Orcadian landscapes

NEWARK SLIP TO AIKERSKAILL August 31st 2011

Passing over the narrow strip of land seperating St. Andrew's from Deerness at the place where the first road arc gives way to the second on the RH side at the bend is the beginning of two minor roads, taking the right fork (Geo Road) takes you past Delday to the 'new' Newark jetty. Near the fork the remains on your left are of the 19thC farmhouse of Cellardyke [cellar=siller 'silver', as in Siller-a-geo, but could be named for the Fife village] with its barn. We got out at the tiny car park high up above the beach.

Everyone but me stepped gingerly over the rock formation down to the beach. I took the path instead until I came to a rivulet in full spate that brooked no crossing by only inches - the present 1:25,000 shows a ford here but the 1882 25" only shows a watery alembic shape appearing from nothing, no burn or wellspring to mark its start. Trowietown above post-dates the first O.S. and is a 'greenfield' site. The stream flows onto the beach, where it finally became passable by rushing it.

Catching up to the rest as Newark came into view I mentioned that Norse skelly-wegs had been found here. So it was decided to leave the beach and get up onto the track so as to avoid any possibility of seeing the human bones that not infrequently erode out of the cliff-face above the taing of Lee Hamar. I would have loved to find something myself but I am not sure that we could have continued safely over the rocks anyway. The track passes between the buildings that make up the present farm. Just past the ones on the south side are the archaeological remains of a "manor house" and a chapel, including what is described as a souterrain. Unfortunately since my last visit nature has rather taken over the site, so I think my fellow walkers were a little underwhelmed when I pointed it out. It is mostly below ground level and yet stands well, however vegetation now covers the floors and climbs half-way up the walls (whose tops blend into their surroundings a little too well now).
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained" I also pointed out the mound of Quoyburing 'broch enclosure' a.k.a. Howie o' Backland (Backland is the name given to the taing next to Lee Hamar, possibly evidence for greater erosion than currently known of from the Newark chapel - the old Work was perhaps located at the taing) that is split by a farmtrack from Skea to the shore, though this now mostly 'drain' above there. Even on it there is little to see. The biggest piece, and the tallest surviving part, is by the west side of the track. I assume that this is where the excavation of a 3m high wall took place and the broch tower stands. There is a ditch by the north side of this. As the site covers some 0.65 hectares outbuildings are suspected, and I would place these on that part near the east side of the track where there is a pool (though this lowering could always be due to earlier excavation).
I expected us to be going on to the Point of Ayre, but our itinerary was a circular route rather than the linear walk of other guides. And since my last visit a metal gate has been installed across the track by the end of the Aikerskaill Road to control entry to the last section of the latter. Beyond here there are the scant remains of an early mediaeval settlement at Howe Geo. On the 1882 map a very thin nearly N/S rectangle is drawn and a little further east an almost E/W aligned oblong enclosure. Alas the first is much destroyed and the second has become incorporated within the broad track (which surely came after). When I went I took no notice of a line of stones across the track. Then a few yards further on another turned the lightbulb on over my head, so I turned around and the building foundations were very then much evidence, though only one of the walls stood clearly still vertical and several courses high. I could make out the doorway and discern the interior. But could I do so still or has climate change exacted its toll of the stones, obscured by turf as with many another formerly visible site ? In which case even more underwhelming to those I wished to show it, so mebbe best left to my solitary investigations alas.

Instead our route turned left up Aikerskaill Road. Barely have you started on this than it feels as if the road has reared up in front of you like a wall of tarmac. Quite steep then. Once surmounted I realised that this led to Lighthouse, the last stop of the Deerness buses. Hadn't realised Lighthouse corner lay that near. Fortunately before then we turned right onto Quoys Road past Oback (when a 19thC cottage was demolished at Quoys in 1974 very strong evidence for a Norse settlement came to light). To me my first view of Oback looked like a typical old Orcadian school, or at least the building at the western end had that architectural look. In 1882 the track preceding the road went west only went as far as entering Oback, a track coming the other way stopping well short of Oback before both were joined to make the modern road. As I looke along the road I noticed a series of hills on the twilit horizon, drawing my attention. A must-have camera moment. We continued up to the junction with the road from Glenavon and then turned right again, back to Newark. Along the way we were much taken by the array of plants filling a garden fence and growing against it. One some of us felt we recognised, with many-fingered leaves most pleasant to gaze upon, but without flowers we could not put a name to it.

