Monday, July 27, 2009
Stromness Day Three, JUNE 13TH 2009
When I lived at Garson the circular walk over the Howe road onto the main Kirkwall-Finstown road around to Stromness and back often took my fancy (once in the small hours after three days without sleep. Ah, bliss), so for my last day it would make light of two or three hours taking in the Deepdale standing stone. Fat chance - 3, 4½, 6 hours as the pisgies led me on way past the peri-phaery. Back to start. Coming to the enlarged Garson road as I hadn't used it in the present form considered a side exploration, but even though this looks to re-join the Howe road higher up I passed this chance up. Another temptation a little further along a track on the left (where you see a mast) that goes over Bruna Fea to the main road. Never been there, probably nowt to see and I didn't want to short-circuit my tour. Next by-road on t'other side goes to Braehead and, nowadays, down to the coast [where I think it joins the new road through Cairston]. Roadside I stop at the piece where a teeny bit of the old road remains (what is it about Orkney and triangles of land cut off - sometimes the place seems all Gyre and gimbal) and offers brilliant views over to Orphir and around through Stenness and Firth up towards Sandwick. Momentarily considered following the road down to Bu Point [Bu= head farm] to see if anything remained at the site of Bu Broch's compressed period of rescue excavation. Too long down so maybe another time. Looking at the beckoning finger of Bu Point I wondered too if there might be something there, however Dave Lynn doesn't remember anything (surviving) but mentioned that further towards Stromness "There were a couple of small bits on the headland below Garson @ W tip of Bay of Navershaw which NMRS doesn't show - a building corner [Quoyelsh] with rest of structure gone to the sea (shows how intense erosion has been) which I found and then discovered Marwick had spotted in the 1930s and a small mound of unknown origin slightly back from the edge which may or may not be related to a Marwick report of some cholera sailor burials in the 1830s". There is a castle close by the point, and The Castle is the genuine article, being attacked in 1154. My next stop on the Howe road for views was the farm of Howe where the excavations I took part in ranged from late Viking houses all the way back to the Neolithic tomb used to create a later souterrain and serve as the basis for successive roundhouses [Stromness itself may have had one of these at Graham Place, or so I'm told]. The whole area from here through Congesquoy, Kettlun and Cairston to Garson Farm has a seemingly continuous history, perhaps even sanctity - a cist being found at Konizquoy [aka Congesquoy, which had a manse and attached glebe lands] and one of the earliest kirks having been at Bu of Cairston. After the dig finished the tomb had earth piled over it to level the site. Could there have been something earlier yet preserved thereby ??
At the bottom of the Howe road, in pursuit of [faintly] possibly informative distant views of Cummi Howe and Corn Hillock, I turned left to follow the coast this side of the Brig o' Waithe. Couldn't really get far enough even to do that, let alone look for Konizquoy flints above the Sands of Congesquoy as I fancied. On the other side of the road I noticed a finger of green extending out into the loch with small stones and longer than other bits there. And viewing along it on the other shore a continuance lay revealed as a straight bank like a low upturned vee a couple of feet or more high, a few wall courses running along its northern edge. A few yards south of this is a drystone wall set back against the slightly higher land where the garden wall starts, composed of stones set on 'edge' topped by stones lying horizontal and slabs. This carries on, peeking out here and there, below and parallel to the garden wall. Partway along a similar wall set against a bank strikes out perpendicular to it to the water's edge. I imagine that this is what they used before the present bridge, maybe a modified natural ford, or (much less likely) relating to the millstream by the crossroads. Most of this appears on the 1st O.S., where the perpendicular arm looks to be the SW continuation of the northern side of a building at ground level. The fact that the cottage is called Bridge End is an obvious clue. Doh !
Retraced my steps then passed the Howe road junction onto my intended route once more. When I visited the surviving Deepdale standing stone before I took a direct route through the quarry then through a fence (then got caught in a downpour for my troubles, so surprised the images came out as well as they did). This time I did the clever thing and went to the other end of the quarry and through an open field-gate into the field next door, which is the one with the stones - just follow the field edge over from the quarry tightly uphill if there are crops in it. Despite the crop able to do all the photography I wanted, circling as I had at the Staney Hill one, because this part of the field is rather patchy so that long steps and careful placement of the feet avoids damage. Does this patchiness imply something underlying this, possibly even archaeology ? Looking at the loose and loosened stones directly around the stone I wonder whether s.s. sockets are always contemporary - I can imagine standing stones being, as it were, bare rooted and then someone later noting a Pisa effect and then taking remedial action. Over in the next field towards Howe half-way along the field edge used to be a well (and small building but not a wellhouse), reached by a straight track from the Howe road, and it is likely that other stones noted in the vicinity are from its being filled in in like manner to that at Crossiecrown in St.Ola. Three abutting buildings in a line at Deepdale Farm took my fancy though, as is often the case, had to compose carefully so as not to let more modern structures interfere with my 'artistic' vision. At Deepdale Cottage all the stones are gone. Doesn't matter if they were antient, a folly or modern garden ornament, a tidy mind deconstructs everything. A choice to follow straight through to Stromness or as far as the mast road then back onto the Howe road. No, just past Deepdale I'll take the Works road that crosses the Burn of Deepdale because I don't remember tackling it from this end and I can come back into Stromness on the Birsay route. Loike I said, pixie-led. Where this road angles left I found myself looking for something but not knowing what or why. Only when I came back home did I find out RCAHMS lists two metre-high burnt mounds near the LH side of this bend. Probably obscured by vegetation at high summer anyways. Confusingly they are named after the Burn of Quholmslie rather than that of Deepdale, right district wrong burn.
At the junction turned right for the Cauldhame road (Cauldhame had a mill-dam I see now) to try investigate a larger burnt mound, also called Burn of Quholmslie but on the Burn of Una ! With all the bends and junctions and small farm roads you have to be very careful not to become lost once you leave the Birsay road. Near Garth there are fine views of the burn area between Hill of Miffia and Peerie Hill (definitely little hill rather than one with small fry, formerly The Hillock explaining why the variant of peedie more common in the North Isles used) dotted with a old dwellings and a farmyard girt with same (Greenhead) and the now abandoned Burnside. Though the last has only two buildings it is (at least from where I stood) more imposing than Greenhead with many more - most likely because one of the structures built later with other materials and a walled garden still sporting rhubub. Now that I look at the first O.S. I see between Garth and Lee there are the sites of St.Mary's kirk (HY21SE 30 now an irregular scattering of edgeset stones at HY25071300) and Castle Bloody (aka Castle Bloody HY21SE 31 formerly at HY 25141286, sans structure and cists now only a knoll to show so the kirk has the last laugh for an attack from here). Is it relevant that folk of Stromness parish had the eek name of "bluidy puddings" ?? Alongside Garth there's a road going up Peerie Hill and I determined to have me a grandstand view looking back across the "sacred monuments" bowl to Firth. I found the widest view to be from about half-way up. As awe- inspiring as the Whyteford view even if not quite 180 degrees too-jay. You can see north at least as far as Lingafjold above the Lyking road, then east across Stenness and Harray lochs to (at the very least) the ridge that runs from the Foot of Aglath to Snaba Hill and Binscarth, and south from Hill of Heddle across much of the Orphir hills (where a Johnsmas fire used to be lit above Bigswell) before the Hill of Quholm leaves you with views of only the tops of the rest. Brilliant. Then I took it in my head to go even further uphill. Started raining severely, so I considered striking for Miffia, no longer a dwelling. Too many curious kie in the way.
So struck off for Mousland in hopes of reaching the cliffs somehow. Rain stopped. At top of this hillslope good farm road becomes rough farm track. And there is a cattle gride even my size 10s made heavy weather of. Reminded me strongly of the Lyde road. Expecting golden plover any minute but the hill bereft of life and between me and the burn only a few sheep and the odd oystercatcher. A long and winding track. Unfortunately any idea of passing Mousland [Mossland] to seek a way to the coast is ruled out because the relevant land about the farm has become part of it, domestic rather then field fences in its vicinity. Short of this bit a track across the hilltop over Eskishold and Merranblo to Hill of Quholm and the Cauldhame road past Newtonhill, and Pastmap showed a tumulus by a field corner (possibly the Knowe of Heliacow [sic] ) with Helliaclov to the SE - being RCAHMS record no. HY21SW 6 at HY23091264. Couldn't follow my desire as the sheep would be in the way. Anyway I found out later that this barrow has been levelled by a 1990 excavation. It started life with just the EBA/MBA cremation cist in the centre surrounded by a kerb outside which a polished steatite axe had been placed at some stage. Then later layers of earth and turf were placed inside the kerb to form a mound. Further down the track there appears on the 1:25,000 2nd series a rather intriguing legend Pile of Stones appears at ~HY24141191 just south of a multiple field junction. This feature is not shown on the 1882 O.S., is still on PASTMAP at HY24161196 but absent again on the present 1:25,000. What the 1882 O.S. shows is E of the track linear quarries either side of HY23991207 (on the other side of it from the Merranblo enclosure HY21SW 19 at HY24021208 NNW of the junction opposite a bend in the track). These are simply delineations when this appears on the 1903 map (almost directly east of said junction) without ever having so much as "disused" appended. Certainly sounds worth exploring even though the legend indicates the need for greater interpretative powers than I possess - another possibility for the Knowe of Heliacow ?? Or, surely not, even once The Hillock itself. Ah, mystery.
