Monday, May 24, 2004
BRYMER
On the right-hand side of the road as you come from Kirkwall up to the turnoff for Mine Howe is a small derelict structure. In the field to its right several mounds were surveyed in the 1960s and a few excavated, even the largest at 10m producing little of note. Recently the field has been ploughed up. By the left-hand fence there is now an area of blackened soil about 13m by 4m (HY504059). About the same distance from where this ends along the bottom fence is a rough ploughed-up region that resembles nothing so much as the distraught remnant of some brick-built house (HY503058). It is about 13m wide along the fence and goes up the hill for approximately 37m. Unfortunately the red soil does not appear to be brick. Both soilmarks are of distinctly regular shape. I later took a bare minimum of photos in order not to feel elitist towards what might only be mediaeval remains.
When I went down the bottom of the field to view the red section there was, in a patch of pasture close behind, a heap of stones. As these are in the nature of big slabs I feel they came from some prehistoric structure. Whether they brought here from elsewhere or come out of the field prior to ploughing I'm not sure. On the same picture as showed this I noticed after scanning a curved line of something in the foreground.
Close by the structure's far left corner is a solitary standing stone (HY504059) and there are actually several mounds in this field also. Looking across you can see the two small buildings of Brymire, and between here and The Five Hillocks at HY493067 a placename Sandy Howes (HY498063) is shown on the larger-scale CANMAP. Unfortunately the name is all we have.
COMELY TANK
Where the Comely track first skirts the shoreline a very short earthen ramp comes down. To the right of this are some thin slabs under the track. Looks at first like a wall of a cist. Not a wall because the walls along the coast here are even drystane courses. Indeed the slabs were backed up to one such - the wall has an apparent termination at the structure's RH end but it goes behind it. Against the bottom of the RH end I saw a modern rusty waterpipe of several inches diameter, though this discharges alongside not inside the flat area in front of the slabs. Here the 1:25,000 shows a well. So could it be the remains of a tank ?
COMELY CAIRN
Passing Comely I saw some stones together at a field edge. At first I thought it was a small pile dumped there. On closer inspection they are all part of of a short earthen mound and not one of modern appearance. At the cliff edge behind it is a standing stone. Looking into the bay there is very close to shore a shallow area in front of which is a line of stones that isn't fieldwall.
CAMPSTON CAIRN
Nearer Comely than Campston this very low round "indeterminate mound", originally down as a burnt mound without reason, is an insignificant lump in the nearer corner of the field that also holds St.Peter's Kirk, and to the right of a big field boundary drain. Didn't see any of the "protruding large stones" meant to be atop it but saw what struck me as many more stones than just the slumped fieldwall alongside down the 'cliff'. To the left of the drain you might make out two boggy nausts, long disused and one partially infilled in case you wonder then what they are.
ST.PETER'S KIRK
The remains of St.Peter's Kirk are much more obvious (HY536042) at the top of the hill. Even from the shore the visible stones look uncharacteristically large for a parish church. Taking the "masonry composed of massive squared blocks" with the "build up of settlement debris" you feel the trapezoidal enclosure must surely pre-date any church. RCAHMS NMRS record HY50SW 2 says the church's position within it is uncertain and the name referenced in a "Statistical Account" is actually the present St.Ninian's Church in Deerness. You cannot get to the site from the coast owing to a very taut barbwire fence along the coast. A better bet is probably the farmtrack to Ness of Campston.
ST.PETER'S BAY
Prominent on the hill as viewed from the shore, a little further along than St.Peter's Kirk. 16m E-W by 18m, most of it is grass-covered but (at least now) higher up is bare and there are some stones on its top. Even with binoculars there is no definite shape to them. It is probably a settlement mound and there is apparently suggestion of a level platform to the south. Down at the uppermost shoreline there is at the land's edge levels like those I noted in the cliff's edge to the right of the Scapa Distillery outlet (Broch of Lingro). There is hereabouts an angle of drystane wall jutting out that may be something more than that. You cannot get to the site from the coast owing to a very taut barbwire fence along the coastline. A better bet is probably the farmtrack to Ness of Campston.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SW 21 has now the results of geophysics to the south and west in 2001. Numerous anomalies indicate an extensive site, along with an arc of of ditch about 55m diameter and 6~8m wide with a break at the SE. As a result it is thought this could be a broch-type settlement.
NEVADA COTT
Passing the Scapa Distillery turnoff heading out toward Orphir you can't miss this site immediately to your right behind the small wooden cottage whose name I have given it. Originally I thought this long mound to be the furthest settlement associated with the Broch of Lingro.For most of its length it stands a couple of metres high, the road has practically sliced through one end but there doesn't seem to be a continuance on the Lingro side. It is only from the cemetery road that you can properly conceive its length. In earlier times it would have dominated this end of the Scapa valley, both from the same level and looking down from above. There was always a suspicion on my part that it might turn out to be purely natural. Then came the view from the cemetery road of hills curving round most sides and then down on what should be a fairly flat valley bottom this sticks out like a giant prostrate thumb. I imagine this would date before the Iron Age, perhaps modified natural rather than purely man-made.
LEAFEA
It was by going up a wide ditch, presently dry, knee-deep in vegatation that I reached the end of the field with the Leafea stones. From here I could fill my camera with their image. After getting back I realised that the way chosen was the worst of several to reach Leafea and Brockan (it strikes me with hindsight that the best way is likely to be not to go down the turnoff to Warebeth but instead continue along to where the Outertown road takes a sharp turn and go around the field edges at that point). The two standing stones (1 & 1.2m high) are at right angles to the coast, earthfast. Not part of the arrangement were a couple of natural boulders of which one filled the gap.The story goes that a dog unearthed human bones at the stones' base. Now the uppermost stone is part of the barb-wire fence. It is often difficult to fathom why some stones are chosen and loads of others aren't. Just behind where I stood (HY23040928) is one of decent height, either side of where ditch meets coast are another two (HY22980917,HY22990917) and I think I remember another on the way up. All these ones differ from Leafea by being the usual taller than they are broad.
BROCKAN
My first picture of Brockan I shot from the northern end of the Leafea Stones' fence. I took several more from nearer the Outertown road later but I think that the pictures will show it looks better from below. Even on CANMAP this is still down as a chambered tomb. Understandable for the size. But a partial excavation found two chambers each with a short passage leading to a common paved stone-walled enclosure (I am reminded that at least one beehive structure used to reside in Breck Farm's stackyard). So CANMORE says present thinking is a secondary broch settlement or a small Skara Brae type village. Despite, or perhaps because of, the proximity of both Warebeth and Breckness I don't quite buy it as the former.Three stones still protrude from the top. I tried several other tracks to approach it but none came much closer (it strikes me with hindsight that the best way is likely to be not to go down the turnoff to Warebeth but instead continue along to where the Outertown road takes a sharp turn and go around the field edges at that point). Looked at from the road there appears to be a possible something in the field to its left, though admittedly only a possible cropmark. There used to be a Brockan Standing Stone at HY23140987.
BROCH OF BRECKNESS
"Almost entirely destroyed" all that is left is visible on the eroding cliff. It may be very little compared to what was once there but there is surely value in a vertical section that gradually reveals itself without any person having to excavate it ! A watching brief by archaeologists would provide useful results in time. And it goes a long ways along the cliff, over two points of the coast. Either side of the central broch there is 20~30m of settlement, and the broch itself nearly 12m diameter. Apparently there is a slice of a chapel in there too, which I wish I had known at the time. The most obvious structures at this stage in its unveiling are slab-sided floor drains.
The best way is likely to be to go past the turnoff to Warebeth and continue along to where the Outertown road takes a sharp turn and go around the field edges at that point.
DEEPDALE COTTAGE
Going back about Stromness rather than through it I came to the main Kirkwall-Stromness road and thought I had a chance to finally 'do' the Deepdale Stones. Except I still got it wrong. What I had actually spotted previously were Deepdale Cottage stones. To the left of Deepdale Cottage is a short sandy-coloured standing stone and in front of it a triangular block of the same colour. There are a one or two other stones about these of different constitution and there may be some earthwork arcing about. On the opposite side of the road at Deepdale is a solitary standing stone of a different complexion, lichen-covered like many another. None on NMRS natch. Continuing around the hill you come to a large patch of rough ground and it is off the top left corner of this that the actual Deepdale Stones are located.
