Tuesday, September 19, 2006
September 11th 2006 WEST DEERNESS TO CAMPSTON
Took the bus to the Deerness Stores, partly not to confuse a driver new to this route and partly to avoid any doubling of my way ensuing from a B9051 start. Also I find it useful to reverse the direction of previous travel, because no amount of looking both ways is as good at finding things as simply traversing each direction in turn. So up the minor road that runs up west of the shop. Though I had been here in July, and leaves had started falling off the trees (almost everything berried up), the full flush of vegetation had now arrived and the North Sands well site was rendered invisible now ! I went past the footpath beginning past the Greenhall to where the road turns before I was certain there was no other way across to the B9051. Considered going along to the burnt mounds below the reservoir as at least one may be something more, but felt the constraints of known time. Looking in that direction on the south side of the road at the field boundary where a well is indicated used to be Littlebrecks, but all I saw were a few cattle. Between there and the footpath there used to be a place Little Knolls (1882 map HY560059). Near the Greenhall farm road there did seem to be some swelling beside by the road. The footpath has a marker post and may be missed but the growing farmstead on triangular land is where its at. Of course until recently the path was a farm track, you still walk along the rutted hollow way with the 'standing stones' on banks either side, the southern one slightly higher. To the south of this track was The Knolls (1882 map HY560057) - didn't see anything that might be there as I mistakenly looked north ! This track ends at Mossquoy on the B road.
North to the junction opposite the Yarpha farm road. Still trying to make up my mind about the low mound at South Keigar, could always be a wartime relic rather than modern rubble I suppose. Still looking for the proper Keigar stuff, though found by the South Keigar farmer these lay north of the road in the newspaper account. The crop had been harvested to show only bare field about the stook cylinders. Coming this way the distinction between the end of the Keigar road and the start of the Mirkady farm road was less obvious. Even the little mound in the triangle beside the 'drain' was swamped by vegetation. Walking the deeply rutted track alongside the channel it felt like the grass was nearly knee high. The rushes upon the banks either side brushed my shoulders as I went - the growth of everything has been phenomenal this year, bringing to mind some 60's sci-fi I cannot quite place. My decision not to go Eves Loch was confirmed by the sered docks now holding court on its upper reaches. A little detective work shows that eve is Orcadian for the "pale mauve orchid" and that the loch was originally Wab Loch, presumably because it resembled a 'caul' about the mound. Even if it were named after Adam's third wife, the mother of men, this would connect with the wab o' the wame as another name for the placenta. There is an old tradition of weird sights and sounds in this area.
Turning right I was disappointed to find that I could not walk along the coast as almost all of the land beside the fields had either gone or been reduced to a slim rim leaving 'standing stones' to eke a slender existence. So down onto the shore. Even here, to get to the headland I had to get by the seaweed and past a slab fence that went into the sea. The slabs additionally had barbed wire about them. So I went down to a slight gap and big-stepped carefully over, avoiding a rusty loop t'other side, then went and clambered up onto Hurnip's Point (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50NW 58 at HY54480634). I can see reason for the excavator's tentative opinion of the mound as regarding whether it was one long un or several smaller, as including the two cones in its distant profile closer too you can imagine three or four being the total count. At the cliff end two depressions of 10 and 8m weren't dug but regarded as possibly excavated chambers. To me the size ratio was greater than that, so it was no surprise that at the end of the 70's there were two buildings here of 6m square and a little more than 10m square. Steedman's dissertation describes these as covering the whole mound, but the excavator saw it as one long (?chambered) mound going back to the field boundary. However the seaward end does indeed look like a unit, perhaps the mound behind has suffered through an attempt at agricultural improvement when the structures were superimposed. And Long Cairn on the Head of Work also had a later feature inserted, interestingly enough also sub-circular like the one found in a trench across the landward side here. In the centre of the larger depression I saw a solitary erect stone, probably earthfast and from what I could see about a foot high.
On the other side of the mound are (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50NW 30 at HY54460634) the two nousts (/nausts - like individual boat bays) that led to the discovery that the mound held secrets, the nearer being built against the mound. This latter produced the only pottery for the site in the shape of a single Grooved Ware sherd. Though the nausts are post-mediaeval it appears the nearer was built from prehistoric material, I saw that the longer two sides were stone-lined and the excavator relates that three sides have walls and the bottom is slab-lined. He saw it as a mini dry dock, but could it be that the materials were already in situ, possibly even re-use of (part or all of) an existing structure. Certainly the pot cannot be certainly connected to the mound above, and barrows have often been built over previous sites [maybe EBA over Neolithic for the main mound with the excavated chamber later in the Bronze Age yet]. Interestingly the excavator, Hunter, whose main target was the nausts (which report I haven't access to) does mention projecting stones between these two.
I think I was lucky with the dry weather, as going past the nausts the ground was spongy and each step I gingerly took in case there were still surface water. Not sure whether this is a marshy piece of land or an old burn. Definitely not linear anyway, more like a funnel or narrow delta. Could hear seals somewhere. Looking ahead I saw a dark slab in the sea a bit away. Massive impression. Though it was a few feet out to sea the blackened rock seemed to be about four feet broad and six inches thick, with roughly three feet above the waterline and perhaps as much or more again. This reminded of a row at Mill Sand in Tankerness that could have been a pre-mediaeval boundary (not so weighty though). I looked around and there were no other stones like it in the vicinity, not even fallen ones or stumps. Research upon my return found that two nausts (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50NW 31 at HY54370642 & 7) between those at Hurnip's Point and others called Black Craig have been associated with two sea-girt slabs that mark gaps in the taing (rocky platform). If this is one it is overkill for such a pragmatic purpose in such relatively recent times. Could it be an early boundary between Mirkady and Hurnip's Point/ Eves Howe ?
Though there was no archaeological reason to do so I decided to walk the seashore back from here. Good job I did. My first 'find' was a stone sticking out from a low cliff-face of light material, the left-hand side of an exposed section. Not any old stone but a 'standing stone' like you see in a barbwire fence. Even what I could see was practically a metre long. Just sticking straight out. Not collapsed, not knocked down in a storm but incorporated within the cliff itself. Above that stratum was soil and then the grass. Near the other end of the section might be the very end of another 'standing stone'. Mystery.
Came by the very end of Hurnip's Point and more exposed material. Even more likely to be prehistoric amongst this is a vertical slab coming out near the base, would make a very good candidate for part of a chamber stall (not very likely a horn, from here to the field is 60m of mound but the amount of rock platform could have supported a lot more originally - as much as 30/40m ?). Closer approach revealed it to be hanging in the air rather than edge set, several feet all round. Gave it a hit and the stone didn't move, so there is more in there. Lest it disappear in the next storm, because of the soft material the slab's embedded in, I mentioned it to a couple of professional archaeologists (tentatively, which was likely a mistake with one), and my friend from the museum reckons the flat stuff alongside looks a candidate for more archaeology.
Just leaving the headland behind I took a gander at one of the 'ready to go' 'standing stones' several feet up atop the cliff. Very peculiar stuff by this one, not certain there is an association. A few levels of stone that I was't sure whether it was walling or flooring. Definitely not a drystane wall, wrong fit and wrong materials - I've seen them in varying styles and conditions. Remains of a stone cairn or destruction material, possibly what was in the area before the mound ?? A few days later I was editing my photos from when I was a volunteer excavator at The Howe in Stromess when I saw similarities of construction with some of the buildings outside the broch tower. So secondary broch settlement another possibility. Historic Scotland have apparently geofizzed around Hurnip's Point, but that is all the Royal Commission knows about it (when's the updated SMR's being done by the college gel ?).
Back to the B road with 'standing stones' in the bank of all kinds of shapes though similar sizes, square, pointy, thin. Still a puzzle when these not-quite-Standing- Stones were placed, the original function if different, or even if they are all of the same period. Very likely before the 19thC agricultural improvements leastways, they went in for close-knit slab fences instead. Came to the farm road to Braebuster and it almost took my breath away. In Orkney you don't have many long straight stretches and this one goes all the way downhill, in the open from the B9051 to the farmstead itself. And apart from the farm the only thing in view is a big square mound (HY50NW 28 at HY54510514) to its south. This mound and its buildings have been taken for a possibly ecclesiastical, though as the taing at the shore is named Miller's Quoy this provides an alternative usage - storehouses ? And further along, below Hacco, are the remains of a probable post-mill. At Hacco the fields are filled with giant aerials, nothing to say what they are. I thought maybe military but the one that appeared to have fallen could be directional. Broadcasting antenna for media or telecommunications. No signs or anything, and the farm buildings looked just that. On to the junction of the B roads and then up to Deerness Stores to complete the circuit.