Made my way back to Garth, then on to Una.via Cauldhame. The burnt mound RCAHMS record no. HY21SW 3 at HY24841254 is downstream of Una where a fieldfence stops near the burn's southern edge. In the flesh it presents more the appearance of an islet in the stream, a small water-carved eyot, as on the other side of it from the burn space is low between the mound and the nearest fieldbank (as if ?) by occasional flooding. The burnt material is on the one slope unseen by me, everywhere else exposing bare yellow earth au naturel with 'terraces' around the streamward side. At some time someone's excavated a whacking 1.3m deep cut in the blighter, though nothing is known of by whom or if owt found. I suspect that this archaeology started out as a natural feature and that apart from the burning anything owing to the hand of man came out with the scoop. Alas the way in from the road that I saw consisted of an exceedingly tight 'Orkney gate'. Being as I'd been desperate to spend a penny for an hour or two, and seeing I knew not what further obstacles might lie athwart my route, common sense left physical investigation for some other time. Anyways, got slide shots and digital and mini-DV anyways from above the burn either side as well as along it. Old Hall presents some nice non-prehistoric archaeology to the walker who appreciates slab work and the like. Along the Hill of Quholm, then down to Stairwaddy (for pics of the milldam piece) and last the rich-looking road going by the Co-op into town
When I lived at Garson the circular walk over the Howe road onto the main Kirkwall-Finstown road around to Stromness and back often took my fancy (once in the small hours after three days without sleep. Ah, bliss), so for my last day it would make light of two or three hours taking in the Deepdale standing stone. Fat chance - 3, 4½, 6 hours as the pisgies led me on way past the peri-phaery. Back to start. Coming to the enlarged Garson road as I hadn't used it in the present form considered a side exploration, but even though this looks to re-join the Howe road higher up I passed this chance up. Another temptation a little further along a track on the left (where you see a mast) that goes over Bruna Fea to the main road. Never been there, probably nowt to see and I didn't want to short-circuit my tour. Next by-road on t'other side goes to Braehead and, nowadays, down to the coast [where I think it joins the new road through Cairston]. Roadside I stop at the piece where a teeny bit of the old road remains (what is it about Orkney and triangles of land cut off - sometimes the place seems all Gyre and gimbal) and offers brilliant views over to Orphir and around through Stenness and Firth up towards Sandwick. Momentarily considered following the road down to Bu Point [Bu= head farm] to see if anything remained at the site of Bu Broch's compressed period of rescue excavation. Too long down so maybe another time. Looking at the beckoning finger of Bu Point I wondered too if there might be something there, however Dave Lynn doesn't remember anything (surviving) but mentioned that further towards Stromness "There were a couple of small bits on the headland below Garson @ W tip of Bay of Navershaw which NMRS doesn't show - a building corner [Quoyelsh] with rest of structure gone to the sea (shows how intense erosion has been) which I found and then discovered Marwick had spotted in the 1930s and a small mound of unknown origin slightly back from the edge which may or may not be related to a Marwick report of some cholera sailor burials in the 1830s". There is a castle close by the point, and The Castle is the genuine article, being attacked in 1154. My next stop on the Howe road for views was the farm of Howe where the excavations I took part in ranged from late Viking houses all the way back to the Neolithic tomb used to create a later souterrain and serve as the basis for successive roundhouses [Stromness itself may have had one of these at Graham Place, or so I'm told]. The whole area from here through Congesquoy, Kettlun and Cairston to Garson Farm has a seemingly continuous history, perhaps even sanctity - a cist being found at Konizquoy [aka Congesquoy, which had a manse and attached glebe lands] and one of the earliest kirks having been at Bu of Cairston. After the dig finished the tomb had earth piled over it to level the site. Could there have been something earlier yet preserved thereby ??
At the bottom of the Howe road, in pursuit of [faintly] possibly informative distant views of Cummi Howe and Corn Hillock, I turned left to follow the coast this side of the Brig o' Waithe. Couldn't really get far enough even to do that, let alone look for Konizquoy flints above the Sands of Congesquoy as I fancied. On the other side of the road I noticed a finger of green extending out into the loch with small stones and longer than other bits there. And viewing along it on the other shore a continuance lay revealed as a straight bank like a low upturned vee a couple of feet or more high, a few wall courses running along its northern edge. A few yards south of this is a drystone wall set back against the slightly higher land where the garden wall starts, composed of stones set on 'edge' topped by stones lying horizontal and slabs. This carries on, peeking out here and there, below and parallel to the garden wall. Partway along a similar wall set against a bank strikes out perpendicular to it to the water's edge. I imagine that this is what they used before the present bridge, maybe a modified natural ford, or (much less likely) relating to the millstream by the crossroads. Most of this appears on the 1st O.S., where the perpendicular arm looks to be the SW continuation of the northern side of a building at ground level. The fact that the cottage is called Bridge End is an obvious clue. Doh !
Retraced my steps then passed the Howe road junction onto my intended route once more. When I visited the surviving Deepdale standing stone before I took a direct route through the quarry then through a fence (then got caught in a downpour for my troubles, so surprised the images came out as well as they did). This time I did the clever thing and went to the other end of the quarry and through an open field-gate into the field next door, which is the one with the stones - just follow the field edge over from the quarry tightly uphill if there are crops in it. Despite the crop able to do all the photography I wanted, circling as I had at the Staney Hill one, because this part of the field is rather patchy so that long steps and careful placement of the feet avoids damage. Does this patchiness imply something underlying this, possibly even archaeology ? Looking at the loose and loosened stones directly around the stone I wonder whether s.s. sockets are always contemporary - I can imagine standing stones being, as it were, bare rooted and then someone later noting a Pisa effect and then taking remedial action. Over in the next field towards Howe half-way along the field edge used to be a well (and small building but not a wellhouse), reached by a straight track from the Howe road, and it is likely that other stones noted in the vicinity are from its being filled in in like manner to that at Crossiecrown in St.Ola. Three abutting buildings in a line at Deepdale Farm took my fancy though, as is often the case, had to compose carefully so as not to let more modern structures interfere with my 'artistic' vision. At Deepdale Cottage all the stones are gone. Doesn't matter if they were antient, a folly or modern garden ornament, a tidy mind deconstructs everything. A choice to follow straight through to Stromness or as far as the mast road then back onto the Howe road. No, just past Deepdale I'll take the Works road that crosses the Burn of Deepdale because I don't remember tackling it from this end and I can come back into Stromness on the Birsay route. Loike I said, pixie-led. Where this road angles left I found myself looking for something but not knowing what or why. Only when I came back home did I find out RCAHMS lists two metre-high burnt mounds near the LH side of this bend. Probably obscured by vegetation at high summer anyways. Confusingly they are named after the Burn of Quholmslie rather than that of Deepdale, right district wrong burn.
At the junction turned right for the Cauldhame road (Cauldhame had a mill-dam I see now) to try investigate a larger burnt mound, also called Burn of Quholmslie but on the Burn of Una ! With all the bends and junctions and small farm roads you have to be very careful not to become lost once you leave the Birsay road. Near Garth there are fine views of the burn area between Hill of Miffia and Peerie Hill (definitely little hill rather than one with small fry, formerly The Hillock explaining why the variant of peedie more common in the North Isles used) dotted with a old dwellings and a farmyard girt with same (Greenhead) and the now abandoned Burnside. Though the last has only two buildings it is (at least from where I stood) more imposing than Greenhead with many more - most likely because one of the structures built later with other materials and a walled garden still sporting rhubub. Now that I look at the first O.S. I see between Garth and Lee there are the sites of St.Mary's kirk (HY21SE 30 now an irregular scattering of edgeset stones at HY25071300) and Castle Bloody (aka Castle Bloody HY21SE 31 formerly at HY 25141286, sans structure and cists now only a knoll to show so the kirk has the last laugh for an attack from here). Is it relevant that folk of Stromness parish had the eek name of "bluidy puddings" ?? Alongside Garth there's a road going up Peerie Hill and I determined to have me a grandstand view looking back across the "sacred monuments" bowl to Firth. I found the widest view to be from about half-way up. As awe- inspiring as the Whyteford view even if not quite 180 degrees too-jay. You can see north at least as far as Lingafjold above the Lyking road, then east across Stenness and Harray lochs to (at the very least) the ridge that runs from the Foot of Aglath to Snaba Hill and Binscarth, and south from Hill of Heddle across much of the Orphir hills (where a Johnsmas fire used to be lit above Bigswell) before the Hill of Quholm leaves you with views of only the tops of the rest. Brilliant. Then I took it in my head to go even further uphill. Started raining severely, so I considered striking for Miffia, no longer a dwelling. Too many curious kie in the way.