FINSTOWN May 20th 2004
First I went up the Old Finstown Road (a little further along which the trail to Cuween Hill Cairn begins) to look for the 'Market Green' Mounds centered on HY364133. These lie to the left of the Firth Community Centre. Three remain, one having gone from the other side of the stream or else simply out of sight beneath the modern copse. I only saw the two for certain, with a grass path going over a turf-covered one and past one ringed over with shrubs. From the original four (RCAHMS NMRS Record no.HY31SE 12) were taken two urns and two cists. At this spot there is now neither atmosphere nor enough notability even for the likes of me to bother photographing. Going back towards town I went into the graveyard and to the upper wall to locate the Hill of Heddle Mounds. Except that I couldn't even spot these ones. They lie between Maitland's Burn and the road running below Heddle Quarry, from the last house on Heddle Hill to the electricity sub-station, at HY359133 and HY360132 and HY359131. Though the HY31SE 13 group had the name in earlier archaeology of Paerkeith RCAHMS reports that no-one local kent why last century. Next on my list was the Finstown Burnt Mound HY31SE 16 at HY355140. As you go out of Finstown there comes a bend round which you cannot see. Go up the track behind the house and walled garden there and the site is a 15m piece in the further corner of a field at the top. Despite its being bereft of green cover it also I found devoid of scenic or other interest. The map shows it halfway up the fence so perhaps I was merely befuddled again. Not that the swollen bump going across this field looks anything but natural.
Thank goodness with my main target I hit paydirt. And potholes and nettles. Back into Finstown again and on the right is the road to Evie. Go out of town and you can't miss the pillbox. This sits on The Hillock (HY361142 (RCAHMS NMRS Record no.HY31SE 4). I spent two seasons based just outwith, whilst working on The Howe outside Stromness, and I never realised I had a broch practically on my doorstep. At the near end is a space going down to the shore. To the left is a square modern wall and from there looking across its nature was plain as a pikestaff, that familiar broch outline revealed. I went down on the shore to see if there was a nice vertical section but the lumps of tarmac sticking out a foot below the clifftop disabused me of any such notion. Maybe further along, but I was restricted to how far I could go. So I came back and followed a path over the rise of the near end that may have been the double wall. Up to the pillbox for a looksee. To the shoreside of this are the visible wall remnants and the 'cell' revealed by a minor dig relatively recently. You can make out some passages and an entrance. There is even a little exposed walling. It was very dangerous getting photos because the grass hides holes, a couple of pieces of wire-frames and abundant nettles. Gingerly letting myself down to the passage floor I was always finding myself reaching out for grass holds that then revealed nettles. The walling you can see from the pillbox is a scant course or two high but when you are down in the passage looking back the cell shows itself several courses high owing to that excavation.
Buoyed up again I decided to try for the Snaba Hill Cairn at HY35221470 (Snaba Hill Cairn & Mounds RCAHMS NMRS Record no. HY31SE 10). Back into town then down to the road that snakes round the mill. As you pass the mill look across The Ouse at the shoreline base of the dump sticking out into the 'pool' and tell me those huge stones don't scream archaeology at you. Around the shoreline here is a black stone pavement and also two standing stones on their lonesome many metres apart. Near the top of the climb a track turns off from the road back over the hill. Follow this all the way to a junction and take the upper line that goes behind Binnaquoy. The first thing I noticed was a small dome cairn sitting atop the far right of a huge band of quarry stone. Even if I had been prepared the combination of the hill's steepness and the many outcrops and quarries (not all obvious even with hindsight) makes mapreading rather haphazard. So I don't now even now if I found the sites !! Anyways, at the tracks end (after taking a couple of shots and debating whether to go back or no) I stepped up to the field fence, took tight hold of the wires wrapped round a post, and cautiously swung myself over the barbwire gate. Up to the fence along the top of the field where my two new targets lay. The other side was the quarry outcrop. To its left unfortunately just the other side of the fence was the mound that could have been Snaba Hill Cairn. But that was distinguished by the tops of a circular ring of stones splayed outwards whereas this (?HY352146) had many stones over it and when I went to the right end and looked at the back there was a chunk out at the lower end with a very neat open-ended box wall inside it. At the top end of the fence was a large spanking-new shed so for now I curtailed further investigation. Along the lower side of the track back down was the other seeming mound (?HY354145). The record for Snaba Hill Cairn does mention mounds to its NE. Some mound seen previously were not found later so perhaps these are they misplaced ?? Just as with Paerkeith over the alley mounds are specifically mentioned at 200m and 350m datum and I wonder if there is a significance to that.
Finally I had enough of being pixie-led (the Finns were mighty magicians) and headed out the Old Finstown Road. On the road by the Old Manse of Firth there is a big triangle of a hillock between the main road and the farmroad to Kingdale. It has always struck me as man-made despite lack ofany supporting evidence. This area is called the Cot of Cursiter. Cot probably means common pasture but the similarity of this hillock with Nevada Cott makes me wish it came alternately from cathair 'fort'. "If wishes were horses",eh ! Continuing further with the main road we come to Bridgend on the left. Between here and the regular Stromness-Kirkwall road are many small round clumps of bush/vegetation that speak to me of man's former handiwork. You can hear a torrent of water hidden by dense shruberry. Barely a glimpse can I get. Look upstream, over the other side of the road, and all is seen. It is very strange to see out here in the wilds that alongside the road the waters have come down the way between walls over two meters high. Is this just a sign that the modern road was raised that high or is it another sign of early (pre-)industrial activity. It is mighty impressive anyway.
Up to the very top of the road and you are running along the flanks of Wideford Hill. There are two ways to Wideford Hill Cairn. The first is a narrow footpath then track to the right of Haughhead then flanking around. Nowadays you go a bit further along towards Kirkwall and take the farmroad past Heathfield way up the very steep hill and then down. On the hill between these two alternatives I recently found out there are meant to be more mounds but it is a game to try and guess which are the unnatural features on this hillside and I tired of it.
On the right-hand side of the road as you come from Kirkwall up to the turnoff for Mine Howe is a small derelict structure. In the field to its right several mounds were surveyed in the 1960s and a few excavated, even the largest at 10m producing little of note. Recently the field has been ploughed up. By the left-hand fence there is now an area of blackened soil about 13m by 4m (HY504059). About the same distance from where this ends along the bottom fence is a rough ploughed-up region that resembles nothing so much as the distraught remnant of some brick-built house (HY503058). It is about 13m wide along the fence and goes up the hill for approximately 37m. Unfortunately the red soil does not appear to be brick. Both soilmarks are of distinctly regular shape. I later took a bare minimum of photos in order not to feel elitist towards what might only be mediaeval remains.
When I went down the bottom of the field to view the red section there was, in a patch of pasture close behind, a heap of stones. As these are in the nature of big slabs I feel they came from some prehistoric structure. Whether they brought here from elsewhere or come out of the field prior to ploughing I'm not sure. On the same picture as showed this I noticed after scanning a curved line of something in the foreground.
Close by the structure's far left corner is a solitary standing stone (HY504059) and there are actually several mounds in this field also. Looking across you can see the two small buildings of Brymire, and between here and The Five Hillocks at HY493067 a placename Sandy Howes (HY498063) is shown on the larger-scale CANMAP. Unfortunately the name is all we have.
COMELY TANK
Where the Comely track first skirts the shoreline a very short earthen ramp comes down. To the right of this are some thin slabs under the track. Looks at first like a wall of a cist. Not a wall because the walls along the coast here are even drystane courses. Indeed the slabs were backed up to one such - the wall has an apparent termination at the structure's RH end but it goes behind it. Against the bottom of the RH end I saw a modern rusty waterpipe of several inches diameter, though this discharges alongside not inside the flat area in front of the slabs. Here the 1:25,000 shows a well. So could it be the remains of a tank ?
COMELY CAIRN
Passing Comely I saw some stones together at a field edge. At first I thought it was a small pile dumped there. On closer inspection they are all part of of a short earthen mound and not one of modern appearance. At the cliff edge behind it is a standing stone. Looking into the bay there is very close to shore a shallow area in front of which is a line of stones that isn't fieldwall.
CAMPSTON CAIRN
Nearer Comely than Campston this very low round "indeterminate mound", originally down as a burnt mound without reason, is an insignificant lump in the nearer corner of the field that also holds St.Peter's Kirk, and to the right of a big field boundary drain. Didn't see any of the "protruding large stones" meant to be atop it but saw what struck me as many more stones than just the slumped fieldwall alongside down the 'cliff'. To the left of the drain you might make out two boggy nausts, long disused and one partially infilled in case you wonder then what they are.
ST.PETER'S KIRK
The remains of St.Peter's Kirk are much more obvious (HY536042) at the top of the hill. Even from the shore the visible stones look uncharacteristically large for a parish church. Taking the "masonry composed of massive squared blocks" with the "build up of settlement debris" you feel the trapezoidal enclosure must surely pre-date any church. RCAHMS NMRS record HY50SW 2 says the church's position within it is uncertain and the name referenced in a "Statistical Account" is actually the present St.Ninian's Church in Deerness. You cannot get to the site from the coast owing to a very taut barbwire fence along the coast. A better bet is probably the farmtrack to Ness of Campston.
ST.PETER'S BAY
Prominent on the hill as viewed from the shore, a little further along than St.Peter's Kirk. 16m E-W by 18m, most of it is grass-covered but (at least now) higher up is bare and there are some stones on its top. Even with binoculars there is no definite shape to them. It is probably a settlement mound and there is apparently suggestion of a level platform to the south. Down at the uppermost shoreline there is at the land's edge levels like those I noted in the cliff's edge to the right of the Scapa Distillery outlet (Broch of Lingro). There is hereabouts an angle of drystane wall jutting out that may be something more than that. You cannot get to the site from the coast owing to a very taut barbwire fence along the coastline. A better bet is probably the farmtrack to Ness of Campston.