Opposite the stores I took the minor road to Newark Bay. [Somewhere along the way I had the feeling I had been this way before. I remember being taken to an excavation in September 1986, three pictures of what looks like a long passage remain but not where it was. Somewhere way off the beaten track and past water] There's a junction where another minor road goes east to Quoys where the odd bit of evidence for Viking settlement has been found. A little further down are what look like several disturbed mounds to the west of the road. I wondered at the time if Trowietown was originally the name for these. CANMAP indicates one site, but disappointingly there is nothing on this mound beside Little Cottage (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SE 14 at HY57080448, about where the O.S. has a well).
On the east side coming down to Newark a network of quarried/eroded mounds gave a feeling of déja vu. This is how I felt the hillocks about the Dingieeshowe broch would look if cleared of dunes. Resisted the impulse to take a gander, perhaps they are the original Work to which Newark was the Nue Work of Deernes [sic]? You would expect more of a distinction between the two though. At the coast there are a few dingy white caravans awaiting the next tourist unfortunates. To the left of these Newark humkers over a farm tell over half-an-acre across (including the nearby mounds ?). This site is RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SE 3 at HY57460413 and stands comparison with the Skaills in Derrness and Sandwick, more especially the latter I feel. This is the site of a late first millenium chapel and burial-ground, with human remains eroding out of the cliffs fom time to time - a Norse settlement may have stretched a hundred metres along the coast. Deeper digging revealed two probable souterrains, labelled by the excavator "mycoform structures" (a pity this phrase doesn't date back as far as that other smothering blanket term the 'burnt mound' or we would have more on record e.g. the supposed fulgarites found at Trimmigarth/?Trinnigar in Sandwick).
Never looked for any of these features in my onward march. By Newark there is a wooden sign for the now public footpath to Aikerskaill road. Have a vague memory of being turned back by a farmer here, so this is new to me. A lovely broad path, a green road almost. Before long I came to two long side-by-side concrete slabs that take you over a 'drain' entering the sea here. More likely a burn as it arcs around the western end of the next field. Perhaps the slabs are recent replacements for a disintegrating bridge from when the footpath was created in its present state, as they go over two curving drystane walls several feet in height. Against the beach edge of the track the tides have left their mark with a neat line of well-ordered and rounded beach pebbles roughly ranging from six inches to a foot long. Some spill over onto the track. Then there is a change, on the track the stones either side become bigger and blockier and I see more of the same along the line of the barbwire field fence. Very definitely building material. Of course I am prepared for this by knowing that there is there is a broch in the far end of this long field. This is the Howe of Backland (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SE 8 at HY58040402), in Quoyburing, which gives the game away by being pronounced Quoyburrian after the broch. From reading the record I had expected to find no traces but some level ground grassed over. My mis-reading, though you cannot see the broch tower the 3m-high mound shows up well and covers quite an area. Over the other side of the field's east end I see a big pond with a very small mound rising from the middle of it. This is the other half of the surviving site (so, tidgy mound as surviving piece of outworks or connected with the well depicted in this field), divided by the track north to Skea a normal person can use. But I only realise this after I return home. Par for my course, naturally !
From the coastal path I have instead to negotiate the barbwire. Fortunately this is a proper fence, not that steel blue anti-tourist device they go in for nowadays. Push down slightly and swivel oh so carefully over. Make sure not to twist the wires together as I do this. Facing me is the edge of a wall-line at a slight but (now) obvious angle to the horizontal (though possibly not the same inclination either end), two lengths of about a metre with an apperent visibility gap. The RH side is of a piece, an inch or two of depth showing (if memory serves), made of dark pieces of stone. The LH of the line is more fragmented and composed of bigger and slightly lighter stones. This gave me the impression that the site comprised two structures of different design and perhaps age. The stones I could see at that time scattered across the top of this howe seemed also lighter, so I assumed that something dark lay beneath and all the broch tower material removed apart from these odd few. More likely the effect the wall line gave me was more correctly due to differential exposure or there being different courses of wall (presuming that these are not two walls at different distances from the centre that only appear to have a connection owing to the mound being so large). The projecting stones elsewhere could be of other walls. There are several depressions atop the mound.
Where the external ditch may lie a long section of straight 'drain' forms the northern edge of the field. There are cattle grazing unconcerned in the next field up as I walk down that northern side in a vain attempt to seperate ditch from agricultural goings-on. But there is a space at the eastern end of the boundary, and as I look beyond one of the bullocks detaches from the herd to shadow me heavily. Told him he had no business and eventually he got the message. Coming to the western end from below one of these depressions was partly bare of grass by the outside edge. This bared surface covered with square and triangular rock fragments and what looks like earth is surely merely further disintegration. To the right of the exposure I could see another section of dark wall line. When I looked closer I realised there were another two courses. Not as far as I could tell big enough for a broch - the courses were incurving this could merely be an indication that the wall had begun collapsing inwards before consolidation into the mound. I deduce that even if the main part of the mound isn't a broch tower it is a single structure and the rest of the mound trailing this side might be outbuildings. And as far as I can tell from my photos this was at the NW edge of the mound, which is also where a section of remaining external ditch is seen by some to lie. In the last century a Dr. Brothwell found a broch wall almost as high as the mound in a test trench, but I don't suppose this could really be it ?? Though as with Newark it would provide a way for the erosion to have started (and if the height were only a deduction from how far up the walltop was would explain why it has been lost since then). My addled dream ;-)
Considered continuing on to the Aikerskaill road. Instead back to Newark. Luckily enough there is a path from there to the other side of the bay, this one of sharp white sand. Wondered about the mounds west of Little Cottage being thought the troll town until I saw the pitiful settlement that is Trowietown. From the Orkney Library discovered that trowie does in fact mean weak or sickly, which would make a trowie equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon changeling I guess. The ford on the 1:25,000 really is one, which was nice. A cute little one across a streamlet emptying onto the shore. Went past the dock for to see the Mussaquoy Mound once more. This time I would take a pic of the whole of the landward cut standing over it, also measure five foot from the cist-like slab and grope for the other one. The 'Orkney gate' was even harder to unspring this time, nearly didn't manage the task. Followed the trail left by a small tractor. Much disappointed to find the site completely overgrown, the only thing peering out being part of the small exposure facing the sea. Once outside its field enclosure I took the next track up, fully expecting to see a way across some field edge to the Delday road. Instead I came to some houses on the Mussaquoy farm road, then to the Mussaquoy junction and right to the main road.
Surprised to find I had only being going for four hours. Thought about walking to Hurnip's Point again. Hadn't taken shots of the green mound with my SLR and only realised at the Mirkady road I could have used it on the cliff sections - not that I'm sure that is working properly anyway. Still, no reason to go to the other extreme and risk over-estimation of time left leading to my missing the last bus if needed. So through to St.Andrew's parish.
TO VENIKELDAY
Thoughts on the St.Peter's Kirk site. If it ain't St.Peter's why consider it a kirk at all. Could be a Viking hall, perhaps a notable with their own chapel. Having seen the rectangular Braebuster Mound could this have been of the same nature. Maybe connected to the Comely Quarry in some way. Definitely too big to be forgotten if it was really ecclesiastical, definitely of a parish church size though normal practice would have been to build on or near the excavated broch mound.
Walked as far as the Venikelday farm track as I knew I hadn't taken photos of the Campston broch with one of the cameras. The site looked very dark and I felt sure I was as out of luck as with Mussaquoy. But hey ho. Actually not bad behind, climbed up to the fence and took some shots across the top and then north down on the putative ringwork edge. The other side of the track the settlement remains by contrast hadn't received any vegetative contour enhancement, still not sure whether some of what you see is an old burn. Took photos of a few small low mounds almost a group. Made me think of the pond field at Backland Broch. Peculiar little lumps. Up to the main road in the nick of time to catch the last but one bus, head steaming fit to bust.
