Sunday, April 25, 2010
Aprill 9th 2010 BRODGAR - LYKING RD - WAITHE
Now I'm no longer working earlier buses are open to me, which is useful for days when rain is due later. Travelling up the road and looking right I can make out a rise, where fields meet, that is presumably the site of Big Howe. Although presently identified as having been a broch I have wondered if this was a chambered cairn like Kokna-Cumming t'other side of the Bridge of Brodgar. Since my visit I have found that strangely enough on an early map Big Howe appears unnamed, not marked as a tumulus but shown as a rectangular earthwork. Square cairns in Orkney ? No way ! Not narrow enough for a kirk I believe it to be a borg, a type of Norse defensive site ofttimes called a Viking Castle. On Thomas map it measures ~ 2.5x3.5mm with the longer axis slightly north of east-west - slightly trapezoid with the sides curved, the southern side bowed out, and a gap at the northern end of the southern side.
At the N end of the brig have another look for a continuance of the stepping stones by the E side. Still can only see them as far as just beyond an iron pole, so either they are hidden or else they have been swept away as this is where the röst races readily between the two lochs. Next up is the Lochview mound, Kokna-Cumming. Researching another topic I found that this has been looked into twice. The first I infer from the internal detail shown on Captain Thomas map in Archaeologia XXIV, not very much but certainly more than appears in its reproduction in books, including a likely entrance passage in the side facing the road (and at right angles to it). Almost four decades later a large amount of the tumulus had to be removed as it impinged upon the corner of a field the farmer wished to expand. The first dig produce a flint arrowhead and flint scraper, the second a small stone slab decorated on each side. On one side there are two fish and what is taken to be a seal. You can see why this made folk think this a broch site as it looks rather Pictish, though what with all the Ness of Brodgar rethink IIRC the decoration is now attributed to the Neolithic. Much later I have a photocopy of the map and use a lupe to check. My passage runs along the N side of the east lobe of a kidney shape occupying the S side of the ?top. Opposite the west lobe is a circle and then a curve runs arond the remaining [north-eastern quadrant], possibly joining the outside line of the 'kidney'.
If it hadn't been for the predicted weather I would have gone to video the mound east of the Bookan Tomb. Made life simpler anyway, no 'Orkney gate' to negotiate and my gammy leg was thankful to find the gate to field containing Bookan Tomb nicely open. Hadn't intended to photograph the tomb but found myself using SLR and ultrazoom cameras to good effect (despite forgetting to use a newly acquired mini-tripod). Videoed some time ago. Gate directly right of track also open and leads me into field with the "eminence thrown up by the brecks" [look at the photos and you really cannot see them as other than a tight grouping] - brecks as land of naturally broken appearance rather than brecks as rough land brought into cultivation. The ground is rather damp near the gate as the farmer is drying a hummock of stuff off, summat black. Although the old map shows only three mounds near the eastern side of the "antique quarry" I have seen a fourth tumulus marked near the north-western quarry, though it is verra
verra small [smaller than the non-burnt mound by the valley lochan but perhaps fractionally higher and perched on tippy-toes above The Brecks [still not sold on them bing a quarry]. Tackled them in sequence weodorshins with each camera in turn, despite which I still had to check images carefully when I got back. Being dimensionless I read above me as N, to the road as E, to Brodgar S, toward Stromness W.
All the mounds have exposed areas, with HY21SE 24 furthermost by the edge of The Brecks undoubtedly the most natural, sitting as it does on the natural rock with its single southern exposure capable of being read as proof either way - at the S side near the base its one exposed area as weel as earth has a couple of thin rocky plates sticking out the edge. Though there is a steepish drop behind its western end [good rocky outcrops in the cliff-face (though a bit ragged for building methinks)] it isn't apparent if there's owt gone from it into the brecks below. When I ventured down a less inclined slope past the N side below its NW'ern end down almost into the brecks I found mself looking onto one or two slight oval troughs that might have held something or slipped down from above. Past the rockiest part of the cliff almost under the SW'ern end there is a single rock slab sticking out of the cliff-face, which though almost undoubtedly natural has had an earthfast orthostat set at a large angle virtually abutting it as if to hold this back. Just the one orthostat, but definitely not natural. Most singular, nothing else near them. A not quite stream winds through the brecks and I am reminded that an antiquarian saw that the Lingadae cremation mounds had had water wound about
them.
Sites HY21SE 9 i (nearer to the tomb) & ii (to the N of i) are built partly onto the hillslope and each have several exposed areas, some earth with a few small stones and others with proper rocks. Almost certainly the latter is the source of the cist. And not just because it has more structural material about and on it. Calling the feature on its top a circular depression is wholly inadequate. Didn't have this in mind as I walked below the eastern flank and looking up at the northern end saw a well-defined curved bank forming the top edge with an equally obvious ditch inside it - despite the excavation definitely an archaeological feature rather than from archaeologist's workings. Coming to look at the W side It is not like the Wasbister Disk Barrow [simply another bowl barrow to earlier writers] as the ditch is seen to encircle the top half.. Or you are reminded that the Bookan Tomb is one cairn later subsumed within another. The record makes you think there's a fair track between this mound and SE 24 but its more like you come down off one and find yourself dashing up the other i.e. no real pause between, ah, childhood.
Didn't see myself having time to go back and 'do' the lesser Broidgar mounds. However I intended to tackle the tumuli remnants north of here, complete my Stenness set. Except that field and in between occupied by sheep. There is much confusion over these tumuli remnants north of Skae Frue (the antiquarian's Skeldro, the true Orcadian name : last bit roo 'heap' first element from Old Norse skjoldr 'shield-shaped' or skilja 'thin flaky stone' or skeid 'path' - most probably the last as the old Stenness-Sandwick track ran by it, though Vikings fond of kenning puns) considered research finding five reports, of which four made it into two site records. Six or seven mounds, two of them definitely artificial and one containg a short cist. And as much as I hate to admit it the excavated cist may be behind the report attached to a mound on the S side of the hill E of the Bookan Tomb.