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SW 21 has now the results of geophysics to the south and west in 2001. Numerous anomalies indicate an extensive site, along with an arc of of ditch about 55m diameter and 6~8m wide with a break at the SE. As a result it is thought this could be a broch-type settlement.
NEVADA COTT
Passing the Scapa Distillery turnoff heading out toward Orphir you can't miss this site immediately to your right behind the small wooden cottage whose name I have given it. Originally I thought this long mound to be the furthest settlement associated with the Broch of Lingro.For most of its length it stands a couple of metres high, the road has practically sliced through one end but there doesn't seem to be a continuance on the Lingro side. It is only from the cemetery road that you can properly conceive its length. In earlier times it would have dominated this end of the Scapa valley, both from the same level and looking down from above. There was always a suspicion on my part that it might turn out to be purely natural. Then came the view from the cemetery road of hills curving round most sides and then down on what should be a fairly flat valley bottom this sticks out like a giant prostrate thumb. I imagine this would date before the Iron Age, perhaps modified natural rather than purely man-made.
LEAFEA
It was by going up a wide ditch, presently dry, knee-deep in vegatation that I reached the end of the field with the Leafea stones. From here I could fill my camera with their image. After getting back I realised that the way chosen was the worst of several to reach Leafea and Brockan (it strikes me with hindsight that the best way is likely to be not to go down the turnoff to Warebeth but instead continue along to where the Outertown road takes a sharp turn and go around the field edges at that point). The two standing stones (1 & 1.2m high) are at right angles to the coast, earthfast. Not part of the arrangement were a couple of natural boulders of which one filled the gap.The story goes that a dog unearthed human bones at the stones' base. Now the uppermost stone is part of the barb-wire fence. It is often difficult to fathom why some stones are chosen and loads of others aren't. Just behind where I stood (HY23040928) is one of decent height, either side of where ditch meets coast are another two (HY22980917,HY22990917) and I think I remember another on the way up. All these ones differ from Leafea by being the usual taller than they are broad.
BROCKAN
My first picture of Brockan I shot from the northern end of the Leafea Stones' fence. I took several more from nearer the Outertown road later but I think that the pictures will show it looks better from below. Even on CANMAP this is still down as a chambered tomb. Understandable for the size. But a partial excavation found two chambers each with a short passage leading to a common paved stone-walled enclosure (I am reminded that at least one beehive structure used to reside in Breck Farm's stackyard). So CANMORE says present thinking is a secondary broch settlement or a small Skara Brae type village. Despite, or perhaps because of, the proximity of both Warebeth and Breckness I don't quite buy it as the former.Three stones still protrude from the top. I tried several other tracks to approach it but none came much closer (it strikes me with hindsight that the best way is likely to be not to go down the turnoff to Warebeth but instead continue along to where the Outertown road takes a sharp turn and go around the field edges at that point). Looked at from the road there appears to be a possible something in the field to its left, though admittedly only a possible cropmark. There used to be a Brockan Standing Stone at HY23140987.
BROCH OF BRECKNESS
"Almost entirely destroyed" all that is left is visible on the eroding cliff. It may be very little compared to what was once there but there is surely value in a vertical section that gradually reveals itself without any person having to excavate it ! A watching brief by archaeologists would provide useful results in time. And it goes a long ways along the cliff, over two points of the coast. Either side of the central broch there is 20~30m of settlement, and the broch itself nearly 12m diameter. Apparently there is a slice of a chapel in there too, which I wish I had known at the time. The most obvious structures at this stage in its unveiling are slab-sided floor drains.
The best way is likely to be to go past the turnoff to Warebeth and continue along to where the Outertown road takes a sharp turn and go around the field edges at that point.
DEEPDALE COTTAGE
Going back about Stromness rather than through it I came to the main Kirkwall-Stromness road and thought I had a chance to finally 'do' the Deepdale Stones. Except I still got it wrong. What I had actually spotted previously were Deepdale Cottage stones. To the left of Deepdale Cottage is a short sandy-coloured standing stone and in front of it a triangular block of the same colour. There are a one or two other stones about these of different constitution and there may be some earthwork arcing about. On the opposite side of the road at Deepdale is a solitary standing stone of a different complexion, lichen-covered like many another. None on NMRS natch. Continuing around the hill you come to a large patch of rough ground and it is off the top left corner of this that the actual Deepdale Stones are located.
FINSTOWN May 20th 2004
First I went up the Old Finstown Road (a little further along which the trail to Cuween Hill Cairn begins) to look for the 'Market Green' Mounds centered on HY364133. These lie to the left of the Firth Community Centre. Three remain, one having gone from the other side of the stream or else simply out of sight beneath the modern copse. I only saw the two for certain, with a grass path going over a turf-covered one and past one ringed over with shrubs. From the original four (RCAHMS NMRS Record no.HY31SE 12) were taken two urns and two cists. At this spot there is now neither atmosphere nor enough notability even for the likes of me to bother photographing. Going back towards town I went into the graveyard and to the upper wall to locate the Hill of Heddle Mounds. Except that I couldn't even spot these ones. They lie between Maitland's Burn and the road running below Heddle Quarry, from the last house on Heddle Hill to the electricity sub-station, at HY359133 and HY360132 and HY359131. Though the HY31SE 13 group had the name in earlier archaeology of Paerkeith RCAHMS reports that no-one local kent why last century. Next on my list was the Finstown Burnt Mound HY31SE 16 at HY355140. As you go out of Finstown there comes a bend round which you cannot see. Go up the track behind the house and walled garden there and the site is a 15m piece in the further corner of a field at the top. Despite its being bereft of green cover it also I found devoid of scenic or other interest. The map shows it halfway up the fence so perhaps I was merely befuddled again. Not that the swollen bump going across this field looks anything but natural.
Thank goodness with my main target I hit paydirt. And potholes and nettles. Back into Finstown again and on the right is the road to Evie. Go out of town and you can't miss the pillbox. This sits on The Hillock (HY361142 (RCAHMS NMRS Record no.HY31SE 4). I spent two seasons based just outwith, whilst working on The Howe outside Stromness, and I never realised I had a broch practically on my doorstep. At the near end is a space going down to the shore. To the left is a square modern wall and from there looking across its nature was plain as a pikestaff, that familiar broch outline revealed. I went down on the shore to see if there was a nice vertical section but the lumps of tarmac sticking out a foot below the clifftop disabused me of any such notion. Maybe further along, but I was restricted to how far I could go. So I came back and followed a path over the rise of the near end that may have been the double wall. Up to the pillbox for a looksee. To the shoreside of this are the visible wall remnants and the 'cell' revealed by a minor dig relatively recently. You can make out some passages and an entrance. There is even a little exposed walling. It was very dangerous getting photos because the grass hides holes, a couple of pieces of wire-frames and abundant nettles. Gingerly letting myself down to the passage floor I was always finding myself reaching out for grass holds that then revealed nettles. The walling you can see from the pillbox is a scant course or two high but when you are down in the passage looking back the cell shows itself several courses high owing to that excavation.
Buoyed up again I decided to try for the Snaba Hill Cairn at HY35221470 (Snaba Hill Cairn & Mounds RCAHMS NMRS Record no. HY31SE 10). Back into town then down to the road that snakes round the mill. As you pass the mill look across The Ouse at the shoreline base of the dump sticking out into the 'pool' and tell me those huge stones don't scream archaeology at you. Around the shoreline here is a black stone pavement and also two standing stones on their lonesome many metres apart. Near the top of the climb a track turns off from the road back over the hill. Follow this all the way to a junction and take the upper line that goes behind Binnaquoy. The first thing I noticed was a small dome cairn sitting atop the far right of a huge band of quarry stone. Even if I had been prepared the combination of the hill's steepness and the many outcrops and quarries (not all obvious even with hindsight) makes mapreading rather haphazard. So I don't now even now if I found the sites !! Anyways, at the tracks end (after taking a couple of shots and debating whether to go back or no) I stepped up to the field fence, took tight hold of the wires wrapped round a post, and cautiously swung myself over the barbwire gate. Up to the fence along the top of the field where my two new targets lay. The other side was the quarry outcrop. To its left unfortunately just the other side of the fence was the mound that could have been Snaba Hill Cairn. But that was distinguished by the tops of a circular ring of stones splayed outwards whereas this (?HY352146) had many stones over it and when I went to the right end and looked at the back there was a chunk out at the lower end with a very neat open-ended box wall inside it. At the top end of the fence was a large spanking-new shed so for now I curtailed further investigation. Along the lower side of the track back down was the other seeming mound (?HY354145). The record for Snaba Hill Cairn does mention mounds to its NE. Some mound seen previously were not found later so perhaps these are they misplaced ?? Just as with Paerkeith over the alley mounds are specifically mentioned at 200m and 350m datum and I wonder if there is a significance to that.
