Bookan Cairns

Also known as:
Buckan, The Brecks and Wasbister
Nearest town:
Stromness (6km SW)
OS reference:
HY289139
OS sheet:
6
Latitude:
59° 0' 23.37 N
Longitude:
3° 14' 16.61 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Bookan Cairns (Cairn(s)) by wideford

cairns at left, possible N equivalent to Dyke of Sean right [though bank part of hillside]

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford Mar 23, 2010
Image of Bookan Cairns (Cairn(s)) by wideford

northwards across top to show possible possible stone axis

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford Mar 23, 2010
Image of Bookan Cairns (Cairn(s)) by wideford

top of northern ‘half’ looking very approx. NE – mostly depression with small humps at centre

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford Mar 23, 2010
Image of Bookan Cairns (Cairn(s)) by wideford

view from north looking to Salt Knowe with Dyke of Sean running across midground

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford Mar 12, 2010
Image of Bookan Cairns (Cairn(s)) by wideford

slightly uphill view of western side, southern half is tail end right

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford Mar 12, 2010
Image of Bookan Cairns (Cairn(s)) by wideford

looking towards Brodgar peninsula, Ring Of Brodgar and Salt Knowe faintly visible on horizon at left.

Image credit: wideford
wideford
wideford Jul 27, 2006

Articles

Bookan Cairns

C
CARL Jul 10, 2012

View from the road 6.6.12

Three cairns are visible from the road.
They each looked to be approximately 2 metres high x 10 metres across.

I didn’t try for a closer look as the field in which they stand was full of cows with their calves.

Bookan Cairns

wideford
wideford Mar 12, 2010

Still think this could be a much denuded Taing of Beeman like settlement even though the possible dividing orthostats run across the mound apparently on the edge of the southern half rather than strictly in-between. Definitely a game of two very different halves. Backing up from the northern edge of the ‘upper’ half to take it in I found that I seemed to be stepping back along some kind of small ‘causeway’ leading up to it. This half consists mostly of a circular depression with a few relaxed stones about it, whereas the southern half has a rather level top with several definite orthostats. Thinking of the Beeman settlement and how it was mistaken for a broch from the air I wondered if the now demoted ‘disc barrow’ nearby might not be still more settlement [with the bank meant to keep the inhabitants out of the myre].

Bookan Cairns

wideford
wideford Apr 24, 2004

Apparently two though only one registered with me. In the same slightly boggy field as the Wasbister ‘disc barrow’, slightly above left of centre, with many stones about a central line. In the mid-19th century they weren’t sure what these were only to say they looked like larger versions of hut circles. Lo and behold, when the whole area was geophysiced as part of the interpretation “may also imply that there is also a Neolithic settlement hidden among the remains at Wasbister”.

Miscellaneous

Bookan Cairns
Cairn(s)
wideford
wideford Mar 30, 2005

First described as two half-circle contructions connected by a short stone-lined passage it was thought at the time too big to be hut-circles, now geophysics shows evidence for this being a BA double-house (like the main Taing of Beeman mound).

Sites within 20km of Bookan Cairns

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