Monday, June 20, 2005
HILLHEAD
The main feature in the two fields below Hillhead House is the enclosure HY50NW 6 (at HY44720855). But under Hillhead I would place also HY50NW 12 (at HY44730866) and HY50NW 13 (at about HY4408). These between them have produced four out of Orkney's total of fifteen carved stone balls, the same number as from Skara Brae. The enclosure had one of sandstone (formerly in NMAS collection as HH417 ) and another was found a yard down and two yards away from a former well/spring during drainage (Hunterian Museum B.1914.357). Of the last two one resides at the Hunterian Museum (B.1914.356) but the what happened to the other, carved of diorite from Hillswick in Shetland, isn't known. They are designated Hillhhead House but have the alternative name of Hillhead of Crantit (HY45090927) above Highland Park Distillery which is a different place, much nearer town (though a large depression to one side at HY45090924 was depicted as an earthwork and a 'quarry' to the other HY45720933, and there is a curious rectangular feature in the 'field' over the road). If these balls are truly associated with this site that would put it back at least as far as the Bronze Age. On the other hand, on the basis of the little I know presently, an archaeologist friend is inclined to put it much later and relates it to pre-broch Clickhimin or possibly The Howe 3/4 (or, even worse, amorphous post-broch).
In 1882 a large circular mound was to thought render the area useless for farming owing to the stones, but technology has twice made incursion possible. In 1946 it is down as a fort bisected by the drystane wall coming down from alongside the road to the house. This was roughly 75 yards by 55, aligned North/South with a single earthen rampart but no apparent evidence for an entrance as most features had been levelled. Mostly it lies in the Well Park field, the present well being assumed to be on the site of the destroyed well/spring. When the O.S. came by in 1964 they described it as an enclosure in the process of being ploughed out, though they did report a smaller earthbank within the rampart. This came to mind when I heard that geophyics had indicated a 70m diameter double-ring near the Viking sites in Orphir.
My first observations were made from way over on the road to Orphir as I could find it easier on the map from there - once found you never lose it all the way around to Scapa beach and New Scapa Road below. The Well Park section then stands out because of the numerous banks and dark areas of exposed soil. Over the wall looks blank. But one day the light struck just right, illuminating the whole of the enclosure and showing the rampart both sides. The field directly below the house looks pristine, the best place to start looking for evidence of the site's true nature as the Well Park field looks a mess. To my eye it looks as if first came the enclosure, then some feature was constructed on/through the Well Park edge and from that time or later linear features appear to the Kirkwall side of this.
To find the site take the Southern Isles road until you pass the Tradespark junction and you will see the grounds of Hillhead house at the top of the rise to the right, overlooking Scapa beach. From here you can see all the way into Kirkwall and right up Scapa Flow too. Even so the the lack of a full circle of view from the enclosure is a reason not to see this as a fort or broch (Borrowstonehill screams out to be one etymologically at least). There are two fields you could enter to reach that of Well Park. I chose the first one possible, which does have the drawback of crossing a wide burn (the Crantit I presume). From here I could see two monstrosities side by side, a tin roofed hut and a big concrete plug, one of which must be the 'new' well. Until I am fully equipped I shall not enter the field itself.
Retracing your steps, from the corner of the grounds where the road is continue anothe thirty-odd meters and on your left a slim slab projecting from the drystane wall is a stile. This is for access to a well (HY44970848) that appears on the 1882 map but not the present one. Looking over you see a wide white slab extending from wallbase level (the slab is 0.9m across, though another stone may take this 'lintel' to 1.2m) and 0.8m below that a funnel shape [passage?] 0.6m across going forward at the field's ground level to peter out after 1.5m. I snuck myself into the space beween drystane wall and barbwire fence. The funnel shape is wall-lined (includind a few slabs) and might have gone lower once. It proved a tight squeeze to shuffle along enough to get it all in frame, the camera's batteries went before I bent over far enough to take the whole of the interior. Leant over far enough with the barbwire's support to see a back wall. Looked more like a chamber than a well. Brown stones and I thought there was a curve, but not sure of my orientation at the time in order to say where in the structure (though the word apse came to mind). There was a place lower down the hill I could have gone under the fence but the only other apparent way in, a simpler way, is from the far corner going all way around the field.
FRESH KNOWE
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 12 AT HY29601339 was in Petrie's time an elliptical barrow 112' NE-SW, 66' across and 22 ft high. Now it is a 38x26m cairn with a maximum height of 5.7m. Traces of horns at the S and E recently led to its re-assessment as a long cairn like Staneyhill across the loch, but recently Nick Card opined the dimensions made it a prime candidate for a Maes Howe type tomb rather - so what about those horns now ? If the Watch Stone really was part of the arc of a long-gone stone circle I would be inclined to place this site in the same time-frame.