So struck off for Mousland in hopes of reaching the cliffs somehow. Rain stopped. At top of this hillslope good farm road becomes rough farm track. And there is a cattle gride even my size 10s made heavy weather of. Reminded me strongly of the Lyde road. Expecting golden plover any minute but the hill bereft of life and between me and the burn only a few sheep and the odd oystercatcher. A long and winding track. Unfortunately any idea of passing Mousland [Mossland] to seek a way to the coast is ruled out because the relevant land about the farm has become part of it, domestic rather then field fences in its vicinity. Short of this bit a track across the hilltop over Eskishold and Merranblo to Hill of Quholm and the Cauldhame road past Newtonhill, and Pastmap showed a tumulus by a field corner (possibly the Knowe of Heliacow [sic] ) with Helliaclov to the SE - being RCAHMS record no. HY21SW 6 at HY23091264. Couldn't follow my desire as the sheep would be in the way. Anyway I found out later that this barrow has been levelled by a 1990 excavation. It started life with just the EBA/MBA cremation cist in the centre surrounded by a kerb outside which a polished steatite axe had been placed at some stage. Then later layers of earth and turf were placed inside the kerb to form a mound. Further down the track there appears on the 1:25,000 2nd series a rather intriguing legend Pile of Stones appears at ~HY24141191 just south of a multiple field junction. This feature is not shown on the 1882 O.S., is still on PASTMAP at HY24161196 but absent again on the present 1:25,000. What the 1882 O.S. shows is E of the track linear quarries either side of HY23991207 (on the other side of it from the Merranblo enclosure HY21SW 19 at HY24021208 NNW of the junction opposite a bend in the track). These are simply delineations when this appears on the 1903 map (almost directly east of said junction) without ever having so much as "disused" appended. Certainly sounds worth exploring even though the legend indicates the need for greater interpretative powers than I possess - another possibility for the Knowe of Heliacow ?? Or, surely not, even once The Hillock itself. Ah, mystery.
Made my way back to Garth, then on to Una.via Cauldhame. The burnt mound RCAHMS record no. HY21SW 3 at HY24841254 is downstream of Una where a fieldfence stops near the burn's southern edge. In the flesh it presents more the appearance of an islet in the stream, a small water-carved eyot, as on the other side of it from the burn space is low between the mound and the nearest fieldbank (as if ?) by occasional flooding. The burnt material is on the one slope unseen by me, everywhere else exposing bare yellow earth au naturel with 'terraces' around the streamward side. At some time someone's excavated a whacking 1.3m deep cut in the blighter, though nothing is known of by whom or if owt found. I suspect that this archaeology started out as a natural feature and that apart from the burning anything owing to the hand of man came out with the scoop. Alas the way in from the road that I saw consisted of an exceedingly tight 'Orkney gate'. Being as I'd been desperate to spend a penny for an hour or two, and seeing I knew not what further obstacles might lie athwart my route, common sense left physical investigation for some other time. Anyways, got slide shots and digital and mini-DV anyways from above the burn either side as well as along it. Old Hall presents some nice non-prehistoric archaeology to the walker who appreciates slab work and the like. Along the Hill of Quholm, then down to Stairwaddy (for pics of the milldam piece) and last the rich-looking road going by the Co-op into town
Monday, July 13, 2009
STROMNESS Day Two, JUNE 12TH
Decided today was the day I would finally reach Brockan (a chambered mound they say is a settlement even though they couldn't decide between secondary broch and a little Skerrybrae) and maybe 'investigate' the missing standing stone on the hillside above [placed on 2 different sides of the field despite not being found the second time, which puzzles somewhat]. As good a reason as any to walk the coast. And this day the tide so low that on the other side from Stromness you could cross on foot not only from Copland's Dock to Inner (or Cairston) Holm but also from there to Outer Holm. Many is the time I walked from Garson to the dock, a set of tall drystane-walled enclosures once forming a boat-building yard, though then I did not know that this is also the site of Gow the pirate's White House (an early mortared house which also gave birth to him, local name perhaps Whiteladies which would relate then to the chapel indicated on an early map). Going yet further east there's a pimply bit (HY265089) called the Point of Qu'elsh at this end of Navershaw bay where Dave Lynn and Bernie Bell found the corner of some eroded domestic building at Quoyelsh, definitely EIA though the pottery doesn't rule out the Bronze Age. First reported 1939 possibly even lost to the sea since 1990. Ach, my journey today goes to the golf course and along that way.
Coming to the outskirts of town there is a section of cliff with two seats on it presenting a viewpoint. From here you have a grand view of the holms and back across the edge of Stromness, a scenic slice of the old places. Last century folk regularly went down to the shore here. Erosion 'took care' of that. There is still some grassy shore left. At the far end is an old quay. In the outer wall (HY25300828) only just above the rocks there is a rectangular niche whose purpose I can't even hazard at. Like Thieves Holm sans folklore, Outer Holm doesn't have any archaeology listed for it. Even less obvious as to why this is with such relative ease of access and the presence of a rather obvious mound from most directions. It is more than a rise and I'd be inclined to term it a platform mound, at the very latest a mediaeval farm tell - there is a rumour that Raymond Lamb, the old county archaeologist, believed this to overlie a Broch Age feature and perhaps the holms were still a permanent part of the mainland back then. Soon enough I came to the Ness caravan site, where I had my last view of the holm, and the golf course.
There are upstanding WWII buildings both alongside the coastal road about the golf course and on the links themselves, and the authorities are now promoting the Ness Battery. Along the coastline there is at least one naust (Noust of Nethertown on the map) where boats would have been laid up, though what with old field walls and new sea walls etcetera it can be difficult to make things out. One place I heard the calls of young duck families dabbling just offshore, two sets of eider and one of shelduck. The latter I have always found shy before - when approaching them at Mill Sands and Messigate loch they scarper from a long ways off. These, however, totallly unfazed by my presence at a time they would be at their most alert, something I can't simply put down to the low cliff I surveyed from. Duck and drake only really differ in the depth of red in the knobbed beaks, otherwise their bodies are a white background with black flashes, a chestnut saddle and a green-black neck and head. Their young are striped in a way reminiscent of wild piglets, quite the thing. The two adults and three well-developed ducklings mostly kept close to the eider rather than completely mingling with them, however one or other of the adults every now and again asserted their dominance, on one occasion climbing out onto a rocky spine to bully the eider (or so it seemed to me). Cists have been found on both the golf course iteslf and the Glebe lands adjoining, these being considered of a kind with those from Warebeth by those conversant with them all.
Came to Warebeth kirkyard. Thanks to erosion nothing left of the broch's cliff exposure, which had work done on it by Dave and Bernie. The 1989 report tells that this may once have been seperated from the sea by a lagoon, with an ayre and outcrops up to Kirk Rocks [in which case, my friend adds, could such a body of water have extended as far as Breckness ?], making it the original Strøm Ness headland. This reminds Dave of St.Mary's in Holm & Verron in Sandwick & Scockness on Rousay, and me of Eves Howe in Deerness (possibly Dingieshowe too) and Taing of Beeman in Tankerness. But I would wonder rather whether there would not have been a current similar to the Burgar rôst then. A piece of the mediaeval kirk comes out perpendicular to the modern wall as a low bump across the coastal track just over from where from where one of two late mediaeval/ early modern survivals lies by the present wall (further within the oldest part includes a shortish section of tall wall, an impressive, albeit plain, isolated bit of ecclesiastical fabric and held locally to be monastic), a partial structure that has attracted other early remains to it (gathered by who we do not know - perhaps one of those intelligent gravediggers who also uncovered the underground passages etc). What is now the east [grave]yard was named after the [?legendary] James Mohr, whose body is traditionally buried at St.James. Monkerhouse, the monastery site, is now contained by extensions to the east yard, in which can be found the gable end of the old parish church. Instead of videoing any of this I finally met the shore, just in case storms had revealed anything more of the broch even though most of what was seen in the cliff-face is now behind the cladding of the 1985 sea-wall.. Ach, nothing. So I climbed up the blocks back onto the cliff by the west corner of the "middle yard". The track is narrow and then widens again in front of an enclosure full of lumps and bumps. Intuition says that in a site of continuing importance these surely relate to broch outbuildings. The known presence is WWII and takes the form of a radar station, HY20NW 39 at HY2365408372, and mast base most visible in the middle of the dunes, and much less obvious a radar mat and somewhere under all a cable trench. Between the track and the Sand of Warebeth the track opens up. Besides the fieldwall there are the remaining courses of (presumably earlier) drystane walls and a flag path. Very pictureskew.
