Possibly of relevance is that according to “The Orcadian” of 15/12/06 ” boiling stones... were and are found in Sandwick at a place called Blossin, about half-a-mile south of Ward Head, Southerquoy”, although if Ward Hill=Head this could refer to the Knowe of Geoso instead.
wideford
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21NW 18 at HY23161750 is the extremely scant remains, atop a prominent eminence, of an ~20’D barrow that has produced cramp in the past. Several turf-covered barrows, apparently excavated, that go under the name Velzian are in close proximity (HY21NW 27) ; ‘A’ is of earth with small stones, ‘B’ & ‘C’ are earthen. ‘A’ (10m D 0.6m high at HY23041733) and ‘B’ (6m D 0.5m high at HY23101736) are in the field to the W of the Knowe and ‘C’ (10m D 0.4m high at HY23181732) in the field south of them near the field boundary.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY22NE 5 for the Knowe of Crustan includes at HY27532906 110m SE along the same ridge a turf-covered mound about 12m across and 1m high that is likely to be another barrow.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 112 – like Barnhouse with tombs, only more so
Haven’t found it on the website but in the talk today the discovery of a cup-marked stone was described, from trench eleven IIRC
RCAHMS NMRS no. HY31SW 7 at HY31471395 has been re-assessed a few times, the large size of the central mound and the lack of sharply defined features leading to its being currently classified as an unusually proprtioned bell barrow rather than a disc barrow like Wasbister. This N/S aligned barrow was 102x85’ with an irregular ditch of between thirteen and twenty-one feet. The platform and ~17.4m diameter mound both presently stand a metre high, and there were the remains of a 5” thick earthfast stone on the latter with the same orientation.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31NW 7 consists of turf-covered earth and stone mounds at HY3173 1553, 3175 1551 and 3175 1550 plus another that may only be a spoil heap, being only about four metres across and under half a metre high. The definite barrows used to be between 30-37’ across but have lost a couple of yards subsequently. They stand a metre high on a false crest. An urn with ashes, not surviving, was found in the smallest of the three, which is cut through by a peat road
On the Black Hill of Warbuster downhill of the Ring of Bookan, seperated by a hill-dyke and (formerly) the old road to Sandwick and Birsay (which also passed through the lower third of the Wasbister disc barrow). This is the mound excavated by Thomas, as shown by a comparison of his report with that of the first grave in the “John O’ Groat’s Journal”. In 1848 or earlier a trench dug by Dr.Wall of Skaill from the SW to the centre of this 71½ by 10’ tumulus found nothing. And on July 30th 1849 Thomas first trench of 3 or 4’ across that came from the south was similarly fruitless, even when the central pit was dug out to 6’ or 7’ diameter. The barrow presented a very different appearance then, with “but little earth in comparison with the many large angular pieces of stone” (now it looks a partly turf-covered mound of earth with some loose stones in exposed areas and a few earthfast stones barely peeking up from the top). It was built up with topsoil from the moors about. On the second day digging through several large stones from the SE and lifting an outsize flagstone lid revealed a “parallelogram, regularly built on stone” 26x27x18” containing a skeleton. The grave lay W/E and came from 4’ above the natural, 10’ from the centre, with the skeleton lying diagonally and head facing west. Later in the year Thomas was called back again to aid the “Woodlark"in its explorations. Two more crouched inhumations were found in cists, one in a trench from the N to the centre and another in a cut on the east side. Though roughly the same distance from the centre as the first they were much cruder burials and came from much further up within the mound, 6-7’ above the natural, only about a foot below the mound top. A fourth burial was expected to be somewhere on the W, but all the debris from their excavations having been dumped there they consequently didn’t have enough time left to look for it.
Until the end of the month there are guided tours of the present Ness of Brodgar dig. Went on one today and learnt that the Lochview mound is a tomb with revetments that has suffered from the whole area being levelled off in 19thC agricultural improvements. A test pit previously found scalloped and decorated Grooved Ware. Also pitchstone from Arran (found in the current excavation too, which is uncovering evidence for another chambered tomb, perhaps two).
NOT PREVIOUSLY NOTED, DISPUTE AGE obviously
At least from HY40741218 to HY40481155
In 1841 the broch, or whatever, was a cut-down cone 16’ high and 90yds in circumference. The ringwork surrounded it at a distance of 20 yards.
