Thursday, August 30, 2007
Brodgar,Summerdale, Hobbister AUGUST 17th 2007
Took the summer route Skara Brae bus as far as the Ring of Brodgar again. This time rather than drop us off it stopped at the new carpark. The walk from there to the road makes for an easy view of the marsh plants. Having taken individual photos of the stones last time I elected to go straight to the big un-named mound (I suppose if it hadn't been considered part of the Ring of Brodgar setup the antiquarians would have let moderns name it, our names for sites having come from their descriptive phrases) behind the circle then quickly on to Salt Knowe. Nice to see that even at the height of summer I could still easily find the piece with the projecting stones. From the top I could see a broad new between-fields track down to the shore, so I pursued it. Considered going north to the ness but not sure of getting there, so instead turned right and climbed over the fieldgate. At the shore is a long damp depression with many stones of varying sizes there. Dumped ? Anyway, I now see that this is marked as two quarry(-like) features on Thomas' 1849 antiquities plan. Perhaps material for the sockets or wedges came from here - in such a particularly managed landscape this feature can't have been untouched. Then I tramped back to the road and over another gate. Next on my list the Plumcake Mound, the one with a great lump taken out the top. Actually this feels like it has been dug twice as there is a depression within the depression. To complete my re-acquaintance on to Fresh Knowe. Once past the heavy vegetation and the lure of a wee bird I was disappointed the spring too well camouflaged for safety this day. There is no easy way across the long mound, so I simply hauled myself by the lanceolate foliage then over the top sensing the depression underfoot before going carefully down the tussocky end (there's a twisty ultra-narrow track that I thought might prove slippy). Took a decent picture of a freshly cropped Comet Stone mound while I was up top, different perspective and a' that.
On my way to the Ness of Brodgar dig the rainclouds gathered behind me. Today only me. And the finds were just leaving as I came. On a previous trip I had seen the broken perforated macehead found on the first day of this season's dig. One side is well polished, a light-coloured heavy stone with dark curving bands and (so we were told) touches of green. Not easy to photograph it seems, going by the first published photos. The unpolished side has only one band but there are three obvious curving scores that look man-made and others besides. On my last I also saw the new inscribed stone, a geometric design with what might be a simple fish centrally placed but ending outside the stone (Pictish symbol stones not from nothing ?). It occured to me that perhaps some of the lines could be notes for a planned structure, not plans as such, directions and sequences maybe. Just me then ;-) As for the structures, in a way I am glad I have been forbidden to 'publish' my photos as the descriptions perforce would be almost universally blank. Nice curving walls, dogleg walls, incomplete or shortened wall - even the excavators aren't sure what is going on, apart from the idea that Beverley's house is really a ritual structure akin to the biggest structure over at the Barnhouse settlement. On the other hand I can't illustrate a simple figure executed plain as a pikestaff in walling, rectangular body and round head with almost no neck. However I made out a similar form whilst working at The Howe and that those in charge ruled way out.
Now the whole of the Ness of Brodgar has been found to be upon soil-built foundations and the perception is that this humungeous site is wholly Neolithic from beginning to end. What near the bridge used to be thought possibly a broch (though not by the first antiquarians such as Thomas) is geofizzed as a chambered tomb with walls like those exposed at the Wideford Hill cairn. And Kokna-cumming, HY31SW 28, gone from the shore close to the Brodgar Farm standing stones (perhaps replaced by Thomas' planti-cru ??), cannot have been a burnt mound either. The Ness of Brodgar is now said to seperate The Stones of Stenness with its hearth indicating life from the Ring of Brodgar and its cairns representing death. And appropriate ceremonies taking place - so we have the circle of the Moon whose change of form reflects growth throughout life, and the circle of the Sun as the unchanging fact of death. Perhaps the celestial appellations of the three henges are truly original and not imposed fancies from without - the Ring of Bookan, circle of the Stars, being originally the Rim of Bookan (in my view taking its name from a distinctive contour north of the present road south of Howan). What quality, then, should one give to the stars ? And what of the Dyke of Sean as a boundary if the Ring of Bookan is instead no longer seen as part of the Brodgar scheme ? Also it seems a little strange that the mound of the Comet Stone and accompanying stumps lacks circle status, possibly an indication that they were revealed by excavation at some period
Before leaving I took to the far corner of the site to obtain an image of the Watch Stone with the Stones of Stenness to its right. If the Watch Stone had once been part of a circle had this ever been completed, could it have proved to be on the wrong alignment or no longr accurate ? I suppose it is merely my fancy that the two complementary arcs of ground on the salt side of the Brogar brig seem to suggest banks or a ditch. Usually my thinking is that these held the sea back whilst the bridge replaced the stepping stone, but if so why go (literally) to the length of curves instead of a more direct barrier line ?? As to the Watch Stone itself, on my visit this time I wasn't sure if the base presently encompassing it is partly the socket itself or purely phased modern. What with the rain and all I left out the Stones of Stenness (originally the joint name for the circles).
BIGSWELL AND SUMMERSDALE
Coming down to the main road the eastern Orphir hills are so in your face that surely they too must have figured in the minds of the creators of Brodgar, looking mightily down as they do. They have the names Mid Hill and South Russky Hill, however what we have is a hill range, several mounts on the big daddy that stretches from Bigswell to Howton. Which is my excuse for not being sure what hills I saw at any time ! Fortunately the weather followed me no further. A long light green triangle on the hillside shows the Bigswell district. The road to Bigswell came up but alas no longer continues all the way through the valley between Stenness and Orphir. However this long side-road calls out to be investigated, on foot it may still be possible to follow the Old Way to Orfeyra or at least make a fun round trip should this prove impossible.
On Midsummer Eve there was a large bonfire on the hill ridge above the Bigswell area, perhaps on the 21 x 18x 0.9m burnt mound (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 29 at HY33141045), though now opinion is this may be a burial mound instead on account of stones seen in a central depression. Alternatively the crofter at Bigswell in the late 1920's knew of twa places where there were deposits of charred wood a foot deep and three across which could be related. This was mentioned in the record for HY31SW 30, scrapers and flint chippings with much burnt bone and ash, found under a "construction" on the Burn of Russadale's west bank SW of Upper Bigswell. At the same time (1928-9) south of [Upper] Bigswell on Dowsgarth/Dowascarth a series of buildings containing lots of bones and ashes after cursory examination was strangely labelled an illicit brewery, like the (mis-identified) Castle of Lushan HY32SW 8 up in Birsay near Click Mill. And 150 yards from this a "mattie hole" ascribed to the same complex puts me in mind of the small pit found recently by the newly-found Corrigall souterrain and also in connection with that at Keigar in Deerness way back. Is this site the Dowsgarth "building" HY31SW 81 at HY331102 ??
Apart from the Battle of Summersdale the most important thing about the Bigswell is the sacred well itself. Here they used to dunk folk that were epileptic or not right in the head and then stake them overnight to complete the cure. There is a dispute as to where this was, whether on sloping ground between Bigswell and Dowsgarth (not on today's 1:25,000) or above Mid Bigswell or in the marshes below Lower Bigswell (this last not shown on the first O.S. map). The 2nd and 3rd choices having been ruled out as not matching the description, despite the latter being on the described Beltane line through the two stone circles, the first has most recently been 'it'. Backing this claim has been its proximity to a mediaeval cart-track and the enhanced properties attributed to hillside wells. My choice is none of thm but the spring to the east which appears on the 1882 map as a well. This lies virtually on the Beltane line and the antiquarian description we have implies that the well is not itself anymore. Accordind to this report an underground passage of several yards length [so how did they know that ?] streamed water to a high-capacity spring with a well several yards across (perhaps not dissimilar in size to the pond at present Oback) having one or two steps into it. The spring (HY33741046) is probably at the sharp end of the observed triangle, which could be relevant also.
Further east yet, about a mile from Upper Bigswell, the last battle on Orcadian soil took place. Tradition maintains that the Orkneymen could find no weapons on the smooth grass where the battle started. Instead they went into the meadow below to fetch stones from a spot called the Hole o' Pow [Pow=pool], presumably a drained piece of marsh. It is also traditional that the Battle of Summerdale took place near the Summersdale Mounds HY31SW 15 and some of the dead were buried in them. From the description of the only one of these round barrows excavated, the most southerly [now filled in] at HY37471046, it seems likely that even if so this was a hurried re-use of existing mounds. When there were eleven of these, rather than the present seven, two still had cist slabs. Mound 7 also held a short cist at the o.g.s. which had bone in the top and bottom halves as well as over and around it and above and beneath a slab to one side. A skeleton, cremated bones, calcined bones !! Not at all mediaeval surely.
TO TUSKERBISTER
Instead of the Bigwell dead-end continued past Tormiston Mill for the well-signposted Orphir road that after a few straight lengths meanders down to the Loch of Kirbister where it straightens out again at The Ninth. The first mound on the left, at HY331229, is where I believe the Lower Hobbister came from in 1871. Though the NMRS for HY31SW 42 gives it an 8-figure grid reference at HY32881275 this is spurious accuracy based on the farmhouse itself. As with many another such the best we can place it from the newspaper report is "on the farm of". At least this is a little better than some sites where the original reports only place them somewhere on the lands belonging to the farm, which in a few instances can mean over a few kilometres. And this is how sites become 'lost', the pursuit of accuracy beyond the evidence (though this does not explain why the Brockan standing stone HY20NW 2 in Stromness appears on different sides of the field on the first O.S. and CANMAP, perhaps explaining why it hasn't been found at HY23140987). Another such issue is when the placename allocated to the record, antiquarian or later, is rather different from the actual place the site fits - of course it doesn't help when natives change the names themselves e.g. Appiehouse east of the Loch of Kirbister formerly being Upper Groundwater after which tumuli were named. Rant over. The stone urn found measured across the top 21½" by 18½" but had a bottom 13" diameter. This large urn, 18" deep inside, held lots of burnt bone fragments above some clay and ashes. Viking ?? Doesn't mention being steatite or dual construction/materials.
I forget whether it is before or after the Heddle road that the land at the southern side is about a couple of metres below the road surface. At this place almost smack bang against the road edge there is an erect stone tall enough to be seen whilst walking along but impossible to photograph without being on the field edge, which I weren't. In the eighteenth century tradition had it that either the Earl of Caithnesss or Lord Sinclair were buried in a green spot in Germiston near Bigswell, I don't suppose I could have chanced on this (most of the Caithnessmen died at the Moss of Bigswald). At the junction with the Heddle road I thought about heading off that way, however I really need to tackle it from the other end next time I do this. Past the junction on the right a farmroad goes to West Nistaben, where on the present map there isn't space for the tumuli legend. HY31SW 13 & 23 are practically gone anyway. Not much left of two of SW13 and the third only a slight rise now. Here I must 'fess up and admit to not having noted or looked for known sites on this trip, just played it by eye - not the best season to find features anyway, all that obscuring vegetation and stuff, especially in the marshy bits (which probably would have applied to the Summersdale Mounds, the tumuli west of the national grid's 35 legend on the 1:25,000). Further along (IIRC again) there are several humungous slabs at a farm on the north side of the road. Opposite is an almost walled garden, one corner of which has a few courses that look to date from an earlier construction. A pair of paycocks see me and hare off into the undergrowth. After a while more some young, or youthful anyways, Alsations come out of a modernised dwelling to see what's up. They only had a perfunctory greet from me - I wished that I had made more of them, because as I made off I heard a wifey rebuking them, and they were such friendly chaps with not an ounce of harm in them whitsoever.