At the track end where most people turn back I carried on. Next up is a knobbly hillocky thing with a central depression. Seen it before and wondered what it was, 'cos I knew it were summat. This time I looked it up and this is the pre-1877 Clook Lead Mine, HY20NW 7 at HY23440888 (shaft HY23440898). These remains are SW of the path across the stream, on the E bank of Baltimore/Baltifor burn, and it is probably the Bultifore lead mine of 1762 [makes me wonder about all those names dismissed so facilely as taken from abroad - are they dandified takes on genuine Orcadian placenames lost to time. Same with the so-called fancy names e.g. in Orkney ros(e) could come from three things beside the flower]. Its a bit of a stretch but could the stuff around the radar station relate to other digging. They never really made the mine a going concern and evidently no-one has revisited the idea and come up with figures to make it worthwhile. Had thought of trying to reach Brochan by the fields to its east but saw this full of sheep now. A couple of fields along a worsening track brought me to the place where 'standing stones' either side mark the drain where I went up to get my distant view of the Leafea stones. Again the burn was dry, though crammed with vegetation. Started up. Half-hidden pole along the stream bed made it a bit dodgy, and as I had had painful feet for several weeks I couldn't risk it. Eventually came to a place where the track outwith the fields gave out and had to walk the shore. Picked up an odd bit of stone, 55x35x25 mm roughly ovoid, reminiscent of a flint nodule except less angular and the outer covering (through which a few bits of dark inner break through) like dull cracked plaster. Probably ballast as suggested, but not flint as I saw tons of that when exiled in Suffolk. About then I came to an odd length of cliff the other side of The Noust from the Breckness sites, roughly below where Winch is shown. Here it is not stone but distinct layers of softer material. As I was leaving this behind I chanced to look back and saw drystone walling in the cliff. A closer look established that the coast here is formed of densely packed granules [? sand-blowing storm events] and that here it has become undermined above and below to expose what could be two sides of a prehistoric structure within the cliff (though Dave thinks it is not and could be 'industrial' connected to the Winch placename). It is lower down than the broch, about a metre-and-a-half above the visible cliff bottom and the same below ground level., but of course that's on proper rock. At first I only saw the most visible stuff, a volume roughly a metre square by a metre-and-a-half long. Definitely walling rather than a fieldwall, the long section of irregular composition or maybe the small blocky stuff had become incorporated later amidst the thin slabs. And then I noticed the horizontal walling continues to the right as some barely protruding stones in line with this for about six-seven metres. Difficult to get to as the material forms a small slippery slope where some of the structure has already eroded, but I managed to see that behind the horizontal walling is a space left by the material. If the structure does not fall by itself then it seems likely that the next strong storms or high sea will get behind and complete its removal, so I told a few people. [Pictures at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orkneybuildings/photos/album/703057947/pic/list]
Leaving the seal behind I decided to video the broch and other material in the cliff, forgetting I had no digital shots so I'm still owing another visit. A broad path connects the shore to the farm track, probably once a slipway even if not the noust after which the rocks here are named (the ones before the 'beach' being Stennigar after the field with the Leafea stone pair, though gar seems to rather imply a point lost to erosion). The two-storey ruin is Breckness House, built for a bishop in 1633. Like others this "Bishop's Palace" is really a 'place' as in Place de la Concord, rather than 'palace' as in Palais de Versailles, referring to the main building or courtyard. There are other buildings around it, mostly added later, and a probable graveyard - there is more of the 17thC stuff in the cliff-face, where mediaeval bones occasionally appear, mixed in with broch remains - an 1866 newspaper article talks of the prehistoric cists being at the same level as those of the Keiss broch and the later graves some six feet above that. The Bishop's well still held potable water in 1941. The shore steps down to this had practically disappeared before Beverley Smith excavated it despite being set back deep into a cliff as usual. This well is of the same type as that Bernie found at Warebeth and I observed at Whitecleat in Tankerness (though this last is in an isolated position inland sans other structures). Decide to take a tour of the house to document it for myself. Fortunately the plants growing inside aren't disruptive of the fabric, though humans should avoid the nettles in some areas when photographing there. Amazing how much survives despite the kitchen clearance of 1941, no worse than any of the other 'palaces' though to a modest scale by comparison. The shots I took this day
[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orkneybuildings/photos/album/1689645821/pic/list] showed why you need sldes as well as digital, unless you use advanced trickery. Only the former did a good job of coping with the bright sumlit background to apertures viewed from inside - light curves can only do so much and contrast range is king.
Difficult to see why this place was chosen for the building. Rather late in the day for appropriating a broch (especially one this deteriorated) for building material and none of the archaeologists note such re-use as they normally would - the 1866 report mentions a chapel as well as the graveyard, could this be earlier rather than contemporaneous ? Amongst the stones dumped before the entrance there is a standout one, long and circular, that looks to have held pride of place somewhere. At this remove I am reminded of a smaller one on the opposite side of the road to the Man's Well in Birsay. Perhaps the "Bishop's well" had some unorthodox tradition attached to it. Brickness is too far to have been co-opted for the tales of St.Magnus cortege and (unlike Qarbit/Wharebeth) George Marwick has nothing for his early missionaries [that I have come across]. On the seaward side there is a long rectangular depression with the remains of low stone sides which I assume to be what some think a garden enclosure. The chapel lay between here and the sea. At the back of building there are a pair of structures abutting the house made of similar drystone walling that I similarly take to be RCAHMS modern steadings on the N wings W side. The entrance is framed by white stone blocks still surviving nearly to the top of the doorway. Similar outline a window on the north side of the upper floor, a few feet further along a solitary block with groove almost to its top [for a garderobe?], and above the entrance another block that would have
helped frame a central window. Going through what is left of the stone stairway to the first floor greets you directly, withe the doorway through to the south side at its left-hand side. I went to the north half where there are two large old-style fireplaces on the north end, very manorial. Well, I take it they both are - that at left has an arched top formed of slabs on end, whereas its partner is a little wider and has a slightly deeper arch formed of the white blocks. There's floorspace above the left fireplace with a line of blocks above where the two 'fireplaces' meet that would have outlined the right-hand side of an east doorway and an outlined window on the W side. On the first floor's W side there is an almost fully blocked up doorway (there's an ordinary stone lintel but the top looks to have been block-outlined) with to its right the window outlined by blocks. On its NW corner there's a tall niche [the garderobe??] of door height with white key-shaped blocks forming the entrance, at its back a small shallow niche of brown stone - for a candle or lantern perhaps. Coming into the S side right at the NW corner there's a microwave-oven sized niche outlined by four blocks that have the front edges carved along the inside for something to be inset. A block's width to the left is a vertical array of blocks (for a doorway/niche??) and straight above the niche blocks that would have outlined the right-hand side of another window or doorway [yeh, you're thinking what I'm thinking, why doorways on the outside of the first floor - could Breckness House have begun life within or as a larger structure ??]. At the other edge of the corner there's another niche slap against the other. This one is plain and apparently taller, for there's a stone 'lintel' at the same height as its top, then an air gap and another 'lintel'. With these niches I am oddly reminded of the niche I saw at the old quay near shore level. Just a whimsey. At the SW corner there is another block-outlined door with just two blocks from a lost window above it. Turning to the S side I find myself disturbing a pair of hooded crows on the first floor, parent and child. There is an entrance to the presumed garden this side, with a stone lintel and an inset for the door halfway in. To the right is a tall block-outlined window. Above said entrance is a first floor doorway that has been subsequently turned into a window (just seen I've forgotten another semi-blocked doorway somewhere). You can see a block-outlined top half and then the bottom has been blocked with what looks like cruddy mortar-set small stones. And that is as much as I can remember with the aid of photos - if I viewed my video I'd like as not be hours yet ;-)
I am certain there is more to the grounds not recorded as archaeology than simply late steadings and such, and not just in front of the house either. Darn digital camera/batteries messing me about again or I might have had a better look. Gerry Cannon wonders why the place isn't visited more often, that the OIC could extend the road to here. Problem is the tourists aren't told about the place - could always be the farmer rightly wants it kept quiet and besides HS don't own it at all. But thinking of Stromness desire to hold onto tourists for itself I would kill the weeds inside and promote it and Haley Hole (presently demoted to Brownstown well), then put a footpath through The Loons [not the Birsay reserve] and drect people to Peerie Hill as a viewpoint to [almost] rival Wideford Hill. Perhaps the relevant farmer wouldn't mind having the patch around the Deepdale s.s. taken off his hands if given adequate recompense. There, that's sorted ;-) Coming up the farmtrack I looked down another farmtrack to the left at a brightly coloured rig just offshore, layers of black red white and blue, legs holding it barely above water like a lady stepping over a puddle with petticoats. Remembered about an electricity generator going slowly round the coastline to its final placement but don't know what this is.
