Sunday, October 07, 2012
AROUND THE GARSON SHORE AND OVER BRUNA FEA September 15th 2012
Now that they have the go-ahead for the new Stromness pier I thought it time to re-visit the (at latest) Early Iron Age remains of Quoyelsh in case the approach to the point became blocked by this development, at least while it is being made, and fortunately this day the low tide fell during the day (though not as low as when I walked the shore al the way from the Bridge of Waithe). It has been a while since I have been to the Hamna Voe, and the building works at the head of the inlet are far advanced. The way I wanted to go said Building Site Only so I retraced my steps and found another way in. I took a chance on this and it is only when almost at the new path that I finally saw a notice that you could still use this whilst construction continued - it would only have served a purpose if stuck at the perimeter gates ! Coming round the bend I partly used the tarmac and grassy paths and partly the low grassy cliff beside it. You can get down onto the shore at a couple of places, but when you reach Copland's Dock either you cross a slippery stretch where a very shallow stream outflows or you go back through the dock. What from a distance looks like a ruined pier is the line of the White House Rocks, which form a short breakwater. The old dock hasn't been used in a very long time and now presents as an enclosure surrounded by high brownstone walls, on the spot formerly occupied by the White House of Pirate Gow Fame (though there is another over in the town of Stromness that came to replace Cairston as the chief area of the parish. Garson is the present phonetic name of Cairston, 'cairns tunship' named for all the mounds in the locality, the best known being the fully excavated and partially dug brochs. The dock interior is covered with grass but there are perhaps ruins of internal structures underfoot so you stick to the walls pretty much. Against the east wall is the only upstanding structure, a drystane fireplace. Not your typical hearth, what with small refectory bricks and and rusty iron plate supporting a large 'lintel' over the entrance. It is difficult to work out what purpose it served though it does seem more industrial than what you would think belongs in a dockyard - would be nice if it occupied the place of a fire in White House but seems unlikely. I'm more certain that the gates and walls could have come from back then. One odd feature in the wall itself is a long rectangular gap near the base that has been blocked up with several courses of thin slabs and has a wooden 'lintel' above.
Despite low tide the seaweed rendered the beach an awkward route from here, and so I followed the track to the western tip of the Bay of Navershaw - the Point of Quoyelsh. What I hadn't observed before was that there is a small low mound on the broader part of the headland - probably to intent on looking for a rise where the Iron Age settlement is revealed in the cliff-face (though what is thought by the discoverer to be a corner resembles a cell rather). The pottery evidence found is possibly even Bronze Age, the mound is surrounded by damp ground so perhaps a teenie burnt mound ?? The whole cliff top on the western side looks suspiciously level to me. I think the term is lens. Let your eyes travel right and a stoney half-circle in some turf below the clifftop is all that can be seen of the Quoyelsh site (though later I find one isolated lichen covered stone on the surface just back from the edge here, though this may be simply lying there). It is definitely a built feature, but even I had to confirm with the archaeologist that this was it ! There are narrow courses, kind of, but these aren't all that even and consist of every kind of non-circular stone like the worst conceivable drystane dyke precursor. Perhaps it represents a deep platform rather than a standing wall. Something else new is a three-lobed stone just below the clifftop abouthands of where the headland starts, with its back to the cliff-face. But when I eventually manage a decent look I see modern graffiti and my hopes are dashed - found object or brought here to show off, no context as they say. Near the point I carefully make my way down. I need to have slides and (by my 'stills' camera) video to add to what I took last time. Oh, darn that seaweed... and the slippery rocks... and the howling wind. I' not sure I didn't feel safer up on the rocky surface up in front of the 'site', even with that gale tugging at me. Strangely enough the site seems stable as it is, because the thin slab sticking ot on its own at forty-five degrees is unmoved a whole two years later. There may be further archaeology nearer the actual point but it is only a few scattered stones apart from a long white stone below at shore level that could be part of a moulded ?floor (or merely an outcrop - forget its place again, must do better). Couldn't get to the site's left and so eventually went up top again. Headed straight for the peedie mound, very squishy ground away from the cliff. Actually much of the apparent height is grass, a vertically enhancing 'cropmark', so there is probably depth to whatever it is.
Leaving the Point of Quoyelsh to look for another Iron Age site near the eastern tip of the Bay of Navershaw the way between fieldwall and clifftop soon narrows. Shortly after the fieldwall ends I find myself crossing what seems to be a very short bridge. A little further on the track disappears entirely and I am forced to retrace my steps virtually all the way back to the point before I can go onto the shore and continue. I find that the 'bridge' goes over a tall narrow hollow and I remember my previous walk along this coast seeing what I took for a small cave. I had no time to investigate then but this is by it. I can see that that fieldwall end over to my left is matched by another to my right. The assumption is that the stonework is from a wallbase from these two continuing and meeting. But for one there was no sign either visually or underfoot of any such fieldwall. And for another the bridging stonework is far too good for any drystane dyke I am familiar with - six shallow courses filling a small hollow and set back into the earth with a perfectly flat face. And there is no wall surviving at ground level. Curious.