Took the bus to the Deerness Stores, partly not to confuse a driver new to this route and partly to avoid any doubling of my way ensuing from a B9051 start. Also I find it useful to reverse the direction of previous travel, because no amount of looking both ways is as good at finding things as simply traversing each direction in turn. So up the minor road that runs up west of the shop. Though I had been here in July, and leaves had started falling off the trees (almost everything berried up), the full flush of vegetation had now arrived and the North Sands well site was rendered invisible now ! I went past the footpath beginning past the Greenhall to where the road turns before I was certain there was no other way across to the B9051. Considered going along to the burnt mounds below the reservoir as at least one may be something more, but felt the constraints of known time. Looking in that direction on the south side of the road at the field boundary where a well is indicated used to be Littlebrecks, but all I saw were a few cattle. Between there and the footpath there used to be a place Little Knolls (1882 map HY560059). Near the Greenhall farm road there did seem to be some swelling beside by the road. The footpath has a marker post and may be missed but the growing farmstead on triangular land is where its at. Of course until recently the path was a farm track, you still walk along the rutted hollow way with the 'standing stones' on banks either side, the southern one slightly higher. To the south of this track was The Knolls (1882 map HY560057) - didn't see anything that might be there as I mistakenly looked north ! This track ends at Mossquoy on the B road.
North to the junction opposite the Yarpha farm road. Still trying to make up my mind about the low mound at South Keigar, could always be a wartime relic rather than modern rubble I suppose. Still looking for the proper Keigar stuff, though found by the South Keigar farmer these lay north of the road in the newspaper account. The crop had been harvested to show only bare field about the stook cylinders. Coming this way the distinction between the end of the Keigar road and the start of the Mirkady farm road was less obvious. Even the little mound in the triangle beside the 'drain' was swamped by vegetation. Walking the deeply rutted track alongside the channel it felt like the grass was nearly knee high. The rushes upon the banks either side brushed my shoulders as I went - the growth of everything has been phenomenal this year, bringing to mind some 60's sci-fi I cannot quite place. My decision not to go Eves Loch was confirmed by the sered docks now holding court on its upper reaches. A little detective work shows that eve is Orcadian for the "pale mauve orchid" and that the loch was originally Wab Loch, presumably because it resembled a 'caul' about the mound. Even if it were named after Adam's third wife, the mother of men, this would connect with the wab o' the wame as another name for the placenta. There is an old tradition of weird sights and sounds in this area.
Turning right I was disappointed to find that I could not walk along the coast as almost all of the land beside the fields had either gone or been reduced to a slim rim leaving 'standing stones' to eke a slender existence. So down onto the shore. Even here, to get to the headland I had to get by the seaweed and past a slab fence that went into the sea. The slabs additionally had barbed wire about them. So I went down to a slight gap and big-stepped carefully over, avoiding a rusty loop t'other side, then went and clambered up onto Hurnip's Point (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50NW 58 at HY54480634). I can see reason for the excavator's tentative opinion of the mound as regarding whether it was one long un or several smaller, as including the two cones in its distant profile closer too you can imagine three or four being the total count. At the cliff end two depressions of 10 and 8m weren't dug but regarded as possibly excavated chambers. To me the size ratio was greater than that, so it was no surprise that at the end of the 70's there were two buildings here of 6m square and a little more than 10m square. Steedman's dissertation describes these as covering the whole mound, but the excavator saw it as one long (?chambered) mound going back to the field boundary. However the seaward end does indeed look like a unit, perhaps the mound behind has suffered through an attempt at agricultural improvement when the structures were superimposed. And Long Cairn on the Head of Work also had a later feature inserted, interestingly enough also sub-circular like the one found in a trench across the landward side here. In the centre of the larger depression I saw a solitary erect stone, probably earthfast and from what I could see about a foot high.
On the other side of the mound are (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50NW 30 at HY54460634) the two nousts (/nausts - like individual boat bays) that led to the discovery that the mound held secrets, the nearer being built against the mound. This latter produced the only pottery for the site in the shape of a single Grooved Ware sherd. Though the nausts are post-mediaeval it appears the nearer was built from prehistoric material, I saw that the longer two sides were stone-lined and the excavator relates that three sides have walls and the bottom is slab-lined. He saw it as a mini dry dock, but could it be that the materials were already in situ, possibly even re-use of (part or all of) an existing structure. Certainly the pot cannot be certainly connected to the mound above, and barrows have often been built over previous sites [maybe EBA over Neolithic for the main mound with the excavated chamber later in the Bronze Age yet]. Interestingly the excavator, Hunter, whose main target was the nausts (which report I haven't access to) does mention projecting stones between these two.
I think I was lucky with the dry weather, as going past the nausts the ground was spongy and each step I gingerly took in case there were still surface water. Not sure whether this is a marshy piece of land or an old burn. Definitely not linear anyway, more like a funnel or narrow delta. Could hear seals somewhere. Looking ahead I saw a dark slab in the sea a bit away. Massive impression. Though it was a few feet out to sea the blackened rock seemed to be about four feet broad and six inches thick, with roughly three feet above the waterline and perhaps as much or more again. This reminded of a row at Mill Sand in Tankerness that could have been a pre-mediaeval boundary (not so weighty though). I looked around and there were no other stones like it in the vicinity, not even fallen ones or stumps. Research upon my return found that two nausts (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50NW 31 at HY54370642 & 7) between those at Hurnip's Point and others called Black Craig have been associated with two sea-girt slabs that mark gaps in the taing (rocky platform). If this is one it is overkill for such a pragmatic purpose in such relatively recent times. Could it be an early boundary between Mirkady and Hurnip's Point/ Eves Howe ?
Though there was no archaeological reason to do so I decided to walk the seashore back from here. Good job I did. My first 'find' was a stone sticking out from a low cliff-face of light material, the left-hand side of an exposed section. Not any old stone but a 'standing stone' like you see in a barbwire fence. Even what I could see was practically a metre long. Just sticking straight out. Not collapsed, not knocked down in a storm but incorporated within the cliff itself. Above that stratum was soil and then the grass. Near the other end of the section might be the very end of another 'standing stone'. Mystery.
Came by the very end of Hurnip's Point and more exposed material. Even more likely to be prehistoric amongst this is a vertical slab coming out near the base, would make a very good candidate for part of a chamber stall (not very likely a horn, from here to the field is 60m of mound but the amount of rock platform could have supported a lot more originally - as much as 30/40m ?). Closer approach revealed it to be hanging in the air rather than edge set, several feet all round. Gave it a hit and the stone didn't move, so there is more in there. Lest it disappear in the next storm, because of the soft material the slab's embedded in, I mentioned it to a couple of professional archaeologists (tentatively, which was likely a mistake with one), and my friend from the museum reckons the flat stuff alongside looks a candidate for more archaeology.
Just leaving the headland behind I took a gander at one of the 'ready to go' 'standing stones' several feet up atop the cliff. Very peculiar stuff by this one, not certain there is an association. A few levels of stone that I was't sure whether it was walling or flooring. Definitely not a drystane wall, wrong fit and wrong materials - I've seen them in varying styles and conditions. Remains of a stone cairn or destruction material, possibly what was in the area before the mound ?? A few days later I was editing my photos from when I was a volunteer excavator at The Howe in Stromess when I saw similarities of construction with some of the buildings outside the broch tower. So secondary broch settlement another possibility. Historic Scotland have apparently geofizzed around Hurnip's Point, but that is all the Royal Commission knows about it (when's the updated SMR's being done by the college gel ?).
Back to the B road with 'standing stones' in the bank of all kinds of shapes though similar sizes, square, pointy, thin. Still a puzzle when these not-quite-Standing- Stones were placed, the original function if different, or even if they are all of the same period. Very likely before the 19thC agricultural improvements leastways, they went in for close-knit slab fences instead. Came to the farm road to Braebuster and it almost took my breath away. In Orkney you don't have many long straight stretches and this one goes all the way downhill, in the open from the B9051 to the farmstead itself. And apart from the farm the only thing in view is a big square mound (HY50NW 28 at HY54510514) to its south. This mound and its buildings have been taken for a possibly ecclesiastical, though as the taing at the shore is named Miller's Quoy this provides an alternative usage - storehouses ? And further along, below Hacco, are the remains of a probable post-mill. At Hacco the fields are filled with giant aerials, nothing to say what they are. I thought maybe military but the one that appeared to have fallen could be directional. Broadcasting antenna for media or telecommunications. No signs or anything, and the farm buildings looked just that. On to the junction of the B roads and then up to Deerness Stores to complete the circuit.