Since my last time here there's been a sign put up for a Dale of Kebro footpath, and I thought what the heck. Marwick did not find an etymology for Kebro but I would postulate this arose from a change of the placename element bister to bruster and then a contraction to its present form i.e. Tuskerbister>Tuskerbruster>Kebro or somesuch. Certainly Kebro is a fair size and dominates the valley below and clear down to the sea. A farm named for someone with a name Turf- by analogy with Turf-Einar. Omond says several mounds near Kebro produced stone cists. A group of these, HY31SE 6 , were removed in the 1950's from the roadside field north of the Kebro farmroad). As far as is known they were all stony or "shingly" and only two had cists (presumably those at at HY35001033 & 35041030).This same field has an NMRS for the possible site of Tuskerbister, new since the boxed set of records in the Orkney Room He gives details for a short cist, set E/W by the roadside atop the Skaill hill, containing a child's bones and with the top held tight with imported red clay. Is this (23½" x 13½" x 15½") really the same cist as HY31SE 11 (~22"), from the south-west side of a field north of Skaill Farm, which CANMAP now places rather differently in the field roadside south of the Fea farmroad ? A little mix-up, eh !
Along from the farm at the uphill side of the farmroad is a field-sized area of rough uncultivated land, and on this are a couple of piles of large thick ?irregular slabs. Ther's a ditch betwixt the road and it and this would appear to have originally faced with large slabs as some of these were still in place, as deep as the ditch but longer, or no' far from this. A thick broad rectangular stone block bridged the ditch at one point. As the road rises again there is a long narrow field beside the dale side in which seemed to be the possibly remains of several low mounds. Couldn't decide whether this is prehistoric, a series of building remnants, or possibly even both. A small Shetland pony all alone in there. Then the road dips again for the entry to Oback. The linear section isn't connected with the Oback Quarry, which was along one side of the farm buildings and below them - there a forty pound skull-shaped shore stone, HY31SE 26 at HY35591070 (probably yet more spurious accuracy), is believed to have been used to break up stones (ah, a ball-breaker ;-) The other side of the farm is the pond that I mentioned earlier. In part it is edged by large stone flagstones of varying shapes. These include a girt concrete slab on edge that looks to have a tap on it. Perhaps this started off life as a well. Hereabouts there is a loose line of erect stones going down to the dale bottom, perhaps one of my 'standing stone fences'. As I started up again a farmer on a quad-bike preceded me. Before I reached a gate across my way he passed me going back the way. Didn't see what he had been about other than checking on me and mebbe the gate. From this vantage apart from a modern dwelling and sheep I saw only old peat-roads. Perhaps this is the route that Sweyn Breistrop took after the murder at the earl's palace. In 1882 up on the Hill of Lyradale two prone skeletons found side-by-side in a metre of peat were thought to be possibly soldiers fleeing from the Battle of Summersdale, the bones being "quite black and very pliant" and having some kind of membrane alongside. No need to trace the new footpath any further on this occasion. Back at the pond a small flock of call-ducks had ventured out, perhaps the farmer had been to feed them. So back at Oback once more. The name rang a bell I couldn't place, which to my mind made a photographic record necessary. Unfortunately the pony now decided me worth closer inspection. So I worked round him - should have done the deed from the other end on first view, it is always best to shoot first impressions because retracing steps seldom re-creates the experience even if you can find the original perspective or lighting again ! Stones sticking out at various places on the peedie mounds' slopes or up through them, and certain ones decidedly edge-set. The first piece visible where the earth rises is a depression actually, and one exposed piece looked to consist of fragmented stone in an earth matrix. Certainly not an entirely homogenous bunch, a strong feeling that there had always been (let's say) disjunctures. Supposedly the present Oback is not the original, but I'll come to that soon. On to the rough patch, by the east side of which is a long low hillock or maybe a moraine. There is some silage here and I gingerly walked over it for a closer look, but the ground mostly kind of quaked beneath me. I put this down to the agricultural operations, only finding out later that this is what is left of the Loch of Lummagen. Tradition has it, in an unlikely symmetry, that the Caithnessmen threw all their arms into it. This backed up by the finding of a large quantity of small stones on the loch bed (though it puts me in mind of the "slewchan stones" on 'Bruntland' in Sandwick, connected by tradition with an Iron Age battle).
Back onto the Germiston road down into the valley. Here lies the Skaill after which the "mounds near Kebro" are named, under the credo that Skaill farms are always pre-eminent. The Burn of Skaill's west side is eroding a roughly seventeen by eleven foot platform where some large stones peek from the turf that covers the site of Tuskerbister kirk, HY31SE 7 at HY35481035. On the opposite side of the burn had been the churchyard (presumably access gaind by the ford marked upstream) which tradition held to be the burial place of the Earl of Caithness (his head took leave home though r.t.s.). It had been said that the palace of Earl Harold I and his half-brother Paul II as referred to in the Orkneyinga Saga lay facing north of the chapel, but when what is now referred to as the Earl's Palace gradually emerged in excavations across from the Bu of Orphir the traditional was dumped for the archaeological. What is said to be left of the original Oback croft lies 50m to the NE. Here tradition has it aforesaid Earl of Caithness was caught and killt in a close between the houses {given the proximity of the traditional Norse killing place at the palace one may be a little suspicious of this attribution). A reason given for the present location for the Earl's Palace being wrong was the saga's reference to the large farmstead being on a hillside with a height behind the houses from which the Bay of Firth could be seen, however on the page there is no conclusive correlation 'twixt the two, occuring with a gap between the mentions. If the archaeologists are wrong could the farmstead have been rather Kebro ? And I would like to see my site by the present Oback as where the fatal close was, it would have been the spur to the leaving of arms before the remnant of the Caithnessmen rushed down past the Kirbister loch to reach the sea. A very minority opinion mine -solitary I think nowadays. And what size of establishment those 'counts' had is to my mind still up in the air ; a mere drinking-hall with annexes, or an earl's palace and chapel/temple (Torfaeus). There is nothing to stop the presently named monument being a replacement Earl's Palace, finally abandoned (I'd hazard) when a new wark rose on part of the Bishop's Place in Kirkwall.
Beside the west side of the road after leaving Skaill is the Hamarscoo field where on the other side of the road from Nearhouse Hill, in 1887, Wes Slater of Obach discovered two stone cists. These held bone fragments, two celts and flint chips. The Hunterian has a part-polished axehead and a scraper from here & axehead B.1914.609 simply down as Orphir must surely be the other celt. Other relics had been found previously. The pasture has several areas of disturbance and is a triangle, the discovery came from Hemiscue's south end. Omond mentions a construction resembling a churchyard wall inside which he saw plenty of burnt bones and ashes - a kerbed mound ? Back to the uphill side. Here a spring is marked which I spotted without knowing what it was - I took several photos of an area where a low wall looked to run across a burn, not sure this wasn't a geological feature. Further south, east of Scows, are the Nearhouse Hill mounds (HY31NE 3) centred at HY35910861 on a false crest. There are now four of the known eight grass-covered earth and stone mounds left. Back over the other side of the road, on the hill above a souterrain came to light in the Second World War just west of Naversdale (the field just to the sw of the larger Tuskerbister legend on the 1:25,000). Its roofing slab lay a mere foot beneath the present surface and the simple hollow proved only ten feet across a little under a metre in height, the top slab resting on pillars at roughly two-and-a-half-foot apart that rather than being each a single stone like Grain were built up of smaller stones. Afterwards, no relics found, site HY30NE 1 at HY35030925 was filled in.
KIRBISTER AND HOBBISTER
Over to the east of the Loch of Kirbister are several more sites I haven't visited. Starting past Skelbister, close to edge of a field on a false crest Groundwater HY30NE 2 at HY35460878 is a grass or heather covered mound of earth and a few small stones on and about it, some 22' across by two feet high with he centre partially opened." in 1928.now A grass-covered tumulus of earth and a few small stones, situated near the edge of a ploughed field on a false crest. Then in the field E of Groundwater an obvious light-coloured rise with a broad stone scatter, HY30NE 4 at HY39020862, is thought to be the Kirkshed chapel site, no longer even a ruin. Unlike this the Upper Groundwater mounds appear on the 1:25,000, HY30NE 5 centred at HY37500873 on a small plateau. Two of the seven grassy mounds, ranging fom 6-10.7m diameter and under a metre high for the tallest, have evidence on top of excavation. The original report was for another mound to the south-east, 1.5m high and on the order of 13m across. Similarly my next site (HY30NE 14 at HY37450894), lying above the upper edge of the other field, appled to cists found (again) in 1928-9 where now their depressions can be seen as lighter grass in a disturbed patch. The discoverer couldn't tell whether they were on a a very slight rise or set dead level. Of these cists with earth three held varying amounts of bone fragmenst whilst the fourth contained a crouched skeleton. The present record adds three mis-shapen rabbit-infested mounds on a false crest that appears never to have been broken into cultivation. Even the largest, at about eleven metres, melts into rough grass of the hillside.
Avoiding another dead-end I continued to my bus appointment. Just before a dwelling with the mysterious name of The Ninth is a deep regular hollow looking like an abandoned quarry. Half-right, for this is the site of Newhouse 36260806. Never even survived long enough for a name-change [having said which we still have plenty of places called Newhouse or Nearhouse, evidence of the Orcadian's parsimonious panoply of placenames. Still, better that than the use of English names or acting as if we had been under the Gailteachd yoke (which the SNP would love to bring down on us if ever Scotland rose anew to full independence)]. Down the west side of the Loch of Kirbister my eyes lit on a small islet by the shore. This little green space is the Holm of Westquoy (HY36680773), named after the farm of Westquoy (HY365078), on one of whose fields in 1866 a cist was found with an adult skeleton in a "heads and thraws" posture. Another peculiarity is that there was no associated mound i.e. the top slap lay just below the surface. The Orphir mount over to the west, just east of Ward Hill and its undated tumulus, is Ackla with the Meadow of Huckla beneath. Looking left the big flat mound is the reservoir and to its right the Meadow of Burgir. On the other side of the loch is the larger islet, a likely crannog called the Holm of Groundwater with remain of a circular construction considered to have been a brigand's den. Reaching the latest Newhouse the track leading uphill from here is the old mill road through White Moss. Knowing that the bus wasn't long due I chose instead to continue following the present road to the 'A' road back to Kirkwall. Looking down on the beach of Waulkmill Bay [a difficult one to time right for a visit and it's a long trek down] the fresh water back of it was once the site of a saltings, probably connected with what look like old building remains under the end of the long snout that almost seals off the mill burn. Once I reached the Hobbister farmroad I stopped and picked up the bus. Some day I shall try to reach the Hobbister mill-mound - though it was probably larger than the Scalpa one where the distillery is now it should still give me some idea of how the land opposite Nevada Cott looked back then (the pond lay between the road and where the houses are now). Somewhere in the Hob(b)ister region about 1880 removing a mound brought to light a 6' tall man's skeleton reclining under a large stone slab. In 2006 peat-diggers found the bronze head of a LBA socketed axe south of the road in this area too.