To find Dave's other site (NMRS record HY20NE 4 near the northernmost part of the bay, at HY268092 about halfway towards Bu Point). As well as pottery and a midden signs of structures are described as five single-face walls in the side of the cliff. I decide to hug the coastline in case I see anything for myself. Where the clffs come down the shore is a visited beach at times, but not quite that now. At the shoreline there is a broad swathe of low carpeting vegetation, Beneath which there may be stones, though my feet didn't say whether natural or man-made of course. Across this section there is a long patch of darker brown forming a shelf in the 'cliff'. My brain says breccia but I questioned this - looked like compressed seaweed but I hoped for archaeology of course. Went closer and touched it. A slightly less than hard matrix with a few stones. Much later my second-guessing mind was proved wrong when I found online pictures of breccia. When the cliffs rose again I still hadn't found the 'Garson' Settlement. But a) I could no longer see the fences to place myself [though I suspect it is close], and b) my way on was blocked by the sea on this occasion. And so I clambered up to the field's edge and tried to work out the way the people I saw last time came down because I know it exists. My hopes lay eastward. Along the edge there is no crop and the NW corner even the wild vegetation is sodden. Between this and the next field a broad drain empties over the shore, however surely if the marshy area is merely overflow the farmer would have tried to stem it ? Across the drain a path does come toward the shore but looks to stop short and there is barbwire at the coast. Tried going up the field's eastern edge but the footpath here stops at the top and I see no gate for folk coming from Garson way to use and turn back.
Approaching from this direction the Quoyelsh site seems to be the northern bump of a saucer-shaped depression whose other side is at the headland point itself (where threadbare possible archaeology needs the leap of faith). Much later I find a webpage on the geology at the Point of Quoyelsh that shows this being where the Lower Stromness Flagstones give way to breccia, into which a felsite outcrop intrudes from the point (the outcrop being the fully exposed rocks at the end) - see http://www.landforms.eu/orkney/Geology/Basement/basement%20Quoyelsh%20Felsite.htm . Maybe not a coincidence that the site is at this landform, as tools were made from felsite. Ventured down again and took some more photos. The site has a rock shelf, and if it hadn't been blowing a gale I might well have tried to get to this from the cliff as I did at the Knowe of Verron in Sandwick. No, no, not this day. Starting off again I saw the tide at low ebb allowing a 4X4 to make its way from Inner Holm onto the mainland. I am fairly sure that the new pier's architects will not have done modelling with a tank to see what effect this will have on the coast here and wouldn't be surprised to see a build up of material joining Inner Holm to Cairston on a more permanent basis (for the first time since prehistory I would hazard).
I went back through Copland's Dock and then turned left up the broad farmtrack to the new estate. I must say this has boomed since my last time there when all the houses were by the coastline. And now the industrial side of Garson has filled up, it now has a specialised Park like Haston Industrial Estate. Walking between this and the elevated housing estate I could have been in any town down south [specifically it reminded me of a road in Bury St. Edmunds I used to walk].
Had thought about a walk through Stromness but researching walks for the Blide's Out and About I realised that whilst I had lived at Garson I had never been on the track that goes from the Howe Road to the main Kirkwall- Stromness road. So at the road bridge over the mill burn I turned left onto the Howe Road and strode uphill. Up above me below the track a large cut in the hillside looked awfu' bonnie in the sun, the long disused Maraquoy quarry topped with bright flowers. I have a thing about grassy tracks and love to photograph them when they present themselves just right, and this one hit in several places. It passes over the highest point of Bruna Fea and there is a mast here enclosed by a steel fence with the other repeater station gubbins. This is a gae exposed spot and the winds were even stronger than down off the coast. The gale wasn't content to just pluck at me but buffeted my whole body. Invigorating. From here you can see the whole of the town of Stromness laid out before you. This will be a grand vista to photograph when the air clears ! That was to my left. Looking straight along the track to the Quholmslie area there is amongst the modern buildings a nice old brownstone farmstead, now fallen into decay, that I have seen atop a hill when going to the Stromness Loons. From there it is more isolated. This is Viewfield ( HY21SE 77 at HY25681104). On the first 6" O.S. this is shown as two buildings (one still roofed) in an enclosure, but on the present 1:10,000 as only a roofed building. I think the phrase is 'economical with the truth' as it is all obviously still there - I think maps nowadays can tend to simplify what is seen, as I have seen a very similar thing with a site by Saviskaill on Rousay (though PASTMAP shows the reality near enough). Coming down the other side of Bruna Fea I gazed down on Cairston Mill (Millhouse) and up the Burn of Sunardee millstream to Stairwaddy (whose first element 'rocky' appears as steiro in two broch names) and the wide weir before it. On reaching the main road from Rosgar I considered going across onto the road to Sandwick for closer shots of Viewfield. However I felt the bad weather closing in again and so turned right to precede the next bus, which caught up to me when almost at Deepdale. Safe but wet in myself (from the heat) and my claes (from the heavy rain).