As we headed down the road I saw a large dun bird flying amongst the hollows and hillocks behind Newark. My first thought was whaup. Too dark a brown for curlew though, as though the bird had been dipped in various bark mulches is the best I can describe the plumage. And again the flight wasn't that upward whippoorwhill accompanied rise and long slow glide typical of a whaup. Instead it rose in short flights and then dropped down. Finally I realised this bird was a long-eared owl looking for prey and at last finding it. I have vague recollections that these undulating features covered a settlement. CANMAP only shows the chapel site but Canmore Mapping does have a record 'dot' in the right area. Unfortunately the beta does not have an info button to direct us to that road - I wonder if this could be the 'mystery' dig I was taken to in 1986, would be so good to finally put a name to it. There is a possible mound recorded near Little Cottage, and there are similar features to those behind Newark a little east of south of Little Cottage (in a smaller area though). Could all simply be buried dunes though.

After a slight detour I joined the rest of the party on the beach. The sea had well receded now and I scurried through left behind pools to reach the new tideline. To me this is always the best part of a beach, the limin of old tide and new, province of seabirds and scatty dogs and me (and the occasional shellfisherman oot for spoots [razorshells] ). The jetty is more complicated than I thought. My attempts to climb up it were thwarted by slippery seaweeds. As I went over to a corner I spotted hard into it a small arrangement of triangular stones that must have been put there for just such a predicament. Some followed in my steps whilst others crawled over the batter of the seawall flags. On the cliff there is an art installation comprising two pieces of old machinery. Their shadowed shapes brought to mind an antique Springer sewing machine.
Back in the minibus we decided to go ahead with a meal at the Quoyburray Inn over in Tankerness (close to the St Andrew's Community Centre and the 'Mine Howe road' - I am not sure Mine Howe is open even in the tourist season except by prior arrangement now if a tourist is correct). As evening meals had only just started we had the eating section to ourselves throughout. The cauliflower I found cooked right, neither turned to mush like mine often is or nor barely cooked as at the last place we had been. The windows here provide an unusual view as the inn is sunk into the ground behind so that their bottoms are level with the track.

Labels: Howe Geo, Howie o' Backland, Little Cottage, Newark Bay, Newark chapel, Oback, Quoyburing, Quoyburray Inn

Earl Paul's 'Palace'

Reading the Orkneyingasaga there is an hiatus between mention of the farm or farmstead and the mention of the drinking-hall et al. which looks to me as if they are seperate places, leaving the way open for a consideration of any number of places as the setting for the earl's p(a)lace and kirk. Only the farm needs to have a 'height' from which the island of Damsay could be seen. For now let us assume that the specified topography apart from this point does apply to the murder's locale.

Despite Pope's failure to find any native tradition for the site of Sweyn's murder, a scant few decades later Oback in Tuskerbister is named. Actually there are at least two Obacks north of Kirbister loch, that so named at present and the "old Oback" which the map Johnstone reproduces (with additions) calls only Oba.
The first of these is up at the top of a hill the other side of the former seasonal Loch of Lummagen from Kebro farm. It sits just below the track that goes to the Slack of Oback (the dale head) whence some said the killer fled to Firth. According to which map you peruse there was a quarry to one side or below the present Oback. Directly before reaching Oback there is a long low-ish mound running roughly E-W, centred at HY355107 in a narrow field trackside above. On the Kebro end there is exposed fragmented stone in an earth matrix. The mound presents the appearence of division and there are various small slabs in and on it. The Obak end dips sharply into a hollow. When describing the Oback site's similarity to the earl's place in Torfaeus perhaps the Rev.Liddell saw in this latter the vaulted cellar. Of course resemblance is not identity, and on my second visit I saw a shallow trench dug across for a small blue plastic pipe had revealed that (here at least) all that lies beneath the surface is homogenous dark clay (almost black).
Then in the valley below, down on the Burn of Skaill, is Oba. The ruined steading upstream of the trees has no seperate entry but is mentioned in connection with the supposed foundations (pointed out by a farmer one genration removed from the antiquarians time) of Tuskerbister chapel, HY31SW 7 at HY35481035, as being to their NE. The Ordnance Survey could find the platform but not the graveyard on the opposite bank. Neither did they find any trace of the "earl's palace and church". Which is hardly surprising as Omond specifically writes that this site lay above, but close to, old Oback, whereas the platform is downstream in the direction of the district's Skaill farm. Likely there has been a confusion between the kirk and burial place being on opposite banks and the earls "palace" having faced his church. Oba is tight to the NW corner of a long narrow field straddling the burn. This enclosure's odd shape is partly due to the burn's passage through it. From the north an unusual curved track comes down to where the burn cuts across the top of the field. There is a ford crossing the stream at this point. I haven't yet figured an easy way up the burn but on an image taken from Skaill farm I notice a probable mound upstream of Oba on the higher opposite bank.