Took the summer route Skara Brae bus as far as the Ring of Brodgar again. This time rather than drop us off it stopped at the new carpark. The walk from there to the road makes for an easy view of the marsh plants. Having taken individual photos of the stones last time I elected to go straight to the big un-named mound (I suppose if it hadn't been considered part of the Ring of Brodgar setup the antiquarians would have let moderns name it, our names for sites having come from their descriptive phrases) behind the circle then quickly on to Salt Knowe. Nice to see that even at the height of summer I could still easily find the piece with the projecting stones. From the top I could see a broad new between-fields track down to the shore, so I pursued it. Considered going north to the ness but not sure of getting there, so instead turned right and climbed over the fieldgate. At the shore is a long damp depression with many stones of varying sizes there. Dumped ? Anyway, I now see that this is marked as two quarry(-like) features on Thomas' 1849 antiquities plan. Perhaps material for the sockets or wedges came from here - in such a particularly managed landscape this feature can't have been untouched. Then I tramped back to the road and over another gate. Next on my list the Plumcake Mound, the one with a great lump taken out the top. Actually this feels like it has been dug twice as there is a depression within the depression. To complete my re-acquaintance on to Fresh Knowe. Once past the heavy vegetation and the lure of a wee bird I was disappointed the spring too well camouflaged for safety this day. There is no easy way across the long mound, so I simply hauled myself by the lanceolate foliage then over the top sensing the depression underfoot before going carefully down the tussocky end (there's a twisty ultra-narrow track that I thought might prove slippy). Took a decent picture of a freshly cropped Comet Stone mound while I was up top, different perspective and a' that.
On my way to the Ness of Brodgar dig the rainclouds gathered behind me. Today only me. And the finds were just leaving as I came. On a previous trip I had seen the broken perforated macehead found on the first day of this season's dig. One side is well polished, a light-coloured heavy stone with dark curving bands and (so we were told) touches of green. Not easy to photograph it seems, going by the first published photos. The unpolished side has only one band but there are three obvious curving scores that look man-made and others besides. On my last I also saw the new inscribed stone, a geometric design with what might be a simple fish centrally placed but ending outside the stone (Pictish symbol stones not from nothing ?). It occured to me that perhaps some of the lines could be notes for a planned structure, not plans as such, directions and sequences maybe. Just me then ;-) As for the structures, in a way I am glad I have been forbidden to 'publish' my photos as the descriptions perforce would be almost universally blank. Nice curving walls, dogleg walls, incomplete or shortened wall - even the excavators aren't sure what is going on, apart from the idea that Beverley's house is really a ritual structure akin to the biggest structure over at the Barnhouse settlement. On the other hand I can't illustrate a simple figure executed plain as a pikestaff in walling, rectangular body and round head with almost no neck. However I made out a similar form whilst working at The Howe and that those in charge ruled way out.
Now the whole of the Ness of Brodgar has been found to be upon soil-built foundations and the perception is that this humungeous site is wholly Neolithic from beginning to end. What near the bridge used to be thought possibly a broch (though not by the first antiquarians such as Thomas) is geofizzed as a chambered tomb with walls like those exposed at the Wideford Hill cairn. And Kokna-cumming, HY31SW 28, gone from the shore close to the Brodgar Farm standing stones (perhaps replaced by Thomas' planti-cru ??), cannot have been a burnt mound either. The Ness of Brodgar is now said to seperate The Stones of Stenness with its hearth indicating life from the Ring of Brodgar and its cairns representing death. And appropriate ceremonies taking place - so we have the circle of the Moon whose change of form reflects growth throughout life, and the circle of the Sun as the unchanging fact of death. Perhaps the celestial appellations of the three henges are truly original and not imposed fancies from without - the Ring of Bookan, circle of the Stars, being originally the Rim of Bookan (in my view taking its name from a distinctive contour north of the present road south of Howan). What quality, then, should one give to the stars ? And what of the Dyke of Sean as a boundary if the Ring of Bookan is instead no longer seen as part of the Brodgar scheme ? Also it seems a little strange that the mound of the Comet Stone and accompanying stumps lacks circle status, possibly an indication that they were revealed by excavation at some period
Before leaving I took to the far corner of the site to obtain an image of the Watch Stone with the Stones of Stenness to its right. If the Watch Stone had once been part of a circle had this ever been completed, could it have proved to be on the wrong alignment or no longr accurate ? I suppose it is merely my fancy that the two complementary arcs of ground on the salt side of the Brogar brig seem to suggest banks or a ditch. Usually my thinking is that these held the sea back whilst the bridge replaced the stepping stone, but if so why go (literally) to the length of curves instead of a more direct barrier line ?? As to the Watch Stone itself, on my visit this time I wasn't sure if the base presently encompassing it is partly the socket itself or purely phased modern. What with the rain and all I left out the Stones of Stenness (originally the joint name for the circles).
BIGSWELL AND SUMMERSDALE
Coming down to the main road the eastern Orphir hills are so in your face that surely they too must have figured in the minds of the creators of Brodgar, looking mightily down as they do. They have the names Mid Hill and South Russky Hill, however what we have is a hill range, several mounts on the big daddy that stretches from Bigswell to Howton. Which is my excuse for not being sure what hills I saw at any time ! Fortunately the weather followed me no further. A long light green triangle on the hillside shows the Bigswell district. The road to Bigswell came up but alas no longer continues all the way through the valley between Stenness and Orphir. However this long side-road calls out to be investigated, on foot it may still be possible to follow the Old Way to Orfeyra or at least make a fun round trip should this prove impossible.
On Midsummer Eve there was a large bonfire on the hill ridge above the Bigswell area, perhaps on the 21 x 18x 0.9m burnt mound (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 29 at HY33141045), though now opinion is this may be a burial mound instead on account of stones seen in a central depression. Alternatively the crofter at Bigswell in the late 1920's knew of twa places where there were deposits of charred wood a foot deep and three across which could be related. This was mentioned in the record for HY31SW 30, scrapers and flint chippings with much burnt bone and ash, found under a "construction" on the Burn of Russadale's west bank SW of Upper Bigswell. At the same time (1928-9) south of [Upper] Bigswell on Dowsgarth/Dowascarth a series of buildings containing lots of bones and ashes after cursory examination was strangely labelled an illicit brewery, like the (mis-identified) Castle of Lushan HY32SW 8 up in Birsay near Click Mill. And 150 yards from this a "mattie hole" ascribed to the same complex puts me in mind of the small pit found recently by the newly-found Corrigall souterrain and also in connection with that at Keigar in Deerness way back. Is this site the Dowsgarth "building" HY31SW 81 at HY331102 ??
Apart from the Battle of Summersdale the most important thing about the Bigswell is the sacred well itself. Here they used to dunk folk that were epileptic or not right in the head and then stake them overnight to complete the cure. There is a dispute as to where this was, whether on sloping ground between Bigswell and Dowsgarth (not on today's 1:25,000) or above Mid Bigswell or in the marshes below Lower Bigswell (this last not shown on the first O.S. map). The 2nd and 3rd choices having been ruled out as not matching the description, despite the latter being on the described Beltane line through the two stone circles, the first has most recently been 'it'. Backing this claim has been its proximity to a mediaeval cart-track and the enhanced properties attributed to hillside wells. My choice is none of thm but the spring to the east which appears on the 1882 map as a well. This lies virtually on the Beltane line and the antiquarian description we have implies that the well is not itself anymore. Accordind to this report an underground passage of several yards length [so how did they know that ?] streamed water to a high-capacity spring with a well several yards across (perhaps not dissimilar in size to the pond at present Oback) having one or two steps into it. The spring (HY33741046) is probably at the sharp end of the observed triangle, which could be relevant also.
Further east yet, about a mile from Upper Bigswell, the last battle on Orcadian soil took place. Tradition maintains that the Orkneymen could find no weapons on the smooth grass where the battle started. Instead they went into the meadow below to fetch stones from a spot called the Hole o' Pow [Pow=pool], presumably a drained piece of marsh. It is also traditional that the Battle of Summerdale took place near the Summersdale Mounds HY31SW 15 and some of the dead were buried in them. From the description of the only one of these round barrows excavated, the most southerly [now filled in] at HY37471046, it seems likely that even if so this was a hurried re-use of existing mounds. When there were eleven of these, rather than the present seven, two still had cist slabs. Mound 7 also held a short cist at the o.g.s. which had bone in the top and bottom halves as well as over and around it and above and beneath a slab to one side. A skeleton, cremated bones, calcined bones !! Not at all mediaeval surely.
TO TUSKERBISTER
Instead of the Bigwell dead-end continued past Tormiston Mill for the well-signposted Orphir road that after a few straight lengths meanders down to the Loch of Kirbister where it straightens out again at The Ninth. The first mound on the left, at HY331229, is where I believe the Lower Hobbister came from in 1871. Though the NMRS for HY31SW 42 gives it an 8-figure grid reference at HY32881275 this is spurious accuracy based on the farmhouse itself. As with many another such the best we can place it from the newspaper report is "on the farm of". At least this is a little better than some sites where the original reports only place them somewhere on the lands belonging to the farm, which in a few instances can mean over a few kilometres. And this is how sites become 'lost', the pursuit of accuracy beyond the evidence (though this does not explain why the Brockan standing stone HY20NW 2 in Stromness appears on different sides of the field on the first O.S. and CANMAP, perhaps explaining why it hasn't been found at HY23140987). Another such issue is when the placename allocated to the record, antiquarian or later, is rather different from the actual place the site fits - of course it doesn't help when natives change the names themselves e.g. Appiehouse east of the Loch of Kirbister formerly being Upper Groundwater after which tumuli were named. Rant over. The stone urn found measured across the top 21½" by 18½" but had a bottom 13" diameter. This large urn, 18" deep inside, held lots of burnt bone fragments above some clay and ashes. Viking ?? Doesn't mention being steatite or dual construction/materials.