The tomb from which this came was later to become part of a broch
A mound of stones and earth only a couple of metres across dated by Hedges (TL specimens rather than an excavation proper) to the Middle Bronze Age. He calls it Graemeshall in two articles, both of which err in giving it a transposed NGR of HY017495. It was used for a short period compared to other burnt mounds and is of an early date for Orkney.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY40SE 10 at HY4949701654 is less than a metre high and tidgy, a scant few metres across (presumably why it isn’t on the 1882 map). A mound of black earth but no burnt stone, it lay next to a now buried well (very likely a wellspring)
Apparently a local ex-archaeologist “once mentioned a mini stone circle on the Grimeston side road (between Staney Hill Rd and Harray Rd”. Another archaeologist friend, who related this, added that there was summat “visible on the S side of the road” but that she thought that “the OAT view is it’s a damaged and unusually wide bell barrow”.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY43SW 1 at HY44713271. This sandstone block was quarried from the nearby bank and inclines to the north. It is as tall as the Long Stone but well over twice the width and thickness, being 7½ by 5½ feet by 2 foot.
Till someone posts :- orkneyjar.com/history/monoliths/yetna.htm
Not too far away from the Long Stone, at HY380335 above Moan, is an earthfast stone 0.65m tall but 1.55m wide that is likely to be the stump of another standing stone. Lost/gone is the Westoval Stone, this was on a ridge called Steenie Festoval on the northern slope of Blotchnie Fiold (roughly HY4129) – if found, please return to owner.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY42NW 7 at HY40412750 is 7½ feet tall and 2-2½ wide aligned NW/SE. It was broken and the two halves later re-joined.
Alfred Johnstone relates that John Logie of Trumland House informed him that a site near the Langstane bore the name Westoval/Hestoval, and the ba’ was held here on New Year’s Day. So this is the mystery Westoval Stone HY42NW 28 despite what the record says
The wooded area below is Yairsay ‘mound by the hill/dyke’. Marwick believed this to refer to a prehistoric gairsty. This would most likely be the area covered by the white wall and trench, and such boundary features often featured mounds at or by turning points. Whether this refers to these Wideford mounds or one now (presumably) lost we do not know.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY41SW 21.
From Petrie’s notes we find that of the circular group of ten mounds three of these were large (no size given). The smaller ones were 10-12’ across and three feet high at most, and he chose to excavate three of these. All contained short stone cists.
The first contained burnt bone and ashes. By comparison to the first the second, the one that produced a stone pestle or corn crusher, was not so carefully formed. The last was of a similar size to the second but badly constructed of large lumps of stone jammed together. Both the latter contained burnt bones.
At various times RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SE 1 at HY56590369 has been seen as a burnt stone mound and a turf mound with burnt earth, but is no longer believed to be any kind of burnt mound. It has steep sides and is thought to have been circular until the second quarter of the 20th century when the owner ‘quarried’ the west end, leaving it slightly crescentic. He found two foot-high earthfast stones about five feet apart and some large stones besides. It now measures 10m by 12m and stands 1.2m high.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50NW 14 at HY54900611 is a broch that was investigated literally in one day in 1883. At that time it was 45’ across the outside and 15’ high, with walls 10’ thick and standing equally high (though the entrance wasn’t found). Small zig-zagging passages at the north where digging began were ‘read’ as modern – the site was brlieved to have been surrounded by water originally. Though the inner face was cleared it was decided not to remove the debris from the centre (which, given that it lies between the beach and Eves Loch, bodes good for the preservation of organic materials). Of the three-quarters of the outer circumference excavated then, by 1930 only a few courses in a stretch a few yards long were still exposed (co-incidentally at the north) and now all is basically under turf again. A lamp and a few stone tools have been found. Raymond Lamb in 1987 thought there were traces of a settlement platform at the south-west.