Opposite the stores I took the minor road to Newark Bay. [Somewhere along the way I had the feeling I had been this way before. I remember being taken to an excavation in September 1986, three pictures of what looks like a long passage remain but not where it was. Somewhere way off the beaten track and past water] There's a junction where another minor road goes east to Quoys where the odd bit of evidence for Viking settlement has been found. A little further down are what look like several disturbed mounds to the west of the road. I wondered at the time if Trowietown was originally the name for these. CANMAP indicates one site, but disappointingly there is nothing on this mound beside Little Cottage (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SE 14 at HY57080448, about where the O.S. has a well).
On the east side coming down to Newark a network of quarried/eroded mounds gave a feeling of déja vu. This is how I felt the hillocks about the Dingieeshowe broch would look if cleared of dunes. Resisted the impulse to take a gander, perhaps they are the original Work to which Newark was the Nue Work of Deernes [sic]? You would expect more of a distinction between the two though. At the coast there are a few dingy white caravans awaiting the next tourist unfortunates. To the left of these Newark humkers over a farm tell over half-an-acre across (including the nearby mounds ?). This site is RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SE 3 at HY57460413 and stands comparison with the Skaills in Derrness and Sandwick, more especially the latter I feel. This is the site of a late first millenium chapel and burial-ground, with human remains eroding out of the cliffs fom time to time - a Norse settlement may have stretched a hundred metres along the coast. Deeper digging revealed two probable souterrains, labelled by the excavator "mycoform structures" (a pity this phrase doesn't date back as far as that other smothering blanket term the 'burnt mound' or we would have more on record e.g. the supposed fulgarites found at Trimmigarth/?Trinnigar in Sandwick).
Never looked for any of these features in my onward march. By Newark there is a wooden sign for the now public footpath to Aikerskaill road. Have a vague memory of being turned back by a farmer here, so this is new to me. A lovely broad path, a green road almost. Before long I came to two long side-by-side concrete slabs that take you over a 'drain' entering the sea here. More likely a burn as it arcs around the western end of the next field. Perhaps the slabs are recent replacements for a disintegrating bridge from when the footpath was created in its present state, as they go over two curving drystane walls several feet in height. Against the beach edge of the track the tides have left their mark with a neat line of well-ordered and rounded beach pebbles roughly ranging from six inches to a foot long. Some spill over onto the track. Then there is a change, on the track the stones either side become bigger and blockier and I see more of the same along the line of the barbwire field fence. Very definitely building material. Of course I am prepared for this by knowing that there is there is a broch in the far end of this long field. This is the Howe of Backland (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SE 8 at HY58040402), in Quoyburing, which gives the game away by being pronounced Quoyburrian after the broch. From reading the record I had expected to find no traces but some level ground grassed over. My mis-reading, though you cannot see the broch tower the 3m-high mound shows up well and covers quite an area. Over the other side of the field's east end I see a big pond with a very small mound rising from the middle of it. This is the other half of the surviving site (so, tidgy mound as surviving piece of outworks or connected with the well depicted in this field), divided by the track north to Skea a normal person can use. But I only realise this after I return home. Par for my course, naturally !
From the coastal path I have instead to negotiate the barbwire. Fortunately this is a proper fence, not that steel blue anti-tourist device they go in for nowadays. Push down slightly and swivel oh so carefully over. Make sure not to twist the wires together as I do this. Facing me is the edge of a wall-line at a slight but (now) obvious angle to the horizontal (though possibly not the same inclination either end), two lengths of about a metre with an apperent visibility gap. The RH side is of a piece, an inch or two of depth showing (if memory serves), made of dark pieces of stone. The LH of the line is more fragmented and composed of bigger and slightly lighter stones. This gave me the impression that the site comprised two structures of different design and perhaps age. The stones I could see at that time scattered across the top of this howe seemed also lighter, so I assumed that something dark lay beneath and all the broch tower material removed apart from these odd few. More likely the effect the wall line gave me was more correctly due to differential exposure or there being different courses of wall (presuming that these are not two walls at different distances from the centre that only appear to have a connection owing to the mound being so large). The projecting stones elsewhere could be of other walls. There are several depressions atop the mound.
Where the external ditch may lie a long section of straight 'drain' forms the northern edge of the field. There are cattle grazing unconcerned in the next field up as I walk down that northern side in a vain attempt to seperate ditch from agricultural goings-on. But there is a space at the eastern end of the boundary, and as I look beyond one of the bullocks detaches from the herd to shadow me heavily. Told him he had no business and eventually he got the message. Coming to the western end from below one of these depressions was partly bare of grass by the outside edge. This bared surface covered with square and triangular rock fragments and what looks like earth is surely merely further disintegration. To the right of the exposure I could see another section of dark wall line. When I looked closer I realised there were another two courses. Not as far as I could tell big enough for a broch - the courses were incurving this could merely be an indication that the wall had begun collapsing inwards before consolidation into the mound. I deduce that even if the main part of the mound isn't a broch tower it is a single structure and the rest of the mound trailing this side might be outbuildings. And as far as I can tell from my photos this was at the NW edge of the mound, which is also where a section of remaining external ditch is seen by some to lie. In the last century a Dr. Brothwell found a broch wall almost as high as the mound in a test trench, but I don't suppose this could really be it ?? Though as with Newark it would provide a way for the erosion to have started (and if the height were only a deduction from how far up the walltop was would explain why it has been lost since then). My addled dream ;-)
Considered continuing on to the Aikerskaill road. Instead back to Newark. Luckily enough there is a path from there to the other side of the bay, this one of sharp white sand. Wondered about the mounds west of Little Cottage being thought the troll town until I saw the pitiful settlement that is Trowietown. From the Orkney Library discovered that trowie does in fact mean weak or sickly, which would make a trowie equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon changeling I guess. The ford on the 1:25,000 really is one, which was nice. A cute little one across a streamlet emptying onto the shore. Went past the dock for to see the Mussaquoy Mound once more. This time I would take a pic of the whole of the landward cut standing over it, also measure five foot from the cist-like slab and grope for the other one. The 'Orkney gate' was even harder to unspring this time, nearly didn't manage the task. Followed the trail left by a small tractor. Much disappointed to find the site completely overgrown, the only thing peering out being part of the small exposure facing the sea. Once outside its field enclosure I took the next track up, fully expecting to see a way across some field edge to the Delday road. Instead I came to some houses on the Mussaquoy farm road, then to the Mussaquoy junction and right to the main road.
Surprised to find I had only being going for four hours. Thought about walking to Hurnip's Point again. Hadn't taken shots of the green mound with my SLR and only realised at the Mirkady road I could have used it on the cliff sections - not that I'm sure that is working properly anyway. Still, no reason to go to the other extreme and risk over-estimation of time left leading to my missing the last bus if needed. So through to St.Andrew's parish.
TO VENIKELDAY
Thoughts on the St.Peter's Kirk site. If it ain't St.Peter's why consider it a kirk at all. Could be a Viking hall, perhaps a notable with their own chapel. Having seen the rectangular Braebuster Mound could this have been of the same nature. Maybe connected to the Comely Quarry in some way. Definitely too big to be forgotten if it was really ecclesiastical, definitely of a parish church size though normal practice would have been to build on or near the excavated broch mound.
