Orcadian landscapes

Although I once lived at Smoogro House I never walked the rest of the road, down to the Ve Ness side of the Bay of Swanbister. It is surprising how little you can be curious about the area where you live I guess. Did think about going down the Smoogro track to Ve Ness but stuck to the road. First house I come to is a ruin by the north side of the road, where edgeset slabs formed a t-shaped entry. The name of this place is Cot on the Hill. I personally have seen two other cots - Nevada Cott opposite the site of the Scapa milldam by the northern side of the Orphir road and the Cot(t) of Cursiter beside the Old Finstown Road opposite the old Firth manse. Of course both of these are mounds but cot is the old term for a piece of common pasture (I wonder if the Fairy Brae of Kongarsknowe is another such marker). Oops, mustn't forget Cot and Cottland burns. These will I believe have preceded the various Commontys, in time if not place. My guess would be that when the military took over this land in WWII the owner moved on. Ah, yes, the wartime. Along the road two heavy anti-aircraft batteries, each having four gun-emplacements are recorded as HY30NE 32 (M3 Kirbister/Galaha at HY36680618) and HY30NE 30 (M4 Smoogro at HY 3705806181), the later in a loop in the track off the road it says. But in discussing the mobile radar site at HY3729006063 it seems to me the differentiation is minimal in practice. There also hut bases at HY36060606. As far as I can gather these are, or are connected with the long low mound on the same side as Cot of the Hill, as I can only see a bit of the walls from the road by drawing myself up. Before coming to this my attention was grabbed by the foundations on the south side of the road, far more easily seen (I assume that the much larger rectangular walled enclosure further in is purely modern, a sheepfold built over seven more hut bases apparently). The first is a square, subdivided into several blocks, with a short 'entrance'. The second is a long plain rectangle. On my way I took the road turning down the hill from the junction only to find it to be modern, ending at a new house. The small estate at the junction has been built over the remains of the M3 Battery itself, though a small circular grassy enclosure nearby could be ack-ack or a machine gun post [? the top of the small hillock I see near the old farm buildings]. Back on the road I decide to walk up the track in order to look down on the mound, Which I still can't. Opposite where the track leaves the road I can see a standing concrete wall to the north sticking out of a low hillside that might be part of a wartime building. It is where the track leaves the road that the road finally turns down to reach the coast. In a field with Shetland ponies there is a small square concrete floor beside the road, with perhaps a second covered by water. There are concrete wall remains upslope capped by a concrete slab - a sub-surface entrance ?? Looking westward onto the coastline I see a double humped low mound where there should be nothing - more later. The M4 Battery is described as south of the track but there is more stuff by the east side of the road that must surely be part of it. A little down the road in a small field with a hut and chicken hutches. Here a man is feeding chickens and I spy an old wellhead before spotting that there are linear features scattered about. And in the next field is a set of foundations. Nearing the end of this section of the road on the same side there is an area of grass-covered foundations that have obviously been part of some structure, though the walls seem gae thin for owt wartime, so who knows. Having seen only a small tide in Waulkmill Bay from the bus I didn't have much confidence in being able to make headway along the shore. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. In the event I did complete my adventure. However it is the kind you never want to repeat. It is just going forward was easier than turning back, like climbing up a cliff is less hazardous than getting back down (sort of). Several burns to cross, lots of slippery seaweed. And an extremely dangerous foreshore for the most part, what with a combo of sharp rocks and water-worn pebbles of various sizes to start with. After a while clambering and creeping in front of me on the other side of a burn is the mound I saw fom the road coming down. First I have to cross a burn outlet hidden by mases of seaweed. On this side there are what on first glance appear to be nausts for pulling up boats into. However I see no evidence of working other than that of nature. And anyway not far away there is what amounts to a grass slip coming down from a field to the shore. Disapppointingly it is deffo a natural mound. Making up for this is the geology there. In the face of the mound near the top is part where rocks are severely bowed forward like the bow of a ship. Up on land I recall there is a record of a piece with putative hut circles. So, I wonder if these are not a disguise, simulacra formed by more of these rock formations fractionally below ground level. I know that one is thought to be a possible figure-of eight such as a Pictish or BA double-house, however that could result from a vertical syncline-antisyncline type thing. Next point of interest is a long black wall cutting across a beach (HY30NE 60 at HY36400547). I