In 1991 an archaeologist surveying nausts discovered the remains of a structure against the end of one of the two by the west end of a rise at Hurnip’s Point. This proved to be a chambered cairn (in outline like a tadpole), that had been quarried for their construction. RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50NW 58 at HY54480634 may be a linear series of cairns, alternatively, and narrows over its present 60m length from 15m at the coast (where there appear to be excavation pits) to 6m at the other end, being 1-2m high. A section on the landward side (part of the 30m tail end of the tadpole) uncovered kerbing and a chamber/passage of 1.7m width. The excavator saw it as resembling the Head of Work Long Cairn and Staney Hill cairns but with the horns lost to the sea.
Steedman’s dissertatation “Archaeology of Deerness” in the Orkney Library regarding the Hurnip’s Point nausts mentions the “whole mound” as covered by two contiguous buildings (let’s be generous and call them structures) of 11 by 10m and 6 by 6m. Obviously these had gone well before excavation started. The whole mound is much larger than the structures dimensions, being 60m long at the time of the dig, but is strikingly similar to that of the two adjacent depressions near the cliff edge posited as possibly excavated chambers – these the excavator describing as 10 and 8m diameter.
now RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY30NW 31
A heads up to look for a 6’ sandstone cube ~200 yards to the south – in a 1997 book John Bremner calls this the Patrick Stane and reports the faint presence of cup-and-ring marks on the top
Archsearch lists the site as SMR SG2332 at ST60859191, an artificial conical mound of possibly BA date that has possibly had the top levelled for a Roman camp or pre-AngloSaxon churchyard, and is connected to The Toots camp (SMR SG1568) by an ancient trackway. A dating minefield apart from R*man material from the graveyard.
HY40SE 2 consists of three barrows. The main one, at HY48370261, is a black earth and clay mound about 40x50’ by 5’6” from which came a long cist. A couple of decades later some kind of grave was found in one of the others. Their semi-circular remains at HY48400259 & HY48390257, about 8m across and roughly a metre high, are completely turf-covered.
HY40SE 1 at HY48260258 is an earth and stone mound ~15m diameter by 3m, turf covered except where scarred at the north and east. From it came a (possibly secondary) LBA cremation cist with a bronze and hazel razor.
Previous chapel is grassy mound between on banks of Burwick loch, between this and and shoreside road. X for St.Colm’s Chapel shown on 1882 map at ND44168427. Originally occupied an islet in the now-drained loch so probably on a crannog/broch/island dun site.
1920 newpapers report a possible circle represented by 6-8 stone stumps near the cairn, though as the two accounts give a threefold variance for the latter’s diameter these could be the putative arc of kerbing now thought to have come from elsewhere. However, a pair of stones appeared to represent an entrance (obviously not the pair of 2-3’ entrances at the cairn’s sides, roughly built of beach stones) and were visibly larger in the previous century. This would certainly lend itself better to naming the nearby Stensigarth than the Cloddiehaugh standing stone by itself.
1920 news reports place the cist discovered then, slightly larger than that of 1926, at the back of an old stone stump. One report places it in the mound and the other disna, but this is because one sees the mound as 18’ diameter whereas archaeologists ‘extend’ this to 18m (a 1903 report records that ~20 years previously the O.S knocked a huge chunk off the top of this howe because it was too high !).
In 1920 the author (J.F.) of a two-part newspaper account of Harray believed large irregular stones lying roadside (? over the other side, on the way to the horned cairn) could be the ruins or start of a circle.
There are some outsize stones in the roadside bank at the right as you go up to the standing stone, over half a metre and much too oddly shaped for any drystane wall.
As we now have chambered tombs at the Ness of Brodgar and the Point Of Onston perhaps the Girnaness site, lying between them near the Standing Stones Hotel, should be re-assessed. Unfortunately this enigmatic multi-period site is rather fragmentary and mostly underwater.
A fantastic vicar’s sermon reported in “The Orcadian” 20/7/1801
ties the whole area together in fleshing out the alleged planetary correspondence :-
Maeshowe as the place where the Druids kept the symbols of sun, moon and serpent.
On the main festival of Beltane the sun sets on the Barnhouse Stone,
From there slightly north to the circle of the moon,
Then a little east to that of the serpent, the Odin Stone,
Now to the stone of mercury [? Watch Stone] at the Ring of Brogar,
Next to the height north that is the temple/house of the moon,
North again to the stones of Saturn & Jupiter [? Comet Stone]
Finally near the circle of the sun the stone of venus the King of Brogar.
At the last all go home to light the fires.