Alongside the road opposite the Ring of Brodgar there are two large mounds. Opposite the modern entrance, practically at road level, is the Plumcake(-shaped) Mound . But the first you encounter is the bulk of Fresh Knowe (presumably called so as against Salt Knowe near the sea loch). An 1853 excavation at the north end proved abortive (and was subsequently grassed over), though there is an unsupported account of a burial having been found here which could have been the source of silver fibulae usually connected to Salt Knowe. The area of Farrer's excavation is well evident from the road as a large blister of dark vegetation. Don't go down with fancy shoes because though it is only a slight slope the lochside edge is practically at loch level and in the present day perilously close to the water's edge, making it damp around this side. Running down to the loch alongside is a stream a section of which is occupied by some kind of ?concrete tank. Didn't think anything of it at the time, but later found a report of "a fine spring of water at the foot of the tumulus". Looking from the lochside there appears to be a slight saddle at the top of the mound. Perhaps there was an even earlier excavation here, and the unconfirmed report of a burial comes from this. There could always have been a cist there, as probably with Salt Knowe. Which reminds me of the, admittedly smaller, Queena Fjold barrows which reportedly each only held a single central cist according to the prime investigators.
HILLOCK OF BREAKNA
RCAHMS NMRS No. HY30NE 13 at HY35330508 is down as a possible broch, with a Great War flagpole or wireless mast showing as what looks like a cist . In 1797 descibed as a circular tower of about 180' circumference. The author of the P.S.A.S. article (on the Bu of Orphir) from his excavations in 1879 and 1901 made it about 170' in circumference, with walls 12' thick at a height above ground level and an int. diameter of roughly 30'. Is the 'missing' 10' of diameter real or an artefact ? Since 1946 it ? has been reduced further from 103x92x6 feet to 30x24x1.7m. The remains of the dig include a wall orientated E-W N-S. There are many other visible wall traces but it is far from easy to assign periods to these. Similarly with the various stones sticking up through the turf. My professional archaeologist friend, Dave Lynn, thought he could make out at least a domestic structure at the seaward end.
Out to Orphir and down the unmarked Swanbister road, past Swanbister House down to where the road turns right opposite the shore.
At first all I see is a mound of man-height with an angular stone sticking out the top (made me think briefly of the NE mound at the Taing of Beeman, though that was only an earthfast slab). My fellow brochaholic was strongly confident of the site's broch identity despite all the accretions (the stone that was clearly visible from the road had a fairsized anchorpoint and short length of chain, both rusty, attached to it. Across the way another rusty anchorpoint is attached to an only slightly smaller stone. Presumably these are to do with the WW1 construction). From the top looking down you can see the circular edge resulting from ploughing most of the way round. The terracing effect, especially on the seaward downhill side, brought me in mind of Wideford Hill Cairn - both Quanterness and The Howe roundhouses were 'smashed through' earlier chambered tombs. The cliff geology extends its rocky outcrops around and up the dyke below the RH-side of the site. It certainly bears out the Orcadian fondness for putting their settlements in places we now consider a little too damp. Between the site and the dyke peaty (as Dave said) waters came to the surface and reached for the burn.
Also called The Brough, but known by locals as the Hillock of Brecknay after a nearby farm. In 1797 associated with a Sveinn Breastrope, though probably by antiquarian guesswork than any genuine tradition (though brochs have been used in Vikingr times). Site then erronaeously labelled Earl Sveinn's Castle, which then became identified as the ruins of Earl's Palace on a modern field-map. Could it originally have simply been called the Castle, one of many in Orkney ?
KNOWE OF CRUSTAN
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY22NE 5 at HY27472897 is a turf-covered barrow of 35' diameter called the Knowe of Crustan. It sits high on a ridge and used to have a standing stone several feet tall on top of it, immediately bringing to mind the Stanerandy Tumulus not that far away. There is some damage, perhaps from the 1852 excavation whose E-W trench produced burnt bones in what is described as a "common cell". Two wartime buildings have changed its appearance somewhat. 110m SE along this ridge a mound about 12m across and 1m high at HY27532906 could be another turf-covered barrow.
Approaching Birsay not long past the Knowes of Lingro (possibly even along the same ridge) you see two small square wartime buildings on the hillside with a grassy hump between them and directly to their right a mound. This is the Knowe of Crustan. You can easily find the other mound mentioned by the Royal Commission as you scan along the horizon. I considered for a moment paying a visit, but had my specific targets to reach still. What I don't understand is a third mound I picked out, yet further along the ridge. This looks very low in comparison but much more interesting because of the stones scattered over and/or protruding from the surface. It played hide-and-seek like Mittens, only visible from certain spots along the road.
MITTENS
RCAHMS record no. NMRS HY22NE 1 (a.k.a. Rantan & Swannay & Newhouse) lists three barrows ;
Mound 'A' at HY29592823 is 52' across (though half of the W side is no longer there) and 5' high with possible signs of excavation. It may have been surrounded by a low outer bank with a narrow and shallow ditch, but the indications have gone since the observation. Mound 'B' at HY29592825 produced a cist in 1887, the 28' diameter foundation outline left has now disappeared. The year after the war a Late Beaker cist was found in another barrow on the top of a ridge at HY29572826. The barrow has since been removed, though a large amount of stones from in it were placed at a field edge.