Labels: breccia, Bruna Fea, Burn of Sunardee, Cairston, Copland's Dock, Garson, Inner Holm, Iron Age settlement, Maraquoy, mill, Pirate Gow, Quoyelsh, White House
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
HOUTON-ONSTON-BRODGAR JUNE 24th 2010
Took the bus to Houton, which backs up opposite the lodge. Leaving the new ferry pier behind I decide to have another peek at the nausts down this side of the next pier. They still haul boats here and I see there is an exceedingly narrow path twisting down the bank a couple of metres high, so take myself down for more photos. The boat nousts are a mix of drystone walling and small and lengthy blocks. Don't know if this is handsome mishmash is the result of repairs or differing strengths needed. Certainly their origins lie before the old pier, as on the large-scale map the naust nearer to the pier shows as half lopped-off. Indeed though there may be more of it under the vegetation all you can see is a doubling of the wall with the remaining complete one. Close by the latter is a boatshed with two runners down to the sea, though it seems to be out of use as the doors' red paint is thoroughly fragmented.
Did think about taking the Scorradale road only to consider it a hill too far that day. So back up the ferry road and then left to the Clowally turn. Along the way I see two close steadings being demolished. If a replacement is being built I hope it will have suitably Orcadian features, not some wood monstosum that even on the mainland wouldna pass for traditional (come to that why do some drystane walls nowadays get Englished when re-built, this ain't The Peaks). At the rear of the large agricultural buildings Clowally has various lumps and bumps with stones sticking oot, including a big one, and even the O.S. shows no quaries this side. Perhaps a clue comes from its being named for a very old trackway going up to the ridge, according to Hugh Marwick's informant ("Orkney Farm Names" [sorely in need of a reprint and some sort of update, incomers would buy it in droves to name their new builds for instance]). Over from Clowally is the track I came up last time, likely part of said track (and possibly once going to Head Of Houton and the original kirk).
Continuing I came to an old dwelling on my left which I wrongly assumed to be Coubister as this was much further along the road. My error arises because I am terrible at gauging distances from maps- every time that I come this way my brain says Sower is just over the hill from Clowally [I am interested in the Castle, Hillock of Hoorse-ha (most likely not Broch Age but a smaller version of whatever lies beneath The Cairns in Eyrland, further towards Waithe)]. This site is Park Cottage at HY31140457, though it seems probable to me the cottage designation is late as it is evident that the present road has prevented its proper development. For what we have are three sections going diagonally up the hillside, each on its own level, though the furthest one has two windows and is the only one with chimneys too [a chimbley either end in fact] and behind it a wall is built back against the hill. The structure nearest the road has remained in use longest as it has a woodbeam and corrugated iron roof, whereas the other two stll have the remains of large slab roofing (small slab roofs are later). The middle section has been two features/structures as there is a vertical 'line' down the side - the first half has a stoop before the doorway and the second has a lintelled square/rectangular hole at the bottom next to the far end. Most of this is in the photos from roadside as I saw no near entry point for the field to proceed further this time. N.B. as elsewhere in Orkney "park" in the mediaeval sense, as in well parks or the parks of Scapa
At one point I fancied there were archaeologists up near the hill ridge looking fer summat as there were two or three big vehicles in what looked an out of the way place. Either that or perhaps a field studies group. Anyway they seemed to disperse sharpish as I watched so probably neither. Shortly after the northern end of the Scorradale road a gentleman who was trying a new way back fron a Renault dealer offered me a lift. I had refused an earlier offer (when the weather is fine a car interior can be fiercesome hot to the walker) and, realising higher powers were at work, got in. Went as far as the smithy junction before the Brig o' Waithe.