Finally I had enough of being pixie-led (the Finns were mighty magicians) and headed out the Old Finstown Road. On the road by the Old Manse of Firth there is a big triangle of a hillock between the main road and the farmroad to Kingdale. It has always struck me as man-made despite lack ofany supporting evidence. This area is called the Cot of Cursiter. Cot probably means common pasture but the similarity of this hillock with Nevada Cott makes me wish it came alternately from cathair 'fort'. "If wishes were horses",eh ! Continuing further with the main road we come to Bridgend on the left. Between here and the regular Stromness-Kirkwall road are many small round clumps of bush/vegetation that speak to me of man's former handiwork. You can hear a torrent of water hidden by dense shruberry. Barely a glimpse can I get. Look upstream, over the other side of the road, and all is seen. It is very strange to see out here in the wilds that alongside the road the waters have come down the way between walls over two meters high. Is this just a sign that the modern road was raised that high or is it another sign of early (pre-)industrial activity. It is mighty impressive anyway.
Up to the very top of the road and you are running along the flanks of Wideford Hill. There are two ways to Wideford Hill Cairn. The first is a narrow footpath then track to the right of Haughhead then flanking around. Nowadays you go a bit further along towards Kirkwall and take the farmroad past Heathfield way up the very steep hill and then down. On the hill between these two alternatives I recently found out there are meant to be more mounds but it is a game to try and guess which are the unnatural features on this hillside and I tired of it.
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
ST.PETER'S BAY
Once again I had to wonder about the fact that almost all of the lumps and hollows alongside the Deerness road (mostly on the RH side strangely enough) are not indicated on CANMAP. It is difficult to think that none of those bowls of slabs/stones (including modern dumped material admittedly), no unremarked mounds nor any of the raised tracks and geometric ridges, are of any consequence. Instate a few and you could make a case for a distinct region all the way from, say, Craw Howe and The Five Hillocks to the three howes (Round,Long,Mine) and Breck Farm. So it felt to me anyway.
My first 'new' site is actually near Mine Howe and strictly temporary because it comes in the nature of soilmarks. On the right-hand side of the road as you come from Kirkwall up to the turnoff for Mine Howe is a small derelict building. In the field to its right several mounds (HY503600) were surveyed in the 1960s and a few excavated, producing little of note. Recently the field has been ploughed up. By the left-hand fence there is now an area of blackened soil for about 13m (HY504059). About the same distance from where this ends along the bottom fence is a rough ploughed-up region that resembles nothing so much as the distraught remnant of some brick-built house (HY503058). It is about 13m wide along the fence and goes up the hill for approximately 37m. Unfortunately the red soil does not appear to be brick. Both soilmarks are of distinctly regular shape. I later took a bare minimum of photos in order not to feel elitist towards what were most likely to have been mediaeval remains.
If I had gone down the farmtrack past Campston I could have crossed fields to my intended sites. From here St.Peter's Kirk resembles the rectangular floor of a WWII structure grassed over and the settlement mound a small hill not much of anything. But I wished to avoid any over-zealous farmer and along the coast was nearer to them. Also I saw that beween the Comely farmtrack and a carpark at the bottom of the hill I'd marked from NMRS map a mound with possible cist slabs (HY540037). Couldn't spot it from the roadside. Figured it might be closer to the cliff. Never did find it by either route. Briefly considered popping over again to Dingieshowe Broch but wanted to make the most of the light in case it faded early.
Went behind the car park and along the shore. First bit of interest provided by what looks like an antediluvian wall of black stone. Usually this kind of object heads off straight into the sea, mostly underwater, but this arcs shorebound around the coastline for several metres before turning sharply landwards. The base is most likely natural, close to ground and well heeled into the surface. But it appears co-opted for man's use in some prior time, topped with rhomboid slabs of the same rock close packed on end (those that survive) like the armouring of some antediluvian beastie but at right-angles to the line of the 'wall'. Where the Comely track first skirts the shoreline a very short earthen ramp comes down. To the right of this are some thin slabs under the track (HY54010382). Looks at first like a wall of a cist. Not a wall because the walls along the coast here are even drystane courses. Indeed the slabs were backed up to one such. Against the bottom of their RH end I saw a rusty waterpipe of several inches diameter. Here the 1:25,000 shows a well. So could it be the remains of a tank ?
Passing Comely I saw some stones together at a field edge (HY54040403). At first I thought it was a small pile dumped there. On closer inspection they are all part of of a short earthen mound and not one of modern appearance. At the cliff edge behind it is a standing stone. Looking into the bay there is very close to shore a shallow area in front of which is a line of stones that isn't fieldwall.
Now I could clearly see three targets. The best one I took to be one of my targets (though at the wrong end of the field) except it was only an outcrop of very large boulders. Turned out that the actual "indeterminate mound" (HY537042) was an insignificant lump in the nearer corner of the field that also holds St.Peter's Kirk, to the right of a field boundary drain. Didn't see any protruding slabs atop it but many more stones than just the slumped fieldwall alongside down the 'cliff' .
The remains of St.Peter's Kirk are much more obvious (HY536042) at the top of the hill. Even from the shore the visible stones look uncharacteristically large for a parish church. Taking the "masonry composed of massive squared blocks" with the "build up of settlement debris" you feel the trapezoidal enclosure must surely pre-date any church.
Equally prominent on the hill, a little further along, is my last target (HY537045). Most of it is grass-covered but (at least now) higher up is bare and there are some stones on its top. Even with binoculars there is no definite shape to them. It is probably a settlement mound and there is apparently suggestion of a level platform to the south. Down at the uppermost shoreline there is at the land's edge levels like those I noted in the cliff's edge to the right of the Scapa Distillery outlet (Broch of Lingro). There is hereabouts an angle of drystane wall jutting out that may be something more than that.
Unfortunately a very taut barbwire fence along this coastline inhibits further progress to these sights from here, so it would seem that the Campston route could be the better option. Turning back I saw a couple of seals nosing the water for a looksee.
Once again I had to wonder about the fact that almost all of the lumps and hollows alongside the Deerness road (mostly on the RH side strangely enough) are not indicated on CANMAP. It is difficult to think that none of those bowls of slabs/stones (including modern dumped material admittedly), no unremarked mounds nor any of the raised tracks and geometric ridges, are of any consequence. Instate a few and you could make a case for a distinct region all the way from, say, Craw Howe and The Five Hillocks to the three howes (Round,Long,Mine) and Breck Farm. So it felt to me anyway.
My first 'new' site is actually near Mine Howe and strictly temporary because it comes in the nature of soilmarks. On the right-hand side of the road as you come from Kirkwall up to the turnoff for Mine Howe is a small derelict building. In the field to its right several mounds (HY503600) were surveyed in the 1960s and a few excavated, producing little of note. Recently the field has been ploughed up. By the left-hand fence there is now an area of blackened soil for about 13m (HY504059). About the same distance from where this ends along the bottom fence is a rough ploughed-up region that resembles nothing so much as the distraught remnant of some brick-built house (HY503058). It is about 13m wide along the fence and goes up the hill for approximately 37m. Unfortunately the red soil does not appear to be brick. Both soilmarks are of distinctly regular shape. I later took a bare minimum of photos in order not to feel elitist towards what were most likely to have been mediaeval remains.
If I had gone down the farmtrack past Campston I could have crossed fields to my intended sites. From here St.Peter's Kirk resembles the rectangular floor of a WWII structure grassed over and the settlement mound a small hill not much of anything. But I wished to avoid any over-zealous farmer and along the coast was nearer to them. Also I saw that beween the Comely farmtrack and a carpark at the bottom of the hill I'd marked from NMRS map a mound with possible cist slabs (HY540037). Couldn't spot it from the roadside. Figured it might be closer to the cliff. Never did find it by either route. Briefly considered popping over again to Dingieshowe Broch but wanted to make the most of the light in case it faded early.
Went behind the car park and along the shore. First bit of interest provided by what looks like an antediluvian wall of black stone. Usually this kind of object heads off straight into the sea, mostly underwater, but this arcs shorebound around the coastline for several metres before turning sharply landwards. The base is most likely natural, close to ground and well heeled into the surface. But it appears co-opted for man's use in some prior time, topped with rhomboid slabs of the same rock close packed on end (those that survive) like the armouring of some antediluvian beastie but at right-angles to the line of the 'wall'. Where the Comely track first skirts the shoreline a very short earthen ramp comes down. To the right of this are some thin slabs under the track (HY54010382). Looks at first like a wall of a cist. Not a wall because the walls along the coast here are even drystane courses. Indeed the slabs were backed up to one such. Against the bottom of their RH end I saw a rusty waterpipe of several inches diameter. Here the 1:25,000 shows a well. So could it be the remains of a tank ?
Passing Comely I saw some stones together at a field edge (HY54040403). At first I thought it was a small pile dumped there. On closer inspection they are all part of of a short earthen mound and not one of modern appearance. At the cliff edge behind it is a standing stone. Looking into the bay there is very close to shore a shallow area in front of which is a line of stones that isn't fieldwall.