I found this a very disappointing site, what you see from the roadside is really all you get. Going towards Birsay pass Harray Farm and where the main road turns right instead continue straight on and then take the first track left. Soon you will see the site on your right. It does disappear for a minute or two before you reach the top of the hill. Very carefully slip through the barbwire fence, the barbs are rather long. The mound is surrounded by an electric fence to keep coos oot, stoop or slide under that. Not geometrised but certainly no sign of any features - a flatter area on top could simply be the result of animal activity rather than the excavation. I saw nothing else about here, but maybe I should have looked harder for the other scant remains whilst the grass was low ?
OXTRO
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY22NE 4 at HY 2537 2678. As you go up to Birsay only just past the A967-B9056 junction the remains of the Oxtro Broch can be seen in the field to your left. Not many courses remain (five in places)It is a little better than it looks from the road. The interior is 45' across and the walls 12' thick, with 3/4 of the wall outline surviving. Additional to the chambers in the east and south that were originally known about there are the remains of a possible guard-cell at the NW. A centrally placed well drains to the probable west entrance (where there is now a gap in the wall). Several cremation cists were inserted in the mound and originally ascribed to the Bronze Age [Down the road at Saevar Howe a similar but later discovery is ascribed to a (long cist) Christian cemetery] ! One of the covers had an eagle inscribed but has now disappeared from the farmhouse wall it was transferred to. Viking objects and Samian ware point to multi-period use. It is strange that a site so close to the road is unmarked. If it weren't for the cattle on my visits I would have popped into the field to get to the other side.
Popped into the field, barely missing the usual muddy bit other side of the gate. Must confess I wasn't expecting much beyond further outer wall. If I had only checked the diagram reproduced in Hedge's broch book properly beforehand I could have made more use of my time and made better observations (beware that diagram by the way as it shows the broch as seen looking towards the road). The intramural stuff I easily made out but I mistook the well for a burial area as it looked fairly rectangular. Next time I will take a photo overlooking that, the picture I took was owing to my keeping a big plastic bucket out of sight. Seen from the direction of the road the chamber at the right is your basic intramural chamber whilst that on your left has a flight of stairs (apparently).
RAVIE HILL
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY22NE 8 at HY268250 (a.k.a. Queena Fiold), first described as being "near the Free Church in Birsay", is another barrow cemetery like the Knowes of Trotty but on the flat by comparison. Like the folklore motif they never seem to be the same number twice, the mounds in the main group having climbed from six to eight with HY22SE 36 over the road near Newbigging at HY265249 being counted as an extra member of the same group. The latter (possibly kerbed) is the only one to have been excavated twice, the first time producing a steatite urn. The first report on the main body of the group says the peat depth was the same over the whole field wherein they lie and talks of a single cist with burnt bones being found in the centre of each one.
The general line of the mounds is a diagonal approaching the loch. Using basically the 1946 account first of six in the field is a gravelly mound 30x4' against which the largest, the second, lies which was exposed down to the ground to reveal a small cist (modern labelling 'C' with short cist at HY26732511). Fifty yards to the southeast is a third roughly 26' by 3'high. The fourth is another fifty yards away measuring 20' by 12-18", a protruding stone about 5 1/4" by at least 27" on top another cist probably ('E' at HY26792505). It has a few stones about its margin. A pointed stone at the centre of another barrow ('F' at HY26772505) another 13 yards west, is the third probable cist. This barrow is 35' across and 4-4 1/2 high and has had a trench through its middle, as has the sixth mound which is about the same height but 37' diameter and lies between the second and fifth enumerated. The next I have details on is 'H' at HY26772507, the smallest at 10x1'.
These mounds lie in the field next to the house before the Bigbreck Quarry as you come down on the B967 nearing the Twatt junction (where the Free Church sits). I have been here one or two times and strangely have never consciously noticed them. Actually my attention was first drawn by the several large stones lying by the top end of the field. There is enough material exposed in several of the barrows to make them worth a visit if you are in the area, another site for an other day. Before reaching here, between Nicol Point and the barrow cemetery, I saw two big stones isolated in the middle of a field, a grey standing stone and lying against it a thick slab of IIRC a sandy coloration.
VIA MOUND
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21NE 4 at HY26011598 on excavation sometime before 1839~41 uncovered "nothing found in it but a parcel of large stones". Though what appeared to be these remains was seen at the south edge of a pool of water in 1880 said mound was no longer present in 1928.
In 2004 I found what appeared, on reviewing the photos later, to be a cist to the left of the Stones of Via and a little further uphill (as seen from the road). This lies in boggy ground at the edge of a small and very shallow pool. Now that I have been back to the site and gotten my bearings this would appear to be the cist seen in 1991 at the SW quadrant of the remains of an enclosure about the Stones of Via, except that there is an apparent disparity in dimensions - the other covering an area approximately 1.5x0.7m whereas this one is 0.9x0.62m (and at least 0.44m deep originally). From triangulation it has the same 8-figure NGR as the Via Mound. Indeed upon consideration of surrounding features it is evident that this occupies the upper right of that site's scant remains. The only other structure in the field is a well at HY26051599 shown on the 1882 O.S. map. This has been blocked up with stones that might have been from said "parcel of large stones", and I surmise this could have then resulted in the issuing of water lower down the hill to form the pool.
