Coming up the Stoneyhill road beside Maes Howe just past where the viewpoint sign is on the left there is a footpath marked on the right. From the ridge on which the house sits with your back to the house look across the intervening field and the mound with its exposed material is there before you. Follow the path and you come round to the gate of the field in which it lies. Even in summer the outline of mound, ditch and bank is fairy obvious. Presently (August) the marshy are is dry. In the field around which the path goes are two or three mounds covered in grass that stand higher than the bell barrow, and in the tops of at least two are the tell-tale signs of antiquarian barrow-digging. I came by the side opposite the viewpoint sign aong a couple of ruts, which I do not recommend as the marsh plants stand high and their lushness hides the much pitted surface of the ground – even though dry you do not know from one step to the next how far the foot will go. I was strongly put in mind of going to the Knowes of Trotty. Then again, taking the ‘marsh’ into account reminded me of a 19th century antiquarian account of digging mounds at Langadae (Burn of Langa Dee) : “The burn or water courses have been conducted in a meandering manner about each mound.“, and further “On each of these mounds there is and was a lump of white quartz ” brings to mind the disintegrating stone of the bell barrow here.
wideford
These are by the west side of the Stoneyhill road before you go over the hill to the Stone o’ Hindatuin. They are in the field adjoining a smaa house. The description is misleading. One of the barrows stands higher than the others, the third from the roadside. And actually the first two could equally be one of much larger diameter that has been cut in twa. In a hurry to get to the Ness of Brodgar talk I left entering the field for closer inspection on a fine winter’s day. My camera revealed a single stone on the downhill side of the taller barrow near the top.
In the bottom left corner of the field containing the Rim of Bookan there is a sheep gap under the barbed wire fence against the ‘standing stone’ which I used as a shortcut. One of few sites that actually look better in summer, needs vegetation to bring the shapes out. Stll not photogenic, and now some big rabbit holes have appeared in the large southern exposure of material. Coming from this direction there appeared to be a slight lip at the base of the downhill side of the mound maybe a metre across. Perhaps this was a smaller version of the Ring of Bookan itself I thought – presently it is thought to be a natural mound, but antiquarians noticed the soil had been brought in from elsewhere. A natural assumption is that it is a satellite rather than of a piece with the mounds that used to lie nearer the loch. I wonder if it could be the other way about ; three burials were found around the outside of Skae Frue but not the expected one in the centre, and the Ring of Bookan had a central ‘chamber’ of some kind. From the way the burials were arranged the excavators also expected another to square the circle. What if a fourth individual had been due to take that place only they achieved so much in their life that they were able to have the Ring of Bookan built instead ? Of course even if there is still datable material deeper in the mound the rabbit activity could critically disturb the stratigraphy here. Skae Frue as presently exposed stands a mound of mostly earth with very few stones, mostly debris. It struck me as possible that after the excavators finished they chose to replace their diggings – there are likely signs of digging on the top, surely they would have dug straight down the middle for their expected central burial. I took the long route out, which entailed going through an ‘Orkney gate’ and a pair of disparate gates held together with rope that were leaning against the fence. Scraped through one (beware barbed wire round gateposts) and muscled the other.
Looking down from the Wideford Hill Tomb to the straightened watercourse below (the line of the parish boundary) I saw just the other side cropmarks occupying this end of a field and extending slightly into the next. After carefully picking my way down to a fence I saw through my binoculars that the cropmarks were actually curvilinear banks. Not being able to cross that ‘drain’ from this side I went no further. Instead I decided to go along the hill, parallel to the modern boundary, after some large erect stones seen on previous occasions below the old Wideford track. It rapidly became apparent that I was walking precariously along the top of an ancient dyke, which turned out to be mostly earth with a ‘top dressing’ of earthfast and other small slabs revealed here and there. The O.S. shows short lengths of field fence at varying angles where the old map shows nothing, as is true of all this side of the hill then. It is difficult to tell whether these strictly follow the hill-dyke or not as I was unaware of any divergences myself in following it. The modern fence is mostly fading away, and along the top of the dyke are many stumps of old posts. I think there have been two attempts in modern times to use this ancient feature as an aid to modern enclosure, one using the ‘standing stones’ that I was after. The first indication of the dyke’s height was a grind/slap in it, a gap with tall stones either side, some erect and others fallen. The dyke exposed here is a metre or so in height, possibly more in places, generally with a steeper drop on the downhill side. Watch your every step. There are a few more prehistoric ‘gates’ on the way and regions where waters seem to have swept through the earthwork later. Even mediaeval ‘gateposts’ only have pairs of ‘standing stones’, here are clusters of tall stones high and mighty guardians of portals into places long gone. Some have been seduced into bondage with barbed wire. One of the fallen becoming embedded in the earth is 2m or more, against another leans a small rectangular flag with a well-rounded piercing. After a while the dyke ends where a farmtrack starts. But there is another dyke here at right angles to the first. Looking downhill a thin rectangle of gorse extends and another large stone stoops near one end. I can see no stones on the hill below it. From here this, apparently slighter (and scooped out in several places not too long ago, dark dry earth in the hollow scars), dyke strikes up the hill to peter out just before reaching the old track from Haughhead to the cairn. Uphill the line continues as a plain drystane wall.
Looking at Craw Howe for the other two mounds mentioned in the record. Most obvious are two in the same field to its left. Then there are one or two nearing the road in the field to their left, which closes the gap on the first of my suspicious depressions. Unfortunately modern stones do still occasionally get dumped in them, though the last activity that I observed was a posh gent pulling up alongside one and proceeding to help himself to a heap of them (presumably to get an authentic feel to some garden folly, he was no farmer).
Coming through St.Mary’s from Kirkwall instead of turning on to the Churchill Barriers carry on past Graemeshall. At the bottom of the hill the mound of Mass Howe is at the coast on your right. There is a new coastal path at the base of this. The first few yards are a bit skewhiff, thereafter it is a little narrow and you need to watch out for tussocks of grass and small holes. Leaving Mass Howe you see the WWII buildings and the burnt mound is in the same field. For now I avoided the usual invisiBull and continued further along the short circuit. Just past the buildings there is a long heap of large stones and rocks and fragments. This is where the well(spring) is or was. To its right the small mound you can see is the site (I think Rami Geo might be a more useful name). A little more than a rise there is a slight exposure of material and a few stones, some probably earthfast. The Tower of Clett is the stack that you can see as you look further along the path. From the nearest the path gets to the burnt mound there is a length of fence indicated on CANMAP as where a burial was discovered (HY40SE 17 at HY49480160 – I can find no further details). So perhaps the mound’s black earth is funerary, not settlement. Looking uphill you can see a large mound by the main road and a second or lower extension of the first below this. The very top of this you may just make out the foundations of a sundial of a folly type. Lower on the slopes seems to be earlier stuff. Continuing along the path you quickly come to where it can follow the coast no further and turns straight up to meet the main road. This section is composed of loose stone fragments that could prove tricky in wet weather.
The field has passed into active cultivation. The tractor has gone a little up the side of the mound, exposing more material but nothing significantly different. However, this is how erosion starts. The upright stone at the edge facing the main road seems to have gone, it may have been World War stuff but I still hope it is merely hidden by summer vegetation.
