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The first time I went I came south from the Gloup via a group of minor earthworks only to be stopped by a field fence. Next time I walked the Sandside road and a track runs across the field to the promontory. Owing to its hazardous nature this is blocked by a fence. As I stepped over I saw my foot going below the level of the other, and having short legs and being alone I might get stuck for many hours. But a high-zoom camera worked wonders,
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Posted by wideford
14th October 2018ce
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NMRS record no HY50NE. An excavation, cut short by the death of the director in 1982 , revealed on the N side a regularly curving segment of ground-galleried broch-type wall 13'6" thick which he thought could be a structure of the hypothesised 'semibroch' type adduced along the west coast of the Scottish mainland and in the Western Isles. Others suggesrted it might be a 'forework' or 'blockhouse' fort. In 2002 Euan Mackie suggested from plans of 1984 and and 1987 observations that inserted into a ground-galleried broch had been "a proper wheelhouse of Shetland type (with built radial piers)" otherwise only found in Shetland at that time. As well as the wall and traces of domestic structures on the promontory itself there are almost a hectare of dark midden deposits on the W side. Though the promontory isn't connected to the steep-sided Stack of Mustack/Moustag (HY50NE 28 HY59260743) it is likely it once was, with the suggestion that this was part of the Iron Age complex - two or three orthostats protrude from a low ~19mD mound at the far end.
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Posted by wideford
14th October 2018ce
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Posted by Zeb
21st April 2018ce
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Archaeologist Tom talking to Mick Aston on the Time Team episode about Mine Howe:- So what do the local people think of this area then, Tom?
- Well I think it's always been considered as somewhere a bit special, a bit unusual.You've got [Mine Howe] here, this thing with this ditch around it which might pre-date it, you've got a medieval chapel over there, and you've got the burial ground as well and it's still in use. But people used to say that there were always things here, you know there were always stories related to this mound.
- What do you mean, things here?
- Well, they, um... back in the old days people believed in trows, which is the Orkney word for fairies...
- Fairies! (snort)
- Yeah they used to have a few ale houses on the way over to Durness and people used to have to stop and get tanked up before they could go past this place at night...
- Yeah? (incredulously)
- ... because they thought there was trows around.
- Because there were spirits about.
- mm and then when they got to Dingieshowe in Durness they would have to have a few more to go past that as well, because it was also believed to be an abode of trows. And there was actually a story about a fiddler that went into the mound of Dingieshowe and played for a night for a trow, and when he came out he discovered he'd been away for fourteen years! Everything had changed - apart from him, he was exactly the same.
- Is it not more to do with the local whiskey than anything else?
- Erm a bit of that probably as well the home brew, it certainly heightened the attention/tension.
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Posted by Rhiannon
21st June 2016ce
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Time Team episode from the year 2000 on "The Mystery of Mine Howe", which includes an interesting little fly-through of a 3D model of the site (c24minutes in).
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Posted by Rhiannon
21st June 2016ce
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Visited 15/06/2016
I am posting these field notes more as a warning to stay away rather than to encourage others to visit. The site is easy to find off the A960 and left onto Churchyard Road and park just outside the cemetery. The site has been closed for some time and the field it sits in is fenced off and the field gate double secured with rope and chain.
A quick look in all directions, over the fence, past the rotting visitors reception and discovered I could still gain access to the pit. The burial pit has deteriorated rapidly in the time it has been closed. The steps down into it are steep, wet, slime covered and slippery. The old handrail, you must go down backwards, is only secure for the first few feet, thereafter it has broken away from its mountings and dangles loosely and a fall from here to the bottom will result in certain injury. In my humble opinion the only safe way down is with a rope and someone anchoring it from the top of the pit, and not just because of the unsafe nature of the descent but because pure evil resides in this pit and as you go further into it you can feel yourself being engulfed by it, my torch was struggling to penetrate the blackness and the air thickened to the point I thought gravity had doubled in strength. I touched the bottom and could take no more and headed as quickly to the surface as safety would allow, all the while with a feeling that something was clawing at me trying to pull me back in
I stumbled into the daylight, almost jumped the fence and just drove until I recovered my composure. In my opinion something evil is down their and the cairn is closed for a good reason, I thought it was for safety, however, it is clearly for what resides down there.
The authorities should close this pit off, remove it from maps and records and agree that it is never re opened.
This was beyond doubt the most uncomfortable feeling I have experienced in my life and I never wish to again. I bitterly regret going down by myself and urge others to keep away..
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Posted by costaexpress
20th June 2016ce
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Visited 17th May 2015
The earlier rain has blown over now, but the brisk wind remains (well what did I expect, this is Orkney!) Now that the sun’s out I decide on a walk to the Long Cairn from the centre of Kirkwall. Taking the East road out of town you’re soon in the countryside, with the town spread out behind you as you head along the coast towards the Head of Work.
Once past the sewage works and a couple of gates negotiated, a vague path follows the shoreline to avoid the soggy moorland which comprises the rest of the headland. The walk grants superb views of the island of Shapinsay, seemingly only a stone’s throw away across the Sound, and allows me to get a good view of the chambered cairn atop Helliar Holm, the uninhabited island which practically connects to the south of Shapinsay, probably as close as I’ll get to it without a boat!
Skuas wheel around me as I walk along the headland and on arriving at the cairn I’m dive bombed by a tern, which obviously must be nesting nearby. The outline of the Long Cairn looks suitably chunky on the O.S map, and it’s just as substantial in real life. The large mound is visible on the headland from some distance as you approach. Some of the cairn stones are still visible amongst the grassy tumulus, particularly atop the mound where a small dip in the top has been accentuated by the piling up of stones around the depression by someone to create a partial windbreak.
I hunker in the dip to write my fieldnotes and marvel at the site. Another fine promontory location for a monument, and looking out to the west the dark heather clad slopes of Wideford hill draw the eye. The Long Cairn seems to be one in a chain of great burial structures, Wideford and Cuween atop the high ground and the Long Cairn sitting at the edge of the land, perhaps once a large landmark cairn on the coast like Midhowe was on Rousay.
The length of the Long Cairn can still be made out, as can the vestigial remains of the horned enclosure at the front of the cairn. I love the solitude here, so near to Kirkwall but seemingly so remote, one of the places I love to walk to in order to escape the hustle and bustle of Kirkwall when a cruise ship is in harbour!
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Posted by Ravenfeather
4th June 2015ce
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