I forget whether it is before or after the Heddle road that the land at the southern side is about a couple of metres below the road surface. At this place almost smack bang against the road edge there is an erect stone tall enough to be seen whilst walking along but impossible to photograph without being on the field edge, which I weren't. In the eighteenth century tradition had it that either the Earl of Caithnesss or Lord Sinclair were buried in a green spot in Germiston near Bigswell, I don't suppose I could have chanced on this (most of the Caithnessmen died at the Moss of Bigswald). At the junction with the Heddle road I thought about heading off that way, however I really need to tackle it from the other end next time I do this. Past the junction on the right a farmroad goes to West Nistaben, where on the present map there isn't space for the tumuli legend. HY31SW 13 & 23 are practically gone anyway. Not much left of two of SW13 and the third only a slight rise now. Here I must 'fess up and admit to not having noted or looked for known sites on this trip, just played it by eye - not the best season to find features anyway, all that obscuring vegetation and stuff, especially in the marshy bits (which probably would have applied to the Summersdale Mounds, the tumuli west of the national grid's 35 legend on the 1:25,000). Further along (IIRC again) there are several humungous slabs at a farm on the north side of the road. Opposite is an almost walled garden, one corner of which has a few courses that look to date from an earlier construction. A pair of paycocks see me and hare off into the undergrowth. After a while more some young, or youthful anyways, Alsations come out of a modernised dwelling to see what's up. They only had a perfunctory greet from me - I wished that I had made more of them, because as I made off I heard a wifey rebuking them, and they were such friendly chaps with not an ounce of harm in them whitsoever.
Since my last time here there's been a sign put up for a Dale of Kebro footpath, and I thought what the heck. Marwick did not find an etymology for Kebro but I would postulate this arose from a change of the placename element bister to bruster and then a contraction to its present form i.e. Tuskerbister>Tuskerbruster>Kebro or somesuch. Certainly Kebro is a fair size and dominates the valley below and clear down to the sea. A farm named for someone with a name Turf- by analogy with Turf-Einar. Omond says several mounds near Kebro produced stone cists. A group of these, HY31SE 6 , were removed in the 1950's from the roadside field north of the Kebro farmroad). As far as is known they were all stony or "shingly" and only two had cists (presumably those at at HY35001033 & 35041030).This same field has an NMRS for the possible site of Tuskerbister, new since the boxed set of records in the Orkney Room He gives details for a short cist, set E/W by the roadside atop the Skaill hill, containing a child's bones and with the top held tight with imported red clay. Is this (23½" x 13½" x 15½") really the same cist as HY31SE 11 (~22"), from the south-west side of a field north of Skaill Farm, which CANMAP now places rather differently in the field roadside south of the Fea farmroad ? A little mix-up, eh !
Along from the farm at the uphill side of the farmroad is a field-sized area of rough uncultivated land, and on this are a couple of piles of large thick ?irregular slabs. Ther's a ditch betwixt the road and it and this would appear to have originally faced with large slabs as some of these were still in place, as deep as the ditch but longer, or no' far from this. A thick broad rectangular stone block bridged the ditch at one point. As the road rises again there is a long narrow field beside the dale side in which seemed to be the possibly remains of several low mounds. Couldn't decide whether this is prehistoric, a series of building remnants, or possibly even both. A small Shetland pony all alone in there. Then the road dips again for the entry to Oback. The linear section isn't connected with the Oback Quarry, which was along one side of the farm buildings and below them - there a forty pound skull-shaped shore stone, HY31SE 26 at HY35591070 (probably yet more spurious accuracy), is believed to have been used to break up stones (ah, a ball-breaker ;-) The other side of the farm is the pond that I mentioned earlier. In part it is edged by large stone flagstones of varying shapes. These include a girt concrete slab on edge that looks to have a tap on it. Perhaps this started off life as a well. Hereabouts there is a loose line of erect stones going down to the dale bottom, perhaps one of my 'standing stone fences'. As I started up again a farmer on a quad-bike preceded me. Before I reached a gate across my way he passed me going back the way. Didn't see what he had been about other than checking on me and mebbe the gate. From this vantage apart from a modern dwelling and sheep I saw only old peat-roads. Perhaps this is the route that Sweyn Breistrop took after the murder at the earl's palace. In 1882 up on the Hill of Lyradale two prone skeletons found side-by-side in a metre of peat were thought to be possibly soldiers fleeing from the Battle of Summersdale, the bones being "quite black and very pliant" and having some kind of membrane alongside. No need to trace the new footpath any further on this occasion. Back at the pond a small flock of call-ducks had ventured out, perhaps the farmer had been to feed them. So back at Oback once more. The name rang a bell I couldn't place, which to my mind made a photographic record necessary. Unfortunately the pony now decided me worth closer inspection. So I worked round him - should have done the deed from the other end on first view, it is always best to shoot first impressions because retracing steps seldom re-creates the experience even if you can find the original perspective or lighting again ! Stones sticking out at various places on the peedie mounds' slopes or up through them, and certain ones decidedly edge-set. The first piece visible where the earth rises is a depression actually, and one exposed piece looked to consist of fragmented stone in an earth matrix. Certainly not an entirely homogenous bunch, a strong feeling that there had always been (let's say) disjunctures. Supposedly the present Oback is not the original, but I'll come to that soon. On to the rough patch, by the east side of which is a long low hillock or maybe a moraine. There is some silage here and I gingerly walked over it for a closer look, but the ground mostly kind of quaked beneath me. I put this down to the agricultural operations, only finding out later that this is what is left of the Loch of Lummagen. Tradition has it, in an unlikely symmetry, that the Caithnessmen threw all their arms into it. This backed up by the finding of a large quantity of small stones on the loch bed (though it puts me in mind of the "slewchan stones" on 'Bruntland' in Sandwick, connected by tradition with an Iron Age battle).
Back onto the Germiston road down into the valley. Here lies the Skaill after which the "mounds near Kebro" are named, under the credo that Skaill farms are always pre-eminent. The Burn of Skaill's west side is eroding a roughly seventeen by eleven foot platform where some large stones peek from the turf that covers the site of Tuskerbister kirk, HY31SE 7 at HY35481035. On the opposite side of the burn had been the churchyard (presumably access gaind by the ford marked upstream) which tradition held to be the burial place of the Earl of Caithness (his head took leave home though r.t.s.). It had been said that the palace of Earl Harold I and his half-brother Paul II as referred to in the Orkneyinga Saga lay facing north of the chapel, but when what is now referred to as the Earl's Palace gradually emerged in excavations across from the Bu of Orphir the traditional was dumped for the archaeological. What is said to be left of the original Oback croft lies 50m to the NE. Here tradition has it aforesaid Earl of Caithness was caught and killt in a close between the houses {given the proximity of the traditional Norse killing place at the palace one may be a little suspicious of this attribution). A reason given for the present location for the Earl's Palace being wrong was the saga's reference to the large farmstead being on a hillside with a height behind the houses from which the Bay of Firth could be seen, however on the page there is no conclusive correlation 'twixt the two, occuring with a gap between the mentions. If the archaeologists are wrong could the farmstead have been rather Kebro ? And I would like to see my site by the present Oback as where the fatal close was, it would have been the spur to the leaving of arms before the remnant of the Caithnessmen rushed down past the Kirbister loch to reach the sea. A very minority opinion mine -solitary I think nowadays. And what size of establishment those 'counts' had is to my mind still up in the air ; a mere drinking-hall with annexes, or an earl's palace and chapel/temple (Torfaeus). There is nothing to stop the presently named monument being a replacement Earl's Palace, finally abandoned (I'd hazard) when a new wark rose on part of the Bishop's Place in Kirkwall.
Beside the west side of the road after leaving Skaill is the Hamarscoo field where on the other side of the road from Nearhouse Hill, in 1887, Wes Slater of Obach discovered two stone cists. These held bone fragments, two celts and flint chips. The Hunterian has a part-polished axehead and a scraper from here & axehead B.1914.609 simply down as Orphir must surely be the other celt. Other relics had been found previously. The pasture has several areas of disturbance and is a triangle, the discovery came from Hemiscue's south end. Omond mentions a construction resembling a churchyard wall inside which he saw plenty of burnt bones and ashes - a kerbed mound ? Back to the uphill side. Here a spring is marked which I spotted without knowing what it was - I took several photos of an area where a low wall looked to run across a burn, not sure this wasn't a geological feature. Further south, east of Scows, are the Nearhouse Hill mounds (HY31NE 3) centred at HY35910861 on a false crest. There are now four of the known eight grass-covered earth and stone mounds left. Back over the other side of the road, on the hill above a souterrain came to light in the Second World War just west of Naversdale (the field just to the sw of the larger Tuskerbister legend on the 1:25,000). Its roofing slab lay a mere foot beneath the present surface and the simple hollow proved only ten feet across a little under a metre in height, the top slab resting on pillars at roughly two-and-a-half-foot apart that rather than being each a single stone like Grain were built up of smaller stones. Afterwards, no relics found, site HY30NE 1 at HY35030925 was filled in.
KIRBISTER AND HOBBISTER
Over to the east of the Loch of Kirbister are several more sites I haven't visited. Starting past Skelbister, close to edge of a field on a false crest Groundwater HY30NE 2 at HY35460878 is a grass or heather covered mound of earth and a few small stones on and about it, some 22' across by two feet high with he centre partially opened." in 1928.now A grass-covered tumulus of earth and a few small stones, situated near the edge of a ploughed field on a false crest. Then in the field E of Groundwater an obvious light-coloured rise with a broad stone scatter, HY30NE 4 at HY39020862, is thought to be the Kirkshed chapel site, no longer even a ruin. Unlike this the Upper Groundwater mounds appear on the 1:25,000, HY30NE 5 centred at HY37500873 on a small plateau. Two of the seven grassy mounds, ranging fom 6-10.7m diameter and under a metre high for the tallest, have evidence on top of excavation. The original report was for another mound to the south-east, 1.5m high and on the order of 13m across. Similarly my next site (HY30NE 14 at HY37450894), lying above the upper edge of the other field, appled to cists found (again) in 1928-9 where now their depressions can be seen as lighter grass in a disturbed patch. The discoverer couldn't tell whether they were on a a very slight rise or set dead level. Of these cists with earth three held varying amounts of bone fragmenst whilst the fourth contained a crouched skeleton. The present record adds three mis-shapen rabbit-infested mounds on a false crest that appears never to have been broken into cultivation. Even the largest, at about eleven metres, melts into rough grass of the hillside.