This Crossiecrown is nothing to do with either the Neolithic settlement beyond Ramberry Cairn (now levelled) or the much later site shown on the 1882 map further up this field (whose substantial well is filled in with large masonry, presumably from the dwelling). Between Hatston and Quanterness is a long stretch of convoluted toplogy, rises and hollows and banks (mostly on the downhill side of the main road until it reaches the farm of Quanterness), suspected of harbouring archaeology though nothing is noted.
Everything has a beginning, and this feature starts in the Crossiecrown field. Here between two banks I found an arrangement of stones, a little over five feet across, in a slight circular depression. They look to fall along three lines that meet in the middle, as if you are looking at a raised structure that has fallen inwards, a definite feeling of roof. A few stones outside appear to ring the hollow. The first time I went there I could see a void below the centre and was tempted to remove the big stone that ran into this, when I went in drier condtions there seemed to have been further settling, wedging the stone tight.
Coming into Deerness, at the beginning of the last leg of the A960 before it becomes the B9050, two minor roads at right angles head for the coast, one to the Newark slipway and the other marked as coastal path and geo (also called a goe in Orkney, a deep gap in the cliffs resulting from a cave’s collapse) – ?Muckle Castle. Between the two endpoints was a non-burnt mound WSW of Mussaquoy and beyond the coastal path. Go down the slipway road and turn right and walk a little way to a strangely elongated field containing the site. Even from a distance you could tell it had been excavated, end on looking not unlike a settee in outline if you ignore the grass. The O.S. map of 1882 only shows a narrow stretch of rough land. And I wonder if we now only see part of the rim of what was a much larger structure a long time ago – close by is a feature called Peerie Castle, were they once one?
The entrance to the field was an extraordinarily taut ‘Orkney gate’, thus requiring a push from distance leaning slightly as it could well be risky to attempt from close and straight on. This site is a narrow oval mound with a long rectangular pit taken from the (NNW?) side. Unfortunately a low battery stuck my camera’s zoom on telephoto. Though there were two edge-set slabs at the front of the mound I can see only one, at the northern end. But this may be owing to the time of year. However I see a long stone prostrate beside it. Scraping away the thin grass covering reveals your usual standing stone shape of a few feet long, which is brown in colour like you would see in an old house (there is some in the exposed material too). There are red stones in the vertical section behind this and red fragments in a smaller exposed section at the southern end of the seaward side (ESE?), however this seems to have originally been structural and is in no way burnt. Perhaps this fell in from above when this place was ‘quarried’. However the stones over this mound are a heterogenous lot anyway, differing in size and shape and colour, and including ones similar to the prostrate stone.
To me it looks as if the site could well have been adapted from its original form/purpose even before the quarrying. The earthfast stone pair have been seen as perhaps part of a cist, but equally well fit the original burnt mound theory as resembling the ‘tanks’ of a site such as Hawell. I don’t get a feeling either way and distrust both interpretations here. It is a very curious place, nothing adds up, the individual parts don’t make a recognisable whole.
Having crossed over into Deerness take the B9051 (Kirbust road) up to the Yarpha-Keigar crossroads. Turn left onto the minor road heading to Mirkady, and take this to the point at which the farm road begins. On the left is a ‘drain’, and an old track goes along the far bank to the shore. Here turn left to reach the broch, along the now overgrown track between Braebuster and Mirkady by Eves Loch- if you turn right the next headland along is Hurnip’s Point, with a long cairn and two boat nausts. If walking Eves Howe and the mound will already have been obvious..
I took the harder route up the shore from Sandi Sands. Along the way, near Braebuster is a mound thought to be an urisland church. However the broch excavator talks of its being roughly half-a-mile of the fairybuildings (in Orphir there is Fairy Brae near King’s Ferry Road), there are buildings by the shore but perhaps ? Very close to where the broch is I came across what seemed at first sight to be another black taing, if rather broad. Coming at it the southern end is formed by a line of stones on edge like the top of some drystane walls. Not to say that this part is man-made, or at least not entirely, but this area encloses a rather rectilinear pool. My suspicion is that a natural feature has been adapted to catch fish – they go in at high tide and then the ebb traps them between the ‘walls’ (on the 1882 map what may be this appears at HY5479059- or perhaps HY546058).
So amazed to to finally reach Eves Howe that I put up with the lack of visible masonry. There were no outworks as far as I can’t tell, so for me a small broch tower rather than a nucleated settlement like Lingro or Gurness. Up on top of the mound in the waters I see grassy clumps I take to be the causeway supposedly built not that long before the excavation. Hit upon some stones and cleared the grass off a few without further result. What’s left of several ‘standing stone fences’ all over the place, including a tall one in the northern half of the lochan. Between the latter and the north shore what I took to be the stumps of wooden posts are further stones.
Taking what I’ve seen into account it seems to me the waters have expanded in more modern times rather than shrunk from a greater expanse as presently asserted (nowadays it presents a pinched appearance, on the 1882 map the lochan only goes as far north as the broch, with the curved tip heading towards it). This would put it on a par with the Loch of Tankerness across the Deer Sound. Similarly the land about is very level. In Tankerness a Bronze Age house with a possible settlement was uncovered on the shore when water-levels dropped nearly a metre during a drought. Perhaps Raymond Lab’s putative settlement platform connected with the broch had something to it, though add this to the mix in an Iron Age context instead and you’re back to the Loch of Tankerness again with the Howie of The Manse. None of which is to rule out the mound area specifically as encircled by water, as on the seaward side drain-like zigzags were noted, only to say the lochan itself could likely have been much smaller back then.
Came down carefully as though there were no tussocks visible my feet kept sinking into the tall lush grass. More of the same by the old track, then flat spongy turf squelching underfoot. I think this is where the lochan formerly went to sea. At the seaward side there is still a short length of wall and a few tall stones perpendicular to one another. It is likely that this used to be a field junction (not shown on the 1882 map even) before Eves Loch doubled in size, the mound marking a field boundary even more closely then.
Having crossed over into Deerness take the B9051 (Kirbust road) up to the Yarpha-Keigar crossroads. Turn left onto the minor road heading to Mirkady, and take this to the point at which the farm road begins. On the left is a ‘drain’, and an old track goes along the far bank to the shore. Instead of going left to Eves Howe turn right and the next headland is Hurnip’s Point. If walking Eves Howe the mound will already have been obvious, and the cairn is not many yards distant from the drain end really. Unfortunately I misread the map scale when visiting the broch and so failed to take the opportunity presented to me.
Climbed all the way to the top of Wideford Hill and followed a path down in the direction of the reservoir. Path became a narrow dried up burn then living burn criss-crossing ‘path’. Rather spongy, in places very springy. Then coming near the bright wall above Yairsay which is the east side of the sharp triangle of the field-top above the old tunship I spotted a likely looking cairn shape amidst the heather. A little further yomping showed it to be earth with a few middling stones showing. When I turned back the way I saw several more such mounds the other side of the burn/track and then took in a few more about me. Despite my previous misgivings this has to be the circle of cairns amongst whom Petrie dug, too much for a coincidence. Snapped two in one shot. Naturally the camera then gave up.