The antiquarians referred to Buchan Hill as the Black Hill of Warbuster. If this is not a misunderstanding of Orcadian speech it would appear that as well as Wasbister 'loch-farm' [the first records have the tunship as Westbyster (1555) Wesbester (1588) Westbuster (1788), but east is Harray Loch] this area was also the farm of the vardr 'beacon' [later I reach the Point of Veron, another beacon name]. Best guess is that the Ring of Bookan was used for this, perhaps having been a Thing long before Mansie Hay (a lot neater looking than Tingwall). There appears to be a tradition of using ancient sites as Viking beacons - there are e.g. The Wart in South Ron, Verron at the Bay of Skaill, and Veron in Voyatown. It is strange that we have the name Wasbister but no existing farm to go with it - the reference index in the Orkney Library refers both Bookan and Bochan to a mediaeval farm called Brochan. My gut feeling is that these are two seperate names, Bookan/Bûkan/Buchan which has been connected with Welsh bwcca=Puck (but from the early records is actually from bygga 'bere barley' - Captain Thomas saw signs about the ring that someone had attempted to cultivate it) and B(r)ochan either from brekka 'broken [up for cultivation usually] land' or the broch to the north (though this gave its name to a Burrian between it and the broch itself). In 2005 an archaeological survey of the second field south of the farm road to Bochan found flints at the top and bottom of this, one a Neolithic arrowhead (not the Mesolithic they hoped for. However I think these finds are yet to be gone over properly like many modern collections). It strikes me as quite probable there are more such south of here, certainly many have been found on the three farms to the N before trailing off about the fourth, Appietown. A cist was found near Buchan and another came from levelling a mound near Appiehouse that surely gave its name to Howan. I had thought that the 'services' associated with this area (part of a sequence starting at the Odin Stone) took
place at the Ring of Bookan. But now from the air a circular cropmark of similar size has been seen two fields below Brochan Cottage, and the 'idols' were kept at the house.
Decided to look again for the Lyking 'souterrain'. Thought first I'd look across to see if I could make out the tumuli even further north. On the skyline somewhere about hands of Mid House (not unaided of course) a tractor worked near a long tumulus but what looked obvious on a map wasn't so when you could not make out the hillside roads needed for reference points. I could have been looking at Shennar Howe for all I knew. That is one mound with a smaller mound upon it (like Bookan ?) where once one of those barrow merchants started to dig a 'building' before the farmer stopped him. A metre plus point-nine metres would make this stand out if one were really upon the other, otherwise it's height would be on a par with the others near here. The Lyking turn off is easy to miss because even on foot it looks more like someone's drive. Lyking farm is straight ahead. well, except that there is a deviation because there was once a graveyard somewhere here (or more precisely graves kept 'popping up'), though it's a bit far from from the presumes Lyking chapel site to have gone with that.
Further along I wonder if the mound at HY27121514 on the E bank of the stream is actually HY21NE 5 [supposed ~HY274151 where only glacial mounds exist, though at a push one of the pools could be site of a demolished mound] even though it isn't north of Lyking farm. Looking at sites up from the mound and broch first we have HY21NE 26 at HY26991549 an 'earth'-filled cist with ?crouched inhumation and steatite urn from ~1940, HY21NE 8 at HY27061533 two empty short cists found a yard apart ~1852 in the side of a hillock fiteen metres from which somewhen around 1956 came HY21NE 8 at HY27061533 a 3' x 2' x 2'6" cist with the top just underground, then northernmost HY21NE 24 ~HY271152 where a Viking grave was found in a now vanished mound no later than 1870.
The other time I tried to find the broch's underground passage though insufficient foreknowledge I made the mistake of looking for it in the southern edge of the broch and expecting maybe a shallow drain-like feature. Now I saw it
right beside the road at HY27071511, as 'advertised' only a foot or so from the fence. Behind three slabs (probably part a fragmented roof lintel, the largest about two foot high) is a dark void in which I see nothing, though behind a grassy fringe immediately right of the stones I see a wall composed of thin slabs. This will be part of the 700mm square built passage. I doubt this is the real entrance, my guess being that that was wiped out by the road or whatever track preceded it. This side of the broch mound is supposedly outworks but looking round me all still falls within the circuit of the tower itself. When examined the passage went SE for eight feet and then turned quickly E towards the burn. Soon the way was blocked by a combination of steepness and mud, although it is also related that explorations came to a halt when the candle went out. I wonder if the chapel-site might not be secondary broch settlement itself. Alternatively lyking means 'landing-place'.
The rain finally came but it wasn't up to much. And as my legs were fine I continued westward. Up on the hillside in front of me is the farm of Upper Lyking with the Linga Fiold mounds on the skyline (HY21NE 19 with three mini standing stones HY21NE 22 gone from a little to their NE). Why they changed the site name from the original Lykin(g) is beyond me. Soon I see the sites of the Voy crannog survey in front of me [someone should really check out the three holms in the Swannay loch]. Coming to Easter Voy there is a squarish feature down near the loch that has intrigued me before. Only the remains of a mediaval house I thought, but heck why not. An old but broad track runs down with a drystane fieldwall on the west edge, a barb-wire fence on the other. At the top end you pass between two tall erect stones (for an 'Orkney gate' you'll say) with a third a few metres away along the fence line as I go down. Coming closer to the feature I notice its walls are slightly curved as if from the Broch Age. The fieldwall turns round and joins onto the walling though the join appears to be much later. Imagine my suprise to find no building remains. Instead the interior is slightly swampy and this, at HY26251507, is one of two wells either side of Easter Quoy ?cottages [later on an old map I see the track starts at Easter Voy itself, up on the hillside over the road]. In the north half a natural slab sticks out, from under which I imagine a wellspring came despite the fact that the well is a slab sided box in front of it at a slight angle.
A burn actually continues through this out of the wellpark and down to the loch - perhaps the water once pooled inside this peedie enclosure. A contact of mine [hey Goffik] with an interest in wells has never seen one like this, and if all you had of this was a diagram showing track and enclosure you might have taken it for a variant souterrain, which alas this cannot be.