At one time the Hillock of Breakna broch at Swanbister, HY30NE 13 at HY35330508, had been proposed as the earl's palace only for it to turn out that this had arisen by the changing of a map legend. And it is argued that there is not enogh space between here and the sea for the church. However erosion is a consideration, great chunks of coast disappearing in a single storm or landslide in Orkney. Always presuming that the rectangular structure subsequently built into the eastern side of the broch isn't, as often in these situations, the church itself. Which would still leave us missing a bu - Sweanabow farm way up near the top of the Swanbister road being merely common pasturage. The only (?traditional) church [and burial-ground] site was in an area to the west, HY30NE 12 at HY35151502. However the fact that said site is called the Cairns of Piggar does raise the possibilty of a suite of buildings having been there if this was indeed a kirk. In 1870 deer antlers were found in the vicinity.

Until the 19th century Bow farm consisted of three 'cottages' in a line closely set. Perhaps these are a development of the "magnificent building" in Torfaeus. In which case the great house would have been the drinking hall, making the south house the church's descendant. Or else the three structures comprise the bu farm and the church would have been in the region of the north kirkyard wall but downslope by the burn bank. On the other hand the association of the Bu of Orphir with an Earl's Bu, or more specifically with that place mentioned in connection with Sweyn Breistrop, only dates back to the speculation of Alexander Pope. As the farm of Bow it is more likely to have been land held in common, like Sweanabow but occuring in an area even more archaeologically dense. Similarly with the Round Church it was originally referred to as the Girth House, with no ecclesiastical connection - the tradition being that it had been an asylum. Grand though the Round Church is it may simply have been attached to a non-ecclesiastical establishment. Its being an occupied site gives a better reason for the accumulation of five feet of midden. Also I find it rather odd that the church road goes both south and north of the Bu churchyard, normally one would expect that the kirk itself at at the end of a church road rather than there being some kind of drive-around. Perhaps one branch went on to the church field at Gyre ?? It appears to me that the church road was not named for any kirk at the Bu of Orphir. Before striking up sharply for Bow farm this track bent down to a site at the western Bu boundary called Harproo 'head of the stream' , HY30SW 16 at HY332042, a traditional chapel site where stones and large bones were found. In 1980 north-south foundations were found in the right place, though this is being eroded where it meets the coast. The massive 136' wall Johnstone excavated actually ran under the north branch of the church road, and if this were the southern side of the Orkneyingasaga site's 'palace' I would have expected the chapel to have been closer to the present kirkyard wall than the Round Church is. If the asylum of tradition had been mediaeval then it would have been in charge of the clerics - could the excavated wall have belonged to, say, a monasterium ?

One option Johnstone mentioned is that the name Orphir originally only applied to the region around Houton, specifically the area about the tidal Holm of Houton, and that the Earl's Bu started there before the name was transferred to the present Bu of Orphir. If this had been the case then the question naturally arises as to which region had held the location of the earl's place mentioned in the Orkneyingasaga - no sense looking for architectural specifics if you are in the wrong place to begin with. Away from Houton terminal the coastal track runs west to a place where several mediaeval bronze bells were found (a late name for the Girth House has benn interpreted as a place of prayer - perhaps instead it was in plain language a bell-house). The site of the Kirkhouse chapel, HY30SW 7 Howton Head at HY31240359, is a mess of fences and vegetation, a roughly triangular piece of land set by the coast set a little below the general level of the land thereabouts. Such a shame that there is nothing above to correspond to the Earl's Palace. And present opinion is that the partially excavated wall doesn't look particularly ecclesiastical. Of course a kirk house need not neccessarily be a kirk, and what Johnstone's map shows here is labelled graves. Which reminds me that the famous Birsay bell was found in its very own cist amidst the cemetery uncovered at Saevar Howe, though that was no later than late Viking [a.k.a. early mediaeval].
A very short distance around from Kirkhouse are the Houton Head buildings, HY30SW 51at HY3113, which appear on the O.S as a couple of roofed buildings (though in 1882 an unroofed structure and an enclosure also appeared here). What I found were two unroofed structures in in a good to excellent state of preservation. The larger of these is set back into the hillside, with a series of wide slab steps from above come down by the western end and on to the shore. The wall facing the shore still stands to 2.2m, is 18.3m long and seems to have a break at 15.6m, presumably a doorway. This structures shorter sides are 6.5m and the interior is unfortunately filled up with vegetation. Within this at the eastern end is an even later mortared and dressed construction, a metre to a metre-and-a-half square, about 2.5m from the shoreside wall and with its base at the present wall top. To cap it off there is a metre high wall on the outside of the eastern end, 3.1 by 0.5m, standing at a lower level ~1.5m away. Into this a modern oven had found its niche. On the shore is a small concrete construction that may have been used to anchor a boat.
The second structure (roughly 15m from the western end of the larger one) is represented by further drystane walling that makes a highly curved wall corner 1.3m tall and 0.6m thick that is either part of a once larger structure or the bulk of ?planti-crue or ??well. The side facing the coast is only 2.3m long, but the other 'arm' then runs for at least another couple of metres on into thick vegetation. And it too appears, admittedly to untrained eyes, very post-mediaeval.
But the larger building apparently occupies an older site, for work to remedy bulging includes mediaval ecclesiastical stonework at the south-western corner (including a block with column) sitting on a wide flagstone plinth. Originally my theory had been that this material had been taken from the Kirkhouse site, but if that had not been the kirk it would seem to have been here. A reasonable assumption is that the body of this had succumbed to wave erosion leaving little to build on - either that or perhaps the foundations still lie beneath the present structure. If it shared anything like the footprint then it would have been most impressive. It was only recently that I looked at the early O.S. at a large enough magnification to spot that the two roofed buildings were offset from one another in such a way that the steps down to the shore would have been opposite the eastern end of the uphill building's eastern end, matching the respective locations given for the Earl's Place and church. I could not see any sign of the uphill structure from below, but I imagine that it was removed when the modern houses were built (I think the land above might be private and so forewent further solitary investigation) - perhaps some of the relics associated with Kirkhouse came from here ?? The Head of Houton up above could have been the farm mentioned in the Orkneyingasaga.

