wideford

September 2015.Finally went into the field. The worked stones in a pile in the corner have come from the uphill mound/s. My guess is they formed a kerb around ine or both mounds – I feel some of the mounds only appear seperate because of later activity. There are two stones still in situ, the most exposed one a rather large cuboid IIRC about 6” square in cross section

Up from the Harray Community Centre take the Netherbrough Road, go way down past Maesquoy and The Castle is on your right before the Ballarat House turn-off abutting the road. Because of the conflicting measurements I suspect some belong to the mound and others to the slight eminence it sits on. But most definitely well above head height from the road ! I didn’t have time to go on the mound, so I don’t know if the outcropping stones are still visible – perhaps they have been used for the modern cairn, thought to be broch material.
I went as far as the turn for Ballarat House, and in the field opposite Gullow is what looked like a banked feature which looks equally Iron Age but must be modern as it is not noted anywhere.

North of Harray Community Hall is the Netherbrough Road. Just past Yeldavale the knowe stands out boldly in the far corner of a field, at this time swamped by bright vegetation vegetation. If only I hadn’t already been walking for miles I would have paid a visit despite the blooming plants. It sits on marshy ground thought to have been a lochan. Less than a kilometre further down is another broch, the Knowe of Gullow.From there I went as far as the turn for Ballarat House, where in the field opposite Gullow is what looked like a banked feature which looks equally Iron Age but must be modern as it is not noted anywhere. Burrian’s underground structure brings to my mind two Orcadian sites, one where a broch was built over a tomb and another where the supposed broch was purely ceremonial/ritual

Entering the enclosure the second thing I noticed after the cairn itself was a shallow trench all around the ege of the mound, and outside that a lot of stones of decent size. Canmore says “bounded by a wall-face of horizontally laid stones. Surrounding the cairn is a spread of loose flat stones forming a sort of platform. An alley, clear of stones, led through it up to the W edge of the cairn”. Alley past tense. Before tackling the mound I investigated the other piece of the puzzle. This now has an angled metal door that swings out. This is where a fold-out screen comes in useful, sitting down on the horizontal stone and sticking the camera inside on wide angle. Then up to the main prize. I was very careful with the ladder in the cairn, starting face forward at the start, and the space between the rungs is over-large so that it would be all too easy for the whole leg to slip between them – I would have preferred to have someone with me just in case !

Just to emphasise it is a really steep climb, a very windy narrow path i places a foot wide. And when it levels out coming to the cairn there is a near vertical drop on the left, so not advisable if the wind is high