Now I could clearly see three targets. The best one I took to be one of my targets (though at the wrong end of the field) except it was only an outcrop of very large boulders. Turned out that the actual "indeterminate mound" (HY537042) was an insignificant lump in the nearer corner of the field that also holds St.Peter's Kirk, to the right of a field boundary drain. Didn't see any protruding slabs atop it but many more stones than just the slumped fieldwall alongside down the 'cliff' .
The remains of St.Peter's Kirk are much more obvious (HY536042) at the top of the hill. Even from the shore the visible stones look uncharacteristically large for a parish church. Taking the "masonry composed of massive squared blocks" with the "build up of settlement debris" you feel the trapezoidal enclosure must surely pre-date any church.
Equally prominent on the hill, a little further along, is my last target (HY537045). Most of it is grass-covered but (at least now) higher up is bare and there are some stones on its top. Even with binoculars there is no definite shape to them. It is probably a settlement mound and there is apparently suggestion of a level platform to the south. Down at the uppermost shoreline there is at the land's edge levels like those I noted in the cliff's edge to the right of the Scapa Distillery outlet (Broch of Lingro). There is hereabouts an angle of drystane wall jutting out that may be something more than that.
Unfortunately a very taut barbwire fence along this coastline inhibits further progress to these sights from here, so it would seem that the Campston route could be the better option. Turning back I saw a couple of seals nosing the water for a looksee.
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
MARK STONE OF GAITNIP bridge
MARCH 30th 2004 :- two ways that I could have gone. Coming from Kirkwall you will come across an unmarked isolated set of (minor) stately home type gates and this is, I guess the long and winding road that leads to Gaitnip. The site is marked beside the track behind Gaitnip coming from this direction.
I chose to avoid habitation and go down the track that runs down from alongside Works. This way you have to be fit because of the various kinds of gate and fence along the way. Somewhere on the left before you reach the burn there used to be a cairn called Sir Hugh's Seat (HY456060). Coming up the hill there is a dogleg that goes to the right. Inside this junction is what looks for all the world like a grassed-over broch's remains but CANMORE only has this as where the OS used to show an unroofed structure (Burn of Deepdale HY452057). Next up a set of small portable fences lies across the way - just managed to step over them with care. After this the track is blocked by agricultural stuff, but fortunately the field alongside is not fenced there if a trifle muddy. This track ends at a crack in the earth going down to the sea, and you turn right here.
Along the field edge is a broad and deeply rutted trackway. From here you look across three fields to Gaitnip, and the middle one of those on your right is marked on the map as Mark Stone of Gaitnip. This is at HY448061, the present TMA grid reference of HY446061 is actually the lower boundary of the field beneath this. Regardless I could find no standing stones anywhere apart from the very small ones that were part of the (mostly) turfed-over drystone walls and a possible set of short wall ends. This absence is likely enough why there is no more info on the site.
But all may not be lost. For a third of the way through the first field a short bridge runs across the track (at HY458048) and apart fron the innermost end it is comprised of two slabs of stone over four inches deep. I think one or both of these are the Mark Stone of Gaitnip re-used. One is 1.3m x 1.2m and the other 0.9m x 1.9m. This isn't the first of these (?foot) bridges in Orkney, often quite far away from habitation and of incongruously huge blocks. It strikes me that standing stones are being re-used simply because they were close at hand, I don't think any farmer would willingly cart megaliths all that way out, a waste of time and energy otherwise.
BERSTANE BROCH
Not far from the edge of town, down below Berstane Farm follow the track that goes to the right, the direction of Inganess Bay. At the far corner of the grounds of Berstane House is a dovecot, a square masonry tower with a stepped back at the top. From here look diagonally acoss to the familiar shape of an eroded broch on the small headland at the bottom of a field. There are supposed to be other settlement remains in the vicinity but I'm not aware of having seen any. Coming down to it I saw a big scoop in the centre of my field of view which I thought to be the broch interior with small stones around the edge revealed. But from the top of the mound I saw this to be a scoop excavated from the ege rather, for here I was definitely in the region of the interior. This broch is of a similar size and situation to Ingshowe but with fewer large stones exposed to view. I had to crawl through a barbwire fence to stand on the high point from where I could make out more easily the general 'furniture' of a broch. CANMORE said a section was exposed 10' up the cliff face and I had seen on the left an easy way down to the beach. The masses of seaweed made further exploration dangerous and I would advise not going alone . Carefully I made my way around to the sandy area at the foot of the cliff supporting the broch. Here the upper part looks very similar to Ingshowe (right down to the stones pointing out at right-angles over the cliff) except that the base isn't well delineated - probably owing to its being built upon well inclined strata.
From Berstane Farm a track does run straight down to the shore, but for the infrequent visitor this route is most problematical for the aforementioned reason.
ST.MARY'S
Coming from Kirkwall, first seen on your right at the bottom of the hill going into St.Mary's, an undistinguished low-seeming mound between the Loch of Ayre (an ayre being a shingle bank seperating land from sea) and a minor road going past an electricity sub-station. I think that you need to be sure-footed to visit this site. At the junction with the main road you go down and over a defeated fence. You'd miss it if you didn't know it was there and even closer to all you see is a tussock-covered area with several deep cuts snaking through the mound. Appearances notwithstanding all these are original - you can feel the passages' stones. It is not until you go to the top of the outer wall that the structure becomes more apparent. Most of the visible stonework is the outer skin of the inner wall, you can make out contenders for entrances as you move around the outside of the central broch tower (this survives to 1.3m). Few stones can be seen in the broch interior itself.
LAMB HOLM
CANMORE gives this prehistoric settlement as 450m WSW of the Italian Chapel. More usefully it is by the shore the other side of the main road and can be sighted along the side road to the chapel. There must be an easier way in than over the blocks at the end of Churchill Barrier Number One, which was the way I chose for reasons of time - having clambered atop the blocks I saw some stones had been placed on the coastal side of one for such a purpose.
I must admit my hopes were low, maybe a few slight bumps if I was lucky. Proceeding along the coastline there was a flattened area 'paved' by flat stones and a few sticking up slightly. At the time because I came upon them so quickly I put them down to being either purely geological or of recent agricultural origin but after what came after I am more open to a dfferent interpretatation. The very next thing was two platforms each 4-5m across, with stones at the sides and back giving them a wedge shape several inches high at the rear. Very nice. Seeing more stones going across the edge of the low cliff I went down onto the beach for a quick shufty. Oh, glory be, what a sight, the cliff hereabouts was a housewall composed of a multitude of rounded stones about the size of a housebrick at most, course after course. All told the exposed section could be made out for 14m, tapering off into indistinction either side. It may be that it does continue erratically over an even longer portion of the cliff, though the cliff-face shortly goes down to sea-level at the left. The main central portion that first took my fancy is the 4m to the right of the only orthostat in the section. Neolithic or at the least Bronze Age
Coming back up I went towards a small modern structure roadside to see if there was another way out there. There wasn't but I did pass a couple of depressions with a few smaa stones in that might be something. And then a couple of linear humps, short but suggestive - though what of I'm no sure.
PLUMCAKE MOUND
Supposedly an early archaeologists' name for it rather than a local one, this is the knowe opposite the modern entrance to the Ring of Brodgar and slap bang alongside the car park. At one time two short cists were extracted from the mound, but unfortunately having been excavated many times all that is left is the many inroads that now make its appearance so interesting. Contrast that with the basically featureless Fresh Knowe (HY296134) back down the road a little - though there is mention of traces of horns at the south and east corners- and this was at some time the the subject of an abortive excavation (however mention of a cist is believed in error for Salt Knowe behind the ring).
SALT KNOWE
Behind the Ring of Brodgar in the RH corner of the field there is a cist-like structure at the top of this mound, though all I could locate on my visit was the turf-covered edge of a long horizontal slab at the side facing the loch. During an excavation nine pieces of silver 'ring-money' were found.
DYKE O'SEAN
For some reason CANMORE does not give this name, instead listing it as Wasbister earthwork associated with the Stenness-Sandwick boundary. This lies in the same boggy field as other minor Wasbister/Bookan sites, beginning right in the LH corner. Because it does not follow the parish boundary, or at least only very roughly, it must predate this. Certainly from the geophysics results it has been interpreted as demarcing the nortern limit of the Ness of Brodgar sacred sites. However at the same time it has also been speculated that Bookan chambered tomb on the hill above performs this same function. Sighting along the boulder 'wall' you can see a standing stone. To get to the dyke you'd need something better than waterproof shoes as the dyke this end is between a stream and a barbed-wire fence. At least I hope I have identified the dyke correctly as the map doesn't quite match all the present field divisions.