Despite being practically drystane the bright wall is surely fairly modern. Walking alongside it there are two ‘ruts’ in parallel, a path and a shallow burn. Then I noticed a broad deep trench the other side of me. I figured it for an exposed ‘drain’ to feed the reservoir. Next, though, on its far side there was a whole rue of large white stones as if something had been excavated there (I briefly thought of a ‘standing stone fence’, but way too many for that). In the bottom of the trench I then saw a few
prostrate ‘standing stones’ dull in colour. Is this more of Petrie’s doing, a linear spoil heap, or something arising from the construction of the reservoir – perhaps a little of both ? Man, nature, mix ? Approaching the water board’s boundary fence the trench cornered away. I did not follow it further – if it were heading for the reservoir it was going a funny way about it.
Siting the cairns here means they overlook settlement this way (Pickaquoy, Grainshore ?) in like manner to Quanterness and old man Wideford Hill, a lack that has been a puzzle before now.
The ‘trench’ at about HY423121 has now been filled in as a result of works outwith the reservoir fence. So, no images of the trench. On the other hand the operations rendered more obvious the grass-covered mound, some of whose stone blocks appear squared off. Taken by itself it might simply be a clearance cairn, perhaps in connection with the possible gairsty dyke, but there are further arrays of big stones ahead that appear only as scatter. The visible portion of this cairn measures 8.5m by 4.8m by 0.9m, with the long axis going uphill, in the direction of the Wideford Hill tomb over the other side of the hill.
When I walked the coastal path by the distillery in February, the field between it and Lingro had been newly ploughed and seeded. As I result soilmarks and exposed stone plainly showed where the broch and settlement had been. On the flat section you could furthermore see the contrast between the area where the broch tower had been and that of the outworks, all picked out in stone scatter besides. Stone scatter was seen on the rise above and again on the rise above that, but walking further along I noticed when alongside these that the stones in the higher rise were a magnitude larger than those in the lower scatter so perhaps not to be associated with the broch. These two sets end where there is a long natural rectangular bite of a cliff, the fieldwall following the three sides.
A few years back I noticed stones projecting from the modern ground surface by the NE end about a metre from the wall (i.e. closer to the cliff), mostly darker than those of the fieldwall, that appeared to be the remains of a previous wall. This is much reduced but a higher level than the presumably submerged wall foundation. Since the footpath has been renovated several further stretches of this wall/feature have been exposed. On one by the northern side (HY43370871) 6-12” high I now found a ~4x1.2m collection of stones far bigger than those making up either wall – ranging from 23-29½ by 16-23” by 3-10” – and definitely not from either, clean of lichen as well. Not sure whether I missed these before or the path renovation has disclosed them, but they are certainly not there naturally and were once presumably structural.
Coming back I noticed in the top of the modern wall further down (HY43420872) what could be a pivot stone. It measures 15x5½x5” and the circular depresssion is 1¼ across and 1” deep, which is too small for a main broch door.
Go out of town on the South Isles road past the Highland Park distillery and before reaching the Tradespark junction enter the field on the downhill side of the road opposite. Cut diagonally across this to the gap at the corner behind Hillhead (of Scapa) House.
Striking off right downhill on another diagonal takes you to the site of the long-gone well in front of whose vanished place a decorated stone ball was found almost as long ago. You have to wonder what yet remained to mark it out – was it demolished ruins or simply (like Crossiecrown) filled in with rubble ? Could it be that the ‘new’ well of 20th century vintage does occupy the self-same site hidden from view. Unfortunately this has an airtight seal at the top of the circular concrete ‘plug’, overlying a symmetric well of drystane walling the same diameter. In the same hollow the hut has been removed to expose the concrete foundation below (hopefully nothing destructive is intended for this place). Connecting this and the well are flags that go under the former hut’s foundation. About the modern constructions lie many stones of older times, but are they from here or brought in from elsewhere? One I am struck by is a dark slab with a rectangular section out of one corner that reminds me of a re-usable form of cist. The exposed section of hollow above the modern stuff seems curiously empty (like bared parts of the enclosure), only a few protruding stones with an earthfast boulder at the back of curious colouration.
Looking across the hill with your back to Kirkwall you can see the nearby enclosure, once considered a fort by those who saw it a little better than we. Standing a little above the well hollow provides the best view of the Hillhead site’s profile, better detail at least than that of the half below the house. Is one looking at two banks and a ditch or a bank and two ditches, no-one is totally convincing and if any excavation was done it was way back and very slight.
Near the drystane wall you are conscious of a wide flattened section on either side that goes downhill without seeming to break the enclosure otherwise. One assumes that this came about when the original Well Park was divided up, and further that material from the enclosure would have been robbed to form the wall itself. To see the other half of the site you have to go back up beside the wall to the house and down into next field. It appears to be a smaller ‘half’, and as mentioned before presents a much less detailed appearance. Also there are only a couple of bared areas. Similar to the bank/ditch dichotomy we cannot tell if the relative ‘smoothness’ represents more of the original form surviving or, conversely, the greater subsequent subjection to the hand of man.
I wonder if the Hillhead of Crantit was a similar site to Hillhead – between that tidgy hollow the old O.S. miscalls a quarry and the distillery there is a curve to the hill that looks suspiciously regular and the earthwork at the ruined steading’s uphill side could be where a bank has been cut by the road ?
Take the A961 for the South Isles, past the Hunclett side road, until the sign for Toab when you take B road. If you know where to look the mound is visible on the horizon even before the junction is reached, and indeed is visible over a large portion of Holm (except, oddly enough, for a short stretch of the B road coming up to the farmtrack junction). Where the road starts downhill the 1:25,000 has a MS symbol on the right and the Hall of Gorn is the unnamed group of buildings before that on the crest of the hill.
The most direct route to the knowe is the field boundary along its RH side. Once past the last building the mound is a little to one side and forward of the walled field containing the Gorm mound with its much reduced siblings.
The outline – a curved shield with a broad low ombos almost like a platform – appears to be shared by the main Gorn mound, though it may only be apparent in some directions. Apart from the large chunks of bare soil mentioned in the record the composition looks broadly similar in being mostly turf-covered with earthfast boulders at various places in no obvious pattern. “Earth and stone” conjures up an image of the two intermixed, the stones small, but what you see revealed is earth with scattered middling stones. Seeing some loose stone and none too thick slabs you naturally expect to gauge the depth of those protruding from the mound or through the turf by a slight pull, but when I tried this several of these, even the boulders, didn’t budge at all. Is these being earthfast evidence for structures additional to the abstracted cist within (or having been there once leastways?).
Laughton’s Knowe is only the second visit I have made to a site apparently named after someone modern (the other being the Howe Harper cairn, unless perhaps from Harproo ‘heap by the stream’). However I find nothing Laughton referred to. So with the Hall of Gorn nearby and Skaill closer yet, I would tentatively suggest the site was originally called a law-thing rather than a personal name.