Where track joins road I decided against another fruitless search for the cairn marked near Feolquoy for heading back to Innertown. Coming towards Brockan (sic, from brekk 'broken up land' not broch) there is a farmtrack going down to Winch, where it turns to meet the track up from Breckness [if I'd known]. And this track is at one point a couple of fields west of the Brochan mound, so I went down. Looks doable from there. However my digital is low on memory and power and I content myself with gazing wistfully and taking shots and video at distance before wending up again. After Brockan I look down on the mound and the almost adjoining piece of damp land with identical vegetation. Always considered them connected and this time I could see a deep drain (visible along the 'tween bit before going below ground down to the coast) which I believe has caused the apparent disjunction. Not 100% proof that they formed a continuous whole originally. And even if so did the mound continue into that section only to be levelled in later times or is this as it always stood ?
Took the lesser road opposite Brockan uphill to Skank and turned right and down past Hillcrest and Clairmont. In between it turns into a rough and ready track (before turning about to Leafea the place) and where the road ends there is a northerly track and here some migrant birds teased me with their song and kept disappearing whenever I felt secure enough to switch from DV to my ultrazoom digital ! Pesky blighters. Nice wild flowers on the upper side of this short rubbishy stretch. One or two I hadn't seen before but the macro wouldn't power up. No wonder Olympus dropped lithium for alkaline-manganese, where dead battery is almost always precisely that. Past the top of what I call the Sandy Hill track comes a place where you can see the road around Brinkies Brae. Not far into the acute triangle before this track and the road meet looking across the Brownstown wellhouse has one side built into the fieldwall roadside. The well within is the Haley Hole after which Hellihole is named [though I think hole may (also) refer to a sink as early maps show a Muckle and a Little Hole of Lynardy on the Hill of Lynardy]. Carried on to the junction then down past the Braes Hotel, the Old Schoolhouse and the part-time Stromness Library onto the spine running through town. Headed for the
bookshop, a very good source of archaeology books even now. You forget what the weather is like somehow and I felt like a slippery furnace in there and left after a brief survey. Fortunately I spotted a history of Pictish kings before the heat spat me out. Unfortunately couldn't find it again the next day. Ha ha, so it goes and I went.
WHAREBETH LOCALLY
1) 1866 Laing and Petrie find some bones of a headless skeleton at Monker's House. Also found are knives, axes, combs and pottery. Great number of skulls found at same place in face of bank.
2) 1889 Many stones removed (under contractors instructions) during trenching operations for turning Monk's House Green into a graveyard. Some used to build enclosing dyke, others allegedly used at Newberry.
3) 1924 cists found on Glebe land resemble those found by J.R.Stout, gravedigger, on three occasions near churchyard sea wall.
4) 1931 In living memory Monk(ers) Green unable to be trenched by W.Irvine due to large amount of structures and building stones, he disposes of all finds (marked stones, weapons, tools) to private individuals.
5) 1931 J.Sutherland, gravedigger, employed on SW side of middle yard strikes many stones before sinking into a hole 2-3' below ground level. Clearance uncovers bird and animal bones and, nearby, vast quantities of limpets in 'pockets' in the ground. Space is a N/S aligned 30-inch square stone passage diagonal to his grave-cut. Tanks of edgeset stones hold the limpet shells, potlids and burnt material also turned up.
6) 1989 J.Wilson, stonemason, related that large orthostats and stones structures are plentiful in the middle yard, with some flags almost too heavy for two people to carry
7) 1903 according to George Marwick traditionally James Mohr, a missionary of the Bright Morning Star, in charge of Quarbith, killed by Hoy folk at the nearby Park of Haarn and buried under buildings in St.James churchyard
8) 1931 old church remains in part of cemetery next to 5, tradition stating that pre-Reformation clergy lived close to it an
Postscript. Going through "Orkney Dykes" I see photos of both the Loons area wall repair (I think) and the slab fence, the former billed as a granite dyke and the latter as a flag dyke. What I call 'standing stone fences' he refers to the period around 1880 1890 when fence stabs were in short supply and such areas had sufficient stone 'available' locally. My stone gate posts can also be dyke ends. Also from his book I deduce that the whin dyke above Quanterness was originally a much earlier type called a faily-dyke, a turf feature that had to be repaired annually - it goes down to the parish boundary with Firth (near where it can be seen best from the road looking towards the farm).
Decided today was the day I would finally reach Brockan (a chambered mound they say is a settlement even though they couldn't decide between secondary broch and a little Skerrybrae) and maybe 'investigate' the missing standing stone on the hillside above [placed on 2 different sides of the field despite not being found the second time, which puzzles somewhat]. As good a reason as any to walk the coast. And this day the tide so low that on the other side from Stromness you could cross on foot not only from Copland's Dock to Inner (or Cairston) Holm but also from there to Outer Holm. Many is the time I walked from Garson to the dock, a set of tall drystane-walled enclosures once forming a boat-building yard, though then I did not know that this is also the site of Gow the pirate's White House (an early mortared house which also gave birth to him, local name perhaps Whiteladies which would relate then to the chapel indicated on an early map). Going yet further east there's a pimply bit (HY265089) called the Point of Qu'elsh at this end of Navershaw bay where Dave Lynn and Bernie Bell found the corner of some eroded domestic building at Quoyelsh, definitely EIA though the pottery doesn't rule out the Bronze Age. First reported 1939 possibly even lost to the sea since 1990. Ach, my journey today goes to the golf course and along that way.
Coming to the outskirts of town there is a section of cliff with two seats on it presenting a viewpoint. From here you have a grand view of the holms and back across the edge of Stromness, a scenic slice of the old places. Last century folk regularly went down to the shore here. Erosion 'took care' of that. There is still some grassy shore left. At the far end is an old quay. In the outer wall (HY25300828) only just above the rocks there is a rectangular niche whose purpose I can't even hazard at. Like Thieves Holm sans folklore, Outer Holm doesn't have any archaeology listed for it. Even less obvious as to why this is with such relative ease of access and the presence of a rather obvious mound from most directions. It is more than a rise and I'd be inclined to term it a platform mound, at the very latest a mediaeval farm tell - there is a rumour that Raymond Lamb, the old county archaeologist, believed this to overlie a Broch Age feature and perhaps the holms were still a permanent part of the mainland back then. Soon enough I came to the Ness caravan site, where I had my last view of the holm, and the golf course.
There are upstanding WWII buildings both alongside the coastal road about the golf course and on the links themselves, and the authorities are now promoting the Ness Battery. Along the coastline there is at least one naust (Noust of Nethertown on the map) where boats would have been laid up, though what with old field walls and new sea walls etcetera it can be difficult to make things out. One place I heard the calls of young duck families dabbling just offshore, two sets of eider and one of shelduck. The latter I have always found shy before - when approaching them at Mill Sands and Messigate loch they scarper from a long ways off. These, however, totallly unfazed by my presence at a time they would be at their most alert, something I can't simply put down to the low cliff I surveyed from. Duck and drake only really differ in the depth of red in the knobbed beaks, otherwise their bodies are a white background with black flashes, a chestnut saddle and a green-black neck and head. Their young are striped in a way reminiscent of wild piglets, quite the thing. The two adults and three well-developed ducklings mostly kept close to the eider rather than completely mingling with them, however one or other of the adults every now and again asserted their dominance, on one occasion climbing out onto a rocky spine to bully the eider (or so it seemed to me). Cists have been found on both the golf course iteslf and the Glebe lands adjoining, these being considered of a kind with those from Warebeth by those conversant with them all.