WASBISTER DISC BARROW
Its being down on CANMORE as Bookan Barrow means I did not make the most of my opportunity. The site looked wonderful when I was on it but I couldn't fit any of the views I wanted with my wide-angle lens and so took only one poor photo. You need better than 28mm it seems, or maybe being a six-footer or taller ? I can see why some archaeologists call this a superb example of a disc barrow, oh its divine. They all refer to it as the Wasbister disc barrow, so do websites and news reports, but CANMORE only shows Hall of Tankerness disc barrow in Orkney. In the RCAHMS listing the archaeologist says Wasbister lacks the diagnostic berm. It is in a field with several waterlogged bits. On the shoreline above the barrow two monoliths were found and related to the Ring of Brodgar and such. If I had known where I was I would have had a peek.
BOOKAN CAIRNS
Apparently two though only one registered with me. In the same slightly boggy field as the Wasbister 'disc barrow', slightly above left of centre, with many stones about a central line. In the mid-19th century they weren't sure what these were only to say they looked like larger versions of hut circles. Lo and behold, when the whole area was geophysiced as part of the interpretation "may also imply that there is also a Neolithic settlement hidden among the remains at Wasbister".
STONES OF VIA
Located behind the ruins at the back of Via, which lies the other side of the road from the Loch of Clumley that gives the alternative name. Very impressive pileup, you can understand why the archaeologists admit to being baffled by the remains. The enclosure reference is to the approx. 88x75m depression about it. Though not totally sure the six stones are in situ archaeologists hazard it may be all we have left of a Maes Howe tomb. The stones aren't all that big, the impression of being massive comes from how thick they are. In Orkney most chambered tombs are of much slighter slabs or of drystane walling. But the impression I had in the flesh was more a sense of its being a dolmen or cromlech. The marshy ground a little distance to the right appears to be above where the well was previously.
The decorated stone was in front of the wall the LH font of the ruins but I saw no trace.
VOY CRANNOGS
Nice to see professional archaeologists spotting Orkney's anomalous under-representation in the crannog stakes. Several are being looked at this year, of which these (briefly mentioned in my Heart of Orkney weblog "In the loch there were two islets , a very small one on which were some no doubt natural slabs and a larger one with the remains of some structure apparent") are the main targets. The NGR is for that which has a structure visible at one end - the other is at HY260150.
BROUGH OF BIGGING
You can't possibly miss the headland that it's on but there is a map at the car park to be on the safe side. Very difficult to reach (though a peach compared to the Broch of Borwick). Even to get there you have to go over fractured stone pavement along the coast, pass over a small stream and around a tricky boggy path. Only one of the defensive walls is that obvious but it is charming even if not a full line of stones know. There are some structures o the top that were (?fancifully) called sailors' graves. I saw one of these by the cliff edge ahead of the stone cairn and on the RH side, roughly 3m across. Just three slabs sticking up and a few other stones beside, but a very obvious structure in regards to the situation.
BROCH OF BORWICK
Going down the road to Yesnaby almost instantly you realise that this is one of the routes in Orkney that has missed out on a closer look by the archaeological community, using CANMAP there seems little here but on the ground it appears jam-packed. Abundant rocky outcrops do confuse matters I suppose. If I were looking for the broch again I would try for the more direct approach from Borwick Farm. Going along the coast as I did is only for the very able bodied and definitely not when it has been chucking it down. First obstacle a barbwire fence, which fortunately at one section has a couple of lines missing. Here tou can see two lines of 'standing stone fences' intersect. One of the fences goes across till it hugs all along the very cliff edge. Oh these standing stones are real beauties standing in sturdy big slab-lined rectangular sockets magnificently constructed. Eventually you see the broch ahead on a small headland. For most people the best thing to do would be to use a good telephoto shot from this spot (which I missed out on) and then turn back. The photo would look as if taken from a rock-steady boat to my mind. But now you descend a steep and slippery hillside and cross the stream just above the ruin in the narrow valley. Now an uphill struggle and a barbwire fence. The stile over this is of inferior modern construction - two strips of wood parallel to the fence at no distance and resting on narrow pillars. There is no gap in the fence here and my shortish legs only just scraped over. At the top of the hill entrance to the site is over a less rickety stile thank goodness. Before this standing stone fence at left there is a rectangular depression with several stones that is definitely not wall. To the front right of the broch tower there is a large area covered with stones of various sizes and conditions. Once inside the fence you can see that there is one large thin slab that appears to show a structure. The entrance to the broch tower is round to the left. In front of this are two now uncapped guard cells in plain view, the left being especially well preserved. The doorway is only preserved up to the lintel but apart from a bit of a gap there the broch continues up for several courses more. Some large stones lie on the entrance floor and make it so that you have to bend over to scramble through. Inside there are still some suggestions of structure. All the back is gone of course, and there the broch wall remains are only a couple of feet across and back onto sheer cliff. In order to obtain an overview I had to stand on this hunched back with my 28mm attached, when I just managed the shot. On going back I could see two structural holes either side of the entrance - for a bar ??
BROCH OF LINGRO
This used to be in the field to the left of Scapa Distillery. The broch tower itself was levelled in 1981, along with the immediately surrounding area, but points of interest still remain - as do unexcavated settlement mounds from there back to the main road at least. The most visible evidence of the broch lies either side of the stream outlet as it reaches the shore and cascades down.
As you go up the cliff path to here you will notice a feature, 14m across and taking in an area out to the cliff edge 11m at furthest point, that itself looks like the remains of a broch or somesuch; a place where the cliff goes out and there is a ditch 1.8x1m like a sector of a circle, and within its arc a flat area 6x4.8m. As I can only see earth and sod and it isn't shown on CANMAP we may perhaps safely call it a simulacrum? The LH edge of the arc goes 6m straight to the cliff edge. HY436088
If you pass over the bridge and up the other side you will need to watch your step the rest of the way - a teenager fell from near here just recently in damp conditions. There is another curious feature just past here inside where the lichen-covered wall turns for a few metres before resume its coastline track. At the point where it first turns (HY434087) there is a short line of regular-shaped stones darker than the wall, level with the path and over which you narrowly pass. Then up between where the wall turns again and its next juncture (HY433087) similar lines of like nature can be made out. Being on the coastline side of the decaying cliff face I assume that this predates the present wall. If this feature were angled away from coast I would have no doubt it represents the walls of a structure, but unless it is very ancient I am at a loss as to what it can be ( why no lichen on the stones for starters !).
Down on the coast one can see more evidence of settlement at the top of the cliff face on the stream outlet's immediate right, though I wasn't convinced until I saw it today in the light of recent visits to other brochs. Where the cliff's stone ends is a layer of what looks like cultivated soil and a thin line going straight across, very reminiscent of the broch bases at Ingshowe and Berstane. There are the odd few stones to be made out in this ?matrix. But it is the next layer, that under the grass, that has finally convinced me now that I have made it out clearly. This is a layer several inches thick made up of nothing but angular fragmented small stones (and possibly man-made material as though there are red rocks on the Scapa shore there are none up the cliff-face except here) several inches deep. Unless my eyes decieve me this is most likely to be a destruction layer. HY435088
VIA MOUND HY260158
There is meant to be a cist in the SE quadrant of the Stones of Via ditch. What I found was well to the right of the stones however, so I presumed it to be my error for the aerial 'socket' until I saw on CANMAP that it isn't even "in the ballpark" for this. There is a waterlogged patch of ground going uphill and the feature is at the top of this. On CANMORE a mound HY21NE 4 formerly stood at HY260159 and in relation to my find it is worth noting that in 1928 a mound of stones (now gone) at the south edge of a pool of water was presumed to be its remains.
RCAHMS archaeology survey section believe this cist may only relatively recently have come to the surface.Alternaively could be that the cist reported in the SE quadrant of the Stones of Via ditch is the same as the stone jumble supposedly gone from here - depends if ditch=enclosure.
'GRIMSQUOY'
Yes, those punctuation marks are about the name on the NMRS ! I've debated long about adding these, but yesterday they stood out. They lie the other side of the stream from the often muddy footpath between Inganess Bay and the road to Deerness. Coming from the road having watched a reed bunting I noticed a few stones near the bottom of the mound at that end. Passing by and looking back the appearance was of a low hill of three humps. It is probably on airport land but it is only just the other side of the beck. Originally it was seen as over half-a-dozen mounds, of which a couple were modern and some had been used by farmers for a sheep fold etc. Now the archaeologists seem to be concluding that it is one mound heavily dug into and they are no longer confident of any antiquity.
LONG CAIRN
Actually you are unlikely to get to this as the approach to the headland is water board property, though I guess you could phone ahead and ask. This is a long (h)low mound [153'x40'x6'] with a few slabs sticking out of the higher E end that they say were once more prominent.The mound has four horns.
VENIKELDAY
Described as a possible broch within a ringwork this site reminds me now of Tingwall, something extensively modified. The photos I shall add only show the main portion - it has been cut through by a 'modern' track and what remains on the right of the track is rather inconspicious. Difficult to make sense of the transect, this 'wall' appears too linear for a circular structure.
It lies off the main road about half-way between Toab and Campston and on the same side of the road, and though called after the latter it actually lies on a track going down to ?Venikelday. It may be of significance that it lies roughly half-way between the Mine Howe and Dingieshowe sites.