Avoiding another dead-end I continued to my bus appointment. Just before a dwelling with the mysterious name of The Ninth is a deep regular hollow looking like an abandoned quarry. Half-right, for this is the site of Newhouse 36260806. Never even survived long enough for a name-change [having said which we still have plenty of places called Newhouse or Nearhouse, evidence of the Orcadian's parsimonious panoply of placenames. Still, better that than the use of English names or acting as if we had been under the Gailteachd yoke (which the SNP would love to bring down on us if ever Scotland rose anew to full independence)]. Down the west side of the Loch of Kirbister my eyes lit on a small islet by the shore. This little green space is the Holm of Westquoy (HY36680773), named after the farm of Westquoy (HY365078), on one of whose fields in 1866 a cist was found with an adult skeleton in a "heads and thraws" posture. Another peculiarity is that there was no associated mound i.e. the top slap lay just below the surface. The Orphir mount over to the west, just east of Ward Hill and its undated tumulus, is Ackla with the Meadow of Huckla beneath. Looking left the big flat mound is the reservoir and to its right the Meadow of Burgir. On the other side of the loch is the larger islet, a likely crannog called the Holm of Groundwater with remain of a circular construction considered to have been a brigand's den. Reaching the latest Newhouse the track leading uphill from here is the old mill road through White Moss. Knowing that the bus wasn't long due I chose instead to continue following the present road to the 'A' road back to Kirkwall. Looking down on the beach of Waulkmill Bay [a difficult one to time right for a visit and it's a long trek down] the fresh water back of it was once the site of a saltings, probably connected with what look like old building remains under the end of the long snout that almost seals off the mill burn. Once I reached the Hobbister farmroad I stopped and picked up the bus. Some day I shall try to reach the Hobbister mill-mound - though it was probably larger than the Scalpa one where the distillery is now it should still give me some idea of how the land opposite Nevada Cott looked back then (the pond lay between the road and where the houses are now). Somewhere in the Hob(b)ister region about 1880 removing a mound brought to light a 6' tall man's skeleton reclining under a large stone slab. In 2006 peat-diggers found the bronze head of a LBA socketed axe south of the road in this area too.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
DALE TO MARYKIRK May 3rd 2007
As usual took the Kirkwall-Stromness bus to the Harray road junction. After a short while, before reaching Springfield, I saw an old broad farmtrack on the left heading into nowhere and thought it might give me a downhill look at one of the mounds that I wished to investigate. On the left I came across a similarly disused sidetrack raised above the surrounding land and heading diagonally down to an old building. Couldn't spot the mound. Instead on my right there was a newly ploughed field with an area of pinkish-red soil (there are any number of places in Orkney where deep ploughing has taken place for the first time ever this last few years). Thought it might be a burnt mound but it lacked the palette. Mostly it was against a slight rise, a long low hummock most likely a glacial moraine. There were several stone scatters there too. Only after looking on CANMAP back home did this show itself to be the area of the Dale souterrain, excavated then re-buried - unless I mixed my bearings most likely the site itself. As well as the earthhouse other finds included a long cist, a pit burial and two primitive idols. Hereabouts I had hoped to have an overview of some of the archaeological sites in the area down to the loch. Nothing remotely stood out so rather than continue further into Grimeston I headed back.
Next up is the crossroads, for Staney Hill you go left, for Howe and Winksetter right. On the Peerie Howe & Geroin lands there had been a large standing stone that was destroyed and carted away in the late 19thC, and Gregor Lamb postulates that the Fa'an Stone had been at the junction of the Bimbister+Winksetter+Grimeston districts. In fact it is shown as the Fallstone at about HY332170 on the Germiston map in "Harray - Orkney's Inland Parish" - NE of Howe Farm where a field corner below Geroin Cottage is pointed south like an arrow. Presumably this is where the stone originally stood rather than where the pieces ended up. In years when there have been Open Days at the Knowes of Trotty one takes the Howe road, stopping just short of Winksetter. SE of Winksetter are (or perhaps were, the O.S. may be out of date regarding them) the remains of tumuli, Howinawheel & Howinalim.
Before going down the Staney Hill road I walked a little further along, to the mound behind the buildings on the north side of that road as I attempted once more to find the Appiehouse standing stone (said to be the N/S aligned remnant of a larger standing stone). Its size as given in "Proceedings of the Orkney Archaeological Society I" (4' by 4' ) is most likely only an estimate from distance as the NMRS record has it measuring 2'9" by 3'3" [and 6½" thick] and I don't believe it could have eroded equally in height and breadth. On the other hand research in the Orkney Room finds that the record card shows it as roughly triangular after a little height is reached ,and as one side of the triangle is a curve strongly reminiscent of a rather large bulb of percussion (IIRC the term), loss could have happened in between accounts. This time I was, and wasn't, successful. As I approached level with the summit finally the blessed thing came into view.and from the Dounby side it is plainly visible. At some time it has undergone further damage as now practically all that survives above the grass is the virtually rectangular area lower portion with a little point.
Mission accomplished I went back to the road and down to find my first target mound properly. Soon I came to a garden with a young sapling plantation and what looked like a grid of large square beehives, only because I couldn't think what else they could be ! The Woodwyn mound, RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31NW 11 at
HY32781594, is 'next-door' close to the field edge. Looking down along the field boundary there was a small rise beyond which I could just make the mound out from the road. The stone and earth mound has lost about 10' in diameter since 1880, being only 8.5m across now, but remains roughly the same height at 0.8m (though I'm sure it is raised more above present ground level than that). Though you can't tell it there was a gun emplacement here - someone did a brill job of removing its presence I must say. As I approached from the road there were several stones this side which looked like they were just lying there, but an attempt to look under found them to be well embedded. Moving from the NE side of the mound to the SW the other side from the fence I saw an exposed area about two metres long in which were small thin slabs of stone set horizontally amongst the revealed earth.
Continuing my walk I soon found myself in the grasp of the pisgies, no idea where I was. Pixie-led I crossed over to another minor road and went up in the direction of the main road without recognising that I had passed the Staney Hill sites, but going by the map perhaps I was too soon upon this area ! At one point there is a stone dump on the left and from the tiny mound a broad old track heads east down into the bottoms, called the Rinners of Breckan (rinner 'small water channel'). Today I tried to follow the track, which had roused my curiosity on previous occasions, only to find there was no way past the gorse that now bestrode the farmtrack. It must have led somewhere once and ends abruptly at a fence, the other side of which a spring is shown. The next item of interest is the twisty burn just south of Breckan.The broad banks are positively littered with very large stones presumably left behind by geological processes as they seem purely natural.
In the Breckan area my head finally cleared and I stopped not much short of the main road. From here looking over to Appiehouse it surprised me how clear the
standing stone stood out from the mound at this distance. Could it be this was never meant to be seen from the other side ? On a later occasion I completed my walk this
way and, finding the roadside gate fullty open, took this as Bona Dea's invite to take a closer examination of the stone itself. Crossing to the mound I had to climb over two or three grassy banks a couple of foot, maybe more, high. As by this time I had this pegged that the field is known as Stenso 'standing stone burn' (there is a Stenso in Inner Evie parish) I wasn't too surprised at the time. Though the map shows no watercourse could there formerly have been a burn that ran from, say, the well between here and Tufta, through to the Well Park that was below Quoykea and thence to the burn below Breckan which empties into the Rinners ? But if so why did I pass over more than one bank - it does seem a bit sus for a wholly natural feature. I was shocked to find even less remaining, now only as high as it deep. Having photographed this I started to prepare to take measurements, only someone in a tractor interrupted. He asked what I was doing and I told him looking at the standing stone. "You're not allowed to be here" he said. "This is private". Then after a few seconds he added "You should have asked first", though it was obvious from the tone that folk would never be allowed and he was just covering himself. So he bullied me into leaving. If this isn't the stone I must have been concentrating too hard at the ground by my feet and also no-one had noticed that there was here a pair of stones like the Deepdale ones (as distinct from ones parallel to one another).
Now I knew where I was it proved easy to spot the Staneyhill Standing Stone. Only the fence has been tightened up since my first visit or the wires replaced, for I could not find a way through (making it almost as unapproachable as the Howe-Harper Cairn in Firth, though at least I have seen livestock in this field so there must be entry somehow !). T'other side of the road a gate made for an easier prospect. The tumulus in this field isn't easy to see or it isn't up to much. I went downhill then uphill before turning my eyes on the Staneyhill long horned cairn ( which had escaped notice until the farmer brought it to the notice of archaeologists - not even "Harray - Orkney's Inland Parish" shows this). Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I walked along the lower field boundary. Much to my joy there appeared a spot where the ground dips beneath the fence and I scraped through. Good job there had been a prolonged dry period as obviously rain drained through this space at other times. At first several large stones in my view seemed to be new features a little up from the cairn itself. Closer inspection revealed these to be lining the sides of a relict burn, like the Burn of Breckan only a much straighter way and not quite so populated with stones (the Rinners of Breckan are north of the long cairn, about where the 1:25,000 shows the spring.referred to previously [Did the standing stone come from this same geography, was it extracted on site instead, or could it even have come from the same places as supplied the monuments on the Brodgar peninsula these Staneyhill sites look down upon ?] ). Perhaps some were harvested to create the great cairn. Alternatively all part of a bigger site that arching around this hillslope and/or part of the glacial action that I assume to be the cause of those very large boulders being embedded in the banks. several features appear to run into one another, and a few of these also appear to have been trialled for archaeology. Now I moved over to the top end of the cairn. Its probable NW horn enters by the field to the west. By this same western boundary is also the mound with large exposed stones that I photographed on a previous visit believing it to be part of the cairn - though admittedly the long cairn is recorded as having rather better defined sides than ends. The cairn is aligned NW/SE with a probable chamber along this represented by three orthostats by the uphill end and a likely stalled chamber, at a slight angle to the axis, down in the southern half shown by six more. In between these stone arrangement are more prostrates stones and orthostats. Two large blocks close to the northern end are believed to be either part of a revetment or a hornwork's end. Unlike the Head of Work long cairn the survey is as far as practicable a full record of all the features.
Next I wished to go to the rest of the Feolquoy tumuli. Except that there were livestock in the field and it is often difficult to make proper observations under those conditions. I encountered the same proble later with regards to the Vola mound, with the additional problem that the kie's close attention could erode the very archaeology I wished a closer encounter with. So all will have to wait a more lonesome day. So instead I chose to have another look at the Biggings Broch. This is now divided into two NMRS records ; HY31SW 6 for the broch and HY31SW 58 for Marykirk. Naturally I chose the wrong way to get there this day. Finally I made it. The ring of stones that I take to be the broch tower remains is demoted to a sheepfold in a thesis done on early ecclesiastical sites. However the same source does call the hillock it lies on a settlement mound and I remember that another sheepfold, on one of the Point of Buttquoy mounds, was built on and from the remains of an earlier structure. And there's another on a Grimsquoy moundlet. For what it's worth all have close proximity to bodies of water. On this visit I could see that St.Mary's Kirk lay downhill and ahead of me. A drystane wall goes across the headland. Most likely the kirkyard wall, this has a very non-central entrance gap. I couldn't make out any features inside. In 1923 mention is made of a possible doorway at west end with a chancel at the east but no trace appears in the 1980's survey and from the O.S. this does seem rather back-to-front unless there has been a massive amount of erosion of the lochside owing to this being a rather short promontory. The kirk, described as 36' (8m) E/W by 14' (4m), supposedly with walls four feet thick (1.4-1.6m) kirk is reported as sitting on a mound (32-40m across) very low with a few isolated stones. The few stones I saw looked a bit muckle for such a peedie
kirk. The 1980 thesis proposes a broch of comparative size to Midhowe Broch, maybe 9.5m across with walls 2.5m thick, because of a "gulley-like feature around and
outside west gable of chapel ... formed by an inner and outer bank". The author also mentions a landward rampart and writes of "The area enclosed by the bank... and its
possible continuation in the area of the settlement mound to the east". Looking at the survey I wonder if the banks inside the present eastern walls cutting off this small headland pre-date these, in which case it's a dead ringer for a promontory fort. But any massive stonework would still have come later - from the survey it looks odd that the surface stones though outside of the kirk itself do not appear to relate to the earthworks, so could they be rather large grave-markers - the antiquarians found dark material that they thought indicative of burials. In 1922 a hollowed stone found here was thought to be either Broch Age or Neolithic. I imagine this is what led Cursiter to asign this site to a broch. Perhaps it was a quern or an equivalent to St.Magnus Boat at Ladykirk in South Ronaldsay, but with no idea whatsoever of size or material not enough to diagnostic of any particular era..