I have posted a few photos http://tech.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/circlesettler/photos

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EARL PAUL'S PLACE
"There was a large homestead (farm buildings) there ; it stood on the hill-side, and there was a height behind the houses (brekka 'oblong rising hillside'). From the top of the hill Aurridafiörd [Bay of Firth] may be seen on the other side... In Jórfiara [Orphir] there was a large drinking-hall ; the door was near the east gable on the southern wall, and a magnificent church was in front of the door ; and one had to go down to the church from the hall. On entering the hall one saw a large flat stone on the left hand [suggested to be a partition]... {the murder} There Magnus... accompanied him away behind the house, and into Aurrida Firth."
alternative rendering "on a hillside sloping down behind the buildings the hall, just a few paces down from it, stood a fine church"..
Orkneyingasaga
"There were at Orphir very magnificent buildings which stood on a rising ground ; behind the house there was a gentle declivity ; and at a distance above it the hill of Orphir... there was in these buildings a very large hall... In the south wall, and near the east corner, which joined the two sides of the court, there was a door, and before it a most magnificent temple [hof], to which they entered from the great hall by that back door, where you entered the court there was on the left hand a large vaulted cellar [there was an "underground chamber near Girth House of Orphir"], then you came to another door, and opposite it a drawing room."
"Ancient History of Orkney, Caithness and the North" by Thormodus Torfaeus, translated by Alexander Pope (W.Hiram Reid 1866)
"In the district of Tuskibister, at a place called Obak, resided several of the ancient Counts of Orphir; particularly Harold... and Paul... The situation is so circumstantially described by the Icelandic historian, as not to admit of a doubt; although, except an ancient chapel and burying ground, alluded to by the historian, scarce a vestige of the ruin remains."
"Parish of Orphir" by Rev. Mr.J.Liddell in "The Statistical Account of Scotland Vol XIX Orkney and Shetland" (1797)
"the ruins of Oback are close to the Burn of Skaill. A little above the farm, and near it... what is supposed to have been an earl's palace and church".
"The Parish : Its History" by James Omond in "The Book of Orphir" ed. by Reverend J.A.Stephen (1910)
"a building, known locally as a chapel... indicated... at HY 3548 1035 on the west bank of a burn and 50.0m.SW of a ruined croft [HY35511041]... the original "Oback"... no trace of ... burial-ground or ... residence of the "ancient counts"." . [but this 'chapel' is downhill of the steading]
NMRS HY31SE 7
BOW FARM AND EARL'S BU

"there is the site of chapel, called Harproo, at the head of the Hope of the Bu... Houton may have been the original Örfiara, and the Earl's Bu first erected there, and afterwards shifted to its present site, taking the name with it... The present Bú house stands to the north of the old site, and was built in the middle of the last century. Before that, the Bú was divided into three farms, with three cottages which stood end on from north to south along the east side of the present path from the public road to the churchyard gate, and named respectively the Nether, Muckle, and Synde Húses. The old church road... ran along the north and south sides of the yard wall, the north road going between the yard and the south end of the Synde Húse... There is a place at the shore called the kirkyard or Harproo ['stream-head' ?], where bones and large stones have turned up...The site of the Round Church and the old Bu is covered with debris, about five feet deep above the clay, on which latter the foundations are built... up till 1829... the old church road ran along outside the north wall of the churchyard, passing over the entire length of the wall now excavate"
"Round Church and Earl's Bu of Orphir" by Alfred W.Johnston (private printing Curtis & Beamish 1903)

"Recent examinations have shown that a large building (the north wall excavated measures 136 feet in length) has stood a little to rhe north of the Round Church. A doorway was found opposite to the old church in front of the present entrance to the churchyard."
"The Parish : Its History" by James Omond in "The Book of Orphir" ed. by Reverend J.A.Stephen (1910)