Seen from behind it does resemble a broch with tower slightly more. What is certain to me is that it is nothing like the Ring of Bookan, the ringwork is just that. You can see that how close it would have been to the water's edge when sea-levels were higher. This time I had a closer look at the part of the site the other side of the farmtrack. Though overall lower than the putative broch side there is evidently a lot more going on in terms of structures, many obvious lumps and bumps. Doesn't need much of a look to see where a stream passed by the edge of the site, a circumstance that by now feels diagnostic to me of a cliffside broch (those further uphill we presume to have had wells, though we never did find one at The Howe and joked that it lay under the site hut!). There do, though, appear to be a couple of very small bumps the other side of this . It is possible the site continues up to the farm roadside as there are probable structures just below there, either that or a slght relocation in later times.
MARCH 30th 2004 :- two ways that I could have gone. Coming from Kirkwall you will come across an unmarked isolated set of (minor) stately home type gates and this is, I guess the long and winding road that leads to Gaitnip. The site is marked beside the track behind Gaitnip coming from this direction.
I chose to avoid habitation and go down the track that runs down from alongside Works. This way you have to be fit because of the various kinds of gate and fence along the way. Somewhere on the left before you reach the burn there used to be a cairn called Sir Hugh's Seat (HY456060). Coming up the hill there is a dogleg that goes to the right. Inside this junction is what looks for all the world like a grassed-over broch's remains but CANMORE only has this as where the OS used to show an unroofed structure (Burn of Deepdale HY452057). Next up a set of small portable fences lies across the way - just managed to step over them with care. After this the track is blocked by agricultural stuff, but fortunately the field alongside is not fenced there if a trifle muddy. This track ends at a crack in the earth going down to the sea, and you turn right here.
Along the field edge is a broad and deeply rutted trackway. From here you look across three fields to Gaitnip, and the middle one of those on your right is marked on the map as Mark Stone of Gaitnip. This is at HY448061, the present TMA grid reference of HY446061 is actually the lower boundary of the field beneath this. Regardless I could find no standing stones anywhere apart from the very small ones that were part of the (mostly) turfed-over drystone walls and a possible set of short wall ends. This absence is likely enough why there is no more info on the site.
But all may not be lost. For a third of the way through the first field a short bridge runs across the track (at HY458048) and apart fron the innermost end it is comprised of two slabs of stone over four inches deep. I think one or both of these are the Mark Stone of Gaitnip re-used. One is 1.3m x 1.2m and the other 0.9m x 1.9m. This isn't the first of these (?foot) bridges in Orkney, often quite far away from habitation and of incongruously huge blocks. It strikes me that standing stones are being re-used simply because they were close at hand, I don't think any farmer would willingly cart megaliths all that way out, a waste of time and energy otherwise.
BERSTANE BROCH
Not far from the edge of town, down below Berstane Farm follow the track that goes to the right, the direction of Inganess Bay. At the far corner of the grounds of Berstane House is a dovecot, a square masonry tower with a stepped back at the top. From here look diagonally acoss to the familiar shape of an eroded broch on the small headland at the bottom of a field. There are supposed to be other settlement remains in the vicinity but I'm not aware of having seen any. Coming down to it I saw a big scoop in the centre of my field of view which I thought to be the broch interior with small stones around the edge revealed. But from the top of the mound I saw this to be a scoop excavated from the ege rather, for here I was definitely in the region of the interior. This broch is of a similar size and situation to Ingshowe but with fewer large stones exposed to view. I had to crawl through a barbwire fence to stand on the high point from where I could make out more easily the general 'furniture' of a broch. CANMORE said a section was exposed 10' up the cliff face and I had seen on the left an easy way down to the beach. The masses of seaweed made further exploration dangerous and I would advise not going alone . Carefully I made my way around to the sandy area at the foot of the cliff supporting the broch. Here the upper part looks very similar to Ingshowe (right down to the stones pointing out at right-angles over the cliff) except that the base isn't well delineated - probably owing to its being built upon well inclined strata.
From Berstane Farm a track does run straight down to the shore, but for the infrequent visitor this route is most problematical for the aforementioned reason.
ST.MARY'S
Coming from Kirkwall, first seen on your right at the bottom of the hill going into St.Mary's, an undistinguished low-seeming mound between the Loch of Ayre (an ayre being a shingle bank seperating land from sea) and a minor road going past an electricity sub-station. I think that you need to be sure-footed to visit this site. At the junction with the main road you go down and over a defeated fence. You'd miss it if you didn't know it was there and even closer to all you see is a tussock-covered area with several deep cuts snaking through the mound. Appearances notwithstanding all these are original - you can feel the passages' stones. It is not until you go to the top of the outer wall that the structure becomes more apparent. Most of the visible stonework is the outer skin of the inner wall, you can make out contenders for entrances as you move around the outside of the central broch tower (this survives to 1.3m). Few stones can be seen in the broch interior itself.
LAMB HOLM
CANMORE gives this prehistoric settlement as 450m WSW of the Italian Chapel. More usefully it is by the shore the other side of the main road and can be sighted along the side road to the chapel. There must be an easier way in than over the blocks at the end of Churchill Barrier Number One, which was the way I chose for reasons of time - having clambered atop the blocks I saw some stones had been placed on the coastal side of one for such a purpose.
I must admit my hopes were low, maybe a few slight bumps if I was lucky. Proceeding along the coastline there was a flattened area 'paved' by flat stones and a few sticking up slightly. At the time because I came upon them so quickly I put them down to being either purely geological or of recent agricultural origin but after what came after I am more open to a dfferent interpretatation. The very next thing was two platforms each 4-5m across, with stones at the sides and back giving them a wedge shape several inches high at the rear. Very nice. Seeing more stones going across the edge of the low cliff I went down onto the beach for a quick shufty. Oh, glory be, what a sight, the cliff hereabouts was a housewall composed of a multitude of rounded stones about the size of a housebrick at most, course after course. All told the exposed section could be made out for 14m, tapering off into indistinction either side. It may be that it does continue erratically over an even longer portion of the cliff, though the cliff-face shortly goes down to sea-level at the left. The main central portion that first took my fancy is the 4m to the right of the only orthostat in the section. Neolithic or at the least Bronze Age
Coming back up I went towards a small modern structure roadside to see if there was another way out there. There wasn't but I did pass a couple of depressions with a few smaa stones in that might be something. And then a couple of linear humps, short but suggestive - though what of I'm no sure.
PLUMCAKE MOUND
Supposedly an early archaeologists' name for it rather than a local one, this is the knowe opposite the modern entrance to the Ring of Brodgar and slap bang alongside the car park. At one time two short cists were extracted from the mound, but unfortunately having been excavated many times all that is left is the many inroads that now make its appearance so interesting. Contrast that with the basically featureless Fresh Knowe (HY296134) back down the road a little - though there is mention of traces of horns at the south and east corners- and this was at some time the the subject of an abortive excavation (however mention of a cist is believed in error for Salt Knowe behind the ring).
SALT KNOWE
Behind the Ring of Brodgar in the RH corner of the field there is a cist-like structure at the top of this mound, though all I could locate on my visit was the turf-covered edge of a long horizontal slab at the side facing the loch. During an excavation nine pieces of silver 'ring-money' were found.
DYKE O'SEAN
For some reason CANMORE does not give this name, instead listing it as Wasbister earthwork associated with the Stenness-Sandwick boundary. This lies in the same boggy field as other minor Wasbister/Bookan sites, beginning right in the LH corner. Because it does not follow the parish boundary, or at least only very roughly, it must predate this. Certainly from the geophysics results it has been interpreted as demarcing the nortern limit of the Ness of Brodgar sacred sites. However at the same time it has also been speculated that Bookan chambered tomb on the hill above performs this same function. Sighting along the boulder 'wall' you can see a standing stone. To get to the dyke you'd need something better than waterproof shoes as the dyke this end is between a stream and a barbed-wire fence. At least I hope I have identified the dyke correctly as the map doesn't quite match all the present field divisions.
WASBISTER DISC BARROW
Its being down on CANMORE as Bookan Barrow means I did not make the most of my opportunity. The site looked wonderful when I was on it but I couldn't fit any of the views I wanted with my wide-angle lens and so took only one poor photo. You need better than 28mm it seems, or maybe being a six-footer or taller ? I can see why some archaeologists call this a superb example of a disc barrow, oh its divine. They all refer to it as the Wasbister disc barrow, so do websites and news reports, but CANMORE only shows Hall of Tankerness disc barrow in Orkney. In the RCAHMS listing the archaeologist says Wasbister lacks the diagnostic berm. It is in a field with several waterlogged bits. On the shoreline above the barrow two monoliths were found and related to the Ring of Brodgar and such. If I had known where I was I would have had a peek.
BOOKAN CAIRNS
Apparently two though only one registered with me. In the same slightly boggy field as the Wasbister 'disc barrow', slightly above left of centre, with many stones about a central line. In the mid-19th century they weren't sure what these were only to say they looked like larger versions of hut circles. Lo and behold, when the whole area was geophysiced as part of the interpretation "may also imply that there is also a Neolithic settlement hidden among the remains at Wasbister".