Coming back I made my way to the Burn of Rickla, which is the boundary between Harray to the north and Stenness to the south (and above the north end of the Loch of Wasdale over in Firth the Slap of Setter marks an old parish boundary). To the east of the road the Harray book has an area marked as the Pile of Stones. I wonder if this was originally part of the Man's route from Birsay rather than the Stone o'Hindatuin (the Staney Hill standing stone) as many places the cortege went past it is reported that the travellers added stones to a cairn. On the Stenness side of the burn in the second field from the road was a site called the Fairy Knowe (a Fairy Howe between Appietown and the Slap of Harray was another resting place for the Man's body, though the antiquarians did not know which site this had been). Alas I can see no Pile of Stones, only a couple of possible unmarked mounds left and further up. Conversely there is no sign of the Fairy Howe to my vision but there are two stone slumps close to on the steep bank near a field boundary !! These do not appear to consist of drystane wall material so mayhap these are the remains of that knowe cleaned out and unceremoniously dumped.
As usual took the Kirkwall-Stromness bus to the Harray road junction. After a short while, before reaching Springfield, I saw an old broad farmtrack on the left heading into nowhere and thought it might give me a downhill look at one of the mounds that I wished to investigate. On the left I came across a similarly disused sidetrack raised above the surrounding land and heading diagonally down to an old building. Couldn't spot the mound. Instead on my right there was a newly ploughed field with an area of pinkish-red soil (there are any number of places in Orkney where deep ploughing has taken place for the first time ever this last few years). Thought it might be a burnt mound but it lacked the palette. Mostly it was against a slight rise, a long low hummock most likely a glacial moraine. There were several stone scatters there too. Only after looking on CANMAP back home did this show itself to be the area of the Dale souterrain, excavated then re-buried - unless I mixed my bearings most likely the site itself. As well as the earthhouse other finds included a long cist, a pit burial and two primitive idols. Hereabouts I had hoped to have an overview of some of the archaeological sites in the area down to the loch. Nothing remotely stood out so rather than continue further into Grimeston I headed back.
Next up is the crossroads, for Staney Hill you go left, for Howe and Winksetter right. On the Peerie Howe & Geroin lands there had been a large standing stone that was destroyed and carted away in the late 19thC, and Gregor Lamb postulates that the Fa'an Stone had been at the junction of the Bimbister+Winksetter+Grimeston districts. In fact it is shown as the Fallstone at about HY332170 on the Germiston map in "Harray - Orkney's Inland Parish" - NE of Howe Farm where a field corner below Geroin Cottage is pointed south like an arrow. Presumably this is where the stone originally stood rather than where the pieces ended up. In years when there have been Open Days at the Knowes of Trotty one takes the Howe road, stopping just short of Winksetter. SE of Winksetter are (or perhaps were, the O.S. may be out of date regarding them) the remains of tumuli, Howinawheel & Howinalim.
Before going down the Staney Hill road I walked a little further along, to the mound behind the buildings on the north side of that road as I attempted once more to find the Appiehouse standing stone (said to be the N/S aligned remnant of a larger standing stone). Its size as given in "Proceedings of the Orkney Archaeological Society I" (4' by 4' ) is most likely only an estimate from distance as the NMRS record has it measuring 2'9" by 3'3" [and 6½" thick] and I don't believe it could have eroded equally in height and breadth. On the other hand research in the Orkney Room finds that the record card shows it as roughly triangular after a little height is reached ,and as one side of the triangle is a curve strongly reminiscent of a rather large bulb of percussion (IIRC the term), loss could have happened in between accounts. This time I was, and wasn't, successful. As I approached level with the summit finally the blessed thing came into view.and from the Dounby side it is plainly visible. At some time it has undergone further damage as now practically all that survives above the grass is the virtually rectangular area lower portion with a little point.
Mission accomplished I went back to the road and down to find my first target mound properly. Soon I came to a garden with a young sapling plantation and what looked like a grid of large square beehives, only because I couldn't think what else they could be ! The Woodwyn mound, RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31NW 11 at
HY32781594, is 'next-door' close to the field edge. Looking down along the field boundary there was a small rise beyond which I could just make the mound out from the road. The stone and earth mound has lost about 10' in diameter since 1880, being only 8.5m across now, but remains roughly the same height at 0.8m (though I'm sure it is raised more above present ground level than that). Though you can't tell it there was a gun emplacement here - someone did a brill job of removing its presence I must say. As I approached from the road there were several stones this side which looked like they were just lying there, but an attempt to look under found them to be well embedded. Moving from the NE side of the mound to the SW the other side from the fence I saw an exposed area about two metres long in which were small thin slabs of stone set horizontally amongst the revealed earth.
Continuing my walk I soon found myself in the grasp of the pisgies, no idea where I was. Pixie-led I crossed over to another minor road and went up in the direction of the main road without recognising that I had passed the Staney Hill sites, but going by the map perhaps I was too soon upon this area ! At one point there is a stone dump on the left and from the tiny mound a broad old track heads east down into the bottoms, called the Rinners of Breckan (rinner 'small water channel'). Today I tried to follow the track, which had roused my curiosity on previous occasions, only to find there was no way past the gorse that now bestrode the farmtrack. It must have led somewhere once and ends abruptly at a fence, the other side of which a spring is shown. The next item of interest is the twisty burn just south of Breckan.The broad banks are positively littered with very large stones presumably left behind by geological processes as they seem purely natural.
In the Breckan area my head finally cleared and I stopped not much short of the main road. From here looking over to Appiehouse it surprised me how clear the
standing stone stood out from the mound at this distance. Could it be this was never meant to be seen from the other side ? On a later occasion I completed my walk this
way and, finding the roadside gate fullty open, took this as Bona Dea's invite to take a closer examination of the stone itself. Crossing to the mound I had to climb over two or three grassy banks a couple of foot, maybe more, high. As by this time I had this pegged that the field is known as Stenso 'standing stone burn' (there is a Stenso in Inner Evie parish) I wasn't too surprised at the time. Though the map shows no watercourse could there formerly have been a burn that ran from, say, the well between here and Tufta, through to the Well Park that was below Quoykea and thence to the burn below Breckan which empties into the Rinners ? But if so why did I pass over more than one bank - it does seem a bit sus for a wholly natural feature. I was shocked to find even less remaining, now only as high as it deep. Having photographed this I started to prepare to take measurements, only someone in a tractor interrupted. He asked what I was doing and I told him looking at the standing stone. "You're not allowed to be here" he said. "This is private". Then after a few seconds he added "You should have asked first", though it was obvious from the tone that folk would never be allowed and he was just covering himself. So he bullied me into leaving. If this isn't the stone I must have been concentrating too hard at the ground by my feet and also no-one had noticed that there was here a pair of stones like the Deepdale ones (as distinct from ones parallel to one another).
Now I knew where I was it proved easy to spot the Staneyhill Standing Stone. Only the fence has been tightened up since my first visit or the wires replaced, for I could not find a way through (making it almost as unapproachable as the Howe-Harper Cairn in Firth, though at least I have seen livestock in this field so there must be entry somehow !). T'other side of the road a gate made for an easier prospect. The tumulus in this field isn't easy to see or it isn't up to much. I went downhill then uphill before turning my eyes on the Staneyhill long horned cairn ( which had escaped notice until the farmer brought it to the notice of archaeologists - not even "Harray - Orkney's Inland Parish" shows this). Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I walked along the lower field boundary. Much to my joy there appeared a spot where the ground dips beneath the fence and I scraped through. Good job there had been a prolonged dry period as obviously rain drained through this space at other times. At first several large stones in my view seemed to be new features a little up from the cairn itself. Closer inspection revealed these to be lining the sides of a relict burn, like the Burn of Breckan only a much straighter way and not quite so populated with stones (the Rinners of Breckan are north of the long cairn, about where the 1:25,000 shows the spring.referred to previously [Did the standing stone come from this same geography, was it extracted on site instead, or could it even have come from the same places as supplied the monuments on the Brodgar peninsula these Staneyhill sites look down upon ?] ). Perhaps some were harvested to create the great cairn. Alternatively all part of a bigger site that arching around this hillslope and/or part of the glacial action that I assume to be the cause of those very large boulders being embedded in the banks. several features appear to run into one another, and a few of these also appear to have been trialled for archaeology. Now I moved over to the top end of the cairn. Its probable NW horn enters by the field to the west. By this same western boundary is also the mound with large exposed stones that I photographed on a previous visit believing it to be part of the cairn - though admittedly the long cairn is recorded as having rather better defined sides than ends. The cairn is aligned NW/SE with a probable chamber along this represented by three orthostats by the uphill end and a likely stalled chamber, at a slight angle to the axis, down in the southern half shown by six more. In between these stone arrangement are more prostrates stones and orthostats. Two large blocks close to the northern end are believed to be either part of a revetment or a hornwork's end. Unlike the Head of Work long cairn the survey is as far as practicable a full record of all the features.
