The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Knowe of Verron

Broch

Fieldnotes

September 28th my objective was to measure and more fully photograph the pit I found before. Now I observed more closely the hole is most probably two spaces, one above the other (a twin 'cupboard' ??), and I'm not sure they are fullly box-like. But it is still a thing in itself rather than simply a result of collapsed medial walling (though there is possibly a collapse about one edge at least, where a slab appears to back onto earth). At right angles a jumbled line of stones head towards the excavated area of coastal erosion, specifically to one of the structures. Trying to make sense of my measurements of individual stones in terms of the whole before my film is done and back is not as easy as I thought ! Approximately 0.4-0.7m by 0.3m, the first space overlapping the second a little at the coastward end, and both seemingly 0.3m deep.
Coming down from the mound there are stones poking out of the ground about 15m away. On my last visit I'd seen them as exposed parts of a rocky outcrop but now it looked more like the remains of a (slightly curving ?) man-made line. From where I was it went in the direction of the RH end of the gateway behind which lay my putative stone arrangement one way and off to the coast the other. It stopped being intermittent 4.5m from the cliff edge, then after maybe half-a-metre became the remains of a fairly substantial wall that at the coast turned a right angle left and continued another 7.7m virtually straight. At 0.9m across this looked like the outer wall of some structure. Back home CANMAP showed a line near here that went from a field to the coast and then went on a zig-zag course. Did this show the modern fence line and an idealised boundary or was it this structure (so HY23081980 to 23061976 and ultimately to 23141973) and the intermittent boundary wall I saw further along ? It could be argued that it is simply the large foundation for a vanished drystane wall, but it had a depth to it and the other bits did not go straight, instead hugging the cliff edge sinuously (unlike my 'corner'). For what it's worth, a few days later I saw similar lines on CANMAP by the Grimsay Wheelhouse..
wideford Posted by wideford
6th October 2004ce

Comments (0)

You must be logged in to add a comment