Take the A961 for the South Isles past the Hunclett side road until the sign for Toab when you take B road. Where the road starts downhill the 1:25,000 has a MS symbol on the right and the Hall of Gorn is the unnamed group of buildings before that on the crest of the hill. The most direct route is the field boundary along its RH side. Though you can choose to clamber over the gate to the field you cannot with the field above the last building as the lower bars are only footholds from the outside.
The mound, with what is left of its reduced siblings, is in this walled field. It seems to me that the main mound is little dissimilar to Laughton’s Knowe in the open field, having a similar outline – a curved shield with a broad low ombos almost like a platform – though less well defined (it may only be apparent in some directions). There is now no sign of blackened earth, so apart from there being bigger chunks of bare soil on Laughton’s Knowe the composition looks broadly similar in being mostly turf-covered with earthfast boulders at various places in no obvious pattern. As with the knowe you naturally expect to gauge the depth of stones protruding through the turf by a slight pull, but when I tried this several of these, even the boulders, didn’t budge at all. Is these being earthfast evidence for structures within (or having been there once leastways).
Coming along the Grainshore Road and turn off for Hatston pier and near the junction look out for the 6’ high mound on your left, betwen the side road and the straightened burn. Naturally enough this patch of land is often rather damp – it is possible to make out where the waters formerly skirted the mound if you look down from the top.
At the uphill side of the mound there is an upright stone projecting through a few inches. But removing the vegetation reveals a conglomerate rock. And though on the one hand I have seen a few samples of apparently natural conglomerate (?puddlestone) in Orkney this whole area was used during WWII and there is a large flat slab of this material by the burn. However I feel sure the 1996 site visit would not have mentioned how unchanged the area was if this had been present. The OS visitor describes a narrow trench across the mound showing the usual burnt material, but this broadens out at the top. Either this latter comes from the original unrecorded excavation or has arisen from a later investigation, perhaps at the same time as the Picky mound was looked at. It is only lately that I have seen exposed material myself, either I was very unobservant before or the grass had grown over it since 1996.
Coming down the Muddisdale track (the farm a likely looking site for a Viking borg) I thought to essay the Pickaquoy mound now I had a better idea where it lay. Looking across the pitch behind the Pickaquoy Centre I could see the likely candidate in the nearby field, just along from the Centre. So I went through the side gate and struck across to the diametrically opposite corner where I came to a burn I never thought to find, running by the lower boundary. Holding the field wall carefully I swung myself around and slide between two fence lines, so avoiding any pitfalls the grassy bank might hold. Going to the mound I passed over running water and several low humps and ?ditches, making this site feels very much like the remains of a settlement Amongst these I thought I detected an entrance way coming from uphill. I am reminded of the hollow curve across the Knowe of Geoso, also said to be from quarrying, though that is more geometric (also better defined) and far deeper. In one place it is denuded, showing only bare earth. But approaching from Muddisdale in what remains of the actual mound can be seen an excavation trench from last century that resembles burnt mound material, though the red stones amidst the black earth at the top of this section are rather small to my mind (being only a couple of inches or so across it seemed to me – certainly not of an order with those in the middeny material of the cliff-face below Scapa Distillery). At least one slice taken across the main body of the mound is still evident. From the top of the mound you can see the mill buidings where once was only a sand bar, so this place was once near the water’s edge just as the IA settlement in front of what is now St.Magnus Cathedral used to be (even in Viking times boats landed before where the cathedral now stands) . The other side of the mound is very marshy, my feet submerging several times before reaching the comparative solidity of the field boundary I can understand why there used to be a ford nearer the Peerie Sea. So was this formerly a stream junction ? Having said which this is still the easier entry point – coming along the Pickaquoy road from the supermarkets take the track turning off for Polrudden Guest House and the field gate is the other side of the modern mound at your left.
Visited this back when my digital videocamera still functioned, not a site suited to still views. The exposed mound of earth and a few stones is still above a man’s height and is easily found topside of the field below the Ring of Bookan that is no great distance away.
The site can be approached by the track to the right of Fernbank on the road to Holm. On my second visit I saw that the barred wooden gate merely lay across the fence, ingress lies by a middling height ‘Orkney gate’. They’re making these things taller and tighter but I got by just moving the top a little. Didn’t want to lay the thing down in case it became tangled – if you do the same take into account the barbwire around the fencepost (I wondered what the scratching noise was !). The closest I could approach from this field was the mounds’ field boundary, there will be a way in but it looks as if that would involve a lot of ‘going around the houses’ as I can see no convenient trackway (from the main road leastways).
I was intrigued by the amount of stone protruding from the ground in various alignments as I traversed the wide trackway. Fortunately the site is very close to the fieldfence. This runs at 35 degrees west of north. From here the view runs from mound 5 in the RCAHM’s 1946 inventory at the extreme left to the barely perceptible mound 3 at the right. The individual item that first strikes one is where a large area of stones is exposed. Nearer to there is a layer of what appears to be dark earth above the stones. But though the site in general bears a resemblance to the Grimsquoy mound/s near the airport by the Sands of Wideford, which has been call a burnt mound, it is too great a distance from the Rashieburn itself to be one. However of more obvious importance is something that the last archaeological report did not mention so must have been exposed since then. In a mound to the left of the one just mentioned is a very short length of drystane-walling two stones long and four or so courses high. A few metres to the right, apparently in another mound from my limited perspective, there is another stone at the level of the upper course. Perhaps a continuation. As with Grimsquoy one has to wonder what the number of mounds was originally, have there been additions to a lesser number or a sub-division of such?
On a less blowy day I measure the full size as 35~37m diameter with the main body 29m long but only 17-and-a-half metres across (as taped at the northern end). The water-filled depression comes out at 35m diameter, which can be no coincidence.
The mound cannot be seen from the road in Orphir village. As you approach Scorradale it can be seen, often with the top of the mound roughly on a level with the hilltops across the water. From up on Scorradale Kongarsknowe can be seen very easily (unlike the Hillock of Breakna). At the bottom of the hill, by the Scorradale junction, looking across the mound presents the appearance of filling a meniscus. From there the top is dead level with the skyline across the Flow. This would seem to be a specific placement, though the base of the meniscus is formed by more than one piece of Orphir land.
Harproo is a stream-name, and at the time of my visit a shallow stream proceeded over the present farmtrack down to the beach from the Bu road. This was an old hill dyke similar in dimensions to that close by Kongarsknowe, being just over a metre deep and approximately 6m across where it meets the shore. Actually I took the Breck footpath from the kirkyard then rushed across the shallowest bit of the Bu burn. On the cliff-top either side the drystone wall is terminated in lichen-covered stones on the order of a metre high. Fairly standard. But sitting on the base of the ‘trench’ is a stone of a very different character (HY33190413). It is a head higher than any other stones in Orphir. It differs from the other stones in being completely devoid of lichen and having the colouration typical of stones that have been in the vicinity of a farmyard all the time. I am firmly of the opinion that this is HY30SW 11, the Bu of Orphir standing stone, transplanted. With the other stones it has several ‘loose’ modern gates roped across. This stone is 1.9m high and 0.2m thick, is 0.6m across the base (which appears to be stone-packed) tapering to 0.3m at the top.