STONES OF VIA
Located behind the ruins at the back of Via, which lies the other side of the road from the Loch of Clumley that gives the alternative name. Very impressive pileup, you can understand why the archaeologists admit to being baffled by the remains. The enclosure reference is to the approx. 88x75m depression about it. Though not totally sure the six stones are in situ archaeologists hazard it may be all we have left of a Maes Howe tomb. The stones aren't all that big, the impression of being massive comes from how thick they are. In Orkney most chambered tombs are of much slighter slabs or of drystane walling. But the impression I had in the flesh was more a sense of its being a dolmen or cromlech. The marshy ground a little distance to the right appears to be above where the well was previously.
The decorated stone was in front of the wall the LH font of the ruins but I saw no trace.
VOY CRANNOGS
Nice to see professional archaeologists spotting Orkney's anomalous under-representation in the crannog stakes. Several are being looked at this year, of which these (briefly mentioned in my Heart of Orkney weblog "In the loch there were two islets , a very small one on which were some no doubt natural slabs and a larger one with the remains of some structure apparent") are the main targets. The NGR is for that which has a structure visible at one end - the other is at HY260150.
BROUGH OF BIGGING
You can't possibly miss the headland that it's on but there is a map at the car park to be on the safe side. Very difficult to reach (though a peach compared to the Broch of Borwick). Even to get there you have to go over fractured stone pavement along the coast, pass over a small stream and around a tricky boggy path. Only one of the defensive walls is that obvious but it is charming even if not a full line of stones know. There are some structures o the top that were (?fancifully) called sailors' graves. I saw one of these by the cliff edge ahead of the stone cairn and on the RH side, roughly 3m across. Just three slabs sticking up and a few other stones beside, but a very obvious structure in regards to the situation.
BROCH OF BORWICK
Going down the road to Yesnaby almost instantly you realise that this is one of the routes in Orkney that has missed out on a closer look by the archaeological community, using CANMAP there seems little here but on the ground it appears jam-packed. Abundant rocky outcrops do confuse matters I suppose. If I were looking for the broch again I would try for the more direct approach from Borwick Farm. Going along the coast as I did is only for the very able bodied and definitely not when it has been chucking it down. First obstacle a barbwire fence, which fortunately at one section has a couple of lines missing. Here tou can see two lines of 'standing stone fences' intersect. One of the fences goes across till it hugs all along the very cliff edge. Oh these standing stones are real beauties standing in sturdy big slab-lined rectangular sockets magnificently constructed. Eventually you see the broch ahead on a small headland. For most people the best thing to do would be to use a good telephoto shot from this spot (which I missed out on) and then turn back. The photo would look as if taken from a rock-steady boat to my mind. But now you descend a steep and slippery hillside and cross the stream just above the ruin in the narrow valley. Now an uphill struggle and a barbwire fence. The stile over this is of inferior modern construction - two strips of wood parallel to the fence at no distance and resting on narrow pillars. There is no gap in the fence here and my shortish legs only just scraped over. At the top of the hill entrance to the site is over a less rickety stile thank goodness. Before this standing stone fence at left there is a rectangular depression with several stones that is definitely not wall. To the front right of the broch tower there is a large area covered with stones of various sizes and conditions. Once inside the fence you can see that there is one large thin slab that appears to show a structure. The entrance to the broch tower is round to the left. In front of this are two now uncapped guard cells in plain view, the left being especially well preserved. The doorway is only preserved up to the lintel but apart from a bit of a gap there the broch continues up for several courses more. Some large stones lie on the entrance floor and make it so that you have to bend over to scramble through. Inside there are still some suggestions of structure. All the back is gone of course, and there the broch wall remains are only a couple of feet across and back onto sheer cliff. In order to obtain an overview I had to stand on this hunched back with my 28mm attached, when I just managed the shot. On going back I could see two structural holes either side of the entrance - for a bar ??
BROCH OF LINGRO
This used to be in the field to the left of Scapa Distillery. The broch tower itself was levelled in 1981, along with the immediately surrounding area, but points of interest still remain - as do unexcavated settlement mounds from there back to the main road at least. The most visible evidence of the broch lies either side of the stream outlet as it reaches the shore and cascades down.
As you go up the cliff path to here you will notice a feature, 14m across and taking in an area out to the cliff edge 11m at furthest point, that itself looks like the remains of a broch or somesuch; a place where the cliff goes out and there is a ditch 1.8x1m like a sector of a circle, and within its arc a flat area 6x4.8m. As I can only see earth and sod and it isn't shown on CANMAP we may perhaps safely call it a simulacrum? The LH edge of the arc goes 6m straight to the cliff edge. HY436088
If you pass over the bridge and up the other side you will need to watch your step the rest of the way - a teenager fell from near here just recently in damp conditions. There is another curious feature just past here inside where the lichen-covered wall turns for a few metres before resume its coastline track. At the point where it first turns (HY434087) there is a short line of regular-shaped stones darker than the wall, level with the path and over which you narrowly pass. Then up between where the wall turns again and its next juncture (HY433087) similar lines of like nature can be made out. Being on the coastline side of the decaying cliff face I assume that this predates the present wall. If this feature were angled away from coast I would have no doubt it represents the walls of a structure, but unless it is very ancient I am at a loss as to what it can be ( why no lichen on the stones for starters !).
Down on the coast one can see more evidence of settlement at the top of the cliff face on the stream outlet's immediate right, though I wasn't convinced until I saw it today in the light of recent visits to other brochs. Where the cliff's stone ends is a layer of what looks like cultivated soil and a thin line going straight across, very reminiscent of the broch bases at Ingshowe and Berstane. There are the odd few stones to be made out in this ?matrix. But it is the next layer, that under the grass, that has finally convinced me now that I have made it out clearly. This is a layer several inches thick made up of nothing but angular fragmented small stones (and possibly man-made material as though there are red rocks on the Scapa shore there are none up the cliff-face except here) several inches deep. Unless my eyes decieve me this is most likely to be a destruction layer. HY435088
VIA MOUND HY260158
There is meant to be a cist in the SE quadrant of the Stones of Via ditch. What I found was well to the right of the stones however, so I presumed it to be my error for the aerial 'socket' until I saw on CANMAP that it isn't even "in the ballpark" for this. There is a waterlogged patch of ground going uphill and the feature is at the top of this. On CANMORE a mound HY21NE 4 formerly stood at HY260159 and in relation to my find it is worth noting that in 1928 a mound of stones (now gone) at the south edge of a pool of water was presumed to be its remains.
RCAHMS archaeology survey section believe this cist may only relatively recently have come to the surface.Alternaively could be that the cist reported in the SE quadrant of the Stones of Via ditch is the same as the stone jumble supposedly gone from here - depends if ditch=enclosure.
'GRIMSQUOY'
Yes, those punctuation marks are about the name on the NMRS ! I've debated long about adding these, but yesterday they stood out. They lie the other side of the stream from the often muddy footpath between Inganess Bay and the road to Deerness. Coming from the road having watched a reed bunting I noticed a few stones near the bottom of the mound at that end. Passing by and looking back the appearance was of a low hill of three humps. It is probably on airport land but it is only just the other side of the beck. Originally it was seen as over half-a-dozen mounds, of which a couple were modern and some had been used by farmers for a sheep fold etc. Now the archaeologists seem to be concluding that it is one mound heavily dug into and they are no longer confident of any antiquity.
LONG CAIRN
Actually you are unlikely to get to this as the approach to the headland is water board property, though I guess you could phone ahead and ask. This is a long (h)low mound [153'x40'x6'] with a few slabs sticking out of the higher E end that they say were once more prominent.The mound has four horns.
VENIKELDAY
Described as a possible broch within a ringwork this site reminds me now of Tingwall, something extensively modified. The photos I shall add only show the main portion - it has been cut through by a 'modern' track and what remains on the right of the track is rather inconspicious. Difficult to make sense of the transect, this 'wall' appears too linear for a circular structure.
It lies off the main road about half-way between Toab and Campston and on the same side of the road, and though called after the latter it actually lies on a track going down to ?Venikelday. It may be of significance that it lies roughly half-way between the Mine Howe and Dingieshowe sites.
Seen from behind it does resemble a broch with tower slightly more. What is certain to me is that it is nothing like the Ring of Bookan, the ringwork is just that. You can see that how close it would have been to the water's edge when sea-levels were higher. This time I had a closer look at the part of the site the other side of the farmtrack. Though overall lower than the putative broch side there is evidently a lot more going on in terms of structures, many obvious lumps and bumps. Doesn't need much of a look to see where a stream passed by the edge of the site, a circumstance that by now feels diagnostic to me of a cliffside broch (those further uphill we presume to have had wells, though we never did find one at The Howe and joked that it lay under the site hut!). There do, though, appear to be a couple of very small bumps the other side of this . It is possible the site continues up to the farm roadside as there are probable structures just below there, either that or a slght relocation in later times.