Walked as far as the Venikelday farm track as I knew I hadn't taken photos of the Campston broch with one of the cameras. The site looked very dark and I felt sure I was as out of luck as with Mussaquoy. But hey ho. Actually not bad behind, climbed up to the fence and took some shots across the top and then north down on the putative ringwork edge. The other side of the track the settlement remains by contrast hadn't received any vegetative contour enhancement, still not sure whether some of what you see is an old burn. Took photos of a few small low mounds almost a group. Made me think of the pond field at Backland Broch. Peculiar little lumps. Up to the main road in the nick of time to catch the last but one bus, head steaming fit to bust.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
STANEY HILL TO NESS OF BRODGAR August 31st 2006
Took the bus from Kirkwall to the road junction just before Maes Howe. Never quite sure whether to call it after Grimeston or Stoneyhill. It leaves the Kirkwall-Stromness road and arches over to the Harray road but there is another road leaves 'it' before the Staney Hill stone is reached and goes back the way before curving back to exit on the Harray road nearer the junction with the main road. There is a crafts sign for the Fursbreck Pottery, which is actually not at Fursbreck but near Jubadie slightly along the Harray road. Clear as mud. Anyway, 'it' is the road to the right of Maes Howe as seen from Tormiston. As you reach level with the mound there are a couple of geometric areas of pale gravel beside the road that I can only presume cover an area of exploratory excavations, if they aren't from trial trenches I am at a loss as to what they are. From here on you are granted a mighty fine view of the bank around Maes Howe with enough elevation to see the bank inside from slightly above. There are a coupl of tumuli shown as in the field behind the maiden mount but I've never noticed them myself. A cist was found 5 chains from "the circle mound.. Maeshowe...", out of level ground by a quarry - presumably the disused one on the O.S. 1:25,000 - in contrast to ones found previously in the vicinity on platforms or small mounds.
The next recorded site is on the same side of the road, where the bigging letters of Overbigging lie on the map, the field before the track going to Lochside. Aerial photography first revealed this (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 39 on a NNW/SSE ridge) as a 200' sub-circular crop mark - on the ground W of the entrance along the ridge they reckon is a hundred foot section of a yard wide ditch remaining visible. All that I saw from the roadside was a big low mound a foot or possibly two high above a big low hillock ! Geophysics came up with no indications within the enclosure that this was a settlement, so the best explanation would be that this was an animal pound - perhaps the marshy areas were once more extensive and the stock could be kept safe and dry here.
On a natural mound 15 chains north of Lochside farm itself cists were found in 1915 and again in 1928 (HY31SW 32). On the 1:25,000 the site position according to the Royal Commission's CANMAP is the field below that containing the picnic legends. If it is where I'm thinking the area now looks much 'quarried'. Must remember to look when I have less of a rush on. At the northern end of the field is the viewpoint track. I shall discuss this out of sequence. I went to 'my' Viewpoint Mound that overlooks the loch, the water levels looked reasonably low between the picnic point and the mound, though the stone scatter in the waters there still looks random. Up on the mound I was unable to locate my peedie 'stone-lined' hole. Hardly surprising, as not only was there much more grass cover now but the top has since my last visit been invaded by rabbits (I have noticed this at several sites lately e.g. Skae Frue) and there is a multitude of holes, making walking dodgy as some are exposed and others not. The rectangular structure in the loch below the mound's west side was little apparent, so I had misread the water levels. From here you can see several possible lines of walling coming from the various holms (islets). According to the NMR there is a possible building on Stenny Holm (Stenny=Staney=Stoney. Over in St.Andrew's near Mine Howe there is an apparently 'missing' Stoney Howe (perhaps by Breck - certainly names for Mine Howe all relate instead to dampness or mine-working), as in 1880 "Lang Howe, Round Howe, Stoney Howe, Stem Howe and Chapel" are mentioned as tumuli in close proximity).
Before I went to the Viewpoint Mound my main target was the Vola Mound (HY31SW 7 at HY31471395). This N/S aligned barrow was 102x85' with an irregular ditch of between thirteen and twenty-one feet. The platform and ~17.4m diameter mound both presently stand a metre high, and there were the remains of a 5" thick earthfast stone on the latter with the same orientation. Naturally I went what turned out to be the more difficult route first, as that lay closer. Opposite where the viewpoint track starts, on the north side of the road, is a field fence and the mound lies inside this, though I went along the outside. For a marshy are it was surprisingly dry. At the start I mostly followed what appeared to be a pair of cart ruts that wandered through the lush growth of reeds and grass and such. Underfoot it felt as if a myriad shod cattle had trampled it when damp - each time a shoe went down I had no idea when it would hit bottom. I could see where the grass in front of me - probably someone's hound, I can only imagine a farmer walking here. The experience put me strongly in mind of the time that I went to the Knowes of Trotty, wading through knee-deep vegetation with little idea of what lay beneath. The mound lay in more obvious pasture. I can see how someone might mistake this for a stone-deprived henge even at this time of year, a big flattish mound ringed by a fairly broad sloping bank with a skinny-looking ditch, but I concur with the current opinion that this is a funny kind of bell barrow rather than a disc as used to be thought. In a few well-exposed areas (usually the sign of a previous thorugh investigation where the grass never seems to grow back) earth and a few small stones are shown). Definitely worth a look in winter for more possible features. In the rough piece outwith the field I climbed a taller hillock for the taking of photographs. Here too were the usual signs of unrecorded excavation pits. The same held for another similar. But both completely turf-covered, of a very different nature to the Vola Mound itself even if they too may have endured the hand of prehistoric man. Coming out I was checking the remaining waters of the burn beside the road, only a few metres left in the heat, when it struck me this marshy area resembled a situation seen in 19th century excavations at the Burn of Langa Dee, where it was evident that water had been purposefully channeled about the mounds.
After taking the viewpoint track I continued up the road only a matter of metres (as it seemed to me) when I found a far easier way to the Vola Mound. This is signed as "Harray footpath 700m", though whether this means 700m of or to is unclear ! This skirts the marsh plant area by going alongside other field fence boundaries. The first bit is over yet another upswelling, upon which a 'modern' cottage sits. Stand with your back to the house and look across to the Vola Mound before you. Past here the 'footpath' turns a corner and heads to a barred metal gate that is the only concievable direction of continuation. This lets you into the Vola Mound field, though I chose not to go in because the cattle would congregate about me - not for fear but lest they damaged the very features that I wanted a closer look at (the same holds true for a possible souterrain at Nether Scapa, and even now sheep graze there instead I don't want to risk a collapsing passage when I investigate). So another for my ever-expanding winter to-do list.
The next thing I want to look at I didn't know until after I came back. "Harray - Orkney's Inland Parish" by John T.Firth et al (1975 revision) gives the legend Pile of Stones in an area adjacent to the east side of the road north of the Burn of Rickla, the latter being part of the present Harray-Stenness parish boundary. The 1882 map only shows a boundary marker at HY31531420. Perhaps the large irregular stones in the bank beside the road further along, over a foot in each direction and not of a shape fit for use in a drystane wall, have come from it. A little further away from the road I did know about, but again forgot to look for, the Fairy Knowe (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 22 at HY31731407) over on the downhill side of the Burn of Rickla - on the second leg of the 'Harray footpath' it is in the second field east and similarly two fields from the Vola Mound. This apparently natural mound, much ploughed, is meant to have held some unrecorded graves.
As well as the Pile of Stones the field-name map for Grimeston also shows another two unreportedsites to look for sometime. Follow from the picnic symbol up until you come to Biggings. The field immediately west of the farm, called Longquoy (centred HY309146), is supposed to have some graves or cists with a hole in the ground close by them. And the field below that, Tengagena (centred HY309145 approx.), is described as where the remains of a 'Pictish' mound are (wrong place for a broch, so something else). Of course this was back in the 1920's, so it may be too late already.
Passing the awkward Hybreck-Gorn junction and climbing the hill to reach the Staney Hill Stone on my left I could see some mounds on the brow of the hill, what the records call a false crest. Most obvious was a conical one several feet high. Then between this and the road was either a middling-sized flattish mound cut through in ages past or two slightly smaller ones. Coming closer they are in a field abutting a house just before the junction with the other minor road to the right. The Feolquoy Barrows (HY31NW 7 centred at HY31741551) are described as three earth and stone mounds about 8-10m across, having lost a couple of metres since first described, and about a metre high. A nearby fourth possible barrow of less than half their dimensions is possibly only spoil. An urn was found in the smallest of the three, which is cut through by a peat road, by a gentleman from Gorn. What I saw looked little like the official description - maybe its the time of year. Through a pair of binoculars I could make out something on the downhill side of the taller barrow in view a little way down from its top. This time of year I fully expected this to be something natural like an herbaceous plant, a straw bundle or dung. But no, definitely a reasonable sized stone. Have to get back to it, time pressed me now.