take a picture and then more of a large white boulder leaning against the landward end. Seeing a circle on its face I decide to photograph that closer. Which is when I spot that this is a badge depicted. And then I finally notice that it's part of a lengthy inscription. This is the Smoogro Memorial commemorating the death in 1917 of Squadron Commander Edwin Dunning whilst attempting the second ever landing of a plane on a ship. His first having been successful he was relectant to have another go, but 'orders is orders'. In 1982 the lettering had been gold. All gone now, and in fact the camera saw more than I could with all my head moving. I assume this jetty to have been already there. Striding ahead I come to the piece where a track from Smoogro House comes down to the shore. There are plenty of complete slab fences here. And then a proper burn with banks. The going is a little easier. The next place where the land comes to the sea is a wide dip with a good size wall across it having a big gap between triangular wall ends On the hillside above I can see what I take to be an old quarry with one of those cairns built from unused stone. My eyes deceive me, as this is the Hillock of Breakna(y), a likely broch (RCAHMS NMRS No. HY30NE 13 at HY35330508) that I have explored from other directions. In 1797 it is descibed as a circular tower of about 180' circumference. Excavations in 1879 and 1901 made it about 170' in circumference, with walls 12' thick at a height above ground level and an int. diameter of roughly 30'. Is the 'missing' 10' of diameter real or an artefact ? Since 1946 the recorded width has been reduced further from 92' to 78'. The remains of the dig include a wall orientated E-W N-S. There are many other visible wall traces but it is far from easy to assign periods to these, and similarly with the various stones sticking up through the turf. A professional archaeologist friend thinks he could make out at least a domestic structure at the seaward end. The socket for a Great War flagpole (or wireless mast) resemble a cist. The stone that was visible at the top has a fairsized anchorpoint and short length of chain, both rusty, attached to it. Across the way another rusty anchorpoint is attached to an only slightly smaller stone. A hollow leading down seawards is where boats had been secured in modern times, well away from the shore. These chains could have begun life securing the Admiralty's pole. Forgotten the name of the shipwright who worked on this mound. Amongst the rocky pools I get to see at last something other than seeweed, several colourful diminutive seashells. Also several pairs of nesting fulmars. To cross the burn there are two large rocky plates on either bank with a small gap to jump, Wanted to go up straightways to the Swanbister Road. Alas there is now a small wooden gate/pallet acrooss the path we used to use, secured by knotted ropes either side. Couldn't be arsed undoing them. What with all the walls and fences running along the cliff edges for much of the bay I did feel as if the bay had been somehow privatised. Since my last visit the high burn side has been scarred to accomodate modern drainage. Walked a bit of unfenced grass clifftop looking down on more fulmars then down carefully onto the beach. At the beach on the other side iof the burn are a pair of large drystane conical gate-pillars, what I call phase 1 type. From here on to the next headland is a big open beach, the Sands of Piggar, albeit with many large bits of pooling. After negotiating several of these finally had to go over to the long seawall and go over a sluice to the other side. Here at last able to go up onto the farm track. Where there is a 5m high 20m by 8m building built between maps done 1912 and 1929. They aren't sure whether HY30SE 6 at HY35190460 is agricultural or military. At least I can now rule out a WWII vintage for it. It started off with entrances at either end. One of these resembles that I had seen at Slap, having an asymmetrical pitched roof. Coming onto Toy Ness towards the pier there is a set of old buildings - HY30SE 7 at HY3544104487. The structure nearest the track, seperated from the others by a narrow gap, is distinguished by having three splendid butresses set against the side wall. These are made with thin horizontal slabs topped by thicker ones set at fort-five degrees. I would dearly love to claim this as a mediaeval church. Except it is not because nothing is shown here on A.W. Johnstone's version of an 1820. The buildings are seen on the 1882 25" O.S., so I would suggest that they were built sometime after 1846, when Piggar and Fidge passed from the Gyre Estate to the owner of Swanbister to add on to a strip here. RCAHMS believe Toy Ness to be the site of the Smmogro landing site of the Great War as the only suitably flat ground around (the Bay of Swanbister is also called Smoogrow Bay). However, given the short take-off needed by early planes, surely the Sands of Piggar is a viable alternative as even today beaches are used on islands. One thing they definitely have wrong is when the pier was built. Far from being a naval pier this actually dates back to at least 1882. It would be of a piece with the other works that the man engaged upon. There are later additions of course, with an extension from the existing circular end surviving as three sections, with a hand crane rusting