The site of HY30SW 16 is in the area shown by by Johnston on the two maps between p.12-3 & 14-15 of his private printing, to both of which he has added the name Harproo in the relevant position – it is depicted as a square structure/foundations on the second of these. Though I was ignorant of it at the time my photos reveal I may have Yarproo (HY332042), in the cliff close to the E terminal stone, as several stones about half a metre below the cliff-top in an area about a metre across and ?under half deep.
It is simpler to come down the farmtrack. At the road end is a similar arrangement of two stones aligned plus a third slightly away. As all these are similar it is my guess that the farm stone could have been a replacement for one swept out to sea. My impression is that the W margin of the track is more like the original bank would have been, but I have not yet walked the track.
Last week I went to Gyre to look at the ‘urn’ site. Amazingly it is still unenclosed occupying an area several metres in either direction that lies between the section of road above the stackyard and the field boundary walls. There are a few stones that appear to be the top of a short section of walling, but as the late 19th century road cuts through an older arrangement they are probably connected with that rather than the findspot. On my diagram the approximate position of the modern road is shown in orange against the 1820 mapping.
As you go down towards Gyre you can see Konger’s Knowe on the left a couple of field’s away from the road, so I decided to try a direct approach first. Unfortunately the old field dyke boundary is a formidable obstacle still, broad and deep and mired in vegetation, so I had to content myself with standing on top of the almost buried wall this side of the dyke. On trying to find a way further down I thought I was in luck when I saw two tall stones across the dyke, but though I thought there were other materials there I could not see through the plants. [Only after I came back did I realise that this was the old gate in the boundary referred to by Johnston (HY34440489) else I would certainly have taken preliminary photos and measurements. I had not expected an actual physical entity surviving to now. Think of a farm gate using middling {1.1m}standing stones for posts only with a seperation{1.3m} nearer to that of a domestic garden gate. Quite the thing. I shall have to go back next year when the entire site is rather more visible !]. Kongar is either named for being a ’ king’s farm’ or after someone of that name lost to history.
After visiting the ‘chambered cinerary urns’ site above Gyre I went back up the road and entered the quarry field (used for building the slab fences hereabouts in the early to mid-19th century) and from the opposite corner (whose ‘Orkney gate’ was thankfully down) walked across into the Kongarsknowe field. At present there is a large circular pool of water by the lower half of the turf-covered mound, probably in a natural depression. What was most necessary was to find out the knowe’s composition. Even from afar I had seen exposed bits. Looked like the usual earth with a few small stones. Only up real close did this reveal itself to be mostly ?decayed rock, probably sandstone. Though Johnston called this a tumulus there appeared to be no signs of structure. On the other hand I cannot believe this to be a (wholly) natural mound. Unable to tell its shape and there was too much wind for the tape measure. It paced out to about 70m around the steeper, unploughed, main bit. From here the mound slopes more gradually until it peters out somewhat over 90m circumference. The central portion (? rocky core) is well over two meters high (possibly three) and the ‘base’ another metre below that.
Two year’s ago going up from the Hall of Gyre (alias Orphir House) at the first corner I looked back to the left of Gyre and saw a couple of fields away a large mound (HY24460513) of apparently crescentic shape lay in splendid isolation. At least one side of the field it lay in was bounded by a fence of (?thin) slabs. But it wasn’t shown on my map or on the NMRS (and nothing thereabouts on CANMAP). So perhaps, big though it was, it was only a modern spoilheap, despite there being nothing for it to be the spoil from anywhere in sight. In the end I had to reject the evidence of my eyes and believe it to be modern. Only now have I found that this used to be Congesquoy, the site of a mound.that failed to make the 1882 map despite having been known since 1797 according to a map in a privately printed work of Alfred W.Johnstone that shows three other ‘missing’ archaeological sites in the Gyre/Gear area.
I had been along the old Finstown road several times going to Kirkwall and so was quite surprised to see a rectangular hole in the RH road verge (HY391118). Closer too it resembled more a cist formed of thin slabs set against one of those broad patches of turf that cross ditches to let farmers onto their fields. When I came to this ?tank I saw that it actually lay in the midst of two such bridgings, each 5m across. Kinda weird. The feature appear sub-rectangular because the edge of one slab has moved forward slightly,it would have measured 0.9 by 0.8m and is 0.5m deep. To the naked eye the ‘tank’ is certainly a little forward of the ditch line but a pic doesn’t appear to bear this out.
On my second visit it took me walking twice over the ground before I found it again. Now that the water-levels are much lower it has more the appearance of a well than a cist, the full depth 0.9m (as far as I could find) with what I took for the bottom being ledges on two sides. The ledges make you think of corbelling but there’s only one rough-edged ?slab on the left extending as a near triangular shape 0.25m along and 0.6m from the back left corner, with drystane walling above, and one on the right a slab 0.45m long and only 0.1m from the back right corner. Apart from the section of walling and the ‘ledges’ the structure is of slab construction (including a triangular stone making up the right back). The base is hidden by a couple of short bits of wood and a thin layer of other rubbish. Almost feels like part of a souterrain, certainly something of at least that age.
P.S. revised my opinion back to its being a short cist (?double?) on finding that one of those at Queenimoan had an erect stone wholly buried at one end. Ending the enigma this is my best fit.
The pit is like a drawn-out irregular hexagon 4.2m wide at the western end and 6.1m at the eastern end, where the sawtooth outcrop is a metre high and on the order of 1.0m wide. On the downhill side is a grass-covered earthen lip 3.4m wide there that disappears past the western end way up the hill.
The back wall outcrop is 1.5m high and 5.3m long, the field edge is another 1.7m back and 2m perpendicular. Between it and the ‘jaggy’ is the corner space where the stone heap is, the out-of-place pink stone is 0.6x0.35x0.3m. From the left of the back ‘wall’ to the western end of earth and a few stones is 1.5m. The larger stones at the ‘wall’s base are showing 0.8x0.5x0.15m and 0.9x0.4m.
On my second visit I noticed at the bottom of the pit by the ‘jaggy’ two small adjacent sub-rectangular rocks that are either a buried outcrop or part of walling.
On an 1882 map the only likely candidate is an unlabelled earthwork (HY43240863). This is a site I have often mused on when I have walked past the broch and the possible early wall remains. From Scapa beach if you look across to the house it is in a region of disturbed ground just below the latter [some of which appears to relate to previous (pre-1882) field boundaries]. From the coastal walk below the feature you see it sitting on a ?platform at the top of a broad U that comes down from the field fence there. You see an area of rocks above a low mound showing bare earth and small stones, with one or two isolated slabs towards the ends and several smaller ones on the hillside below. Climbing carefully over the drystane wall I snuck under the barbwire fence – I would suggest going by the metal gate at the top of the field for anyone else, you can always go down the hill then to gain a proper sense of the lie of the land on your way up. It is difficult to ascertain if the stones before you reach the earthwork are buried into the earth or evidence for rocky outcrops. Once you get there it is )like Kier Fjold) a disappointment, though if this is the place you should bear in mind it has been double-dug. There is no evidence of structure in the side of the mound you stand on, and the site does resemble a natural quarry – a flat ‘wall’ at the RH back above which the field fence (boundary not shown on oldmaps 1882) is seperated from by a couple of metres of earth and stone in section, a tooth-edge wall of stone to the right, and a large (relatively) shallow rectangular ‘pit’. The LH end of the depression is big stones and earth. In front of the back ‘wall’ LH side two large slabs are partially buried, in the rest of the depression there are some smaller ones covered by the grass. In the RH corner between the two outcrops there is what appears to be a cairn of drystane wall remains, definitely not slump. Below this in the furthest part of the corner is an anomalous foot thick chunk of pink stone.