Next I wished to go to the rest of the Feolquoy tumuli. Except that there were livestock in the field and it is often difficult to make proper observations under those conditions. I encountered the same proble later with regards to the Vola mound, with the additional problem that the kie's close attention could erode the very archaeology I wished a closer encounter with. So all will have to wait a more lonesome day. So instead I chose to have another look at the Biggings Broch. This is now divided into two NMRS records ; HY31SW 6 for the broch and HY31SW 58 for Marykirk. Naturally I chose the wrong way to get there this day. Finally I made it. The ring of stones that I take to be the broch tower remains is demoted to a sheepfold in a thesis done on early ecclesiastical sites. However the same source does call the hillock it lies on a settlement mound and I remember that another sheepfold, on one of the Point of Buttquoy mounds, was built on and from the remains of an earlier structure. And there's another on a Grimsquoy moundlet. For what it's worth all have close proximity to bodies of water. On this visit I could see that St.Mary's Kirk lay downhill and ahead of me. A drystane wall goes across the headland. Most likely the kirkyard wall, this has a very non-central entrance gap. I couldn't make out any features inside. In 1923 mention is made of a possible doorway at west end with a chancel at the east but no trace appears in the 1980's survey and from the O.S. this does seem rather back-to-front unless there has been a massive amount of erosion of the lochside owing to this being a rather short promontory. The kirk, described as 36' (8m) E/W by 14' (4m), supposedly with walls four feet thick (1.4-1.6m) kirk is reported as sitting on a mound (32-40m across) very low with a few isolated stones. The few stones I saw looked a bit muckle for such a peedie
kirk. The 1980 thesis proposes a broch of comparative size to Midhowe Broch, maybe 9.5m across with walls 2.5m thick, because of a "gulley-like feature around and
outside west gable of chapel ... formed by an inner and outer bank". The author also mentions a landward rampart and writes of "The area enclosed by the bank... and its
possible continuation in the area of the settlement mound to the east". Looking at the survey I wonder if the banks inside the present eastern walls cutting off this small headland pre-date these, in which case it's a dead ringer for a promontory fort. But any massive stonework would still have come later - from the survey it looks odd that the surface stones though outside of the kirk itself do not appear to relate to the earthworks, so could they be rather large grave-markers - the antiquarians found dark material that they thought indicative of burials. In 1922 a hollowed stone found here was thought to be either Broch Age or Neolithic. I imagine this is what led Cursiter to asign this site to a broch. Perhaps it was a quern or an equivalent to St.Magnus Boat at Ladykirk in South Ronaldsay, but with no idea whatsoever of size or material not enough to diagnostic of any particular era..
Coming back I made my way to the Burn of Rickla, which is the boundary between Harray to the north and Stenness to the south (and above the north end of the Loch of Wasdale over in Firth the Slap of Setter marks an old parish boundary). To the east of the road the Harray book has an area marked as the Pile of Stones. I wonder if this was originally part of the Man's route from Birsay rather than the Stone o'Hindatuin (the Staney Hill standing stone) as many places the cortege went past it is reported that the travellers added stones to a cairn. On the Stenness side of the burn in the second field from the road was a site called the Fairy Knowe (a Fairy Howe between Appietown and the Slap of Harray was another resting place for the Man's body, though the antiquarians did not know which site this had been). Alas I can see no Pile of Stones, only a couple of possible unmarked mounds left and further up. Conversely there is no sign of the Fairy Howe to my vision but there are two stone slumps close to on the steep bank near a field boundary !! These do not appear to consist of drystane wall material so mayhap these are the remains of that knowe cleaned out and unceremoniously dumped.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
HEAD OF WORK July 21st 2007
The straightest route to the Head of Work is the road that goes by Orkney College and Weyland Farm, uphill past the turnoff for the Head of Holland. Instead I took my time going from Kirkwall harbour to Weyland Bay then turning left at the housing estate to go up the hill and turn right at the top. Near the steading of Blackhall a Viking presence was apparently deduced from the finding of a whorl and a serrated stone disc. I think it may have been in an area just north-east of the main farm where a modern structure stands now (HY468127) but don't quote me on this. Along from Blackhall on the LH side of the road, where it widens ever so slightly, there is a stone socket at HY47031301. Not a very big one, but there you are. Nothing beside it, however on the opposite side is a short stretch of the remains of a drystane wall in the field. Next comes the warning about water-board property ahead being private, however folk do drive to a spot overlooking the Loch of Carness, so the road up to their demesne itself isnae. Anyway wanting a photo of a cliff on Shap at the junction before Work farm I did take the LH turn towards the waterworks. The beach you see between here and the start of the Carness headland is the result of man's works (I'm sure there used to be a tidal oyce between Carness and the Head of Work once). Behind this the first O.S. shows a place called Washinghouse. Which sounds rather strange, but rather than referring to bleakness the black of Blackhall could refer to bleaching.Earl George of Caithness in 1614 made first landing at Carness in the campaign against our Earl Patrick. Until modern times all cattle headed for the Scottish mainland were ferried from Carness past Shapinsay, but the ferry point is unknown AFAIK.
I could never figure out why there is no prehistory on Carness but I now think this is because it was always a jump-off for sailors, like Ferry Point for the pharisees leaving for St.Adomnan's isle (Damsay) and Holm Point to go to the Holm of Grombister. To the east of the cairn is the Head of Work with North Taing and whatever is hidden now by the quarry mound, then Yinstay Head having Yinstay cairn and the Howe of Langaskaill burnt mound. That is as far as I can certainly see from here. Over to the west (past Carness and beyond Kirkwall) on Quanter Ness were the 'Ramberry' cairn and Crossiecrown settlement. Wideford Hill still dominates and obstructs further views after Ferry Point comes Rennibister with its sepulchral souterrain and a burnt mound, then Ing(a)showe with its broch [in between Rennibister and Ingshowe is there any truly ancient archaeology beneath the mud and sand of the oyce that is almost dry land at the very lowest of tides ? ] and another gap before Holm Point.
At the turn-off for Water Board property the wartime road continues up to the headland. You need to go through two fieldgates, the first of which is chained against vehicles, then along the north coastline keeping to the coast edge. It wasn't truly damp - there are numerous small drainage deltas, however they all have a smattering of what amount to stepping stones. As you come to The Castle geo (not quite a rock stack yet) you see Long Cairn across the moss to your right. The long horned cairn [Yarrows type] is 47m long by 12-17m wide, on which is a 15-17m oval mound (Davidson and Henshall report that the ruined chamber was dug before 1928, in which case when RCAMS in 1946 give the mound's height as 11'9" this must have been prior to that as later authorities give a total height of 2-2.1m and the RCAMS Inventory side elevation shows nothing above this chamber) an Orkney-Cromarty cairn. It is generally accepted with a site such as this that the chambered cairn was completed long before its incorporation by the horned cairn. This site, the Helliar Holm cairn (above the lighthouse to the north of here), and that at Haco's Ness (on Shapinsay away to the east as you look there), are all intervisible - from which some intended guardianship of Shapinsay Sound has been inferred.
Along the higher ground on this northern side of the headland as well as the various purple orchids I was delighted to see Grass of Parnassus. What most struck me, though, was a darker form of eyebright mingling with the usual form - it appeared that they both grew on the same plant, the same coloured throat but violet instead of white elsewhere on the flower. I expected The Castle, a geological feature, to be difficult to recognise. Plain as a pikestaff really, a future stack with a low modern drum of a cairn (possibly hollow) of brown stones on top. I could have climbed down up the narrow neck... coming back might have been trickier. In the neck's 'valley' there is an angled wall, of the same material and equally modern looking, at the eastern side. Beside this what resembles a solid cartwheel is apparently covering a well or something. The other side of the wall a large slump of water-worn rocks goes to the rocky beach far below (only after seeing a picture I took have I seen steps on the southern side of the wall that go down to this [or I would have myself !]). By the clifftop the other end of the narrow beach is a bank of soil where the earth has been scraped off the patch of ground ahint it fairly recently. After passing The Castle I crossed over mushy ground to the long cairn, soft-going but I did avoid damper patches.
On this side of the mound I could see middling-size stones, presumably from the small late structures referred to by Davidson & Henshall others perhaps connected with the reported rectangular hollow (west of the chambered mound) they also believe prehistoric but not original. In my initial approach from The Castle circling clockwise the south horn of the western hornworks was very visible as a long broad grassy strip with a rounded top, looking like a pseudopod or starfish arm. Coming to the western end the inside of the eastern hornworks my first impression was a sharper, less obtuse angle than shown on plan. I wonder if they have eroded back where these 'end' as this appeared higher than the reported height to me (however the O.S. earlier did report this end of the mound as of greater height). Up on the mound not much more than a step from the back of the hornworks I found a feature [my A] surely not previously noted, as D&H state that turf covers all except the high mound. It takes the form of an oval, 4.8m wide by 3.8m front to back, on which lie many slabs. These are in a slight depression but as I looked back from its eastern edge a very low bank was visible. Perhaps it is a chamber of the later long cairn, but if instead this is from a second original mound it would help explain why the later cairn has appeared too long hitherto (the Roseness cairn also has an apparent satellite, even lower than this). Next along I saw a slab projecting a little, distinct from the glimpsed 'wall-faces', then further on again the base of the main mound. The latter is about 12m across. Continuing to the back there is a 0.68 long angle topped slab projecting 0.3m , and a little distance on at the high point a hollow [my B1] filled with stones and slabs that is is 3.1m wide. At 1.4m from the western edge by the back end of the hollow (2.1m front to back in D&H) is 0.6m of an orthostat 1.1m wide was plain to see - I think this is in D&H as 1.5 by 0.65, wary of getting too closeI may have missed a bit. It is unfortunate that though the RCAMS Inventory shows this chamber on side elevation it is not indicated on the plan view, because half-a-metre to the right of B1 is another slab- & stone-filled circular hollow [my B2]. This is 1.7m across and fractionally lower on the hill (there are orthostats in B1 whose level is given as 0.65m below that of the rear slab). A second stall or possibly another chamber I would imagine (I suppose it might be that the turf between the two is simply the result of archaeological methodology). Then, just behind this, the other side of an imaginary line from B1's largest orthostat is a depression [my B3] 2.3m wide and 2.2-2.6m from front to back. Despite there being not much stonework poking through B3 I would hazard that this represents a robbed stall/chamber (hence its apparently more downslope position) resulting from digging prior to the 1920's period in which B1 is likely to have been excavated. At the eastern end of the long cairn the S horn survives over twice the height of its NE counterpart making the latter less eviden on first viewing. At the moment the forecourt is very clearly defined by a singular display of a bed of reeds. Those distances and dimensions that are mine were taken in a stiff breeze and so have give and take on such as the hollows where I chose not to step and so doled the tape measure out from one end to the other.
Though the ground about the site is mostly damp and springy this is boggiest on the southern side where it slopes down to the cliffs. I tried to get back this way but it was way 'boggy'. When I kept to the drier portions this brought me to a 'mound' which is presumably the western end of the ridge, and less than a metre in front of this a bank or dyke, both apparently composed of earth with a few stones. By the northern edge of this there is an upright setting of a few low stones. The 'dyke' is rather bulky here (about the size of a hedge) and would seem to emphasise control over the approach to the cairns. It looks as if it may continue much lower to either side as I had the impression a water channel goes up to the headland's northern side. Along most of the Head of Work what some call rough pasture most would think of as approaching shallow bog (Roseness is similar though heathery), alas this is the route from Work farm, once site of a broch and perhaps a souterrain. [About 1855 the sinking of a barn floor at Work Farm turned out to be owing to the presence of a large undisturbed circular chamber of compact masonry beneath the floor and foundations. The chamber was part-filled with the to-be-expected shells and a large quantity of bone - especially noted however is a large antler from the centre of this. Subsequently flags covered most of it and the 1890 newspaper account says that a passage from this led to a hole in the old farm-steading's kitchen through which wind was wont to blow ! In 1885 "The Orcadian" describes work on the corn-yard as leading to the discovery of a 44' diameter tower with walls 7' thick that survived to a height of seven feet. In 1963 construction of a new barn at HY47471350 removed all the surface material, some being dumped on the beach at HY47691359. The circular wall became the base for a mill. Field investigations found broch-type pottery. Because both kinds of quern were found at the site this would have been a middle period broch at least. The first newspaper account mentions that there had been many underground structures "in this neighbourhood" (? other than those in the 1890 account), which sounds very much like a broch village].