Labels: Bu, Houton, Oback, Orphir

1697
"There were at Orphir very magnificent buildings which stood on a rising ground ; behind the house there was a gentle declivity ; and at a distance above it the hill of Orphir... there was in these buildings a very large hall... In the south wall, and near the east corner, which joined the two sides of the court, there was a door, and before it a most magnificent temple [hof], to which they entered from the great hall by that back door, where you entered the court there was on the left hand a large vaulted cellar, then you came to another door, and opposite it a drawing room."
"Ancient History of Orkney, Caithness and the North" by Thormodus Torfaeus translated by Alexander Pope (W.Hiram Reid 1866)

The Orkneyingasaga relates that the ale was stored on the left-hand side of the drinking hall behind a large flat stone. It has been suggested that this stone formed a partition. Torfaeus describes the storage place as a large vaulted cellar. Putting these two observations together leads me to think that this is most likely to this area being a souterrain. In 1860 W.Kemp presented two items to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland from a weem close to the Girth House i.e. the Round Church [which had been used as an asylum]. The two items mentioned in the Proceedings are a three-inch stone ball quartered by crude grooved lines (presumably the possible grinder mentioned in "The Orkney Herald") and a four-inch circular stone with a square hole as if for a spindle. Or could these items have come from the Norse mill that prior to modern excavation was thought to be an earthhouse ?

There are two main problems with Oback in Tuskerbister as the area where Earl Paul's drinking hall lay. If Oba along the Burn of Skaill is it then where is the gentle declivity with the height behind, and if it is at the modern Oback (I imagine that the Loch of Lummagen once drained by there) the only height behind is that small slope to where the track from Kebro goes to the Hill of Lyradale. It has been objected that one cannot see the Bay of Firth from the top of the Hill of Lyradale. However this same fact AFAIK applies even more so to all the candidate hills (one should note that it is only the bay that is mentioned as being seen from the other side of the hill, not the island of Damsay itself, the latter being used for stage-setting). The most compelling reason is that this is not even a hall of Orphir, let alone The hill. But unlike anywhere else at least it had the tradition attached, so something else importantant had surely been in the Dale of Oback.
The association with the Bu of Orphir only dates back to 1758 when Alexander Pope, after his disappointment at finding no traditional location for the "earl's palace" (unlike that the author of the statistical account found a scant few decades later for Oback) discovered that large and very deep foundations had been found in digging for the Bow farm. The present Bú house dates from the mid-nineteenth century. Before the Bow consisted of three farms with three 'cottages', end on from north to south the Nether and Muckle and Synde Húses (a Bow being more generally land held in common, the croft system being an exceedingly late arrival to Orkney). From the illustration reproduced in Johnstone's book it would appear that the exposed site shown today as {probably} part of the Earl's Bu is the last of these, especially as the north church road ran between the south end of this Synde Húse and the kirkyard. The buildings shown are, at least outwardly, only seventeenth or eighteenth century. If built upon earlier foundations then this could have been the location for Torfaeus' magnificent buildings (though they sound even more similar to the Oback mentioned regarding the Battle of Summerdale, a fairly common setup), with the Muckle Húse as the drinking-hall/court. Unfortunately this would make the last house the earl's church, which seems a little unlikely. So maybe the church lay before the Synde Húse, a few paces down would take you nearer the burn. The way that the Girth House has been interpreted as the earl's church is to say that instead of being downslope going into the hill was meant. I would suggest that rather than the "earl's palace and church" this site was important as the location of the ferry after which the King's Ferry Road (i.e. the road from the old parish church pst Gyre through by the Bu to the Orphir road again - the safe haven of the Hope o' the Bu.
If the view of Aurridafiörd is an error then there are, one would imagine, several places that meet the other requirements. Regarding the etymology of Orphir it has been proposed that originally this applied to a far smaller than the parish. Specifically the region of Howton/Houton opposite Orfirasey, the Holm of Houton guarding Midland Haven Which would make the Orphir hill the Hill of Midland. For myself I would like to say that the earl's church as Kirkhouse (part of which appears a little further round the coast at HY31130347as part of the fabric of the Houton Head structures). This site (HY31240359) is definitely a few paces downslope but I can't see the Head of Houton being the hill of Orphir, alas, and there are no known structures above it anyway.

