wideford

Seven Knowes, HY32SE 8, is a compact group of bowl barrows set in boggy ground. They are on what the record calls a low plateau, and range in diameter from 12 to 35ft and in height from 18 ins to 2ft 6 ins. Excavations of three in close proximity to one another in 1998 found two of them had centrally placed cremation cists , these being evenly spaced around the mounds and taking the form of rounded pits dug into the hillwash that also covered them. Crude stone tools were found on top of the cists and also on the kerbs of these mounds. The two best surviving mounds, the largest, and most of the smaller ones have been dug before

RCAMS 273 the Redland standing stone was, and stil is, the most visible piece of Redland South’s stonework. Until the 1880s, when a farmer smashed it to stop livestock using it as a rubbing stone, it stood about 2m high. The irregularly topped stump is described in the late 1920s as 12 or 16” high by 3’ broad by 6” thick, and aligned ENE/WSW like Staneyhill. At that time the 4’8” upper fragment, tapering to a 2’7” squared off top, lay where it fell. In 1929 the ground around the stone was described as irregular with some small earthfast stones with the smaller stump of another standing stone mere feet away. So the excavation we see here is 1930 or later. More to follow on the cairn proper when I’ve sifted through photos from three visits. Cairn is in two fields on your right as you go from the Evie road to the Broch of Gurness

NMRS record no. HY50NE 41 stands over a man’s height at a little over 2m high and is 50m long by 17m high. The records says that under the plough as well burnt material red stones come up too.

RCAHMS record no HY31NE 1 at Chapel Point, south of Burness ‘burgh headland’ in Firth. The name Chapel Knowe probably replaces the field-name Chapel Park [park=quoy ‘enclosure]. In 1922 Mr Stevenson, the landowner, removed copious amounts of stone to build very sturdy fieldwalls, despite which the broch profile is still obvious. A draper called Turfus found in the debris an incised 40” fragment of red sandstone with a two-and-a-half inch high cloaked figure and other assorted markings. On the west side a broch wall section 14’ long and 9’ high was exposed, having a 2’ thick secondary wall built against the face. At its south end a lintelled passage led to a corbelled mural cell with a void above that. The mound sits on a platform aligned N/S and up to 25m across according to which direction you look. Hugh Marwick, who followed up on the discovery, estimated the broch interior as only twenty feet. The archaeologists apply the Chapel Park name to a twenty metre stone spread running NW from the mound.

NMRS HY50NE 5. Here over the course of a few years Mr Aim, the farmer at Blow(e)s, came across internments near its crest in 1929 and 1932 (the record says 1933, but Callendar’s article from that October refers the discovery to “January last”). On both occasions he covered the finds until the archaeologists came. In early March 1929 whilst digging into the clay his plough lifted the coverstone of a short cist containing an eight inch high dolomitic steatite urn and potsherds from a small urn. The cist was hollowed into a circular depresssion 4-5” deep in the centre, floored with stone flakes averaging some 5” square and ¼” thick. In plan it was approx. 20” by 16” with sides of bluish Orkney sandstone slabs each 18” deep and 1½” thick. There was a layer of burnt human bones 5-6” deep. After excavation the farmer put the remains back and covered the find. in January 1932 Mr Aim made another find only a few feet away. This consisted of a Bronze Age cinerary urn and fragments of a smaller one, both of clay. The large urn held bone ash and potsherds. When the archaeologists came and did their excavation they found an urn-shaped cavity under a coverstone just five feet away, though it had never held an urn. It measured some 15” deep and 12” wide diminishing to 5”, and was almost completely filled with the dark greasy remains of bones. Though the urn passed to the museum the rest was re-buried as before.