I have been photographing and videoing the Voy 'crannogs' from the road and then after passing the 'cottages' decide I might as well go the whole hog and follow the loch edge around The Ness. Voy simply means bay or inlet. There are two of these
sites ; site 1 is RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 85 at HY27071511 then slightly further away a likely burnt mound site 2 is HY21SE 86 at HY26091490. Somehow I failed to see the ever-visible causeway linking the former to the land, probably that short distance walking the field edge rather than the shoreline deprived me of this or its more visible from the islet than the shore. From a Romantic perspective site 2 is the more interesting site, with large stones on the top giving a jaggedly profile and that fine section of wall exposed in the western side. Continued around to the next upstanding archaeology.
I think I had to squeeze through a barb-wire fence to reach the two Point of Veron sites. Ver(r)on means beacon. I can imagine the Vikings referring to the Ring of Bookan simply as a beacon but find it difficult to believe they would do so for an existing kirk as is believed for that posited for the Point of Veron. Unfortunately the point is one of those places you can only show in profile as however much you can distinguish features on the ground the camera sees them as a wash of pale straw and green grass. And they feel like one site really. First a very low circular mound [as distinct from rise] with a depression most of the interior, and directly a higher mound occupying the bulk of the Point itself. The former is HY21SE 39 at HY25661495, identified with a pale of rubbish and stones in the Orkney Name Book (1880), the latter HY21SE 27 at HY25691496 a pre-16thC kirk and graveyard. The ONB mound is a much better fit for a mound [HY254151 I think] where The Ness ends to the W near the Lyking road (I had to climb through one or two more barb-wire fences to reach it without backtracking) and is still used as a dump. If so then the description of HY21SE 27 as a kirk surrounded by a circular graveyard is an error for one with a circular graveyard - the same mistake has occured with one of my descriptions of a site, so I know this happens. I lied about the photos, one feature does photograph well. The remains of a fence seperate 'mound' and 'kirk' and close by, near its southern end, is the top foot or two of an angle-topped orthostat also running roughly N/S [should've checked]. No more visible stones but on the putative kirk top there are two circular depressions, a large one and a smaller one, though whether the result of excavation or indicating underlying features I can't say.
Near the main road is another burnt mound, HY21SE 26 at HY25351497, in the last open space on the south side of the Lyking road. Its being so close to the mill and its dam I can't help imagining this too was once an islet in the loch like the islet at Redland to the south. In the north side are a couple of very obvious stone blocks. Too nacked by now to go in for a look. The record is for two mounds. That at the back is reckoned natural but it strikes me that what with the disparity between their sizes these could have formerly been one, with the 'cist slab' from the highest point being its centre too. The derelict building on the burn's other bank is Voy Mill itself. On this side further along tis a small scatter of middling stones unlike the usual result of wall collapse and these could have been taken from the burnt mound and removed here after the rest received use elsewhere.
Finally reaching the Works turnoff and still I'm looking for the burnt mounds in the wrong place, as later I find that that still existant (the other now gone from the Ness of Seatter) is near the western end of this arm of the loch. Still can't make out any of the Seatter mounds. When stone walls run up over hill at the peak they can be mistaken for mounds themselves, and my excuse is the tumuli here are in close proximity to such walls. Should have made out the tallest, though, unless it is the one excavated in recent decades. Soon the road joins the main Stromness-Kirkwall road near Deepdale. Going to Waithe up near the top of the quarry is the remaining official standing stone. From the quarry's southern end opposite the second field along is another place a flint survey took place. HY21SE 91 at HY275115 goes under the name of Ragashore. Here they had a good haul from their transects, 'striking gold' with a Mesolithic scatter by the shoreline.
Finally reached the brig. Folk going to Unstan tomb. Eventually stopped here at the bus shelter. Waited over the time as usual. At home after eight hours a whole lot less tired than doing three-and-a-half as a cleaner !! Legs fine until I went to bed. Oh, beggar. Barely a wink's sleep with hips on fire and pressurised thigh. Worth it though.
Now I'm no longer working earlier buses are open to me, which is useful for days when rain is due later. Travelling up the road and looking right I can make out a rise, where fields meet, that is presumably the site of Big Howe. Although presently identified as having been a broch I have wondered if this was a chambered cairn like Kokna-Cumming t'other side of the Bridge of Brodgar. Since my visit I have found that strangely enough on an early map Big Howe appears unnamed, not marked as a tumulus but shown as a rectangular earthwork. Square cairns in Orkney ? No way ! Not narrow enough for a kirk I believe it to be a borg, a type of Norse defensive site ofttimes called a Viking Castle. On Thomas map it measures ~ 2.5x3.5mm with the longer axis slightly north of east-west - slightly trapezoid with the sides curved, the southern side bowed out, and a gap at the northern end of the southern side.
At the N end of the brig have another look for a continuance of the stepping stones by the E side. Still can only see them as far as just beyond an iron pole, so either they are hidden or else they have been swept away as this is where the röst races readily between the two lochs. Next up is the Lochview mound, Kokna-Cumming. Researching another topic I found that this has been looked into twice. The first I infer from the internal detail shown on Captain Thomas map in Archaeologia XXIV, not very much but certainly more than appears in its reproduction in books, including a likely entrance passage in the side facing the road (and at right angles to it). Almost four decades later a large amount of the tumulus had to be removed as it impinged upon the corner of a field the farmer wished to expand. The first dig produce a flint arrowhead and flint scraper, the second a small stone slab decorated on each side. On one side there are two fish and what is taken to be a seal. You can see why this made folk think this a broch site as it looks rather Pictish, though what with all the Ness of Brodgar rethink IIRC the decoration is now attributed to the Neolithic. Much later I have a photocopy of the map and use a lupe to check. My passage runs along the N side of the east lobe of a kidney shape occupying the S side of the ?top. Opposite the west lobe is a circle and then a curve runs arond the remaining [north-eastern quadrant], possibly joining the outside line of the 'kidney'.