Now to a fuller description of the cist. A side-slab 0.9m long and projecting 0.28m from the present ground level points directly uphill. Two further slabs at right angles to this lean over, so that it is difficult to see if these sub-divided the cist or provide one end of it. The one furthest uphill is 0.42m across and its underside projects 0.44m, the other has 0.62x0.34m projecting. Three stones lie by the bottom end of the cist. They are 0.32-0.48m across and project 0.3-0.6m.
STACKRUE-LYKING MOUND HY27121514
Though this would appear to be a continuation of the broch settlement it is not presently recorded and may instead relate to a vanished mound from which a Viking burial came (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21NE 4). This is currently indicated on CANMAP at HY271152 but does not appear on the 1882 map like the 1852 Viking cists do (HY21NE 8 at HY27051532, but on the 1882 O.S. at HY26961532), unlike this earthwork
Coming towards the broch from Lyking, where the Burn of Lyking passes under the field wall, I saw a short line of good stones along the bank running to the fieldwall at an acute angle. There appear to be remains of another bank wall over in the broch field section of the stream too. Going in for a closer look at these I saw that there is an earthwork with stones, taking the shape of a circular quadrant rising from the burn, occupying the field corner this side of Lyking against a loop of the stream [it may be relevant that CANMAP shows mound of the Viking burial as having been in the next loop, north of this]. There appears to be an inner ditch below the top of the rise and the mound's arc appears to continue on the other side of the road, though no earthwork is shown there on the first O.S. map. In 1882 a ford is shown at this area of the burn and the subterranean passage is indicated downhill from this area though included in the broch NMRS.
SANDAIKEN
Sandaiken, RCAHMS NMRS no. HY50SE 9, seems more an area name than one site in the area. The settlement is believed to be the old tunship of Sanday (which does not translate as 'sand-island' here). It covers the area above Taracliff Bay as far as Stonehall - Dingyshowe Bay proper being the bay on the broch side. The site Sandaiken at HY55380346 referred to a 30x40m mound "in the SW corner of a steep field above the clifftop at Stonehall", but this is now extended to cover an enclosure and since-gone farmstead on the first O.S. map. From the description it is difficult to verify if the field feature that I have noted is part or all of the enclosure, or maybe even abutting the location of the mound. On the other side of the the be-duned broch there was a mound called Peerie Howe (HY57450324) whose drystane wall and midden have not long gone, leaving only burnt stone and shell-midden in the cliff-face (opposite The Bungalow) - the shoreline below Sandaiken has no burnt materiel or I'd say my deposit was a similar site re-sculpted.
Since my spring visit the area is covered in grass again. To get there you either climb over a beach of giant pebbles or carefully walk the grass edge. Now there has been an attempt to start a coastal walk (the dark wood steps climb up the cliffs past my features, from where the walk is still harey in places and ends as unmarked as it starts, so walk further at your own risk) but it still needs care. Looking across the dunes past the gravel pit you see the cliffs coming to an end near the corner of a field, my 'earthwork' occupies that triangle. Though it is probably approximately oval you feel that it is a quadrant scooped out of the side of the hill - was it ever more than this I wonder? You look up at a banked circumference that doesn't show well on photos. Though it is certainly man-made I do not see a purpose. Were the alignment differently arranged you would have to say the end of the hillside had been removed to make the hill more defensible from attack by sea. Further along the hill, if you take the coastal walk, there is another wall arc, which appears to be called Mahon's Gate -there is/was a quarry in the hillside somewhere behind this. And on a map I see another similar echo, which is? Rat Gate (or are the gates cliff-features).
It looks to me as if the coastal side of the feature's hollow snuggles up against the end of the cliffs rather than actually merging into them. Coming back down and walking the shore there is a line of four or so stones tight against the 'cliff' about halfway up that seem to serve no purpose where they are and are definitely not the boundary of any eroded field, they are set straight into the near vertical hillside here. This last time I was surprised to see an apparent shell-midden only just above the shoreline, a great number of unbroken open shells set thickly but uncompacted in an earth matrix below the upper reaches of the 'earthwork'. Though there was some darker earth none seemed of a burnt nature. I am tempted to see here a prehistoric settlement-mound, despite being of the opinion that the juxtaposition of 'earthwork' and 'midden' is more-or-less chance. Certainly it looks to be on the level of an o.g.s., from "before the time when pebbles turned to sand" as it were. From the image you should be able to see that it starts at a vertical line of stones where the cliff proper ends - a nice place to bivouac I guess.
STANDING STONES MOUND
Directly opposite the Standing Stones Hotel the main road cuts across the edge of a large mound (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 24 at HY30251165). 'Cuts across' the whole site that is, seen up close it could be that only the edge of the mound itself is clipped, as if someone had cut across a smaa-ish chord of Maes Howe's inner ditch (depends how circular it originally was). Since the 1880's it has been considered a probable chambered mound, though a 1966 O.S. report typically declared it probably natural. The first measurements of the truncated site (HY31SW 24) were 55 yards N/S by 46 E/W and 11-15' high i.e. nothing much lost subsequently. Geophysics in 2001 showed apparent entrances on the NE and S sides as the likely locations of two chambers. Around the mound a roughly 2m wide ditch 40m across, partly revetted, appears on the geofizz. Possible secondary ditches/banks parallel to this were also indicated. Also known as Little Barnhouse.