on the last. At some point the pier became part of a narrow harbour some 80m long, HY30SE 8 at HY35580446. The northern wall strikes me as a super-size version of a fisherman's pier such as that at Red Taing in the Bay of Scapa. You would think this as the oldest wall of the harbour but there is no legend appended for it on the map that shows us the pier first, so perhaps a quick and dirty wartime fix rather. Walking on the pier there are what look like anchor points. These might be original but a line of short pillars along the southern wall I think is later. Where the pavement shows through the grass it is made of thick edgeset slabs. Peering perilously along the northern edge you look down onto a narrow staircase set into the side. This ends a little above the beach and would be where you would have embarked and disembarked in the original conception. On the other side Toy Ness more definite miltaria are recorded, as well as some mounds - perhaps Toy Ness used to be Tuin Ness. Did think about going on. Not confident that the way to Breck would be manageable, and with my foot buggered again, took the easy option and returned along the track. Soon enough came to the sluice. On my left a silted up sub-triangular area stuck slightly above the waters either side. Went down and had a poor view of the bridge this side. This is the outlet for the Gyre Burn (here the E/W Newburn drain meets the original stream that forms the lower Piggar boundary). On one of the first O.S. maps a pool is shown here with the legend Eus. At home I couldn't figure out what this stood for, it took several hours for me to realise that it is a whole word, Eus being oyce/ouse 'tidal inlet'. The pooling is replaced by individual streamlets in another early O.S. This is on the edge of the area called Fidge 'low-lying meadows', and bears the legend Hubin. This is surely the diminutive of hope 'sheltered bay/harbour'. As I neared the bridge across the burn two sheldeck flew up from close by, must have been just out of sight. Darn it. Made out a heron over towards the west in the Fidge. Johnstone attaches the legend Ayre to the neck of land north of Hubin. In 1870 Gyre Meadow and the Fidge were flooded by an exceptional high tide (perhaps it had happened before - another vague guess of mine has Toy Ness as 'receding land') and I can well imagine that this prevented ready access to the new buildings for several years. At least that is a working theory for why it remains nameless. On the hillslope above is a ruin I have mistaken for this when walking down to Breck. You can see the bumpy enclosure surrounding it as the farmer avoids the area. This is Piggar, the farm set over Swanbister Besouth The Gate. Strangely the north boundary of Fidge is north of the southern boundary of Piggar, perhaps indicating Fidge's primacy. Coming to the modern farm couldn't be bothered deviating through the farmyard and stuck to the track, which necessitated careful negotiation of three gates conjoined ! Use the hinged end a farmer told me. Between here and the Swanbister Burn CANMAP shows the traditional site of a kirk and burial ground, HY30SE 1 at HY35210499, with the name Swanbister House. The Name Book knows about human remains found near the graveyard but nothing about this chapel. Perhaps the site belonged instead to a kirkhouse and burial ground i.e. the house of a priest not where services took place. We will never know as in the Great War the place was "obliterated". In 1928 the Commission found no trace. Neither did I Not even sure I saw the slightest rise. Strange to say I did see a water-tank sized object alongside the track though outside the field-fence. However this was a very plain cuboid. Even after moving growing grass in fhe interior away from the sides I saw no distinguishing marks. Of course the site may not have been what the locals believed as Johnstone names the site the Cairns o' Piggar, which kind of implies places/things buried. Coming up I met the farmer going down, a nice man, real Orcadian. On reaching the main road which way to go from the junction could only have one outcome. The way my ligaments felt if the bus came from behind me so that I missed it there was no way I could walk back to kirkwall or wander around several more hours awaiting the next. So left to Orphir village. Outside in a tree I saw a thrush. Usung my binoculars brought up a fieldfare. A solitary fieldfare. Usually migrant thrushes are only found in flocks. Got to the bus shelter for a sit down. The seat that wee bit high for my legs, so after a few minutes off to wait in the bush garden behind the kirk. A few birdies about, twa birds that I eventually thought to be a sparrow with rather big offspring, though the song threw me. Then in a bush by me a small bird moving in the thick of the branches. Ach, another wren I thought, having passed up on a photo of one earlier. Came flashes of yellow about the body and its too small for a wren even. As it made its way onto the edge of a branch in the next bush noticed a stripe down the forehead. My interest peaked as I knew for certain this was a goldcrest. Camera out, picture snapped. But in the time it took a non-SLR digital to take the actual shot the bird had flown. Ah well, a brilliant spot anyway.

Labels: Edwin Dunning, Fidge, Hillock of Breakna, Hubin, pier, Piggar, Smoogro, Swanbister, Toy Ness, WWII Battery