Rather than go the route I went by the straight ascent up the hill. From Skaill House you can see the line of two field walls running from behind Skaill Home Farm (originally The Mount) all the way to the top. From near the site of Brockan (HY23031797, the now dry deepcut streambed that gave its name to the Knowe of Geoso lying in the same field) looking across I saw a low flat hillock and a small peaky mound. When I had a closer look I saw they were the same site viewed looking from the SE along a curving hollow. Which means that from down below the whole of the flattened hilltop is the knowe. So it feels quite large when you get there. I was also surprised to find that from this ridge you can see not only all the way down to the Bay of Skaill and across but also down to the Broch of Borthwick (built on the site of an earlier structure) and beyond. A view as near panoramic as another chambered mound at Hurkisgarth (HY25451770) – perhaps in part these functioned as early precursors to the ward hills ?
Though at this time the grass is lower here than at the likes of the Hillock of Breakna the supposed cist slab would still be rendered invisible. There seemed to be various depressions underfoot but the most obvious feature is that deep large curved ‘passage’ carving up the mound. The knowe is described as “greatly mutilated by quarrying” which I doubt would be the case if this had been a simple mound of earth and small stones. I imagine more obvious stones having been extracted long ago, but there could well be some left below the present ground surface.
Perhaps my assumption of larger stones within the mound does relate to the O.S arc of earthfast stones just outside the area of the mound itself. Not having remembered about these I approached them afresh. What took my eye first was an apparent grouping of three of inconsistent appearance – one of bent bi-cuboid shape, one a small flat rock, the largest cracked and pockmarked – but these were merely the tops of these earthfast stones. Forgot to measure them but the smallest was on the order of a foot across the shortest dimension. This grouping is near the middle left of the mound. Nearer to the southern end lie two triangular stones against each other, one much larger than the other. These rest in a distinct depression that is additionally marked by different vegetation from that surrounding.
The mound sits above a crossroad of fields. The wall coming up from the farm and the two that run before its southern end are drystane walls. But running over the mound and down towards the seacliff is a standing stone ‘fence’ (from Brockan my camera picked out the ?first of these stones). This is reminiscent of the magnificent one across the Hill of Borwick on the way to the broch from Yesnaby.
From the knowe the more physically able might enjoy the walk down across the field to the right and try to pick out the burns and drystane structures from the probable remains of the dwellings of Rowhall (HY22861808) and Westfield (HY22831813).
The waters of the lochan being lower than on any of my previous visits there were several areas of ground just about breaking the surface and I could see the tops of at least one side of the short causeway to the artificial islet (though later I see a poor photograph in an hardbacked thesis shewing its entirety laid bare in a drought year). Mostly what you are aware of is the ‘modern’ cairn atop this creation. Like the Holm of Groundwater on the Loch of Kirbister in Orphir used to there are the traces of a wall round it at the (winter) water-level. Here, though, there is a causeway from the southern tip behind which are the remains of a massive stone rampart. Of the suspects it does sound more like a dun than a broch or any kind of roundhouse.
The lantern at Cuween Hill is next to useless, the pinprick of light and its umbra good for picking out points but next to useless here, really need one of those dome lanterns to see much of anything (especially if you wish to take photos, for which it is necessary to know what is in the frame before the flash goes !). And my 1 lux videocamera proved useless too, once inside. Decided to take pics of the ceilings as I figured not many people would have done this. Simple technique, lay the digital camera on its back roughly central and press go. This works well here. (But when I tried it at Wideford Hill’s chambers this Sunday I only got half of un in, so credit to whoever shot the ‘beehive’ chamber there). Bit of a hands and knees job but reasonably dry. Only one I put myself entirely inside for a good look was the double at the back, all the rest I basically laid out flat with arms in front to place the camera. If there had been more light and if I hadn’t been alone ... The double was split by two thin slabs across the width, the chamber on the right has a thin slab acoss the end of the the entrance flag marking the chamber itself. You certainly have the feeling that all the cells are by different hands, finally unified by the covering mound. Apart from that at the left (which you can practically walk into therefore) all the chambers’ entrances are raised above the floor of the main chamber, though at differing heights. A lost rough sandstone ball came from the s’ern half of the doublet. On this occasion I missed the chamber to the left of the main entrance (It actually showed in a photo, but being uncertain of the batteries I looked at none whilst there). I was looking for four spaces and found four, not thinking one main chamber plus four cells leading off !
Looking along the entrance to the outside it is possible to see Wideford Hill in the distance like the say. But on the diagonal – was this an accident, explaining the slight curve of the passage, or deliberate like the sightlines that ‘pass’ across the outside of a mound for instance. And rather than looking across to the other chambered cairn did it look down onto the various settlements.
On a walk from the Knowes of Trotty (closed till 2 p.m. I found out after) to Cuween Hill I saw the barrows on the Hill of Heddle from above Berstane Farm and was finally totally convinced that the features below the Well Park field, occupying the whole of the field below its western edge, could be none other than the remains of barrows. My guess is these are also the ‘new’ find seen by a visiting archaeologist speaker a couple of years back. From the road below very much a jumble of gentle rises, dips and hollows. In appropriate lighting (as with the double ditch/bank of the Hillhead enclosure nearby) it is all so clear from the Orphir road- can you call wild vegetation cropmarks. Coming from Kirkwall this is the fourth field on the east side of the B9148, though it is very obvious. It appears to end at the steep-sided burn, or else its character changes.
In the height of summer you’ll need waterproofs if it has been damp – before you reach the mounds the rutted farmtrack finally gives out and you have no choice but to wade through sodden knee-high grass (even went through waterproof shoes to leave squelchy feet).
One of many sites you can make nothing of in summer. Went yesterday and the mound had vanished beneath nettle soldiers and tribes of grass over knee-high, so even having been before I saw only the occasional glimpse of stone.
Best reached through the field above that of the mound, just after the track to Swanbister House. In that first field went to look at the bridge the track goes over but it is only a nave-type. A few yards away (HY35200519) the stream on one side has a short stretch of low wall comprising edge-up slabs ending in a chunky stone on the northern end. On reaching this I saw a straight-edged piece of rock pavement (I see no reason not to think this is other than natural) and realised I was looking at a diminutive ford, the cutest thing. Though the banks of the stream are not that high this is the only point at which the ground is at water-level both sides.
Had a careful potter around and over the broch before going to the lower right corner of the field where the rocky outcrop is at its clearest, almost like a low staggered cliff. Was surprised to find what looked like a track about half-a-metre across going down towards the water’s edge that feels as if it has been cut out of the rock. From the stream looking back up at this field corner one wonders about possible alterations to the natural. This includes one white slab of rock about a metre long and a foot deep. Does this extend further into the hillock or is it from the hand of man ?