If it hadn't been for the predicted weather I would have gone to video the mound east of the Bookan Tomb. Made life simpler anyway, no 'Orkney gate' to negotiate and my gammy leg was thankful to find the gate to field containing Bookan Tomb nicely open. Hadn't intended to photograph the tomb but found myself using SLR and ultrazoom cameras to good effect (despite forgetting to use a newly acquired mini-tripod). Videoed some time ago. Gate directly right of track also open and leads me into field with the "eminence thrown up by the brecks" [look at the photos and you really cannot see them as other than a tight grouping] - brecks as land of naturally broken appearance rather than brecks as rough land brought into cultivation. The ground is rather damp near the gate as the farmer is drying a hummock of stuff off, summat black. Although the old map shows only three mounds near the eastern side of the "antique quarry" I have seen a fourth tumulus marked near the north-western quarry, though it is verra
verra small [smaller than the non-burnt mound by the valley lochan but perhaps fractionally higher and perched on tippy-toes above The Brecks [still not sold on them bing a quarry]. Tackled them in sequence weodorshins with each camera in turn, despite which I still had to check images carefully when I got back. Being dimensionless I read above me as N, to the road as E, to Brodgar S, toward Stromness W.
All the mounds have exposed areas, with HY21SE 24 furthermost by the edge of The Brecks undoubtedly the most natural, sitting as it does on the natural rock with its single southern exposure capable of being read as proof either way - at the S side near the base its one exposed area as weel as earth has a couple of thin rocky plates sticking out the edge. Though there is a steepish drop behind its western end [good rocky outcrops in the cliff-face (though a bit ragged for building methinks)] it isn't apparent if there's owt gone from it into the brecks below. When I ventured down a less inclined slope past the N side below its NW'ern end down almost into the brecks I found mself looking onto one or two slight oval troughs that might have held something or slipped down from above. Past the rockiest part of the cliff almost under the SW'ern end there is a single rock slab sticking out of the cliff-face, which though almost undoubtedly natural has had an earthfast orthostat set at a large angle virtually abutting it as if to hold this back. Just the one orthostat, but definitely not natural. Most singular, nothing else near them. A not quite stream winds through the brecks and I am reminded that an antiquarian saw that the Lingadae cremation mounds had had water wound about
them.
Sites HY21SE 9 i (nearer to the tomb) & ii (to the N of i) are built partly onto the hillslope and each have several exposed areas, some earth with a few small stones and others with proper rocks. Almost certainly the latter is the source of the cist. And not just because it has more structural material about and on it. Calling the feature on its top a circular depression is wholly inadequate. Didn't have this in mind as I walked below the eastern flank and looking up at the northern end saw a well-defined curved bank forming the top edge with an equally obvious ditch inside it - despite the excavation definitely an archaeological feature rather than from archaeologist's workings. Coming to look at the W side It is not like the Wasbister Disk Barrow [simply another bowl barrow to earlier writers] as the ditch is seen to encircle the top half.. Or you are reminded that the Bookan Tomb is one cairn later subsumed within another. The record makes you think there's a fair track between this mound and SE 24 but its more like you come down off one and find yourself dashing up the other i.e. no real pause between, ah, childhood.
Didn't see myself having time to go back and 'do' the lesser Broidgar mounds. However I intended to tackle the tumuli remnants north of here, complete my Stenness set. Except that field and in between occupied by sheep. There is much confusion over these tumuli remnants north of Skae Frue (the antiquarian's Skeldro, the true Orcadian name : last bit roo 'heap' first element from Old Norse skjoldr 'shield-shaped' or skilja 'thin flaky stone' or skeid 'path' - most probably the last as the old Stenness-Sandwick track ran by it, though Vikings fond of kenning puns) considered research finding five reports, of which four made it into two site records. Six or seven mounds, two of them definitely artificial and one containg a short cist. And as much as I hate to admit it the excavated cist may be behind the report attached to a mound on the S side of the hill E of the Bookan Tomb.
The antiquarians referred to Buchan Hill as the Black Hill of Warbuster. If this is not a misunderstanding of Orcadian speech it would appear that as well as Wasbister 'loch-farm' [the first records have the tunship as Westbyster (1555) Wesbester (1588) Westbuster (1788), but east is Harray Loch] this area was also the farm of the vardr 'beacon' [later I reach the Point of Veron, another beacon name]. Best guess is that the Ring of Bookan was used for this, perhaps having been a Thing long before Mansie Hay (a lot neater looking than Tingwall). There appears to be a tradition of using ancient sites as Viking beacons - there are e.g. The Wart in South Ron, Verron at the Bay of Skaill, and Veron in Voyatown. It is strange that we have the name Wasbister but no existing farm to go with it - the reference index in the Orkney Library refers both Bookan and Bochan to a mediaeval farm called Brochan. My gut feeling is that these are two seperate names, Bookan/Bûkan/Buchan which has been connected with Welsh bwcca=Puck (but from the early records is actually from bygga 'bere barley' - Captain Thomas saw signs about the ring that someone had attempted to cultivate it) and B(r)ochan either from brekka 'broken [up for cultivation usually] land' or the broch to the north (though this gave its name to a Burrian between it and the broch itself). In 2005 an archaeological survey of the second field south of the farm road to Bochan found flints at the top and bottom of this, one a Neolithic arrowhead (not the Mesolithic they hoped for. However I think these finds are yet to be gone over properly like many modern collections). It strikes me as quite probable there are more such south of here, certainly many have been found on the three farms to the N before trailing off about the fourth, Appietown. A cist was found near Buchan and another came from levelling a mound near Appiehouse that surely gave its name to Howan. I had thought that the 'services' associated with this area (part of a sequence starting at the Odin Stone) took
place at the Ring of Bookan. But now from the air a circular cropmark of similar size has been seen two fields below Brochan Cottage, and the 'idols' were kept at the house.
Decided to look again for the Lyking 'souterrain'. Thought first I'd look across to see if I could make out the tumuli even further north. On the skyline somewhere about hands of Mid House (not unaided of course) a tractor worked near a long tumulus but what looked obvious on a map wasn't so when you could not make out the hillside roads needed for reference points. I could have been looking at Shennar Howe for all I knew. That is one mound with a smaller mound upon it (like Bookan ?) where once one of those barrow merchants started to dig a 'building' before the farmer stopped him. A metre plus point-nine metres would make this stand out if one were really upon the other, otherwise it's height would be on a par with the others near here. The Lyking turn off is easy to miss because even on foot it looks more like someone's drive. Lyking farm is straight ahead. well, except that there is a deviation because there was once a graveyard somewhere here (or more precisely graves kept 'popping up'), though it's a bit far from from the presumes Lyking chapel site to have gone with that.
