed and so plenty of spare time for researching contributors' questions and queries and for making corrections. Antiquarian and naturalist. Mode of transport shanks's pony. Talent unnecessary endurance. I love brochs.
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