On the summer solstice the symbol of the serpent is taken to the mound [? Skae Frue] near the ring of Bhokin to be condemned to death. After which it goes to the King of Bhokin where it is pulled to pieces and eaten.
“The Orkney Herald” of 8/11/1893 reports a ten foot diameter chamber, originally in the region of seven feet high, composed of masonry and stone pillars supporting a heavily flagstoned roof (the main slab of two feet thickness). The floor comprised two courses of masonry. It was approached by a paved passage 10’6” x 2’6” x 2’6”. There is no mention of contents in the Orkney Natural History Society paper as published in the newspaper.
The discovery report in “The Orkney Herald” of 4/3/1891 says the passage was half-way up the east side of the mond, and that two depressions on the top could mark lateral chambers.
The nearby burial mound the NMRS calls South Seatter was referred to locally as Tirlhowe, which superstition said must always be mentioned when the early Xtian site of Bridikirk/Brideskirk (near the Brough/Knowst of Bigging) was named.
If the folklore tradition is correct this would surely be the place for the ceremonies – perhaps adaptation for the same has resulted in the confused form visible today.
In 1849 it is recorded that the late Mansie Hay used the “Druidical circle of Wasbuster” as a law thing – think Tingwall by the Rousay Ferry in Evie. Perhaps the chamber was used in the adaptation or revealed by the work, so leaving it open to such deterioration that it did not survive to the present day in a recognisable state. Thomas’ 1849 description would identify Mansie Hay’s seat as the large triangular stone in the middle.
The alternative name of Black Hill of Warbister would relate this site to Viking vardr ‘beacon’ (as with The Wart in S.Ronaldsay, the Verron broch at Skaill Bay and the Point of Veron mound near Voy).
Another site where there is uncertainty over the form is Newhouse in Holm (HY50SW 16) – it is either two concentric banks or one with a palisade trench. Newhouse is thought to be a northern outlier of the ring-enclosures. At 27m across it is slightly bigger than Hillhead or the circle geofizzed near Bu in Orphir.
In 1883 the Ridge of Bookan (sic) was 136’ across the interior with a sharply defined ditch 44’ across and 6’ deep. No mention of any chambers, just the stones present nowadays.
Captain F.W.L. Thomas in 1851 believed he detected 5/6 circles tangential to the central feature, these [indicated on his plan] about 6’D and containing prominent stumps of stone. He observed that the ditch remained dry in even the wettest weather. He saw evidence that someone had tried to cultivate the land here – the earliest form of Bookan (preceding Bûkan even) refers to bygga ‘bere’ [a barley landrace] as suggested for Buckquoy in Birsay.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 42 refers to a large stone urn but says there is no trace of the mound near the house. But the newspaper report simply locates it as found in a field and, being complete but fragmented, after careful exposure taken entire to the farmhouse whilst awaiting removal to Kirkwall. At this time the road besides which this mound lies did not exist, so it would be parsimonious to equate the two. “The Orcadian” describes the cinerary urn as oval at the rim, with a flat circular bottom, 550mm at its biggest dimension.
When the owner of Roeberry did a partial excavation in autumn 1870 the cist had already been opened. In June 1871 Petrie’s investigations found stone rubbers and charcoal at the bottom.
Dingieshowe (NMRS Number: HY50SW 7) was considered part of a bigger settlement at the end of the 18th century as they considered the stony hillocks beneath the present sand dunes between here and Deerness to have been buildings also.
First excavated in August 1860. It proved to be a broch standing six foot high with an external diameter of 57’ and walls twelve foot thick that had been built directly onto a grass covered sandy hillock. Debris filled this Burg – potsherds, animal bones, a human skull, and between an edgeset slab and the wall a heap of water-worn stones like a celt workshop – and on the floor was a layer of red clay with an ash and charcoal deposit containing more animal bone. A mix of unburnt and burnt bones came from under parts of the wall. Beneath the floor evidence of a strong fire came in the form of clay and semi-vitrified sand, possibly cremation cramp.