There was a Slap of Feolquoy somewhere. If you go by the number of these gaps in the hill-dykes the Grimeston region had important rank. John Firth's list for Harray shows up to four to be the usual number, like Bimbister where this road meets the Harray road, but in Grim's tunship the four he names are only called the main ones in this region. The Staney Hill Stone is between Grimeston and Bimbister, which probably relates to the legend of the men escorting St.Magnus body from Birsay to Kirkwall erecting a large stone hereabouts. Trevor Garnham sees an alignment from here to the porch of house 8 at Barnhouse and thence to the Stones of Stenness, with it also on a line from the Appiehouse Stone to the Ring of Brodgar. Which doesn't take into account the long barrow as, surely, the main marker. The standing stone hangs above the edge of a mini-quarry - well, at least the authorities attach the label of quarry to the spot directly in front, below a very short vertical face. Though some friendly bullocks occupied the space I saved face and took a couple of decent shots from by the fence.
I was having second thoughts about going to the Ness of Brodgar dig because of how late I was running. Considered going on to the top of the road and over to look at Wasdale again, then coming back and nearing the Feolquoy Barrows really wanted to see the stone up close. But full speed ahead. Passed the white stones. At the bottom of the hill and round the corner to a short length of slab fence ending in one at 45 degrees against the last upright - I always feel these kind of 'stops' aren't really to do with solid practicalities. Near one of the loch side farms I had earlier seen an arc of bright stones, and having confirmed that this was the Biggings Broch and taken a couple of shots of the mound in context I was surprised later to find that I had captured the Watch Stone in the far distance (and its amazing what the camera catches when you can afford to take several almost identical shots, praise be digital). Of course now that the original ley-hunters have abandoned the straight track the professionals have discovered landscape archaeology, so we can make such observations. Decided not to take a closer look as with the deep summer cover I might become all too literally 'bogged down' !
Once back on the main road I thought of looking at the Stenness parish church and perhaps on to see if there were anything visible on the tiny Gernaness peninsula. The last occasion I had looked in the parish church for the carved stones, one in a wall and another against a corner, noted in 1927. Only I didn't know where to look as I hadn't made a note because it was just spur of the moment I went. By the kirkyard gate I had seen two small identical red stone finials, cuboids with one end plain and the other with hemispherical quadrants out and equal-armed crosses in the end-face. Unfortunately the only photos were with a duff camera. Looking over the north wall to a pair of fields by the lochside, and between two concrete posts this side were two big rough blocks of stone (one lying across the other which was stood on end against the posts) that looked like to have come from some even older structure (definitely the larger of the two). At least with that I have a pic of where to go.
This time I only went to the Ness of Brodgar dig. Disappointed to be told again that the supposed broch by the brig is the revetments of a chambered tomb. But knowing that the whole ness had been levelled off in the agricultural improvement ("squared off" is the phrase in this instance) I still hold out for the possibility one was built on top of this. When I'd been the previous fortnight they had found a quarter of the walling of an unconfirmed chambered tomb and what they thought might be another contiguous to it. Unfortunately in the interim they had knocked the second on the head - though they still considered the first to be one they reckoned the rest of it had gone, rubble spread over it and something like a settlement built. Though probably from the same period as Barnhouse it appears to be a different kind of development - archaeologists are distrusting the former paradigm of certain design schemes (e.g. Skara Brae type villages) remaining true to type over long amounts of time from the Neolithic onwards in favour of site evolution and different elements adopted by different folks. They believe that they may have amongst the structures one that is as obscure as the largest structure over at Barnhouse. Ashes were found in various places. In 1925 a famous inscribed stone came from this field above structures taken for cists and in a cist found now simlar markings were found on a split stone. When I heard that this cist was triangular it brought to mind that a triangular cover to a cist was found in a house over at Barnhouse and that another triangular cist had been found at Quoynamoan farm behind Tormiston (NMR wrongly states Queenamoan in Sandwick. Around the walling of the tomb a later wall had been thought to be curving round to enclose a larger space. Now, however, they have found that it starts to straighten out and could well connect to a short wall section on the other side of the ridge. So the current thinking is that this wall had been used to seperate the whole of the ness, from the middle of the field down to the Brig of Waithe, from the rest of Brodgar. Which kind of makes me wonder what role the pair of Lochview Standing Stones plays - they are not that many metres away from the edge of this land-take after all. There had been some almost-rain during the mini-tour, and as luck had it I was given a lift before the rains came finally down
P.S. Upon reading "British Barrows. A Matter of Life and Death" my recent observation of a mini-hump on the Ring of Bookan leads me to identify this as a rimmed platform cairn with central mound, and the disputed 'stone circle' of a few stones observed by earlier antiquaries and subsequently lost would therefore be evidence that this was of the kerbed variety
TRIANGULAR CISTS
Norrie's Law :- NO40NW 3 "On the inner side of the ditch the base of the Law was defined by a circle of large boulders. Portions of an inner concentric wall were also observed. Between these walls a quantity of travelled earth was found, and within the inner circle the eminence was mostly formed of a cairn of stones. Here, towards the centre, vestiges of charred wood appeared, and many of the stones of the cairn showed that they had been under the action of fire. A small triangular cist, found in the foundation of the outer base of the Law between two of the stones, and covered with a flat stone," 1819-22
Coed-Pen-Maen :- NPRN 307760 ST09SE 3 Ring-cairn was excavated in 1830 when a small triangular cist found ; "Eight stones, up to 0.5m high, define a kerb circle, within which is a cist, 1.6m by 0.6m."
Quoynamoan :- HY22SE 31 "Another was found to contain a kist of rare form and construction. It was of of triangular figure, formed by undressed stones rudely built as a surrounding wall - not set on edge as is usually the case. It was 19 inches long in the inside, 15 inches at the widest end, or base of the triangle, and one foot in depth. A quantity of ashes lay on the bottom, and it was covered by a large flagstone." Orcadian 1869
Isles of Scilly :- "Antiquaries Journal 34" 1954 Brougham :- Roman Cemetery, Cumbria Excavations 1966-67
Shell Top, Dartmoor :- SMR Number SX 59 SE/62 NMR Number SX 56 SE 68 "A structure resembling a triangular cist" <=1978
Barnhouse :- HY31SW 61 "The remains of the entrance to House Two. The cist and its triangular shaped cover can be seen at the far end of the entrance passage." located in a central position directly in line with the entrance" 1987
Ness of Brodgar :- "One of these later additions was a triangular stone cist, cut into the rubble covering the earlier structure. This cist produced two small pieces of stone incised with the same repeated lozenge/chevron design as appears on a large stone found in the same field back in 1925." Orkneyjar 2006
Took the bus from Kirkwall to the road junction just before Maes Howe. Never quite sure whether to call it after Grimeston or Stoneyhill. It leaves the Kirkwall-Stromness road and arches over to the Harray road but there is another road leaves 'it' before the Staney Hill stone is reached and goes back the way before curving back to exit on the Harray road nearer the junction with the main road. There is a crafts sign for the Fursbreck Pottery, which is actually not at Fursbreck but near Jubadie slightly along the Harray road. Clear as mud. Anyway, 'it' is the road to the right of Maes Howe as seen from Tormiston. As you reach level with the mound there are a couple of geometric areas of pale gravel beside the road that I can only presume cover an area of exploratory excavations, if they aren't from trial trenches I am at a loss as to what they are. From here on you are granted a mighty fine view of the bank around Maes Howe with enough elevation to see the bank inside from slightly above. There are a coupl of tumuli shown as in the field behind the maiden mount but I've never noticed them myself. A cist was found 5 chains from "the circle mound.. Maeshowe...", out of level ground by a quarry - presumably the disused one on the O.S. 1:25,000 - in contrast to ones found previously in the vicinity on platforms or small mounds.
The next recorded site is on the same side of the road, where the bigging letters of Overbigging lie on the map, the field before the track going to Lochside. Aerial photography first revealed this (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 39 on a NNW/SSE ridge) as a 200' sub-circular crop mark - on the ground W of the entrance along the ridge they reckon is a hundred foot section of a yard wide ditch remaining visible. All that I saw from the roadside was a big low mound a foot or possibly two high above a big low hillock ! Geophysics came up with no indications within the enclosure that this was a settlement, so the best explanation would be that this was an animal pound - perhaps the marshy areas were once more extensive and the stock could be kept safe and dry here.