Labels: Bu, Houton, Oback

FINSTOWN TO ORPHIR September 28th 2007

Took the bus into Finstown, which was held up by road works almost exactly where I wanted to be. So rather than let it go that little bit further and then block the traffic again in order to disembark I simply got off while everyone was stuck in the jam. The Heddle Road starts beside the old church. This side of Heddle Hill it is reasonably steep, rather straight, and lined by posh-looking gaffs - like Wideford Hill transported to Poole in Dorset. Nearing the top I tried to see the Paerkeith mounds (HY31SE 13) which lie on the slope that starts behind the houses on the left, but the place always is so overgrown. Three of them are classed as tumuli and two of these may have had cists. Paerkeith sounds like a nob saying park heath and is either a piece of lost Orkney Norn or a very late non-Orkney name - it looks most peculiar and I can't get a handle on it from any dictionary in the Orkney Room. Looking over the valley is a place by the back road to Kirkwall where a small copse covers where a small burn (the Grip of Wheeling) reaches the road, and the Market Green tumuli (HY31SE 12 at HY364133) lay near either bank - it's a bit of a stretch but in Scots place-names pair can be 'tree'' and keith 'wood' ! Looking over towards the tomb the Heddle motorcycle track is rather fine now. Even though it is marked private I did for a brief second think about walking down the twisty turns, but thouht it unlikely I might see 'owt to justify the side trip. A large quarry occupies the top of the hill and there is an anomolous green mound at the back of it. I find it strange that it isn't mentioned at all, even if only to say it is purely natural or whatever. There is a record of arrowheads from somewhere on Heddle Hill. Aye, there's the rub, somewhere. Looking at the back of Cuween Hill you could swear that there is a stone circle, but a pair of binoculars reveals this as an old industrial site, several drystone pillars of varying heights, each apparently on its own miniscule hillock. On the LH again I see a low heather covered rise/mound with low shrubbery in what looks like an excavations scar. IIRC it is on CANMORE as a natural mound near Heddle Cottage. To help you find this piece close to is a short stretch of drystane fieldwall with a tall erect stone at right angles to end it. There is an old track heading south to Heddle Cottage, but there is another from a very minor crossroads further on. Take this one and you are looking in the direction of a Neolithic stettlement, below the south-east slope of Cuween Hill between Stoneyhall and Stonehall (normally you'd find at least a mile or so in Orkney between similar names, usually you would find a pair such as North/South or Nether/Upper). The other side of the cross roads a track goes from Turrieday to Ouraquoy, and between this track and Upper Springrose a BA cist called Torrieday was excavated by Hedges (HY31SE 31 at HY353127).
Along the SSW edge of the hill near here there is one of my 'standing stone fences', only just downhill of a 'modern' drystane wall, a ?structure {both composed of over-thin slabs (compared to the traditional)} and possible mounds. To the eye I saw three widely spaced stones, then the binoc's showed a fourth, and as I went along I saw the line continue to the 'end' of the hill as profiled against the sky. Not much above East Heddle an erect rectangular slab roadside has two modern bored holes. A bright catterpillar crawled down this, a dark body but having flashy go-faster stripes along the length. At the farm some poor building which would have looked bonnie once has been reduced to a large shell. Where the small burn widens approaching the buildings I make oot a fine small bridge across it. On the other side of the road a track goes to nowhere in particular. On the northern side the start is banked by flags, reminding me of the bank against the Loch of Lummagen, though this could be a slab fence from the Agricultural Improvements if it weren't so superfluous here below field level again. Going up we're back to seperate stones again. Topping the rise in front of me there was an odd tractor or excavator or summat. Though no-one was with it the land beyond being obviously under work there was likely nowt I could/should walk on. Turning back, near the start again I could see a large cavity in the bank. Close inspection provided no clues beyond that it seemed near field level. Most of the way along the walk my attention kept drawing to the The Hill of Lyradale, along the saddle top of which Svein Breistrop fled after the murder at the palace, and much later probably some of the south survivors of the Battle of Summersdale if tradition is correct in its ascription of remains found there to that. Along the lower slopes is a long bright scar like some horizontal landslide, whether natural or man-made I found impossible to tell even with aided sight.
After passing the Hall of Heddle my mind could not decide whether to reach the Germiston road via Appiehouse or take the'better' round round Park of Heddle. Deciding on the former route and taking a left turn I thought I vaguely recognised the place I saw approaching me. Then it dawned me I had turned to Scuan [Scowan on the 1882 map, which aptly appears to signify 'fragment'], which meant I'd gone the full Heddle Road instead, at one-and-a-half hours. No peafowl this time. Between here and the Park of Heddle used to be called The Moss. Just north of the Burn of Heddle by the field edge on the 1:25,000 that runs southward below below the beginning of the quarry legend relating to Mid House the first O.S. shows a cairn (about HY33841263) that is presumably gone as I see it listed nowhere (not even the 1946 Inventory).. So, the Germiston road yet again. Down the road East and West Nistaben do not appear on the 1st O.S., but the name Nistaven is shown for this area [which could well mean that Marwick's theory this name is equivalent to Nisthouse is in error, and where Eastaben appears was only Hivel then ]. The farm where I saw the friendly dogs is Nisthouse. An adjoining house bears the name Lower Nisthouse, which shows placename evolution at work as Upper Nisthouse was in the nineteenth century called Queenonla.