Sometime in the 1920’s an amateur excavation in the south side revealed a short length of simple drystone wall/walling and a small kitchen midden, from which latter in 1929 the Royal Commission retrieved hammerstones (Petrie’s celts) and degraded potsherds. The O.S. in 1964 saw several small trenches and noted shell deposits on the mound’s south and west slopes. Other shell middens can be found at the remains of Peerie Brough close by and near the cliff base close to the Sandaiken site in Taracliff Bay next door (just before you reach the seps up to the new trail). In 1986 the Royal Commission paid another visit, finding a possible bank and ditch at the north and north-west but noting that this could be the result of quarrying for sand.
In 1859 Petrie reports that at the start of the 19th century near Papdale farm there was a very large double ring surrounded by ditches, which can only refer to this.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SW 8 burnt mound [no support for this being burnt] that has been ploughed down to less than 18” high but I reckon you need to add in the height above the shore
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 10 has been explored three times, the first time an unknown or unknowns dug into the upper section. Petrie excavated in 1861 what he decribed a bowl-barrow some 44’D and 6’ high overlaying a circular building. A central cist 7’1” x4’ x2’8”, in which he found only a flint lance/spearhead and fragments of three or more small clay vessels, was connected to the outside wall by a 6¼’ passage 1¾’ in cross-section to the encircling wall eleven feet from the cairn’s base. This cist had four cists about it, all on the order of 4’8” x2’9” x2’8”, one each to the north and east and two on the west side with three of these containing the remains of robust skeletons. Excavations ending in 2002, which managed to recover more such in one of what are now seen as side-chambers, found that Petrie’s circular building was later (either after natural erosion or deliberate damage) surrounded by a ~16m cairn itself bounded by three revetments. We cannot know in what condition the original digger found it but only the other day I read that Shennar Howe not that far away consists of a flat-topped mound on which there is placed a smaller one, both of similar heights and totalling roughly six foot high.
A newspaper report (“Orkney Herald” July 16th 1861) says that besides the Stones of Stenness (then used for the Ring of Brodgar) there were other stones still standing, both singletons and pairs, as well as the remains of a nearly destroyed circle (presumably the Comet Stone site). A week later Farrar reports that the two tumuli at the entrances to the Ring of Brodgar originally supported structures because of the amount of earthfast stone about their bases, though burial mounds encircled by stones are known from elsewhere. However only animal bones were found, and these from their upper parts.
RCAHMS NMRS no. HY21SE 8 at HY 2824 1440 was excavated by Captain Petrie. The 70’ diameter 10’ high mound contained three crouched inhumations but no grave goods. These burials appear to have been in the common practice of the transformation of natural mounds for funerary use. His dig found nothing in the centre, leading to speculation that a fourth burial had been missed that would have completed a circle. Last century antiquarians said that the soil was topsoil from elsewhere (the Ring of Bookan just up the hillside?).
The 1854 excavation of what is accepted to be this mound found two cists with bones in urns. First was a steatite urn, the largest found at that date, decorated with three grooves at the neck. The second cist’s was clay. Here were found a stone pestle and a block of stone ringed with two incised rows.
RCAHMS NMRS no. HY41SW 13 at HY44071116 according to present thinking is a burnt mound, presumably of a similar construction to Hawell (rather than the standard crescentic variety). Brockan in Stromness was once seen as a larger version of this type. Also one thinks of those burnt mounds such as Liddle (near the Tomb of The Eagles) and Bea that Hedges found to include houses in them. The first accounts of this tumulus found what at the time were described as two large cists seperated by 4’ of build, the smaller being sub-divided. Built into the wall of the mound was a 4’ by 10” stone with a central cupmark and three-and-a-half crude concentric circles (now in the National Museum of Scotland). A second long slab had a large cupmark also centrally placed and on another side no less than thirteeen smaller ones (Henshall knew only about one of the decorated stones, and even so was at a loss to explain its presence without dating the decoration to LBA, which he was loath to do.). So could it be that this was a standing stone site re-used, as suggested for the far grander Maes Howe ? Certainly suggestive of this being more than just a settlement is the former presence nearby of St.Duthac’s chapel.
Johnston reports that this shore site has turned up large stones and bones, and was believed the site of of a chapel and graveyard. Odd to have one so close to the Round Church (diagonally opposite) and those that followed on from it. The name Harproo ‘stream of the heap’ reminds me that another proposed chapel site, below Gyre over from the Hillock of Breckna broch, is named the Cairns of Piggar.