The main feature in the two fields below Hillhead House is the enclosure HY50NW 6 (at HY44720855). But under Hillhead I would place also HY50NW 12 (at HY44730866) and HY50NW 13 (at about HY4408). These between them have produced four out of Orkney's total of fifteen carved stone balls, the same number as from Skara Brae. The enclosure had one of sandstone (formerly in NMAS collection as HH417 ) and another was found a yard down and two yards away from a former well/spring during drainage (Hunterian Museum B.1914.357). Of the last two one resides at the Hunterian Museum (B.1914.356) but the what happened to the other, carved of diorite from Hillswick in Shetland, isn't known. They are designated Hillhhead House but have the alternative name of Hillhead of Crantit (HY45090927) above Highland Park Distillery which is a different place, much nearer town (though a large depression to one side at HY45090924 was depicted as an earthwork and a 'quarry' to the other HY45720933, and there is a curious rectangular feature in the 'field' over the road). If these balls are truly associated with this site that would put it back at least as far as the Bronze Age. On the other hand, on the basis of the little I know presently, an archaeologist friend is inclined to put it much later and relates it to pre-broch Clickhimin or possibly The Howe 3/4 (or, even worse, amorphous post-broch).
In 1882 a large circular mound was to thought render the area useless for farming owing to the stones, but technology has twice made incursion possible. In 1946 it is down as a fort bisected by the drystane wall coming down from alongside the road to the house. This was roughly 75 yards by 55, aligned North/South with a single earthen rampart but no apparent evidence for an entrance as most features had been levelled. Mostly it lies in the Well Park field, the present well being assumed to be on the site of the destroyed well/spring. When the O.S. came by in 1964 they described it as an enclosure in the process of being ploughed out, though they did report a smaller earthbank within the rampart. This came to mind when I heard that geophyics had indicated a 70m diameter double-ring near the Viking sites in Orphir.
My first observations were made from way over on the road to Orphir as I could find it easier on the map from there - once found you never lose it all the way around to Scapa beach and New Scapa Road below. The Well Park section then stands out because of the numerous banks and dark areas of exposed soil. Over the wall looks blank. But one day the light struck just right, illuminating the whole of the enclosure and showing the rampart both sides. The field directly below the house looks pristine, the best place to start looking for evidence of the site's true nature as the Well Park field looks a mess. To my eye it looks as if first came the enclosure, then some feature was constructed on/through the Well Park edge and from that time or later linear features appear to the Kirkwall side of this.
To find the site take the Southern Isles road until you pass the Tradespark junction and you will see the grounds of Hillhead house at the top of the rise to the right, overlooking Scapa beach. From here you can see all the way into Kirkwall and right up Scapa Flow too. Even so the the lack of a full circle of view from the enclosure is a reason not to see this as a fort or broch (Borrowstonehill screams out to be one etymologically at least). There are two fields you could enter to reach that of Well Park. I chose the first one possible, which does have the drawback of crossing a wide burn (the Crantit I presume). From here I could see two monstrosities side by side, a tin roofed hut and a big concrete plug, one of which must be the 'new' well. Until I am fully equipped I shall not enter the field itself.
Retracing your steps, from the corner of the grounds where the road is continue anothe thirty-odd meters and on your left a slim slab projecting from the drystane wall is a stile. This is for access to a well (HY44970848) that appears on the 1882 map but not the present one. Looking over you see a wide white slab extending from wallbase level (the slab is 0.9m across, though another stone may take this 'lintel' to 1.2m) and 0.8m below that a funnel shape [passage?] 0.6m across going forward at the field's ground level to peter out after 1.5m. I snuck myself into the space beween drystane wall and barbwire fence. The funnel shape is wall-lined (includind a few slabs) and might have gone lower once. It proved a tight squeeze to shuffle along enough to get it all in frame, the camera's batteries went before I bent over far enough to take the whole of the interior. Leant over far enough with the barbwire's support to see a back wall. Looked more like a chamber than a well. Brown stones and I thought there was a curve, but not sure of my orientation at the time in order to say where in the structure (though the word apse came to mind). There was a place lower down the hill I could have gone under the fence but the only other apparent way in, a simpler way, is from the far corner going all way around the field.
FRESH KNOWE
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 12 AT HY29601339 was in Petrie's time an elliptical barrow 112' NE-SW, 66' across and 22 ft high. Now it is a 38x26m cairn with a maximum height of 5.7m. Traces of horns at the S and E recently led to its re-assessment as a long cairn like Staneyhill across the loch, but recently Nick Card opined the dimensions made it a prime candidate for a Maes Howe type tomb rather - so what about those horns now ? If the Watch Stone really was part of the arc of a long-gone stone circle I would be inclined to place this site in the same time-frame.