On the 1882 map the 'new' Garmiston road is missing a section from the field edge south of Upper Nisthouse down as far as the Fea-Kebro crossroads. Coming down on the west side of the road the next obvious thing is a dumping-place beside this, a couple of pieces of old agricultural machinery and several dumps of large slabs etcetera (you could scarce call them cairns yet). At the end furthest from the road you might make out a green mound. I hadn't realised it at the time, though I felt it sus, but this is one of the actual Summerdale mounds. Actualy as far as information goes this is the most important as having been excavated in modern times, producing a short cist and an inhumation before being filled in again. This BA barrow had been re-used for the later burial, apparent confirmation of the tradition that the slain from the Battle of Summerdale had been buried here even though those particular times had not seen the mounds being raised. According to the NMRS all these were on a ridge, though this is none too obvious. The other mounds are downhill and close to the southern edge of the field. Even the surviving ones stand fairly low now.
Over this fence and up by the road is the stone (HY34831058) I take to be the Moss of Bigswald marker (traditionally for one of the Caithnessmen's leaders). Of course it has been heavily modified for other purposes since. For now I avoided the temptation to go back to enter the field and contented myself creeping as close to the verge edge as possible for an overlook. Teetering on the edge I could see that at some time in the recent past a top portion has been removed, the broken top lit up with bright lichen. Near ground level over half the length of the broad face is a big rectangular depression with two bored diagonal holes, probably resulting from the large rectangular holding plate of a fairly hefty wooden fieldgate. Above this the stone has a ?bevelled shoulder. Looking 45º at the stone reveals that from the depression to the other edge of the broad face the stone is scalloped through the whole height. Several smaller stones lay about it, some of which could represent a stone socket or othostats. Unfortunately there has been some engineering here, in the few feet between it and the road a short pillar of material with a small yellow painted metal enclosure on top. Though now the stone looks like it is in a hollow it seems likely the road was raised greatly to reach its present level. And indeed when I walked back a bit and looked along the field edge it did look to be marking the base of the dumping-ground.
Starting up the farm-road to Kebro on the left are where the tumuli were. The NMRS also shows a steading from the old O.S. they think is Tuskerbister in the same field [I suppose I could be wrong and 1882 Kebrow is instead X+row 'head of land']. Myself I think this Tushabist lay nearer the road, for here the land has obviously been levelled to make a platform overlooking the road. The 1882 map shows a single rectangular feature, which on the 1903 O.S. appears in greater detail as several objects adjoining. It could well be that this signifies a new place evolving if it were not for the fact that the second map shows all the tracks (etc.) missing off the first. Noticing these differences I realise I need to research both maps in future, as with a place like Orkney the recognisation of features is heavily dependent upon which season the map-makers went and also on longer fluctuations in the water table. Anyways, neither map shows the Loch of Lummagen (HY353107 for the piece that I was on, the southern edge). Today the former loch bed didn't quake underfoot - mindst you I avoided the worst bit this time. By the back fence were a few small mounds of about man height, grassy mounds showing plentiful black peat as if a huge shovel had dug in and uprooted great lumps like upturned turves. In the one I walked up to there were quite a few smallish flat stones on and protruding from the southern face. Round the back a few small slabs stood projecting proud near the top like orthostats. Though I can't see these mounds as having originally been on the loch bed and the peaty structure has been (if I am right) heavily interfered with I find the contrast between 'front' and 'back' interesting and the upright slabs intriguing.
From here I went to the long low 'mound' (a narrow enclosure running roughly E-W and centred at HY355107, before but above Oback) with the big hollow at the far end. This time I kept clear of the peerie pony in order to avoid losing any more of my accoutrements, as last time after failed attempts at my jacket this lonesome but aggressively hungry creature had taken a nibble out of my bag ! Since my last visit a shallow trench had been dug across for a small blue plastic pipe, which revealed that (here at least) all that lies beneath the surface is homogenous dark clay. Which is probably a curious find for a geologist but appears to sink my idea that this might have been the original Oback where the Earl of Caithness got his. Equally, except perhaps for the hollow, this cannot be the quarry shown about here on one map (and down by present Oback on another - ah, mystery) that produced a great hefty stone-smasher of a boulder.