Came to Warebeth kirkyard. Thanks to erosion nothing left of the broch's cliff exposure, which had work done on it by Dave and Bernie. The 1989 report tells that this may once have been seperated from the sea by a lagoon, with an ayre and outcrops up to Kirk Rocks [in which case, my friend adds, could such a body of water have extended as far as Breckness ?], making it the original Strøm Ness headland. This reminds Dave of St.Mary's in Holm & Verron in Sandwick & Scockness on Rousay, and me of Eves Howe in Deerness (possibly Dingieshowe too) and Taing of Beeman in Tankerness. But I would wonder rather whether there would not have been a current similar to the Burgar rôst then. A piece of the mediaeval kirk comes out perpendicular to the modern wall as a low bump across the coastal track just over from where from where one of two late mediaeval/ early modern survivals lies by the present wall (further within the oldest part includes a shortish section of tall wall, an impressive, albeit plain, isolated bit of ecclesiastical fabric and held locally to be monastic), a partial structure that has attracted other early remains to it (gathered by who we do not know - perhaps one of those intelligent gravediggers who also uncovered the underground passages etc). What is now the east [grave]yard was named after the [?legendary] James Mohr, whose body is traditionally buried at St.James. Monkerhouse, the monastery site, is now contained by extensions to the east yard, in which can be found the gable end of the old parish church. Instead of videoing any of this I finally met the shore, just in case storms had revealed anything more of the broch even though most of what was seen in the cliff-face is now behind the cladding of the 1985 sea-wall.. Ach, nothing. So I climbed up the blocks back onto the cliff by the west corner of the "middle yard". The track is narrow and then widens again in front of an enclosure full of lumps and bumps. Intuition says that in a site of continuing importance these surely relate to broch outbuildings. The known presence is WWII and takes the form of a radar station, HY20NW 39 at HY2365408372, and mast base most visible in the middle of the dunes, and much less obvious a radar mat and somewhere under all a cable trench. Between the track and the Sand of Warebeth the track opens up. Besides the fieldwall there are the remaining courses of (presumably earlier) drystane walls and a flag path. Very pictureskew.
At the track end where most people turn back I carried on. Next up is a knobbly hillocky thing with a central depression. Seen it before and wondered what it was, 'cos I knew it were summat. This time I looked it up and this is the pre-1877 Clook Lead Mine, HY20NW 7 at HY23440888 (shaft HY23440898). These remains are SW of the path across the stream, on the E bank of Baltimore/Baltifor burn, and it is probably the Bultifore lead mine of 1762 [makes me wonder about all those names dismissed so facilely as taken from abroad - are they dandified takes on genuine Orcadian placenames lost to time. Same with the so-called fancy names e.g. in Orkney ros(e) could come from three things beside the flower]. Its a bit of a stretch but could the stuff around the radar station relate to other digging. They never really made the mine a going concern and evidently no-one has revisited the idea and come up with figures to make it worthwhile. Had thought of trying to reach Brochan by the fields to its east but saw this full of sheep now. A couple of fields along a worsening track brought me to the place where 'standing stones' either side mark the drain where I went up to get my distant view of the Leafea stones. Again the burn was dry, though crammed with vegetation. Started up. Half-hidden pole along the stream bed made it a bit dodgy, and as I had had painful feet for several weeks I couldn't risk it. Eventually came to a place where the track outwith the fields gave out and had to walk the shore. Picked up an odd bit of stone, 55x35x25 mm roughly ovoid, reminiscent of a flint nodule except less angular and the outer covering (through which a few bits of dark inner break through) like dull cracked plaster. Probably ballast as suggested, but not flint as I saw tons of that when exiled in Suffolk. About then I came to an odd length of cliff the other side of The Noust from the Breckness sites, roughly below where Winch is shown. Here it is not stone but distinct layers of softer material. As I was leaving this behind I chanced to look back and saw drystone walling in the cliff. A closer look established that the coast here is formed of densely packed granules [? sand-blowing storm events] and that here it has become undermined above and below to expose what could be two sides of a prehistoric structure within the cliff (though Dave thinks it is not and could be 'industrial' connected to the Winch placename). It is lower down than the broch, about a metre-and-a-half above the visible cliff bottom and the same below ground level., but of course that's on proper rock. At first I only saw the most visible stuff, a volume roughly a metre square by a metre-and-a-half long. Definitely walling rather than a fieldwall, the long section of irregular composition or maybe the small blocky stuff had become incorporated later amidst the thin slabs. And then I noticed the horizontal walling continues to the right as some barely protruding stones in line with this for about six-seven metres. Difficult to get to as the material forms a small slippery slope where some of the structure has already eroded, but I managed to see that behind the horizontal walling is a space left by the material. If the structure does not fall by itself then it seems likely that the next strong storms or high sea will get behind and complete its removal, so I told a few people. [Pictures at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orkneybuildings/photos/album/703057947/pic/list]
Leaving the seal behind I decided to video the broch and other material in the cliff, forgetting I had no digital shots so I'm still owing another visit. A broad path connects the shore to the farm track, probably once a slipway even if not the noust after which the rocks here are named (the ones before the 'beach' being Stennigar after the field with the Leafea stone pair, though gar seems to rather imply a point lost to erosion). The two-storey ruin is Breckness House, built for a bishop in 1633. Like others this "Bishop's Palace" is really a 'place' as in Place de la Concord, rather than 'palace' as in Palais de Versailles, referring to the main building or courtyard. There are other buildings around it, mostly added later, and a probable graveyard - there is more of the 17thC stuff in the cliff-face, where mediaeval bones occasionally appear, mixed in with broch remains - an 1866 newspaper article talks of the prehistoric cists being at the same level as those of the Keiss broch and the later graves some six feet above that. The Bishop's well still held potable water in 1941. The shore steps down to this had practically disappeared before Beverley Smith excavated it despite being set back deep into a cliff as usual. This well is of the same type as that Bernie found at Warebeth and I observed at Whitecleat in Tankerness (though this last is in an isolated position inland sans other structures). Decide to take a tour of the house to document it for myself. Fortunately the plants growing inside aren't disruptive of the fabric, though humans should avoid the nettles in some areas when photographing there. Amazing how much survives despite the kitchen clearance of 1941, no worse than any of the other 'palaces' though to a modest scale by comparison. The shots I took this day
[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orkneybuildings/photos/album/1689645821/pic/list] showed why you need sldes as well as digital, unless you use advanced trickery. Only the former did a good job of coping with the bright sumlit background to apertures viewed from inside - light curves can only do so much and contrast range is king.