Alongside the road opposite the Ring of Brodgar there are two large mounds. Opposite the modern entrance, practically at road level, is the Plumcake(-shaped) Mound . But the first you encounter is the bulk of Fresh Knowe (presumably called so as against Salt Knowe near the sea loch). An 1853 excavation at the north end proved abortive (and was subsequently grassed over), though there is an unsupported account of a burial having been found here which could have been the source of silver fibulae usually connected to Salt Knowe. The area of Farrer's excavation is well evident from the road as a large blister of dark vegetation. Don't go down with fancy shoes because though it is only a slight slope the lochside edge is practically at loch level and in the present day perilously close to the water's edge, making it damp around this side. Running down to the loch alongside is a stream a section of which is occupied by some kind of ?concrete tank. Didn't think anything of it at the time, but later found a report of "a fine spring of water at the foot of the tumulus". Looking from the lochside there appears to be a slight saddle at the top of the mound. Perhaps there was an even earlier excavation here, and the unconfirmed report of a burial comes from this. There could always have been a cist there, as probably with Salt Knowe. Which reminds me of the, admittedly smaller, Queena Fjold barrows which reportedly each only held a single central cist according to the prime investigators.
HILLOCK OF BREAKNA
RCAHMS NMRS No. HY30NE 13 at HY35330508 is down as a possible broch, with a Great War flagpole or wireless mast showing as what looks like a cist . In 1797 descibed as a circular tower of about 180' circumference. The author of the P.S.A.S. article (on the Bu of Orphir) from his excavations in 1879 and 1901 made it about 170' in circumference, with walls 12' thick at a height above ground level and an int. diameter of roughly 30'. Is the 'missing' 10' of diameter real or an artefact ? Since 1946 it ? has been reduced further from 103x92x6 feet to 30x24x1.7m. The remains of the dig include a wall orientated E-W N-S. There are many other visible wall traces but it is far from easy to assign periods to these. Similarly with the various stones sticking up through the turf. My professional archaeologist friend, Dave Lynn, thought he could make out at least a domestic structure at the seaward end.
Out to Orphir and down the unmarked Swanbister road, past Swanbister House down to where the road turns right opposite the shore.
At first all I see is a mound of man-height with an angular stone sticking out the top (made me think briefly of the NE mound at the Taing of Beeman, though that was only an earthfast slab). My fellow brochaholic was strongly confident of the site's broch identity despite all the accretions (the stone that was clearly visible from the road had a fairsized anchorpoint and short length of chain, both rusty, attached to it. Across the way another rusty anchorpoint is attached to an only slightly smaller stone. Presumably these are to do with the WW1 construction). From the top looking down you can see the circular edge resulting from ploughing most of the way round. The terracing effect, especially on the seaward downhill side, brought me in mind of Wideford Hill Cairn - both Quanterness and The Howe roundhouses were 'smashed through' earlier chambered tombs. The cliff geology extends its rocky outcrops around and up the dyke below the RH-side of the site. It certainly bears out the Orcadian fondness for putting their settlements in places we now consider a little too damp. Between the site and the dyke peaty (as Dave said) waters came to the surface and reached for the burn.
Also called The Brough, but known by locals as the Hillock of Brecknay after a nearby farm. In 1797 associated with a Sveinn Breastrope, though probably by antiquarian guesswork than any genuine tradition (though brochs have been used in Vikingr times). Site then erronaeously labelled Earl Sveinn's Castle, which then became identified as the ruins of Earl's Palace on a modern field-map. Could it originally have simply been called the Castle, one of many in Orkney ?
KNOWE OF CRUSTAN
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY22NE 5 at HY27472897 is a turf-covered barrow of 35' diameter called the Knowe of Crustan. It sits high on a ridge and used to have a standing stone several feet tall on top of it, immediately bringing to mind the Stanerandy Tumulus not that far away. There is some damage, perhaps from the 1852 excavation whose E-W trench produced burnt bones in what is described as a "common cell". Two wartime buildings have changed its appearance somewhat. 110m SE along this ridge a mound about 12m across and 1m high at HY27532906 could be another turf-covered barrow.
Approaching Birsay not long past the Knowes of Lingro (possibly even along the same ridge) you see two small square wartime buildings on the hillside with a grassy hump between them and directly to their right a mound. This is the Knowe of Crustan. You can easily find the other mound mentioned by the Royal Commission as you scan along the horizon. I considered for a moment paying a visit, but had my specific targets to reach still. What I don't understand is a third mound I picked out, yet further along the ridge. This looks very low in comparison but much more interesting because of the stones scattered over and/or protruding from the surface. It played hide-and-seek like Mittens, only visible from certain spots along the road.
MITTENS
RCAHMS record no. NMRS HY22NE 1 (a.k.a. Rantan & Swannay & Newhouse) lists three barrows ;
Mound 'A' at HY29592823 is 52' across (though half of the W side is no longer there) and 5' high with possible signs of excavation. It may have been surrounded by a low outer bank with a narrow and shallow ditch, but the indications have gone since the observation. Mound 'B' at HY29592825 produced a cist in 1887, the 28' diameter foundation outline left has now disappeared. The year after the war a Late Beaker cist was found in another barrow on the top of a ridge at HY29572826. The barrow has since been removed, though a large amount of stones from in it were placed at a field edge.
I found this a very disappointing site, what you see from the roadside is really all you get. Going towards Birsay pass Harray Farm and where the main road turns right instead continue straight on and then take the first track left. Soon you will see the site on your right. It does disappear for a minute or two before you reach the top of the hill. Very carefully slip through the barbwire fence, the barbs are rather long. The mound is surrounded by an electric fence to keep coos oot, stoop or slide under that. Not geometrised but certainly no sign of any features - a flatter area on top could simply be the result of animal activity rather than the excavation. I saw nothing else about here, but maybe I should have looked harder for the other scant remains whilst the grass was low ?
