wideford

After visiting the Ring of Brodgar dig I made my long way over to the Loch of Wasdale. Couldn’t quite get across to “Counrtrywoman"s other island (HY34221517) what I shall call Wasdale 2, as I wasn’t sure whether the fence I saw kept the kie out. My first sight of the edgeset stones, offshore by the wooden hut, didn’t look to show any regular pattern. Carrying further along this old road brought more of them to light, ones projecting less above the water, and indicated a fairly regular spacing. Despite the fact that I saw my first ones in front of that hut they could well be more further up the shoreline as there was too much ‘foam’ there to make anything out. I should point out, for what it’s worth that there do appear to be one or more edgeset stones on the shoreline opposite the site i.e. below the road. In Orkney one or two orthostats (or facing pairs) tend to be called ‘sailors graves’, and more than that is a ‘graveyard’, but to my eyes it is most unlikely that there has been any actual burial ground here.
Coming on to the now permanent island there is a greater depth of the causeway showing. Indeed it is passable now. But you will still need some care over the stepping stones in a few sections – rest the foot and then push off, test firmity on the centre of stones where these don’t have an obvious incline. There is nothing to add about the large stones fronting the mound.
Walking around the islet it certainly seems basically artificial, even if the stonework surrounding the mound isn’t yer megalithic broch style it is definitely circular and the base survives for two or more courses. This earlier site makes its presence most felt at the sides and back of the mound, where the width is least, leading me to think that the Iron Age [? Bronze Age if a crannog first] structure occupied a site more at the northern end of the islet. Behind the mound at the back what looks to be a broch age chamber still stands about a metre high (nettles prevented close inspection. On top of the mound at the back, atop a smaller mound, is the conical modern cairn. From this an older wall runs down to the chamber, to all intents and purposes a radial [not that I’m suggesting a wheelhouse for this site].
I tried unsuccessfully to find the cist in the hind part of the mound, but towards the back, to the side of the moundlet, there is a cuboid arrangement of stones covering one long one (there being an overhang my photos may not show this).
There are the lower courses of one (? two) presumably early/middle mediaeval structures to one side of the later entrance. It struck me that the later folk hoicked out the front of the earlier structure and brought it ‘forward’ to form their own more rectilnear site. As the causeway is some distance in front of the main earlier stuff does it really go with it ?
Despite the present state of the whole islet it could once have supported a more megalithic (broch age) set of walls – there are some great stonking stones used below the farm as a shoreline field boundary or summat that might be originally monumental.
With the present lower shoreline after taking my leave I was able to circle my subject and take shots not takeable close to. If you do this be aware your foot could get sucked in on muddier parts of the shore and by the marsh/heath edges of the field. Even had some close up shots of a pair of skuas – do not disturb. Only when climbing up onto the field did I see the kie in another corner of the field, so I moo-ved on.

Finally time to take slides. Even without livestock it seems every time I go there is more detail to be seen. Now there are short lines of smallish stones all over the circular mound forming part of the long cairn. Evidence for an outer covering of staggared faces (like Wideford Hill only far finer) or a stone cairn where erosion has chanced to form the appearance of lines ? One edge of the slab I think marks the start of the chambered area is where the ‘spine’ noted before looks to terminate, there is a well-defined row of stones forming one side of a small flat area in front of the slab – a cist removed maybe, or the top of a stall or even another chamber ?

Further down on the northern face is a prostrate rectangular slab I don’t recollect noticing before, which is strange as it has a distinctive notch, marked by white lichen, on one of the longer sides. For a moment I fancy it the result of illicit recent digging. One half has lichen, then there is some moss, then nothing – as if it had been an half-buried orthostat. Strange, though, that the notch isn’t in the lichened half.

Running my fingers along the edges the notch proved the only smooth piece, and very nicely rounded at that. We do have re-usable cists in Orkney (such as Arion) like the Argyll type, and the comparatively small notch would be because the whole cist was smaller. So had it indeed formed part of a cist [I ruled out a Ness of Brodgar type oddity staight out when this occured to me later] or only been intended for one then rejected ?

Lifting it carefuly revealed it and another smaller to be resting on unconnected stones with only a narrow slot a few centimetres deep between them, probably nothing relevant again. The simplest assumption is that antiquarian investigators had left it here when done.[why ?].

The stone across the circular area of the long cairn in front of where the chamber/s are looks to me to be the top of a stone that framed an entrance thereto and on the northern side there appears to be a rough line of stones coming down the mound from it – certainly the upper portions of the circular mound changes construction east and west of the distinctively aligned stone [unfortunately though the grass ‘line’ should indicate bilateral symmetry, in the third leading up to the proposed entrance there is much less material exposed on the south side (but the grassy ‘line’ is present again behind the chambers back wall for a short space) where the other half of the entrance should lie]. Found a couple more small holes in various places but my tape measures them as no more than 12-18” deep and most likely burrows. Going the same way as last time and only lifting my head as I come to the putative SE hornwork I find myself looking very much at the side of the long cairn, rather than towards the end as I should be doing if that were correct. My possible cairn is roughly south of Long Cairn where the c of cairn is on the 1:25,000. Disappointed to find the stone isn’t kerb-like but only faces across the upper side. It is only 10” long by 12” high, and from the fact it moves slightly my guess is it doesn’t go far down. Up close for a photo I try to remove a light brown root, maybe 3-4” long almost directly behind the northern end only to find it is the top of another stone (either a deep ‘peg’ or the very top of a stone buried deeper – you don’t dig this close to a SAM so I only pull grass and loose earth which doesn’t work). It feels very even, as if worked, so my thinking is ‘box’ rather than ‘socket. Though the ‘standing stone’ is inside the grassy area I know think this is about 4m away from the edge of the possible mound, which is 8-10m diameter and either circular or oval. From the likely centre the edge is fairly certain but though it sits on a slope I don’t observe a platform or other levelling feature. At this centre the soil has been ?recently exposed in a couple of adjacent spots. The most obvious is the top few inches of a stone, jagged like sharp mountain peaks, then alongside is the flat face of a light stone or maybe the top of another vertical (only a few square inches of this exposed). Going ovr to the ‘modern’ structure by The Castle there are only more stones under the wheel. Further west to the old boundary dyke (which terminates away from the coast on the north side – marshy from there). This abuts the west end of a circular rise that is either another mound or is a natural ‘island’ in the watery landscape. Size on the order of that of Long Cairn’s circular section but not so high, probably marking the end of the Head of Work’s central ridge though not apparently part of it (for all practical purposes dyke and rise are a single entity..

Coming at the cairn from the west there is a possible round cairn showing as a low rise on the horizon at the edge of the southern ridge on the way to it. Inside the W/SW perimeter is a short orthostat. A rather more obvious mound resolves itself into the putative SE hornwork when I look up – were there satellite mounds ? I think that there has been further material exposed on the ‘chamber’ adjoining the east edge of the chamber of record. Going round to the north side of the much higher east end ther appears to be a ?new exposure of near basal material of about half a metre or so and perhaps a cavity at the right as you look at the photo. I am tempted to see The Castle and the possible mound as originally framing the long cairn but the ridge is in the way of land-based confirmation.

I didn’t expect to find this stone and the official guidance is confusing. What you will find is an irregular parallelogram set into the base of the left-hand pillar before the doors of the town hall in High Street and set within an inscribed ring. Couldn’t see it as in anyways bluish myself. The local museum lies not many yards away, slighly nearer Inverness Castle than the stone (a lovely museum with several examples of Pictish Symbol Stones, alas a little late to go on TMA).