Further along I wonder if the mound at HY27121514 on the E bank of the stream is actually HY21NE 5 [supposed ~HY274151 where only glacial mounds exist, though at a push one of the pools could be site of a demolished mound] even though it isn't north of Lyking farm. Looking at sites up from the mound and broch first we have HY21NE 26 at HY26991549 an 'earth'-filled cist with ?crouched inhumation and steatite urn from ~1940, HY21NE 8 at HY27061533 two empty short cists found a yard apart ~1852 in the side of a hillock fiteen metres from which somewhen around 1956 came HY21NE 8 at HY27061533 a 3' x 2' x 2'6" cist with the top just underground, then northernmost HY21NE 24 ~HY271152 where a Viking grave was found in a now vanished mound no later than 1870.
The other time I tried to find the broch's underground passage though insufficient foreknowledge I made the mistake of looking for it in the southern edge of the broch and expecting maybe a shallow drain-like feature. Now I saw it
right beside the road at HY27071511, as 'advertised' only a foot or so from the fence. Behind three slabs (probably part a fragmented roof lintel, the largest about two foot high) is a dark void in which I see nothing, though behind a grassy fringe immediately right of the stones I see a wall composed of thin slabs. This will be part of the 700mm square built passage. I doubt this is the real entrance, my guess being that that was wiped out by the road or whatever track preceded it. This side of the broch mound is supposedly outworks but looking round me all still falls within the circuit of the tower itself. When examined the passage went SE for eight feet and then turned quickly E towards the burn. Soon the way was blocked by a combination of steepness and mud, although it is also related that explorations came to a halt when the candle went out. I wonder if the chapel-site might not be secondary broch settlement itself. Alternatively lyking means 'landing-place'.
The rain finally came but it wasn't up to much. And as my legs were fine I continued westward. Up on the hillside in front of me is the farm of Upper Lyking with the Linga Fiold mounds on the skyline (HY21NE 19 with three mini standing stones HY21NE 22 gone from a little to their NE). Why they changed the site name from the original Lykin(g) is beyond me. Soon I see the sites of the Voy crannog survey in front of me [someone should really check out the three holms in the Swannay loch]. Coming to Easter Voy there is a squarish feature down near the loch that has intrigued me before. Only the remains of a mediaval house I thought, but heck why not. An old but broad track runs down with a drystane fieldwall on the west edge, a barb-wire fence on the other. At the top end you pass between two tall erect stones (for an 'Orkney gate' you'll say) with a third a few metres away along the fence line as I go down. Coming closer to the feature I notice its walls are slightly curved as if from the Broch Age. The fieldwall turns round and joins onto the walling though the join appears to be much later. Imagine my suprise to find no building remains. Instead the interior is slightly swampy and this, at HY26251507, is one of two wells either side of Easter Quoy ?cottages [later on an old map I see the track starts at Easter Voy itself, up on the hillside over the road]. In the north half a natural slab sticks out, from under which I imagine a wellspring came despite the fact that the well is a slab sided box in front of it at a slight angle.
A burn actually continues through this out of the wellpark and down to the loch - perhaps the water once pooled inside this peedie enclosure. A contact of mine [hey Goffik] with an interest in wells has never seen one like this, and if all you had of this was a diagram showing track and enclosure you might have taken it for a variant souterrain, which alas this cannot be.
I have been photographing and videoing the Voy 'crannogs' from the road and then after passing the 'cottages' decide I might as well go the whole hog and follow the loch edge around The Ness. Voy simply means bay or inlet. There are two of these
sites ; site 1 is RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 85 at HY27071511 then slightly further away a likely burnt mound site 2 is HY21SE 86 at HY26091490. Somehow I failed to see the ever-visible causeway linking the former to the land, probably that short distance walking the field edge rather than the shoreline deprived me of this or its more visible from the islet than the shore. From a Romantic perspective site 2 is the more interesting site, with large stones on the top giving a jaggedly profile and that fine section of wall exposed in the western side. Continued around to the next upstanding archaeology.
I think I had to squeeze through a barb-wire fence to reach the two Point of Veron sites. Ver(r)on means beacon. I can imagine the Vikings referring to the Ring of Bookan simply as a beacon but find it difficult to believe they would do so for an existing kirk as is believed for that posited for the Point of Veron. Unfortunately the point is one of those places you can only show in profile as however much you can distinguish features on the ground the camera sees them as a wash of pale straw and green grass. And they feel like one site really. First a very low circular mound [as distinct from rise] with a depression most of the interior, and directly a higher mound occupying the bulk of the Point itself. The former is HY21SE 39 at HY25661495, identified with a pale of rubbish and stones in the Orkney Name Book (1880), the latter HY21SE 27 at HY25691496 a pre-16thC kirk and graveyard. The ONB mound is a much better fit for a mound [HY254151 I think] where The Ness ends to the W near the Lyking road (I had to climb through one or two more barb-wire fences to reach it without backtracking) and is still used as a dump. If so then the description of HY21SE 27 as a kirk surrounded by a circular graveyard is an error for one with a circular graveyard - the same mistake has occured with one of my descriptions of a site, so I know this happens. I lied about the photos, one feature does photograph well. The remains of a fence seperate 'mound' and 'kirk' and close by, near its southern end, is the top foot or two of an angle-topped orthostat also running roughly N/S [should've checked]. No more visible stones but on the putative kirk top there are two circular depressions, a large one and a smaller one, though whether the result of excavation or indicating underlying features I can't say.
Near the main road is another burnt mound, HY21SE 26 at HY25351497, in the last open space on the south side of the Lyking road. Its being so close to the mill and its dam I can't help imagining this too was once an islet in the loch like the islet at Redland to the south. In the north side are a couple of very obvious stone blocks. Too nacked by now to go in for a look. The record is for two mounds. That at the back is reckoned natural but it strikes me that what with the disparity between their sizes these could have formerly been one, with the 'cist slab' from the highest point being its centre too. The derelict building on the burn's other bank is Voy Mill itself. On this side further along tis a small scatter of middling stones unlike the usual result of wall collapse and these could have been taken from the burnt mound and removed here after the rest received use elsewhere.