OXTRO
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY22NE 4 at HY 2537 2678. As you go up to Birsay only just past the A967-B9056 junction the remains of the Oxtro Broch can be seen in the field to your left. Not many courses remain (five in places)It is a little better than it looks from the road. The interior is 45' across and the walls 12' thick, with 3/4 of the wall outline surviving. Additional to the chambers in the east and south that were originally known about there are the remains of a possible guard-cell at the NW. A centrally placed well drains to the probable west entrance (where there is now a gap in the wall). Several cremation cists were inserted in the mound and originally ascribed to the Bronze Age [Down the road at Saevar Howe a similar but later discovery is ascribed to a (long cist) Christian cemetery] ! One of the covers had an eagle inscribed but has now disappeared from the farmhouse wall it was transferred to. Viking objects and Samian ware point to multi-period use. It is strange that a site so close to the road is unmarked. If it weren't for the cattle on my visits I would have popped into the field to get to the other side.
Popped into the field, barely missing the usual muddy bit other side of the gate. Must confess I wasn't expecting much beyond further outer wall. If I had only checked the diagram reproduced in Hedge's broch book properly beforehand I could have made more use of my time and made better observations (beware that diagram by the way as it shows the broch as seen looking towards the road). The intramural stuff I easily made out but I mistook the well for a burial area as it looked fairly rectangular. Next time I will take a photo overlooking that, the picture I took was owing to my keeping a big plastic bucket out of sight. Seen from the direction of the road the chamber at the right is your basic intramural chamber whilst that on your left has a flight of stairs (apparently).
RAVIE HILL
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY22NE 8 at HY268250 (a.k.a. Queena Fiold), first described as being "near the Free Church in Birsay", is another barrow cemetery like the Knowes of Trotty but on the flat by comparison. Like the folklore motif they never seem to be the same number twice, the mounds in the main group having climbed from six to eight with HY22SE 36 over the road near Newbigging at HY265249 being counted as an extra member of the same group. The latter (possibly kerbed) is the only one to have been excavated twice, the first time producing a steatite urn. The first report on the main body of the group says the peat depth was the same over the whole field wherein they lie and talks of a single cist with burnt bones being found in the centre of each one.
The general line of the mounds is a diagonal approaching the loch. Using basically the 1946 account first of six in the field is a gravelly mound 30x4' against which the largest, the second, lies which was exposed down to the ground to reveal a small cist (modern labelling 'C' with short cist at HY26732511). Fifty yards to the southeast is a third roughly 26' by 3'high. The fourth is another fifty yards away measuring 20' by 12-18", a protruding stone about 5 1/4" by at least 27" on top another cist probably ('E' at HY26792505). It has a few stones about its margin. A pointed stone at the centre of another barrow ('F' at HY26772505) another 13 yards west, is the third probable cist. This barrow is 35' across and 4-4 1/2 high and has had a trench through its middle, as has the sixth mound which is about the same height but 37' diameter and lies between the second and fifth enumerated. The next I have details on is 'H' at HY26772507, the smallest at 10x1'.
These mounds lie in the field next to the house before the Bigbreck Quarry as you come down on the B967 nearing the Twatt junction (where the Free Church sits). I have been here one or two times and strangely have never consciously noticed them. Actually my attention was first drawn by the several large stones lying by the top end of the field. There is enough material exposed in several of the barrows to make them worth a visit if you are in the area, another site for an other day. Before reaching here, between Nicol Point and the barrow cemetery, I saw two big stones isolated in the middle of a field, a grey standing stone and lying against it a thick slab of IIRC a sandy coloration.
VIA MOUND
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21NE 4 at HY26011598 on excavation sometime before 1839~41 uncovered "nothing found in it but a parcel of large stones". Though what appeared to be these remains was seen at the south edge of a pool of water in 1880 said mound was no longer present in 1928.
In 2004 I found what appeared, on reviewing the photos later, to be a cist to the left of the Stones of Via and a little further uphill (as seen from the road). This lies in boggy ground at the edge of a small and very shallow pool. Now that I have been back to the site and gotten my bearings this would appear to be the cist seen in 1991 at the SW quadrant of the remains of an enclosure about the Stones of Via, except that there is an apparent disparity in dimensions - the other covering an area approximately 1.5x0.7m whereas this one is 0.9x0.62m (and at least 0.44m deep originally). From triangulation it has the same 8-figure NGR as the Via Mound. Indeed upon consideration of surrounding features it is evident that this occupies the upper right of that site's scant remains. The only other structure in the field is a well at HY26051599 shown on the 1882 O.S. map. This has been blocked up with stones that might have been from said "parcel of large stones", and I surmise this could have then resulted in the issuing of water lower down the hill to form the pool.