Difficult to see why this place was chosen for the building. Rather late in the day for appropriating a broch (especially one this deteriorated) for building material and none of the archaeologists note such re-use as they normally would - the 1866 report mentions a chapel as well as the graveyard, could this be earlier rather than contemporaneous ? Amongst the stones dumped before the entrance there is a standout one, long and circular, that looks to have held pride of place somewhere. At this remove I am reminded of a smaller one on the opposite side of the road to the Man's Well in Birsay. Perhaps the "Bishop's well" had some unorthodox tradition attached to it. Brickness is too far to have been co-opted for the tales of St.Magnus cortege and (unlike Qarbit/Wharebeth) George Marwick has nothing for his early missionaries [that I have come across]. On the seaward side there is a long rectangular depression with the remains of low stone sides which I assume to be what some think a garden enclosure. The chapel lay between here and the sea. At the back of building there are a pair of structures abutting the house made of similar drystone walling that I similarly take to be RCAHMS modern steadings on the N wings W side. The entrance is framed by white stone blocks still surviving nearly to the top of the doorway. Similar outline a window on the north side of the upper floor, a few feet further along a solitary block with groove almost to its top [for a garderobe?], and above the entrance another block that would have
helped frame a central window. Going through what is left of the stone stairway to the first floor greets you directly, withe the doorway through to the south side at its left-hand side. I went to the north half where there are two large old-style fireplaces on the north end, very manorial. Well, I take it they both are - that at left has an arched top formed of slabs on end, whereas its partner is a little wider and has a slightly deeper arch formed of the white blocks. There's floorspace above the left fireplace with a line of blocks above where the two 'fireplaces' meet that would have outlined the right-hand side of an east doorway and an outlined window on the W side. On the first floor's W side there is an almost fully blocked up doorway (there's an ordinary stone lintel but the top looks to have been block-outlined) with to its right the window outlined by blocks. On its NW corner there's a tall niche [the garderobe??] of door height with white key-shaped blocks forming the entrance, at its back a small shallow niche of brown stone - for a candle or lantern perhaps. Coming into the S side right at the NW corner there's a microwave-oven sized niche outlined by four blocks that have the front edges carved along the inside for something to be inset. A block's width to the left is a vertical array of blocks (for a doorway/niche??) and straight above the niche blocks that would have outlined the right-hand side of another window or doorway [yeh, you're thinking what I'm thinking, why doorways on the outside of the first floor - could Breckness House have begun life within or as a larger structure ??]. At the other edge of the corner there's another niche slap against the other. This one is plain and apparently taller, for there's a stone 'lintel' at the same height as its top, then an air gap and another 'lintel'. With these niches I am oddly reminded of the niche I saw at the old quay near shore level. Just a whimsey. At the SW corner there is another block-outlined door with just two blocks from a lost window above it. Turning to the S side I find myself disturbing a pair of hooded crows on the first floor, parent and child. There is an entrance to the presumed garden this side, with a stone lintel and an inset for the door halfway in. To the right is a tall block-outlined window. Above said entrance is a first floor doorway that has been subsequently turned into a window (just seen I've forgotten another semi-blocked doorway somewhere). You can see a block-outlined top half and then the bottom has been blocked with what looks like cruddy mortar-set small stones. And that is as much as I can remember with the aid of photos - if I viewed my video I'd like as not be hours yet ;-)
I am certain there is more to the grounds not recorded as archaeology than simply late steadings and such, and not just in front of the house either. Darn digital camera/batteries messing me about again or I might have had a better look. Gerry Cannon wonders why the place isn't visited more often, that the OIC could extend the road to here. Problem is the tourists aren't told about the place - could always be the farmer rightly wants it kept quiet and besides HS don't own it at all. But thinking of Stromness desire to hold onto tourists for itself I would kill the weeds inside and promote it and Haley Hole (presently demoted to Brownstown well), then put a footpath through The Loons [not the Birsay reserve] and drect people to Peerie Hill as a viewpoint to [almost] rival Wideford Hill. Perhaps the relevant farmer wouldn't mind having the patch around the Deepdale s.s. taken off his hands if given adequate recompense. There, that's sorted ;-) Coming up the farmtrack I looked down another farmtrack to the left at a brightly coloured rig just offshore, layers of black red white and blue, legs holding it barely above water like a lady stepping over a puddle with petticoats. Remembered about an electricity generator going slowly round the coastline to its final placement but don't know what this is.
Where track joins road I decided against another fruitless search for the cairn marked near Feolquoy for heading back to Innertown. Coming towards Brockan (sic, from brekk 'broken up land' not broch) there is a farmtrack going down to Winch, where it turns to meet the track up from Breckness [if I'd known]. And this track is at one point a couple of fields west of the Brochan mound, so I went down. Looks doable from there. However my digital is low on memory and power and I content myself with gazing wistfully and taking shots and video at distance before wending up again. After Brockan I look down on the mound and the almost adjoining piece of damp land with identical vegetation. Always considered them connected and this time I could see a deep drain (visible along the 'tween bit before going below ground down to the coast) which I believe has caused the apparent disjunction. Not 100% proof that they formed a continuous whole originally. And even if so did the mound continue into that section only to be levelled in later times or is this as it always stood ?
Took the lesser road opposite Brockan uphill to Skank and turned right and down past Hillcrest and Clairmont. In between it turns into a rough and ready track (before turning about to Leafea the place) and where the road ends there is a northerly track and here some migrant birds teased me with their song and kept disappearing whenever I felt secure enough to switch from DV to my ultrazoom digital ! Pesky blighters. Nice wild flowers on the upper side of this short rubbishy stretch. One or two I hadn't seen before but the macro wouldn't power up. No wonder Olympus dropped lithium for alkaline-manganese, where dead battery is almost always precisely that. Past the top of what I call the Sandy Hill track comes a place where you can see the road around Brinkies Brae. Not far into the acute triangle before this track and the road meet looking across the Brownstown wellhouse has one side built into the fieldwall roadside. The well within is the Haley Hole after which Hellihole is named [though I think hole may (also) refer to a sink as early maps show a Muckle and a Little Hole of Lynardy on the Hill of Lynardy]. Carried on to the junction then down past the Braes Hotel, the Old Schoolhouse and the part-time Stromness Library onto the spine running through town. Headed for the
bookshop, a very good source of archaeology books even now. You forget what the weather is like somehow and I felt like a slippery furnace in there and left after a brief survey. Fortunately I spotted a history of Pictish kings before the heat spat me out. Unfortunately couldn't find it again the next day. Ha ha, so it goes and I went.
WHAREBETH LOCALLY
1) 1866 Laing and Petrie find some bones of a headless skeleton at Monker's House. Also found are knives, axes, combs and pottery. Great number of skulls found at same place in face of bank.
2) 1889 Many stones removed (under contractors instructions) during trenching operations for turning Monk's House Green into a graveyard. Some used to build enclosing dyke, others allegedly used at Newberry.
3) 1924 cists found on Glebe land resemble those found by J.R.Stout, gravedigger, on three occasions near churchyard sea wall.
4) 1931 In living memory Monk(ers) Green unable to be trenched by W.Irvine due to large amount of structures and building stones, he disposes of all finds (marked stones, weapons, tools) to private individuals.
5) 1931 J.Sutherland, gravedigger, employed on SW side of middle yard strikes many stones before sinking into a hole 2-3' below ground level. Clearance uncovers bird and animal bones and, nearby, vast quantities of limpets in 'pockets' in the ground. Space is a N/S aligned 30-inch square stone passage diagonal to his grave-cut. Tanks of edgeset stones hold the limpet shells, potlids and burnt material also turned up.
6) 1989 J.Wilson, stonemason, related that large orthostats and stones structures are plentiful in the middle yard, with some flags almost too heavy for two people to carry
7) 1903 according to George Marwick traditionally James Mohr, a missionary of the Bright Morning Star, in charge of Quarbith, killed by Hoy folk at the nearby Park of Haarn and buried under buildings in St.James churchyard
8) 1931 old church remains in part of cemetery next to 5, tradition stating that pre-Reformation clergy lived close to it an
Postscript. Going through "Orkney Dykes" I see photos of both the Loons area wall repair (I think) and the slab fence, the former billed as a granite dyke and the latter as a flag dyke. What I call 'standing stone fences' he refers to the period around 1880 1890 when fence stabs were in short supply and such areas had sufficient stone 'available' locally. My stone gate posts can also be dyke ends. Also from his book I deduce that the whin dyke above Quanterness was originally a much earlier type called a faily-dyke, a turf feature that had to be repaired annually - it goes down to the parish boundary with Firth (near where it can be seen best from the road looking towards the farm).
Saturday, July 04, 2009
STROMNESS Day One JUNE 11TH
Taking advantage of the O.A.S. AGM this night to take a few days off in Stromness. Took the road up to the Co-op and then followed it on till I came where the road turns left. Here I carried on instead past the road ends sign and into the field containing the Mill of Cairston [this tunship seems to have been about as large as Stromness as the main Cairston/Garson area is on the opposites side of Hamnavoe to town] as I have only seen it from the main Stromness-Kirkwall road previously. Not as scenic round the back. Though very little altered it still looks somehow clean and 'modern' from the back. Looking up the burn I am attracted to some tall erect stones by the western bank of Mill Burn. Two adjacent ones are at right-angles, and this I have come to associate with boundaries. Unable to approach the burn as it passes between fields to obtain a picture of the bridge/culvert through which it passes, obviously part of the mill system - the present Stairwaddy used to be Upper Millhouse, the millpond having filled the area down to the milldam wall at HY25601076. The dam is much broader than at Tormiston (either because turned into a track or having been a tall dyke) and seemingly older and/or more primitive. The dam is a couple of metres high and the upper side alongside the barbwire fence has a fieldwall that goes on for several courses above this. To tell you the truth it feels downright defensive. The lower part gives the impression of an old quarry throughout a good portion west of the burn, with tumbled-down blocks, then becoming an ordinary wall again to block off a hollow short of the burnside. I think that at least the quarried looking bit has been an open-ended structure/s or a series of orthagonal walls. Next day I took photos from the road which show a row of 'blocks' above the grass at the southern end of the dam then a rectangular depression with an outer face of blocks against the turf. It's possible more such walls are hidden under one or both of the 'banks' before the burn. Climbed up on the dam and it felt like being on a Roman frontier wall considering following the header track north, which I didn't do as I wasn't sure of the stabilty where it crossed over the burn. So back onto the road. There is a 'standing stone fence' along the western edge of this particular section of road, though the stones smaller than the burnside ones. Terribly excited when I worked out that Stair(a)waday could be like the plural of Stenaday as there is a Steiro broch in Shapinsay and the other name for the Redland broch that is in Firth is Steeringlo. Alas the library reveals that steiro means 'confusion'. And the second half is actually wadi 'ford'. So ford of or at a stony confusion. I think it likely that the milldam is the site of the ford [Stairwaddy probably a fieldname]. At Stairwaddy itself peeking over the wall you can see going up to the burnside structures like stalls. Possibly they are stalls but they feel like water furniture, perhaps something to do with the millhouse, formed of very large flags (even bigger than those used to roof the oldest farm buildings) with modern breeze block additions to the original structures. Yet again unable to get the full view for a photo, so sue me if it turns out I misrepresent somewhat ;-) Definitely nice features and rare ones at that [in the open leastways], whatever they are.