Coming up from the Hillock of Breakna and look across to Swanbister House you see a bridge with metal barrier, the triangle of land between here and the road is all that remains of a burnt mound that the road was cut through.
After the pumping station at Kirbister Mill the Orphir road continues past the junction with the loch road. On the left there is a small post box at the top of the Smoogro road. Continue along the Orphir road and look for Highbreck on your right – it is the first dwelling you come to. On the opposite side of the road to this the stone is about 25 fence lengths further on (or perhaps you would prefer to count ten lengths from the beck further along if approaching in the other direction – a well is marked just before the first bend in the stream but I saw nothing). Maybe not your average standing stone, but decidedly a queer shape for an erratic. The supposed boulder is at about 45 degrees to the road. It is difficult to get a closer view owing to the steepness of the bank and the fence (thankfully plain) being hard against the field boundary. Edge carefully down as there are only two levels you can stand on. Hold tight on the fence and bob’s your uncle. Oh, did I mention that the standing stone has tall nettles by the roadside edge ?!
Coming towards the broch from Lyking, where the Burn of Lyking passes under the field wall (nice double bridge in drystane), I saw a short line of good stones along the bank running to the fieldwall at an acute angle. There appear to be remains of another bank wall over in the broch field section of the stream too. Going in for a closer look at these I saw that there is an earthwork with stones, taking the shape of a circular quadrant (HY27121514) rising from the burn, occupying the field corner this side of Lyking against a loop of the stream [it may be relevant that CANMAP shows mound of the Viking burial as having been in the next loop, north of this]. There appears to be an inner ditch below the top of the rise and the mound’s arc appears to continue on the other side of the road, though no earthwork is shown there on the first O.S. map. In 1882 a ford is shown at this area of the burn and the subterranean passage is indicated downhill from this area.
Though in most places in Orkney water levels have risen, the first O.S. shows this site as a seperate islet. Perhaps the topographic details of the 1882 map came from a particularly wet time ? The isthmus is matched by many Orcadian sites recorded as being connected by causeways or stepping stones. A few of these have been claimed as crannogs, an exception being the Loch of Wasdale’s comparison to the causewayed island duns of the Western Isles. You must tread carefully in more senses than the literal ;-)
Don’t try and reach it by going around the shore from Via (unless you ave some serious welligogs, when you might just).
In 2004 I found what appeared, on reviewing the photos later, to be a cist to the left of the Stones of Via and a little further uphill (as seen from the road), lying in boggy ground at the edge of a small and very shallow pool. From triangulation it has the same 8-figure NGR as the Via Mound. Indeed upon consideration of surrounding features it is evident that this occupies the upper right of that site’s scant remains. The only other structure in the field, a well at HY26051599 shown on the 1882 O.S. map, has been blocked up with stones that might have been from said “parcel of large stones”, and I surmise this could have then resulted in the issuing of water lower down the hill to form the pool.
Now that I have been back to the site and gotten my bearings this would appear to be the cist seen in 1991 at the SW quadrant of the remains of an enclosure about the Stones of Via, except that there is an apparent disparity in dimensions – the other covering an area approximately 1.5x0.7m whereas this one is 0.9x0.62m (and at least 0.44m deep originally). From triangulation it has the same 8-figure NGR as the Via Mound. Indeed upon consideration of surrounding features it is evident that this occupies the upper right of that site’s scant remains. The only other structure in the field is a well at HY26051599 shown on the 1882 O.S. map. This has been blocked up with stones that might have been from said “parcel of large stones”, and I surmise this could have then resulted in the issuing of water lower down the hill to form the pool.
Now to a fuller description of the cist. A side-slab 0.9m long and projecting 0.28m from the present ground level points directly uphill. Two further slabs at right angles to this lean over, so that it is difficult to see if these sub-divided the cist or provide one end of it. The one furthest uphill is 0.42m across and its underside projects 0.44m, the other has 0.62x0.34m projecting. Three stones lie by the bottom end of the cist. They are 0.32-0.48m across and project 0.3-0.6m.
If you walk to Birsay it feels as if you are at the top of Orkney Mainland, with the result that you have great difficulty orientating yourself. For instance the bit of road with Oxtro on it feels like it goes straight across the top but you are actually going down the ‘side’ of Mainland. Finally popped into the field, barely missing the usual muddy bit other side of the gate. Must confess I wasn’t expecting much beyond further outer wall. If I had only checked the diagram properly beforehand I could have made more use of my time with better observations (beware that diagram by the way as it shows the broch as seen looking towards the road). The intramural stuff I easily made out but I mistook the well for a burial area as it looked fairly rectangular. Next time I will take a photo overlooking that, the picture I took was owing to my keeping a big plastic bucket out of sight. Seen from the direction of the road the chamber at the right is your basic intramural chamber whilst that on your left has a flight of stairs (apparently). Very nice for us brochaholics.
The general line of the mounds is a diagonal approaching the loch. Using basically the 1946 account first of six in the field is a gravelly mound 30x4’ against which the largest, the second, lies which was exposed down to the ground to reveal a small cist (modern labelling ‘C’ with short cist at HY26732511). Fifty yards to the southeast is a third roughly 26’ by 3’high. The fourth is another fifty yards away measuring 20’ by 12-18”, a protruding stone about 5 1/4” by at least 27” on top another cist probably (’E’ at HY26792505). It has a few stones about its margin. A pointed stone at the centre of another barrow (’F’ at HY26772505) another 13 yards west, is the third probable cist. This barrow is 35’ across and 4-4 1/2 high and has had a trench through its middle, as has the sixth mound which is about the same height but 37’ diameter and lies between the second and fifth enumerated. The next I have details on is ‘H’ at HY26772507, the smallest at 10x1’.
These mounds lie in the field next to the house before the Bigbreck Quarry as you come down on the B967 nearing the Twatt junction. I have been here one or two times and strangely have never noticed them. Actually my attention was first drawn by the several large stones lying by the top end of the field. There is enough material exposed in several of the barrows to make them worth a visit if you are in the area, another site for an other day. Before reaching here, between Nicol Point and the barrow cemetery, I saw two big stones isolated in the middle of a field, a grey standing stone and lying against it a thick slab of IIRC a sandy coloration. When I found the Queenafjold barrows I wished to turn back for a photo of this stone anomaly but my schedule had slipped too far already.
Can you call it a field visit when you have only viewed from the road with a high-powered digicamcorder. Answers please on a postcard ;-)
Approaching Birsay from Swannay not long past the Knowes of Lingro (possibly even along the same ridge, see vid.supra I think the term is) you see two small square wartime buildings on the hillside with a grassy hump between them and directly to their right a mound. This is the Knowe of Crustan. You can easily find a mound that seems to be another fragment of this as you scan along the horizon.
A very disappointing site, what you see from the roadside is all you get. Going towards Birsay pass Harray Farm and where the main road turns right instead continue straight on and then take the first track left. Soon you will see the site on your right. It does disappear for a minute or two before you reach the top of the hill. Very carefully slip through the barbwire fence, the barbs are rather long. The mound is surrounded by an electric fence to keep coos oot, stoop or slide under that. Not geometrised but certainly no sign of any features – a flatter area on top could simply be the result of animal activity. I saw nothing else about here, but maybe I should have looked harder for the other scant remains ?