Now to a fuller description of the cist. A side-slab 0.9m long and projecting 0.28m from the present ground level points directly uphill. Two further slabs at right angles to this lean over, so that it is difficult to see if these sub-divided the cist or provide one end of it. The one furthest uphill is 0.42m across and its underside projects 0.44m, the other has 0.62x0.34m projecting. Three stones lie by the bottom end of the cist. They are 0.32-0.48m across and project 0.3-0.6m.
STACKRUE-LYKING MOUND HY27121514
Though this would appear to be a continuation of the broch settlement it is not presently recorded and may instead relate to a vanished mound from which a Viking burial came (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21NE 4). This is currently indicated on CANMAP at HY271152 but does not appear on the 1882 map like the 1852 Viking cists do (HY21NE 8 at HY27051532, but on the 1882 O.S. at HY26961532), unlike this earthwork
Coming towards the broch from Lyking, where the Burn of Lyking passes under the field wall, I saw a short line of good stones along the bank running to the fieldwall at an acute angle. There appear to be remains of another bank wall over in the broch field section of the stream too. Going in for a closer look at these I saw that there is an earthwork with stones, taking the shape of a circular quadrant rising from the burn, occupying the field corner this side of Lyking against a loop of the stream [it may be relevant that CANMAP shows mound of the Viking burial as having been in the next loop, north of this]. There appears to be an inner ditch below the top of the rise and the mound's arc appears to continue on the other side of the road, though no earthwork is shown there on the first O.S. map. In 1882 a ford is shown at this area of the burn and the subterranean passage is indicated downhill from this area though included in the broch NMRS.
SANDAIKEN
Sandaiken, RCAHMS NMRS no. HY50SE 9, seems more an area name than one site in the area. The settlement is believed to be the old tunship of Sanday (which does not translate as 'sand-island' here). It covers the area above Taracliff Bay as far as Stonehall - Dingyshowe Bay proper being the bay on the broch side. The site Sandaiken at HY55380346 referred to a 30x40m mound "in the SW corner of a steep field above the clifftop at Stonehall", but this is now extended to cover an enclosure and since-gone farmstead on the first O.S. map. From the description it is difficult to verify if the field feature that I have noted is part or all of the enclosure, or maybe even abutting the location of the mound. On the other side of the the be-duned broch there was a mound called Peerie Howe (HY57450324) whose drystane wall and midden have not long gone, leaving only burnt stone and shell-midden in the cliff-face (opposite The Bungalow) - the shoreline below Sandaiken has no burnt materiel or I'd say my deposit was a similar site re-sculpted.
Since my spring visit the area is covered in grass again. To get there you either climb over a beach of giant pebbles or carefully walk the grass edge. Now there has been an attempt to start a coastal walk (the dark wood steps climb up the cliffs past my features, from where the walk is still harey in places and ends as unmarked as it starts, so walk further at your own risk) but it still needs care. Looking across the dunes past the gravel pit you see the cliffs coming to an end near the corner of a field, my 'earthwork' occupies that triangle. Though it is probably approximately oval you feel that it is a quadrant scooped out of the side of the hill - was it ever more than this I wonder? You look up at a banked circumference that doesn't show well on photos. Though it is certainly man-made I do not see a purpose. Were the alignment differently arranged you would have to say the end of the hillside had been removed to make the hill more defensible from attack by sea. Further along the hill, if you take the coastal walk, there is another wall arc, which appears to be called Mahon's Gate -there is/was a quarry in the hillside somewhere behind this. And on a map I see another similar echo, which is? Rat Gate (or are the gates cliff-features).
It looks to me as if the coastal side of the feature's hollow snuggles up against the end of the cliffs rather than actually merging into them. Coming back down and walking the shore there is a line of four or so stones tight against the 'cliff' about halfway up that seem to serve no purpose where they are and are definitely not the boundary of any eroded field, they are set straight into the near vertical hillside here. This last time I was surprised to see an apparent shell-midden only just above the shoreline, a great number of unbroken open shells set thickly but uncompacted in an earth matrix below the upper reaches of the 'earthwork'. Though there was some darker earth none seemed of a burnt nature. I am tempted to see here a prehistoric settlement-mound, despite being of the opinion that the juxtaposition of 'earthwork' and 'midden' is more-or-less chance. Certainly it looks to be on the level of an o.g.s., from "before the time when pebbles turned to sand" as it were. From the image you should be able to see that it starts at a vertical line of stones where the cliff proper ends - a nice place to bivouac I guess.
STANDING STONES MOUND
Directly opposite the Standing Stones Hotel the main road cuts across the edge of a large mound (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 24 at HY30251165). 'Cuts across' the whole site that is, seen up close it could be that only the edge of the mound itself is clipped, as if someone had cut across a smaa-ish chord of Maes Howe's inner ditch (depends how circular it originally was). Since the 1880's it has been considered a probable chambered mound, though a 1966 O.S. report typically declared it probably natural. The first measurements of the truncated site (HY31SW 24) were 55 yards N/S by 46 E/W and 11-15' high i.e. nothing much lost subsequently. Geophysics in 2001 showed apparent entrances on the NE and S sides as the likely locations of two chambers. Around the mound a roughly 2m wide ditch 40m across, partly revetted, appears on the geofizz. Possible secondary ditches/banks parallel to this were also indicated. Also known as Little Barnhouse.