Finally reaching the Works turnoff and still I'm looking for the burnt mounds in the wrong place, as later I find that that still existant (the other now gone from the Ness of Seatter) is near the western end of this arm of the loch. Still can't make out any of the Seatter mounds. When stone walls run up over hill at the peak they can be mistaken for mounds themselves, and my excuse is the tumuli here are in close proximity to such walls. Should have made out the tallest, though, unless it is the one excavated in recent decades. Soon the road joins the main Stromness-Kirkwall road near Deepdale. Going to Waithe up near the top of the quarry is the remaining official standing stone. From the quarry's southern end opposite the second field along is another place a flint survey took place. HY21SE 91 at HY275115 goes under the name of Ragashore. Here they had a good haul from their transects, 'striking gold' with a Mesolithic scatter by the shoreline.
Finally reached the brig. Folk going to Unstan tomb. Eventually stopped here at the bus shelter. Waited over the time as usual. At home after eight hours a whole lot less tired than doing three-and-a-half as a cleaner !! Legs fine until I went to bed. Oh, beggar. Barely a wink's sleep with hips on fire and pressurised thigh. Worth it though.
Labels: Big Howe, Kockna-cumming, Lyking, The Brecks, Voy
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
THEM'S THE BRECKS MARCH 10th & 16th 2010
The new digital camera zooms out to a 26mm equivalent so I set out to try and 'capture' the Wasbister Disc Barrow whilst it was still early enough in the year to use a low sun at a reasonable time of day. A short time ago the site was covered in a blanket of snow that brought out the curves wonderfully, enhanced enough to make an image [or so I hoped]. And then the old camera went kerplunk and [probably] it was too cold for the batteries to work, either of them. Unfortunately I finished work only in time for the half-ten bus. A slightly overcast day for the most part. Which allowed me to grab a smart shot of the lochward side of the Watch Stone. Wonder if there are better shots of Kokna-Cumming to take, especially now I don't have to show a broch profile when it isn't. If there was an avenue between the circles it would have had to go around this tomb, my betting would be the more sinuous side of the ness here, that on the west. More importantly where did this pass the the Great Wall and Lesser Wall of Brodgar ? The latter they excavated on the other side of the Lochview car track from the mound. Still seems strange to me that as yet no-one else has wondered what its relationship might be with the pair of Brodgar Farm standing stones there. At last I have pictures of these from the western side other than over the dig site. The southern one looks rather clunky in some views, made me think of all those squarish erect stones that even I normally reject as s.s. material. Are they truly co-eval. Perhaps they are simply posts for
an 'Orkney gate', simply much bigger than the ones elsewhere and not so well aligned. Or did the drive animals between them - might there have been a needfire hereabouts ? {On my next visit I did take other views of the mound. On the hill back of the excavation scar the field has no sign of the mound continuing, so either its a half-mound set well back into the hill or the site came first and then became buried under this artificial rise}.
My destination is a simple field to find - after the Ring of Brodgar go past the Dyke of Sean and its the first gate you come to. Now the difficult bit, because this is chained and once you climb over you also have to duck under the electric wire that goes diagonally from the roadside fence to that going across the hill. Looking up slightly right there's the Bookan Tomb on the hill outline. I headed left for the Bookan Cairns, which are now believed to be the remains of a double Bronze Age house. Along the way I passed a bank running across the hill bottom, the western end perhaps marked by the curves of an old burn that shows [on an image] as a deeper green. There's a few lengths where the composition is exposed as mostly earth with small stones and a few middling ones. Not totally unlike a more even topped Dyke of Sean against the hillside. Probably degraded natural, though the lower part of the east end terminates with tightly packed vertical stones on end. When I looked at my images later you could see a bright green patch above that end of the proposed bank, but I'm virtually certain it is nowt.
The Bookan Cairns run very roughly N/S and the two 'cairns' are connected by a stone-lined passage of modest length (no longer readily obvious). Its a rather unequal hourglass with the two halves presenting very differently. The northern half is more obviously circular with a concave top. Standing on this the impression is of a large depression occupying most of it with a few slabs set in a small grassy hump split in two. The southern half is more or less level on top and the slabs have an air of purpose. Some cut across the mound but it is uncertain whether these belong to this half and/or mark the division between the two. One slab aligns what looks like north-south and would appear to be matched by another in the northern half. Its possible another stone in between a few inches off this ?alignment. If a genuine axis it is even more off-centre [as the mound is left now of course]. A large piece of exposure on the western side of the northern half has a few small slabs but a lot of earth. In the area surrounding the obvious mound are visible some more stones, some flat in the surface and others buried erect. Unfortunately as I circled the mound weodorshins from the north the NiMH batteries went low then out as I went to take a few looking north, though the digital camera still worked a few times more. Darn fine I had another set charged up. Heck if I could find them where I put them though. Spent several minutes at several places, digging my hands into my bag and hoicking everything out. Must have been pisgies because after several more fruitless searches back home I found them eventually where I had put them, had 'em wi' me all along.
So had to content myself with using the SLR for the 'disc barrow'. Going towards the bottom of the hill looking up I saw a bright green patch of grass in profile up the hill and dismissed it as natural. Shows even I can miss out on notes as this is on record or rather its neighbour as you will read further on]. Against the downhill side of the top end of the fence running up from the road NMRS record no. HY21SE 19 at HY28811397 is a small mound of earth and stones on the SE slope of the hill between the Ring of brodgar and Bookan farm. There was a stone setting around the base and its present dimensions of ~8mD by 0.6m high accords well with 27x1.5' then, though I make the diameter of the Wasbister Cairn as varying between six point four and six point five metres. Once there I could see a few horizontal slabs dotted about its surface. Only a few yards away is a rough mound,very very ragged and disjointed but definitely of a piece. This is the green space I had seen on the skyline. It could have formed part of the course of a burn, however despite the fact that these two are not connected it is quite like the Bookan Cairns disparate pairing - from some views the ragged mound is so big that this and the cairn could even possibly be a single item subjected to different fates at E and W. But I only found a single flat stone on the whole of it's surface. Though there are some loose stones around the base of the cairn of my measurements there are no signs that these have ever been embedded. On the other hand from the position of stones embedded in the cairn it does seem to be the remains of a circular structure. I know it is a lot to hang a theory on but there is one particular stone exposed on the top edge that looks for all the world to be the remains of walling and the face of it seems roughly curved.