On a natural mound 15 chains north of Lochside farm itself cists were found in 1915 and again in 1928 (HY31SW 32). On the 1:25,000 the site position according to the Royal Commission's CANMAP is the field below that containing the picnic legends. If it is where I'm thinking the area now looks much 'quarried'. Must remember to look when I have less of a rush on. At the northern end of the field is the viewpoint track. I shall discuss this out of sequence. I went to 'my' Viewpoint Mound that overlooks the loch, the water levels looked reasonably low between the picnic point and the mound, though the stone scatter in the waters there still looks random. Up on the mound I was unable to locate my peedie 'stone-lined' hole. Hardly surprising, as not only was there much more grass cover now but the top has since my last visit been invaded by rabbits (I have noticed this at several sites lately e.g. Skae Frue) and there is a multitude of holes, making walking dodgy as some are exposed and others not. The rectangular structure in the loch below the mound's west side was little apparent, so I had misread the water levels. From here you can see several possible lines of walling coming from the various holms (islets). According to the NMR there is a possible building on Stenny Holm (Stenny=Staney=Stoney. Over in St.Andrew's near Mine Howe there is an apparently 'missing' Stoney Howe (perhaps by Breck - certainly names for Mine Howe all relate instead to dampness or mine-working), as in 1880 "Lang Howe, Round Howe, Stoney Howe, Stem Howe and Chapel" are mentioned as tumuli in close proximity).
Before I went to the Viewpoint Mound my main target was the Vola Mound (HY31SW 7 at HY31471395). This N/S aligned barrow was 102x85' with an irregular ditch of between thirteen and twenty-one feet. The platform and ~17.4m diameter mound both presently stand a metre high, and there were the remains of a 5" thick earthfast stone on the latter with the same orientation. Naturally I went what turned out to be the more difficult route first, as that lay closer. Opposite where the viewpoint track starts, on the north side of the road, is a field fence and the mound lies inside this, though I went along the outside. For a marshy are it was surprisingly dry. At the start I mostly followed what appeared to be a pair of cart ruts that wandered through the lush growth of reeds and grass and such. Underfoot it felt as if a myriad shod cattle had trampled it when damp - each time a shoe went down I had no idea when it would hit bottom. I could see where the grass in front of me - probably someone's hound, I can only imagine a farmer walking here. The experience put me strongly in mind of the time that I went to the Knowes of Trotty, wading through knee-deep vegetation with little idea of what lay beneath. The mound lay in more obvious pasture. I can see how someone might mistake this for a stone-deprived henge even at this time of year, a big flattish mound ringed by a fairly broad sloping bank with a skinny-looking ditch, but I concur with the current opinion that this is a funny kind of bell barrow rather than a disc as used to be thought. In a few well-exposed areas (usually the sign of a previous thorugh investigation where the grass never seems to grow back) earth and a few small stones are shown). Definitely worth a look in winter for more possible features. In the rough piece outwith the field I climbed a taller hillock for the taking of photographs. Here too were the usual signs of unrecorded excavation pits. The same held for another similar. But both completely turf-covered, of a very different nature to the Vola Mound itself even if they too may have endured the hand of prehistoric man. Coming out I was checking the remaining waters of the burn beside the road, only a few metres left in the heat, when it struck me this marshy area resembled a situation seen in 19th century excavations at the Burn of Langa Dee, where it was evident that water had been purposefully channeled about the mounds.
After taking the viewpoint track I continued up the road only a matter of metres (as it seemed to me) when I found a far easier way to the Vola Mound. This is signed as "Harray footpath 700m", though whether this means 700m of or to is unclear ! This skirts the marsh plant area by going alongside other field fence boundaries. The first bit is over yet another upswelling, upon which a 'modern' cottage sits. Stand with your back to the house and look across to the Vola Mound before you. Past here the 'footpath' turns a corner and heads to a barred metal gate that is the only concievable direction of continuation. This lets you into the Vola Mound field, though I chose not to go in because the cattle would congregate about me - not for fear but lest they damaged the very features that I wanted a closer look at (the same holds true for a possible souterrain at Nether Scapa, and even now sheep graze there instead I don't want to risk a collapsing passage when I investigate). So another for my ever-expanding winter to-do list.
The next thing I want to look at I didn't know until after I came back. "Harray - Orkney's Inland Parish" by John T.Firth et al (1975 revision) gives the legend Pile of Stones in an area adjacent to the east side of the road north of the Burn of Rickla, the latter being part of the present Harray-Stenness parish boundary. The 1882 map only shows a boundary marker at HY31531420. Perhaps the large irregular stones in the bank beside the road further along, over a foot in each direction and not of a shape fit for use in a drystane wall, have come from it. A little further away from the road I did know about, but again forgot to look for, the Fairy Knowe (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 22 at HY31731407) over on the downhill side of the Burn of Rickla - on the second leg of the 'Harray footpath' it is in the second field east and similarly two fields from the Vola Mound. This apparently natural mound, much ploughed, is meant to have held some unrecorded graves.
As well as the Pile of Stones the field-name map for Grimeston also shows another two unreportedsites to look for sometime. Follow from the picnic symbol up until you come to Biggings. The field immediately west of the farm, called Longquoy (centred HY309146), is supposed to have some graves or cists with a hole in the ground close by them. And the field below that, Tengagena (centred HY309145 approx.), is described as where the remains of a 'Pictish' mound are (wrong place for a broch, so something else). Of course this was back in the 1920's, so it may be too late already.
Passing the awkward Hybreck-Gorn junction and climbing the hill to reach the Staney Hill Stone on my left I could see some mounds on the brow of the hill, what the records call a false crest. Most obvious was a conical one several feet high. Then between this and the road was either a middling-sized flattish mound cut through in ages past or two slightly smaller ones. Coming closer they are in a field abutting a house just before the junction with the other minor road to the right. The Feolquoy Barrows (HY31NW 7 centred at HY31741551) are described as three earth and stone mounds about 8-10m across, having lost a couple of metres since first described, and about a metre high. A nearby fourth possible barrow of less than half their dimensions is possibly only spoil. An urn was found in the smallest of the three, which is cut through by a peat road, by a gentleman from Gorn. What I saw looked little like the official description - maybe its the time of year. Through a pair of binoculars I could make out something on the downhill side of the taller barrow in view a little way down from its top. This time of year I fully expected this to be something natural like an herbaceous plant, a straw bundle or dung. But no, definitely a reasonable sized stone. Have to get back to it, time pressed me now.
There was a Slap of Feolquoy somewhere. If you go by the number of these gaps in the hill-dykes the Grimeston region had important rank. John Firth's list for Harray shows up to four to be the usual number, like Bimbister where this road meets the Harray road, but in Grim's tunship the four he names are only called the main ones in this region. The Staney Hill Stone is between Grimeston and Bimbister, which probably relates to the legend of the men escorting St.Magnus body from Birsay to Kirkwall erecting a large stone hereabouts. Trevor Garnham sees an alignment from here to the porch of house 8 at Barnhouse and thence to the Stones of Stenness, with it also on a line from the Appiehouse Stone to the Ring of Brodgar. Which doesn't take into account the long barrow as, surely, the main marker. The standing stone hangs above the edge of a mini-quarry - well, at least the authorities attach the label of quarry to the spot directly in front, below a very short vertical face. Though some friendly bullocks occupied the space I saved face and took a couple of decent shots from by the fence.
I was having second thoughts about going to the Ness of Brodgar dig because of how late I was running. Considered going on to the top of the road and over to look at Wasdale again, then coming back and nearing the Feolquoy Barrows really wanted to see the stone up close. But full speed ahead. Passed the white stones. At the bottom of the hill and round the corner to a short length of slab fence ending in one at 45 degrees against the last upright - I always feel these kind of 'stops' aren't really to do with solid practicalities. Near one of the loch side farms I had earlier seen an arc of bright stones, and having confirmed that this was the Biggings Broch and taken a couple of shots of the mound in context I was surprised later to find that I had captured the Watch Stone in the far distance (and its amazing what the camera catches when you can afford to take several almost identical shots, praise be digital). Of course now that the original ley-hunters have abandoned the straight track the professionals have discovered landscape archaeology, so we can make such observations. Decided not to take a closer look as with the deep summer cover I might become all too literally 'bogged down' !