After heading down across to the cliffs I went along the clifftop under the watchful eyes of two seals, but came to stop at HY47881373 where the drystane fieldwall reaches the cliff. At this spot there's a girt big pile of slabs 3-5' long and maybe 4-6" thick, like a fallen stack of dominoes - could this be other material from the Work Farm site ? The broch dump proper should be by the next field boundary along. Followed the wall back up to a gate, but with the field having kie in it I left well alone. This would seem to be the normal route to the headland. Further up another gate had a sloped top 'standing stone' over five feet tall as one of the gateposts. Then I was back at the military road again.
The straightest route to the Head of Work is the road that goes by Orkney College and Weyland Farm, uphill past the turnoff for the Head of Holland. Instead I took my time going from Kirkwall harbour to Weyland Bay then turning left at the housing estate to go up the hill and turn right at the top. Near the steading of Blackhall a Viking presence was apparently deduced from the finding of a whorl and a serrated stone disc. I think it may have been in an area just north-east of the main farm where a modern structure stands now (HY468127) but don't quote me on this. Along from Blackhall on the LH side of the road, where it widens ever so slightly, there is a stone socket at HY47031301. Not a very big one, but there you are. Nothing beside it, however on the opposite side is a short stretch of the remains of a drystane wall in the field. Next comes the warning about water-board property ahead being private, however folk do drive to a spot overlooking the Loch of Carness, so the road up to their demesne itself isnae. Anyway wanting a photo of a cliff on Shap at the junction before Work farm I did take the LH turn towards the waterworks. The beach you see between here and the start of the Carness headland is the result of man's works (I'm sure there used to be a tidal oyce between Carness and the Head of Work once). Behind this the first O.S. shows a place called Washinghouse. Which sounds rather strange, but rather than referring to bleakness the black of Blackhall could refer to bleaching.Earl George of Caithness in 1614 made first landing at Carness in the campaign against our Earl Patrick. Until modern times all cattle headed for the Scottish mainland were ferried from Carness past Shapinsay, but the ferry point is unknown AFAIK.
I could never figure out why there is no prehistory on Carness but I now think this is because it was always a jump-off for sailors, like Ferry Point for the pharisees leaving for St.Adomnan's isle (Damsay) and Holm Point to go to the Holm of Grombister. To the east of the cairn is the Head of Work with North Taing and whatever is hidden now by the quarry mound, then Yinstay Head having Yinstay cairn and the Howe of Langaskaill burnt mound. That is as far as I can certainly see from here. Over to the west (past Carness and beyond Kirkwall) on Quanter Ness were the 'Ramberry' cairn and Crossiecrown settlement. Wideford Hill still dominates and obstructs further views after Ferry Point comes Rennibister with its sepulchral souterrain and a burnt mound, then Ing(a)showe with its broch [in between Rennibister and Ingshowe is there any truly ancient archaeology beneath the mud and sand of the oyce that is almost dry land at the very lowest of tides ? ] and another gap before Holm Point.
At the turn-off for Water Board property the wartime road continues up to the headland. You need to go through two fieldgates, the first of which is chained against vehicles, then along the north coastline keeping to the coast edge. It wasn't truly damp - there are numerous small drainage deltas, however they all have a smattering of what amount to stepping stones. As you come to The Castle geo (not quite a rock stack yet) you see Long Cairn across the moss to your right. The long horned cairn [Yarrows type] is 47m long by 12-17m wide, on which is a 15-17m oval mound (Davidson and Henshall report that the ruined chamber was dug before 1928, in which case when RCAMS in 1946 give the mound's height as 11'9" this must have been prior to that as later authorities give a total height of 2-2.1m and the RCAMS Inventory side elevation shows nothing above this chamber) an Orkney-Cromarty cairn. It is generally accepted with a site such as this that the chambered cairn was completed long before its incorporation by the horned cairn. This site, the Helliar Holm cairn (above the lighthouse to the north of here), and that at Haco's Ness (on Shapinsay away to the east as you look there), are all intervisible - from which some intended guardianship of Shapinsay Sound has been inferred.
Along the higher ground on this northern side of the headland as well as the various purple orchids I was delighted to see Grass of Parnassus. What most struck me, though, was a darker form of eyebright mingling with the usual form - it appeared that they both grew on the same plant, the same coloured throat but violet instead of white elsewhere on the flower. I expected The Castle, a geological feature, to be difficult to recognise. Plain as a pikestaff really, a future stack with a low modern drum of a cairn (possibly hollow) of brown stones on top. I could have climbed down up the narrow neck... coming back might have been trickier. In the neck's 'valley' there is an angled wall, of the same material and equally modern looking, at the eastern side. Beside this what resembles a solid cartwheel is apparently covering a well or something. The other side of the wall a large slump of water-worn rocks goes to the rocky beach far below (only after seeing a picture I took have I seen steps on the southern side of the wall that go down to this [or I would have myself !]). By the clifftop the other end of the narrow beach is a bank of soil where the earth has been scraped off the patch of ground ahint it fairly recently. After passing The Castle I crossed over mushy ground to the long cairn, soft-going but I did avoid damper patches.
On this side of the mound I could see middling-size stones, presumably from the small late structures referred to by Davidson & Henshall others perhaps connected with the reported rectangular hollow (west of the chambered mound) they also believe prehistoric but not original. In my initial approach from The Castle circling clockwise the south horn of the western hornworks was very visible as a long broad grassy strip with a rounded top, looking like a pseudopod or starfish arm. Coming to the western end the inside of the eastern hornworks my first impression was a sharper, less obtuse angle than shown on plan. I wonder if they have eroded back where these 'end' as this appeared higher than the reported height to me (however the O.S. earlier did report this end of the mound as of greater height). Up on the mound not much more than a step from the back of the hornworks I found a feature [my A] surely not previously noted, as D&H state that turf covers all except the high mound. It takes the form of an oval, 4.8m wide by 3.8m front to back, on which lie many slabs. These are in a slight depression but as I looked back from its eastern edge a very low bank was visible. Perhaps it is a chamber of the later long cairn, but if instead this is from a second original mound it would help explain why the later cairn has appeared too long hitherto (the Roseness cairn also has an apparent satellite, even lower than this). Next along I saw a slab projecting a little, distinct from the glimpsed 'wall-faces', then further on again the base of the main mound. The latter is about 12m across. Continuing to the back there is a 0.68 long angle topped slab projecting 0.3m , and a little distance on at the high point a hollow [my B1] filled with stones and slabs that is is 3.1m wide. At 1.4m from the western edge by the back end of the hollow (2.1m front to back in D&H) is 0.6m of an orthostat 1.1m wide was plain to see - I think this is in D&H as 1.5 by 0.65, wary of getting too closeI may have missed a bit. It is unfortunate that though the RCAMS Inventory shows this chamber on side elevation it is not indicated on the plan view, because half-a-metre to the right of B1 is another slab- & stone-filled circular hollow [my B2]. This is 1.7m across and fractionally lower on the hill (there are orthostats in B1 whose level is given as 0.65m below that of the rear slab). A second stall or possibly another chamber I would imagine (I suppose it might be that the turf between the two is simply the result of archaeological methodology). Then, just behind this, the other side of an imaginary line from B1's largest orthostat is a depression [my B3] 2.3m wide and 2.2-2.6m from front to back. Despite there being not much stonework poking through B3 I would hazard that this represents a robbed stall/chamber (hence its apparently more downslope position) resulting from digging prior to the 1920's period in which B1 is likely to have been excavated. At the eastern end of the long cairn the S horn survives over twice the height of its NE counterpart making the latter less eviden on first viewing. At the moment the forecourt is very clearly defined by a singular display of a bed of reeds. Those distances and dimensions that are mine were taken in a stiff breeze and so have give and take on such as the hollows where I chose not to step and so doled the tape measure out from one end to the other.
Though the ground about the site is mostly damp and springy this is boggiest on the southern side where it slopes down to the cliffs. I tried to get back this way but it was way 'boggy'. When I kept to the drier portions this brought me to a 'mound' which is presumably the western end of the ridge, and less than a metre in front of this a bank or dyke, both apparently composed of earth with a few stones. By the northern edge of this there is an upright setting of a few low stones. The 'dyke' is rather bulky here (about the size of a hedge) and would seem to emphasise control over the approach to the cairns. It looks as if it may continue much lower to either side as I had the impression a water channel goes up to the headland's northern side. Along most of the Head of Work what some call rough pasture most would think of as approaching shallow bog (Roseness is similar though heathery), alas this is the route from Work farm, once site of a broch and perhaps a souterrain. [About 1855 the sinking of a barn floor at Work Farm turned out to be owing to the presence of a large undisturbed circular chamber of compact masonry beneath the floor and foundations. The chamber was part-filled with the to-be-expected shells and a large quantity of bone - especially noted however is a large antler from the centre of this. Subsequently flags covered most of it and the 1890 newspaper account says that a passage from this led to a hole in the old farm-steading's kitchen through which wind was wont to blow ! In 1885 "The Orcadian" describes work on the corn-yard as leading to the discovery of a 44' diameter tower with walls 7' thick that survived to a height of seven feet. In 1963 construction of a new barn at HY47471350 removed all the surface material, some being dumped on the beach at HY47691359. The circular wall became the base for a mill. Field investigations found broch-type pottery. Because both kinds of quern were found at the site this would have been a middle period broch at least. The first newspaper account mentions that there had been many underground structures "in this neighbourhood" (? other than those in the 1890 account), which sounds very much like a broch village].
After heading down across to the cliffs I went along the clifftop under the watchful eyes of two seals, but came to stop at HY47881373 where the drystane fieldwall reaches the cliff. At this spot there's a girt big pile of slabs 3-5' long and maybe 4-6" thick, like a fallen stack of dominoes - could this be other material from the Work Farm site ? The broch dump proper should be by the next field boundary along. Followed the wall back up to a gate, but with the field having kie in it I left well alone. This would seem to be the normal route to the headland. Further up another gate had a sloped top 'standing stone' over five feet tall as one of the gateposts. Then I was back at the military road again.