From the Kebro farm-road I had finally spotted down on the Burn of Skaill where what the NMRS refers to as old Oback (upstream of the trees) in reference to where the presumed Tuskerbister chapel lay. I could not be sure, though, whether I looked upon the steading or the curving wall (or track ?) at HY35591045 above this, or both. On the map I had looked at the way down seemed easy but I couldn't tell it on the ground. Instead I went back to the main road. On the way I stopped to talk to the old farmer, who had been engaged in putting manure in a newly enclosed field. He told me that John Slater of Tormiston (the Slaters had owned Oback at the time of Hamarscoo), deceased, had related to him that as a boy he had regularly played at the Loch of Lummagen. This changed overnight ; one day he played by the edge and the very next day the loch had drained completely away. Apparently even now there is a piece behind Kebro that rapidly fills up when there is rain, only to drain away in a few short hours - this pool is shown on an earlier map even though Lummagen appears on none ! I suspect something similar lies behind the name Hole o' Pow. He told me that all the slabs I saw had been (bedrock) dumped on the lochbed when they were constructing the large square shed. If you look between the previous loch and Kebro you see a piece of rising ground, and the farmer informed me that before there were fences the womenfolk used a public right of way here to go to the Stenness kirk. It strikes me that this must also have been the path taken by Sweyn Breistrop after he had slain Svein Asleifson. Look over the main road and follow the farmroad though Fea and a vivid line continues along the side of the hill though on below the modern reservoir and round to Orphir proper. To my mind this had also been part of his route, much more direct than going by the Loch of Kirbister as retailed by others.
What I think of as the Skaill cist appears on CANMAP in the field by the junction south of the Fea farmtrack : NMRS record no. HY31SE 11 is for an E/W aligned short cist, held together by red clay from elsewhere, containing a child's skeleton. But the Skaill cist is shown on the wrong side of the road for that recalled by Omond as it came from the south-west side of the field north of the farmhouse. Further down this side "The Book of Orphir" also reports that south of Skaill building traces had been likened to a churchyard. However, the associated relics were copious burnt bones & ashes and a couple of polished stone celts (axes), bespeaking an earlier period.
From Skaill I had a good look up the burn at 'old Oback' (more simply Oba on Johnstone's map), except the perspective jumbled everything together. The NMRS for the 'Tuskerbister chapel' relates this to a platform shown to the O.S. by the farmer of Skaill back in the 60's. This is south-west of the steading, the second field along. It is no wonder therefore that they found no sign of the "earl's palace and church" as Omond specifically writes that this site lies above old Oback i.e. still "close to" but the other direction. The steading field is long and fairly narrow, with the structure shown tight to its NW corner above the burn. The Burn of Skaill runs just above centre and at the top end cuts across the field, where the track or whatever curves around and over it using a ford. With a ford present why not a straight track to it. Did the supposed site exist in this field or further. Unfortunately if any of the various Obacks had been the earl's place in the Orkneyingasaga then Torfaeus "hill of Orphir" would not be the current Orphir Hills but the Hill of Lyradale on the other side of the Hobbister-Hobbister valley [strange there is an Hobbister either end, the Orphir one being Upper and Lower Howbuster in Johnstone]. Could someone have mistaken the location oback 'beside the burn' for a placename, in which case the Bow of Orphair back in the running ? Next time I am at Skaill I must look for the stone an early map marks at the north side of the road by Skaill (not the b.m. t'other side o't' road).
On the other side of the road from the CANMAP site for the two Hamarscoo cists is the place where I saw the wellspring and I think the topography lends itself to the name being Hamarsgeo 'the ravine with projecting rocks' (or perhaps another nearby). The 1887 newspaper account says the finds were made on the land of Hemiscue rather than a Hemiscue field strongly indicates an area previously including that to the east of the road. Puzzlingly A.W.Johnstone on a map shows the Skaill cist as the "Themiscue stone cist", and though the two stone axes from the site south of Skaill came into Cursiter's possession these look to show in the Hunterian's J.W.Cursiter collection with the name Hemiscue against them. Exactly how many of these sites came under the Oback finder of the cists- was Hemiscue was the name of a region not any particular field ? Of course Johnstone's map also shows the Grey Stone as between the mill road and the main road (abouthands of the gravel pit) rather than just below the main road, as 'stone' only, on the 1903 map - alas neither position has a stone on the first O.S. So frustrating.
Passing the northern end of Kirbister loch I saw a large line of geese strung out across the waters near to me. So I approached softly, softly. Still the geese must have spotted me as the closer I came the further they arced away from the nearby shore until they lined the far one. Had a look at the two holms (grassy islets) but my only additional note is that the shore opposite the Holm of Groundwater from my viewpoint has a coastline resembling a section through a big low profile mound. Though the stones at its base have been read as this holm being artificial the Battle of Summerdale traditions could be read as meaning this is the natural loch bottom. Nearing the main Orphir road I struck off SW at Newhouse up the track of the old {Waulk]mill road to join the main road. I continued on through Orphir village past Cairnton and then sat down by the traffic sign until the Kirkwall bus from Houton came. Which cairn and what how, who knows when and why ;-)

Labels: Hamarscoo, Hemiscue, Oback, Summerdale