After taking digital images of the Wasbister Disc Barrow six days later I walked east from the barrow to look for the Wasbister Burnt Mound, more in faint hope than any expectation. The way it's described made me think it a vague report passed on. Either there wasn't anything or it could be submerged. So I was delighted to find that as I came towards the large pool [I would term it a pow rather than a lochan or "small loch"] the site came into clear profile against the water. RCAHMS record no. HY21SE 20 at HY28961378 is a possible burnt mound 6mD by 0.3m high some 100 yards E of the 'disc barrow', though I myself was only certain of five metres of that and by using the lower land about the base I therefore came up with a height of point six metres. I saw a comparatively large piece of erosion at the highest point showing earth and a smallish stone and a small possible slab, both at one edge of this exposure. As to its being a burnt mound there are bodies of water either side of the Dyke of Sean and the one this side has a couple of very straight edges which made me think it artificial in contrast to the one the other side [where at some times there has been a small companion - since 1882 there have been between one and three pow/lochan of varying sizes]. But the maps make it very certain there are a whole rew of straight lines under and around these muckle pow. Not much like drainage. Perhaps there were once buildings, walls at the very least, either side of the dyke - as mentioned the water levels as elsewhere in Orkney show great fluctuations over time, and Caroline Wickham-Jones in a GMB Fellowship talk said that Wasbister is likely the next bit of land to disappear under the loch. My final act on the second visit was to make a beeline for the gate. In doing so I climbed over a rise of large area. It has no record and there are no distinguishing features. Nevertheless in passing over this plain grassy feature I had a feeling of settlement mound.
It had been my intent to visit those of The Brecks sites that stood by the quarry but a touch of diarrhœa put paid to that [these are as prominent from below as the Bookan Tomb, look to be an obvious triple grouping from the valley floor and have been split into two records with not enough reason to my mind]. Failing to hitch a lift, and there being no public toilets on the Ness of Brodgar [scandalous], I was fortunate to find Tormiston Mill still open at dinnertime (the ones by Stenness School are further I think). Despite my desperation still took more photos along the way. My super-duper camera easily made out the Standing Stones Hotel barrow [aka Little Barnhouse]. In one photo its profile made a good match for a hill in view behind it but you don't know whether this was the same before the excavation [recorded by the local paper - there is apparently also an Irish society's account somewhere, however that's all Tommy wrote].
The 19thC mill is very well preserved, even better than the fractionally earlier Tankerness Mill - rather than running along the ground the dog-legged lade (stone-lined open topped water channel) is carried additionally on a high stone aqueduct, and there is an impressive dam upstream [though the bridge downstream is more functionally situated]. I walked along the other side of the burn and for the most part the lade was dry enough to walk in. It has a high-sided sluice at the uphill end.There has been a drystane wall set back either side of the burn (though starting where I began on the farmward side only) all the way up to the dam then continuing over the other side of the dam all the way up to the next farm road. This dam has had at least one set of alterations, likely from the mill being taken out of commission. It is almost entirely of drystone construction. The burn sides are further apart than the present small stream, being mostly on the southern side i.e. away from the road. The middle section above the present stream has very straight edges and the water passes through a channel composed of three small slabs. Behind this section is a dam-high stone sluice with two attached vertical timbers ?2" square in cross-section. This is set back from the other side of the dam - probably because this is hollow internally. I walked along the top of this dam and on the
broadest section you step down for the space of a couple of yards. This is covered by roofing-type stone slabs (like rough thin paving slabs, used before the ones the size of large tiles and often seen in Orkney stacked vertically beside old buildings). At one end there has been a collapse and you can see inside the dam.
The new digital camera zooms out to a 26mm equivalent so I set out to try and 'capture' the Wasbister Disc Barrow whilst it was still early enough in the year to use a low sun at a reasonable time of day. A short time ago the site was covered in a blanket of snow that brought out the curves wonderfully, enhanced enough to make an image [or so I hoped]. And then the old camera went kerplunk and [probably] it was too cold for the batteries to work, either of them. Unfortunately I finished work only in time for the half-ten bus. A slightly overcast day for the most part. Which allowed me to grab a smart shot of the lochward side of the Watch Stone. Wonder if there are better shots of Kokna-Cumming to take, especially now I don't have to show a broch profile when it isn't. If there was an avenue between the circles it would have had to go around this tomb, my betting would be the more sinuous side of the ness here, that on the west. More importantly where did this pass the the Great Wall and Lesser Wall of Brodgar ? The latter they excavated on the other side of the Lochview car track from the mound. Still seems strange to me that as yet no-one else has wondered what its relationship might be with the pair of Brodgar Farm standing stones there. At last I have pictures of these from the western side other than over the dig site. The southern one looks rather clunky in some views, made me think of all those squarish erect stones that even I normally reject as s.s. material. Are they truly co-eval. Perhaps they are simply posts for
an 'Orkney gate', simply much bigger than the ones elsewhere and not so well aligned. Or did the drive animals between them - might there have been a needfire hereabouts ? {On my next visit I did take other views of the mound. On the hill back of the excavation scar the field has no sign of the mound continuing, so either its a half-mound set well back into the hill or the site came first and then became buried under this artificial rise}.
My destination is a simple field to find - after the Ring of Brodgar go past the Dyke of Sean and its the first gate you come to. Now the difficult bit, because this is chained and once you climb over you also have to duck under the electric wire that goes diagonally from the roadside fence to that going across the hill. Looking up slightly right there's the Bookan Tomb on the hill outline. I headed left for the Bookan Cairns, which are now believed to be the remains of a double Bronze Age house. Along the way I passed a bank running across the hill bottom, the western end perhaps marked by the curves of an old burn that shows [on an image] as a deeper green. There's a few lengths where the composition is exposed as mostly earth with small stones and a few middling ones. Not totally unlike a more even topped Dyke of Sean against the hillside. Probably degraded natural, though the lower part of the east end terminates with tightly packed vertical stones on end. When I looked at my images later you could see a bright green patch above that end of the proposed bank, but I'm virtually certain it is nowt.
