Take pedestrian ferry from Stromness to North Hoy (alternately take the Houton ferry and drive from Lyness). From Moaness pier follow the road straight up until you're nearing the reservoir at the start of the Rackwick Trail then turn right onto the road that starts parallel to Round Hill. Unless you own property here you will have to leave any transport behind when you reach the interpretation board, opposite which is a people gate, Just past Murra turn left. The road turns into a track as you approach Head. At Head turn left towards Braebister Burn then turn right snd follow the fence. The brough lies between Braebister Burn and the steep-sided Yelting Geo. The footbridge you see is for folk taking the coastal walk from Moaness continuing to the Kame of Hoy, the silo drums upstream had been aadaped as a fish hatchery. Along the mound is a diagonal line that brings to mind days excavating with wheelbarrows. This a grassy path about a metre wide that goes all the way up and ends at the edge of the best preserved section. I'd love it to be an antique track there but sespect the way was used for plundering stones for work elsewhere. The mound definitely feels like two different sites, one upon another. The archaeolgy goes all the way up to the cliff edges, so watch your step - the day I was there 40mph winds buffeted me as I risked the photos but no way was I circling taking video, you could die that way.
RCAHMS record no. HY20NW 20 is a mound 10 to 12 feet high mostly thought to be either the outwork to a broch (some instead go for a blockhouse underneath ) or an earlier promontory fort, the only dating evdence being broch-style pottery (finds lost), It lies ESE/WNW with an interior of the order 90' by 55'. The isthmus neck is blocked by a bank 10' wide and the same in height, in which Raymond Lamb saw walling traces with erect slabs amongst the rubble as well as what is left of a much slighter outer bank and ditch. On the mound antiquarians thought there had been a substantial stone structure reduced to slight scattered remains that led them to deduce 12' thick walls consistent with a broch. Some large stones stood in situ, more so at the cliff's west side. The mound's slopes abound in walling traces and earthfast stones. A shell midden yielded those fragments of the coarse ware called broch-type. RCAHMS couldn't find the midden later, but given how cnfusing the site lies I would suggest that this is the midden later found on the south side of the clifftop behind the supposed blockhouse. Much of the promontory contains wall traces and earthfast stones.
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Posted by wideford
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