Coming to a T-junction I decide against continuing up the hill before me and turned left. This road is part of a rough quadrilateral of roads enclosing The Loons. This is named for the Great Northern Diver. There are plenty places of this name. And even more called Loch of Loomashun, and variants, after the same bird. Though this diver formerly more common you can't help but wonder if either this name was thought up on the spot for the demanding mapmaker or else refers to some less physical creature, as with the cat-like Kithuntling (a site later euhemerised to Kate Huntlin's). Tried my darnedest to video some small birds (brambling?) but every time the intention to do so focussed off they went. I hope the twa folk who were near that piece with binoculars twa days later had mair luck, though I hae me doots squire ! On the Glenfield stretch of road I photograph a field of sheep set in lovely tea-reading shapes amongst the pasture. You can see where a stretch of a tall drystane wall has had part repaired in a different fashion [an English one ?] - the new book "Orkney Dykes" (£13 from local man Allan Taylor, Aranish, Wellington Street, Kirkwall, Orkney) should help me give better descriptions in future. Looking into The Loons my eyes see a few tall erect stones that are likely remnants of a 'standing stone fence setup', though what took my fancy were some very complete Agricultural Improvement slab fences (second and third quarters of the 19th century according to a Farmer's Almanac obit). Up in front of you rise the boulder-strewn spine outcrop at the back of Brinkie's Brae, like Gruf Hill in Orphir without the folklore. Approaching where the road splits up and joins I could see two pairs of large round drystone gateposts from an earlier time, the pair uphill in rather better nick than the ones near me.
The road turns east for a very short distance before the junction and at this little zig's south side the ghost of a channel curves uphill with near the zig end a mixed-up collection of rocks and slabs around a stone-lined drain/streambed. Try as I might couldn't make out what it did from any road about here, would need to be in the field to see what it does as it approaches the road. Going uphill saw a man and his dog walking among the rocks of the brae and paranoia almost set in ! Not headed that way this time [so yah-boo sucks to him], instead opting for the minor road uphill, not taking the junction either way. On my right there is quite a deep throated quarry/outcrop on the slope of Mewie Hill marked on the map. Its a weird mother' like some giant banged into the side of it or punched it. From a first look this is a quarry but other perspectives say something quarried as the sides seem raised as if from being part of a mound - another of my fancies of course. On the brow of the hill with the 'waterway' there is a cottage and alongside an outcrop with some stones in a straight line.Then I continued on and down the windy Sandy Hill farmroad to the Outertown road. Where I thought of going over to the Castle road but was plumb tuckered out. It's not an actual castle but a hillock with
stony outcrops. However there is an air about it.
Taking advantage of the O.A.S. AGM this night to take a few days off in Stromness. Took the road up to the Co-op and then followed it on till I came where the road turns left. Here I carried on instead past the road ends sign and into the field containing the Mill of Cairston [this tunship seems to have been about as large as Stromness as the main Cairston/Garson area is on the opposites side of Hamnavoe to town] as I have only seen it from the main Stromness-Kirkwall road previously. Not as scenic round the back. Though very little altered it still looks somehow clean and 'modern' from the back. Looking up the burn I am attracted to some tall erect stones by the western bank of Mill Burn. Two adjacent ones are at right-angles, and this I have come to associate with boundaries. Unable to approach the burn as it passes between fields to obtain a picture of the bridge/culvert through which it passes, obviously part of the mill system - the present Stairwaddy used to be Upper Millhouse, the millpond having filled the area down to the milldam wall at HY25601076. The dam is much broader than at Tormiston (either because turned into a track or having been a tall dyke) and seemingly older and/or more primitive. The dam is a couple of metres high and the upper side alongside the barbwire fence has a fieldwall that goes on for several courses above this. To tell you the truth it feels downright defensive. The lower part gives the impression of an old quarry throughout a good portion west of the burn, with tumbled-down blocks, then becoming an ordinary wall again to block off a hollow short of the burnside. I think that at least the quarried looking bit has been an open-ended structure/s or a series of orthagonal walls. Next day I took photos from the road which show a row of 'blocks' above the grass at the southern end of the dam then a rectangular depression with an outer face of blocks against the turf. It's possible more such walls are hidden under one or both of the 'banks' before the burn. Climbed up on the dam and it felt like being on a Roman frontier wall considering following the header track north, which I didn't do as I wasn't sure of the stabilty where it crossed over the burn. So back onto the road. There is a 'standing stone fence' along the western edge of this particular section of road, though the stones smaller than the burnside ones. Terribly excited when I worked out that Stair(a)waday could be like the plural of Stenaday as there is a Steiro broch in Shapinsay and the other name for the Redland broch that is in Firth is Steeringlo. Alas the library reveals that steiro means 'confusion'. And the second half is actually wadi 'ford'. So ford of or at a stony confusion. I think it likely that the milldam is the site of the ford [Stairwaddy probably a fieldname]. At Stairwaddy itself peeking over the wall you can see going up to the burnside structures like stalls. Possibly they are stalls but they feel like water furniture, perhaps something to do with the millhouse, formed of very large flags (even bigger than those used to roof the oldest farm buildings) with modern breeze block additions to the original structures. Yet again unable to get the full view for a photo, so sue me if it turns out I misrepresent somewhat ;-) Definitely nice features and rare ones at that [in the open leastways], whatever they are.
Coming to a T-junction I decide against continuing up the hill before me and turned left. This road is part of a rough quadrilateral of roads enclosing The Loons. This is named for the Great Northern Diver. There are plenty places of this name. And even more called Loch of Loomashun, and variants, after the same bird. Though this diver formerly more common you can't help but wonder if either this name was thought up on the spot for the demanding mapmaker or else refers to some less physical creature, as with the cat-like Kithuntling (a site later euhemerised to Kate Huntlin's). Tried my darnedest to video some small birds (brambling?) but every time the intention to do so focussed off they went. I hope the twa folk who were near that piece with binoculars twa days later had mair luck, though I hae me doots squire ! On the Glenfield stretch of road I photograph a field of sheep set in lovely tea-reading shapes amongst the pasture. You can see where a stretch of a tall drystane wall has had part repaired in a different fashion [an English one ?] - the new book "Orkney Dykes" (£13 from local man Allan Taylor, Aranish, Wellington Street, Kirkwall, Orkney) should help me give better descriptions in future. Looking into The Loons my eyes see a few tall erect stones that are likely remnants of a 'standing stone fence setup', though what took my fancy were some very complete Agricultural Improvement slab fences (second and third quarters of the 19th century according to a Farmer's Almanac obit). Up in front of you rise the boulder-strewn spine outcrop at the back of Brinkie's Brae, like Gruf Hill in Orphir without the folklore. Approaching where the road splits up and joins I could see two pairs of large round drystone gateposts from an earlier time, the pair uphill in rather better nick than the ones near me.
The road turns east for a very short distance before the junction and at this little zig's south side the ghost of a channel curves uphill with near the zig end a mixed-up collection of rocks and slabs around a stone-lined drain/streambed. Try as I might couldn't make out what it did from any road about here, would need to be in the field to see what it does as it approaches the road. Going uphill saw a man and his dog walking among the rocks of the brae and paranoia almost set in ! Not headed that way this time [so yah-boo sucks to him], instead opting for the minor road uphill, not taking the junction either way. On my right there is quite a deep throated quarry/outcrop on the slope of Mewie Hill marked on the map. Its a weird mother' like some giant banged into the side of it or punched it. From a first look this is a quarry but other perspectives say something quarried as the sides seem raised as if from being part of a mound - another of my fancies of course. On the brow of the hill with the 'waterway' there is a cottage and alongside an outcrop with some stones in a straight line.Then I continued on and down the windy Sandy Hill farmroad to the Outertown road. Where I thought of going over to the Castle road but was plumb tuckered out. It's not an actual castle but a hillock with
stony outcrops. However there is an air about it.