Alongside the road at the Ring of Brodgar there are two large mounds. Opposite the modern entrance, practically at road level, is the Plumcake(-shaped) Mound. But the first you encounter is the bulk of Fresh Knowe (presumably called so as against Salt Knowe near the sea loch).
For this you have to go down a slight slope – indeed the lochside edge is practically at loch level and in the present day perilously close to the water’s edge, making it damp around this side. Running down to the loch alongside the northern end is a stream a section of which is occupied by some kind of ?concrete tank. Didn’t think anything of it at the time, but later found a report of “a fine spring of water at the foot of the tumulus”.
The area of Farrer’s excavation is well evident from the road as a large blister of dark vegetation. Don’t go down with fancy shoes. Looking from the lochside there appears to be a slight saddle at the top of the mound. Also there is a concavity like a big scoop from the southern end. Perhaps there was an even earlier excavation here, and the unconfirmed report of a burial comes from this (it has been another suggestion for the silver fibulae source)?? There could always have been a cist there, as probably with Salt Knowe. Which reminds me of the, admittedly smaller, Queena Fjold barrows which reportedly each only held a single central cist according to the prime investigators.
If the Watch Stone really was part of the arc of a long-gone stone circle I would be inclined to place this site in the same time-frame.
Coming to Birsay directly after the working mill is a side road for the Barony Hotel. The well is at the side of this road not far from the junction. The mediocre description is all too accurate. But the surrounding environ promises there was once a more ancient site hereabouts, either side of the road looks promising. Of course it could be the original well lay further down (down in Yesnaby there was a Crossiekield holy well near St. Bride’s Chapel. No wells appear thereabouts in 1882 and I strongly suspect that it lay opposite the Brough of Bigging) or resembled more a spring. Over the road can be seen a rounded stone several feet long. Min came to mind. If this ‘phallic’ object is original perhaps this was alway’s Man’s Well locally and the St. Magnus apellation used by the toffs or to impress enquirers ?
Last year’s grain only stubble now, fallow field falicitating photography. The messiest view is from uphill, all those stones at the western end like builder’s rubble. The 1882 map shows a stone 160 yards away slightly north of west in the next field (in the direction of a northern house wall). Didn’t see this, only the usual standing stone as field boundary, and there are plenty of those on the track along to here.
Directly opposite the Standing Stones Hotel the main road cuts across the edge of a large mound (HY31SW 24 at HY30251165). In 1946 this oblong mound, aligned N/S, measured 55 yards by 46 (subsequent ploughing is said to have reduced the area covered) and varied from 11-15’ in height. In the 19thC a cutting on the north side showed it to be based upon a likely moraine. Presently it is surrounded by a two yard wide ditch, possibly revetted in part, with further ditches/banks parallel to this. When the owner cut into the east end in 1891 he found a 2’ 6” square 10’ 6” long stone-paved passage leading to a 10’ diameter circular chamber which prior to collapse was probably some seven feet high. Presumably this is the putative NE ‘entranceway’ on the 2001 geophysics (another such was noted at the south side i.e. facing away from the road). A couple of depressions atop the debris were thought to be side-chambers, however there is no mention of any being found in the 1893 update. By then the chamber had been cleared (J.W.Cursiter 2-line summing up in “Programme of Excursion and Illustrated Descriptive Guide to the Places to be Visited in the Western and Northern Islands and Coast of Scotland” by R.Cochrane 1899). The floor was formed of two masonry courses. Side walls and stone pillars supported a roof of large flagstones, the principal one some 2’ thick, then between it and the covering mound the builders placed “safe stones”.
Finally good enough light to properly see the site’s extent – today my new digital camera easily made out the oval banks mentioned by the O.S. (still from way over on the Orphir road). These do extend both sides of the wall, though most visible to the eye in The Well Park. Which latter presumably explains why the site was first seen as a large fragment of a circle (note to self, must post Sandaiken soon), I had thought of sideways displacements to explain the later reports but I can see no such evidence. Could still be that this is a multi-period site and we are dealing with two seperate creations, one nestling within/upon the other.
Using a map I was finally able to identify the site from way over on the Old Scapa Road. Much further up the slope than I had imagined, just under the farm almost. Made it out with the digicamcorder on full telephoto and it looks fairly impressive in parts, good bank height in the ‘Hill Park’ section still. Definitely has all the appearance of a hillfort to me. Of course we ?don’t have proper hillforts in Orkney and the present view is not high up enough for a full 360 panorama, though you can see over to Kirkwall and all the way up Scapa Flow. Observed the site from most of Scapa beach, at a distance, but couldn’t see it from the road below, alas. Going around from the coastguard station there is the edge of the hill and at the top at the town end of this section there is what could be plough-out. The site is in that direction as you look up. One day I shall go onto the site for some proper photography (leaving Kirkwall on the South Isles road the farm is on the top of the hill just past the Tradespark junction, the fieldwall beside the drive cutting across the site behind it). A little further along there is a dark triangle of land on the hill that indicates ‘Well Park’ above.
I have always been put off the trek to this site by what sounded like meagre remains. On Thursday I attended a FOAT lecture by Anne Brundle of Orkney Museum on the Bu of Orphir. At this a map showing fieldnames and archaeology in Orphir. I was 6p shy of the asking price so took the chance for a close look then. Looking at the name Hillock of Breakna there was beneath the notation “poss. broch”. And directly below that I was startled to see the notation ’ Earl’s Palace’. Which turned it around into a must-see.
Today, fortuitiously, Dave Lynn popped by to see me during a visit to Orkney and offered to take me. Out to Orphir and down the unmarked Swanbister road, past Swanbister House down to where the road turns right opposite the shore.
At first all I see is a mound of man-height with an angular stone sticking out the top (made me think briefly of the NE mound at the Taing of Beeman, though that was only an earthfast slab). My fellow brochaholic was strongly confident of its broch identity despite all the accretions. From the top looking down you can see the circular edge resulting from ploughing most of the way round. The terracing effect, especially on the seaward downhill side, brought me in mind of Wideford Hill Cairn. Probably a fancy on my part ( though at both Quanterness and The Howe roundhouses were ‘smashed through’ earlier chambered tombs).
Wish we had known about the First World War construction when we were there, to help make sense of things. The stone that was clearly visible from the road had a fairsized anchorpoint and short length of chain, both rusty, attached to it. Across the way another rusty anchorpoint is attached to an only slightly smaller stone. So the hollow leading down seawards would appear to be where boats had been secured in modern times, well away from the shore. There are many visible wall traces but it is far from easy to assign periods to these. Similarly with the various stones sticking up through the turf. Dave thought he could make out at least a domestic structure at the seaward end.
The cliff geology extends its rocky outcrops around and up the dyke below the RH-side of the site. It certainly bears out the Orcadian fondness for putting their settlements in places we now consider a little too damp. Between the site and the dyke peaty (as Dave said) waters came to the surface and reached for the burn.