The Bookan Cairns run very roughly N/S and the two 'cairns' are connected by a stone-lined passage of modest length (no longer readily obvious). Its a rather unequal hourglass with the two halves presenting very differently. The northern half is more obviously circular with a concave top. Standing on this the impression is of a large depression occupying most of it with a few slabs set in a small grassy hump split in two. The southern half is more or less level on top and the slabs have an air of purpose. Some cut across the mound but it is uncertain whether these belong to this half and/or mark the division between the two. One slab aligns what looks like north-south and would appear to be matched by another in the northern half. Its possible another stone in between a few inches off this ?alignment. If a genuine axis it is even more off-centre [as the mound is left now of course]. A large piece of exposure on the western side of the northern half has a few small slabs but a lot of earth. In the area surrounding the obvious mound are visible some more stones, some flat in the surface and others buried erect. Unfortunately as I circled the mound weodorshins from the north the NiMH batteries went low then out as I went to take a few looking north, though the digital camera still worked a few times more. Darn fine I had another set charged up. Heck if I could find them where I put them though. Spent several minutes at several places, digging my hands into my bag and hoicking everything out. Must have been pisgies because after several more fruitless searches back home I found them eventually where I had put them, had 'em wi' me all along.
So had to content myself with using the SLR for the 'disc barrow'. Going towards the bottom of the hill looking up I saw a bright green patch of grass in profile up the hill and dismissed it as natural. Shows even I can miss out on notes as this is on record or rather its neighbour as you will read further on]. Against the downhill side of the top end of the fence running up from the road NMRS record no. HY21SE 19 at HY28811397 is a small mound of earth and stones on the SE slope of the hill between the Ring of brodgar and Bookan farm. There was a stone setting around the base and its present dimensions of ~8mD by 0.6m high accords well with 27x1.5' then, though I make the diameter of the Wasbister Cairn as varying between six point four and six point five metres. Once there I could see a few horizontal slabs dotted about its surface. Only a few yards away is a rough mound,very very ragged and disjointed but definitely of a piece. This is the green space I had seen on the skyline. It could have formed part of the course of a burn, however despite the fact that these two are not connected it is quite like the Bookan Cairns disparate pairing - from some views the ragged mound is so big that this and the cairn could even possibly be a single item subjected to different fates at E and W. But I only found a single flat stone on the whole of it's surface. Though there are some loose stones around the base of the cairn of my measurements there are no signs that these have ever been embedded. On the other hand from the position of stones embedded in the cairn it does seem to be the remains of a circular structure. I know it is a lot to hang a theory on but there is one particular stone exposed on the top edge that looks for all the world to be the remains of walling and the face of it seems roughly curved.
After taking digital images of the Wasbister Disc Barrow six days later I walked east from the barrow to look for the Wasbister Burnt Mound, more in faint hope than any expectation. The way it's described made me think it a vague report passed on. Either there wasn't anything or it could be submerged. So I was delighted to find that as I came towards the large pool [I would term it a pow rather than a lochan or "small loch"] the site came into clear profile against the water. RCAHMS record no. HY21SE 20 at HY28961378 is a possible burnt mound 6mD by 0.3m high some 100 yards E of the 'disc barrow', though I myself was only certain of five metres of that and by using the lower land about the base I therefore came up with a height of point six metres. I saw a comparatively large piece of erosion at the highest point showing earth and a smallish stone and a small possible slab, both at one edge of this exposure. As to its being a burnt mound there are bodies of water either side of the Dyke of Sean and the one this side has a couple of very straight edges which made me think it artificial in contrast to the one the other side [where at some times there has been a small companion - since 1882 there have been between one and three pow/lochan of varying sizes]. But the maps make it very certain there are a whole rew of straight lines under and around these muckle pow. Not much like drainage. Perhaps there were once buildings, walls at the very least, either side of the dyke - as mentioned the water levels as elsewhere in Orkney show great fluctuations over time, and Caroline Wickham-Jones in a GMB Fellowship talk said that Wasbister is likely the next bit of land to disappear under the loch. My final act on the second visit was to make a beeline for the gate. In doing so I climbed over a rise of large area. It has no record and there are no distinguishing features. Nevertheless in passing over this plain grassy feature I had a feeling of settlement mound.
It had been my intent to visit those of The Brecks sites that stood by the quarry but a touch of diarrhœa put paid to that [these are as prominent from below as the Bookan Tomb, look to be an obvious triple grouping from the valley floor and have been split into two records with not enough reason to my mind]. Failing to hitch a lift, and there being no public toilets on the Ness of Brodgar [scandalous], I was fortunate to find Tormiston Mill still open at dinnertime (the ones by Stenness School are further I think). Despite my desperation still took more photos along the way. My super-duper camera easily made out the Standing Stones Hotel barrow [aka Little Barnhouse]. In one photo its profile made a good match for a hill in view behind it but you don't know whether this was the same before the excavation [recorded by the local paper - there is apparently also an Irish society's account somewhere, however that's all Tommy wrote].
The 19thC mill is very well preserved, even better than the fractionally earlier Tankerness Mill - rather than running along the ground the dog-legged lade (stone-lined open topped water channel) is carried additionally on a high stone aqueduct, and there is an impressive dam upstream [though the bridge downstream is more functionally situated]. I walked along the other side of the burn and for the most part the lade was dry enough to walk in. It has a high-sided sluice at the uphill end.There has been a drystane wall set back either side of the burn (though starting where I began on the farmward side only) all the way up to the dam then continuing over the other side of the dam all the way up to the next farm road. This dam has had at least one set of alterations, likely from the mill being taken out of commission. It is almost entirely of drystone construction. The burn sides are further apart than the present small stream, being mostly on the southern side i.e. away from the road. The middle section above the present stream has very straight edges and the water passes through a channel composed of three small slabs. Behind this section is a dam-high stone sluice with two attached vertical timbers ?2" square in cross-section. This is set back from the other side of the dam - probably because this is hollow internally. I walked along the top of this dam and on the
broadest section you step down for the space of a couple of yards. This is covered by roofing-type stone slabs (like rough thin paving slabs, used before the ones the size of large tiles and often seen in Orkney stacked vertically beside old buildings). At one end there has been a collapse and you can see inside the dam.
Labels: Bookan, Kockna-cumming, The Brecks, Tormiston, Wasbister