Once back on the main road I thought of looking at the Stenness parish church and perhaps on to see if there were anything visible on the tiny Gernaness peninsula. The last occasion I had looked in the parish church for the carved stones, one in a wall and another against a corner, noted in 1927. Only I didn't know where to look as I hadn't made a note because it was just spur of the moment I went. By the kirkyard gate I had seen two small identical red stone finials, cuboids with one end plain and the other with hemispherical quadrants out and equal-armed crosses in the end-face. Unfortunately the only photos were with a duff camera. Looking over the north wall to a pair of fields by the lochside, and between two concrete posts this side were two big rough blocks of stone (one lying across the other which was stood on end against the posts) that looked like to have come from some even older structure (definitely the larger of the two). At least with that I have a pic of where to go.
This time I only went to the Ness of Brodgar dig. Disappointed to be told again that the supposed broch by the brig is the revetments of a chambered tomb. But knowing that the whole ness had been levelled off in the agricultural improvement ("squared off" is the phrase in this instance) I still hold out for the possibility one was built on top of this. When I'd been the previous fortnight they had found a quarter of the walling of an unconfirmed chambered tomb and what they thought might be another contiguous to it. Unfortunately in the interim they had knocked the second on the head - though they still considered the first to be one they reckoned the rest of it had gone, rubble spread over it and something like a settlement built. Though probably from the same period as Barnhouse it appears to be a different kind of development - archaeologists are distrusting the former paradigm of certain design schemes (e.g. Skara Brae type villages) remaining true to type over long amounts of time from the Neolithic onwards in favour of site evolution and different elements adopted by different folks. They believe that they may have amongst the structures one that is as obscure as the largest structure over at Barnhouse. Ashes were found in various places. In 1925 a famous inscribed stone came from this field above structures taken for cists and in a cist found now simlar markings were found on a split stone. When I heard that this cist was triangular it brought to mind that a triangular cover to a cist was found in a house over at Barnhouse and that another triangular cist had been found at Quoynamoan farm behind Tormiston (NMR wrongly states Queenamoan in Sandwick. Around the walling of the tomb a later wall had been thought to be curving round to enclose a larger space. Now, however, they have found that it starts to straighten out and could well connect to a short wall section on the other side of the ridge. So the current thinking is that this wall had been used to seperate the whole of the ness, from the middle of the field down to the Brig of Waithe, from the rest of Brodgar. Which kind of makes me wonder what role the pair of Lochview Standing Stones plays - they are not that many metres away from the edge of this land-take after all. There had been some almost-rain during the mini-tour, and as luck had it I was given a lift before the rains came finally down
P.S. Upon reading "British Barrows. A Matter of Life and Death" my recent observation of a mini-hump on the Ring of Bookan leads me to identify this as a rimmed platform cairn with central mound, and the disputed 'stone circle' of a few stones observed by earlier antiquaries and subsequently lost would therefore be evidence that this was of the kerbed variety
TRIANGULAR CISTS
Norrie's Law :- NO40NW 3 "On the inner side of the ditch the base of the Law was defined by a circle of large boulders. Portions of an inner concentric wall were also observed. Between these walls a quantity of travelled earth was found, and within the inner circle the eminence was mostly formed of a cairn of stones. Here, towards the centre, vestiges of charred wood appeared, and many of the stones of the cairn showed that they had been under the action of fire. A small triangular cist, found in the foundation of the outer base of the Law between two of the stones, and covered with a flat stone," 1819-22
Coed-Pen-Maen :- NPRN 307760 ST09SE 3 Ring-cairn was excavated in 1830 when a small triangular cist found ; "Eight stones, up to 0.5m high, define a kerb circle, within which is a cist, 1.6m by 0.6m."
Quoynamoan :- HY22SE 31 "Another was found to contain a kist of rare form and construction. It was of of triangular figure, formed by undressed stones rudely built as a surrounding wall - not set on edge as is usually the case. It was 19 inches long in the inside, 15 inches at the widest end, or base of the triangle, and one foot in depth. A quantity of ashes lay on the bottom, and it was covered by a large flagstone." Orcadian 1869
Isles of Scilly :- "Antiquaries Journal 34" 1954 Brougham :- Roman Cemetery, Cumbria Excavations 1966-67
Shell Top, Dartmoor :- SMR Number SX 59 SE/62 NMR Number SX 56 SE 68 "A structure resembling a triangular cist" <=1978
Barnhouse :- HY31SW 61 "The remains of the entrance to House Two. The cist and its triangular shaped cover can be seen at the far end of the entrance passage." located in a central position directly in line with the entrance" 1987
Ness of Brodgar :- "One of these later additions was a triangular stone cist, cut into the rubble covering the earlier structure. This cist produced two small pieces of stone incised with the same repeated lozenge/chevron design as appears on a large stone found in the same field back in 1925." Orkneyjar 2006
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
TRIANGULAR CISTS
A search finds eight sites for this combination. One is in the Americas. Another is in the Roman cemetery of Brougham (Cumbrian excavations 1966-67), and Shell Top on Dartmoor (SX56SE 6 from ?1978) isn't certainly a cist. All I can find out about one from the Scillies is that it appears in issue 34 of "Antiquaries Journal " (1954). Which leaves five hits, of which four are in Scotland with three of these from the same parish in Orkney. Coed-pen-maen (ST09SE 3 in 1830) came from a small ring-cairn, though described as small the present record refers to a 1.6x0.6m cist remaining.
From the Scottish mainland there is a late insertion to Norrie's Law (NO40NW 3 excavated 1819-22). From the description of the main site this could be a parallel to the 2006 find on the Ness of Brodgar site in the Stenness parish of Orkney. Here circular features interpreted as a probable chambered tomb/s had become covered in rubble before the cist was added to the site. A stone lid had been decorated with chevrons and incised cross-hatching (a larger stone of similar design was found here in 1925). In 1984 a cist was found at the Barnhouse settlement (HY31SW 61). This came from the middle of house 2 and faced the entrance. But here though the cover is described as triangular the same is not said of the body of the cist. The final Orcadian site is on record as being Queenamoan in the parish of Sandwick (HY22SE 31) though the newspaper report in 1869 makes it obvious that the actual location was also in Stenness - Quoynamoan behind Tormiston Mill, which looks to Maes Howe. As well as being triangular the cist also stood out as being "formed by undressed stones rudely built as a surrounding wall - not set on edge as is usually the case. It was 19 inches long in the inside, 15 inches at the widest end, or base of the triangle, and one foot in depth". It was covered by a large flagstone.
A search finds eight sites for this combination. One is in the Americas. Another is in the Roman cemetery of Brougham (Cumbrian excavations 1966-67), and Shell Top on Dartmoor (SX56SE 6 from ?1978) isn't certainly a cist. All I can find out about one from the Scillies is that it appears in issue 34 of "Antiquaries Journal " (1954). Which leaves five hits, of which four are in Scotland with three of these from the same parish in Orkney. Coed-pen-maen (ST09SE 3 in 1830) came from a small ring-cairn, though described as small the present record refers to a 1.6x0.6m cist remaining.
From the Scottish mainland there is a late insertion to Norrie's Law (NO40NW 3 excavated 1819-22). From the description of the main site this could be a parallel to the 2006 find on the Ness of Brodgar site in the Stenness parish of Orkney. Here circular features interpreted as a probable chambered tomb/s had become covered in rubble before the cist was added to the site. A stone lid had been decorated with chevrons and incised cross-hatching (a larger stone of similar design was found here in 1925). In 1984 a cist was found at the Barnhouse settlement (HY31SW 61). This came from the middle of house 2 and faced the entrance. But here though the cover is described as triangular the same is not said of the body of the cist. The final Orcadian site is on record as being Queenamoan in the parish of Sandwick (HY22SE 31) though the newspaper report in 1869 makes it obvious that the actual location was also in Stenness - Quoynamoan behind Tormiston Mill, which looks to Maes Howe. As well as being triangular the cist also stood out as being "formed by undressed stones rudely built as a surrounding wall - not set on edge as is usually the case. It was 19 inches long in the inside, 15 inches at the widest end, or base of the triangle, and one foot in depth". It was covered by a large flagstone.