The tide being about to turn I did briefly consider that shore walk to Stromness again. Need to look at Quoyelsh again as last time what I thought to be a natural rock line at shore level showed up very artificial on the photo I took of something [probably] else. From the far end I then saw that at the very least this comprises a flat narrow rectilinear face from which the stone swept back in an arc and having rectangular forms at the other, which would mean this is the structure Marwick saw. Two options, that from this wall the building goes to the Point or that it comes to the shore - a very faint third possibily is that this is actually a collapsed vertical. Dave Lynn was wondering about the origins of the name Quoyelsh and my initial thought was the meaning for Elsness. Here the first element is thought to refer either to cramp (vitreous material, usually cinerary) or a cave. Of course with the Vikings this could be a kening i.e. it may have meant both. However, from my researches in The Orkney Room in this case the element appears to be the dialect word for an awl, thus referring to the Point itself. Still too close to high tide for a repeat walk. So I did something as it turned out equally daft.
Decided to attempt reaching the Cummi Ness sites from the north. So headed back towards Orphir, stopping a liittle short of Vasmire where on the west side of the road there is a [?track-turned-] drain runs to the shore by the side of the first fence I encountered. Made my way carefully as near the shore third 'burn' disappears below tallish vegetation. So continued down to the shore. This is composed of turf with watery channels running through and about, rather dodgy stuff. Almost the first thing that happened was my foot slipped in between. I fell forward, and whilst one hand sunk into the grass the other buried itself in one of the myriad potholes. A few metres further on my walking shoe went whoosh down a covered hole and the grungy water soaked onto my foot (fortunately not the one whose ankle I had twisted recently). From hereon in I went exceedingly careful. But after about 250m a real burn finally defeated me, so not even as far as Harbasue, let alone Dead Sand. At least from here I could see that the low mound where an aerial photo has the Cummi Ness cropmarks there is a similar one close to. I would say this is Gorrie's house as distinct from Gorrie's Knowe, though rather than being to do with a?Viking called Gorrie it strikes me as a variant of the placenaname Gyre/Gears (referring, then, to the triangular ness). From further photos the ness itself might not be so bad if you only approach it from the north by way of the broch as I originally thought. At least I tried. Decided not to risk going back via the drain but go to the bridge along the shore as much as possible. Only another 300m, so 850m in all ! At least there were small pieces of more pasture-like grass to my grand hopscotch now. Of that three hundred the first O.S. shows a path above high tide mark from where I had come down then turning back onto land after passing between an irregular tapering feature [? pond] about 20m long by roughly 3m wide and a much peedier version, from which another 100m to main road. There's probably some interesting stuff this side as from a very cursory inspection the tiny channels in one spot held fragments of a decorated dinner set [19thC perhaps] and in another a beer bottle, date unknown. Tide brought ?? Darn dodgy even with the right footwear. And then I had to climb up at the bridge as new fences stopped me going up any further from the shore.
Went to Unstan tomb again as I only have a slightly shaky picture of the bird on the lintel of the west chamber. Seem to be more graffiti than on the occasion I shot that. Though there is no mention of it in the 1884 papers there is plenty of evidence for such observational 'failures' of more famous sites even in recent times [and straightforward omissions]. If it weren't for the fact that this had been an unopened mound one would be thinking in terms of Pictish art. The neck seems short and the beak rather stubby for a loom (Great Northern Diver) or a scarf (cormorant). The neck might suit some geese, especially as there is a knob/Neb at the back of the beak. But the knobby beak aside a duck might be a better suit. Ah, skeldro 'sheldrake'. Evidence of its age is the wavy diagonal line that respects the bird instead of crossing it - perhap the lintel engraving had been intended as part of a larger scene.
I came to Brodgar the day before end of dig, as though they have made lovely discoveries on last days much will be be going back under black plastic early on the day. The 'shack' that is Bridgend had two workmen on top painting the roof brightly (but eventually abandoned the last corner for the day because of the rain later).
Past Bridgend went around the back of the Kokna-Cumming mound to come upon the Lesser Wall of Brodgar from behind by a gentler slope. Glad they have realised that this is a late feature as otherwise what would one make of the Brodgar standing stone pair straddling its view eastwards and the tomb outside its supposed remit. To me the point of it is to face the Staneyhill Tomb - I forget what they call it in political science but it is like gardeners "borrowing a view" by bringing a further vista into the visitor's eyeline. What does this mean for the hypothesis that the Greater Wall of Brodgar was meant to form a northern boundary to the whole Ness assemblage ? It doesn't seem to have any similar alignment [and perhaps too thick to find a statistically valid one anyhow] but is it equally late, performing a non-liminal function yet to be identified. At the bottom of the Lesser Wall's southern side there is now a pavement just under the level of the Wall base by the remains of what is to my eye another wall at a slight angle to the later Wall. Near the bottom of the Wall it looks to me as if there are what is left of two cruder walls parallel to one another over and at right angles to my putative earlier wall, and hence
the pavement below. To my dismay the area of trench behind the Wall has still not been dug below the level of its top. Probably a "health and safety" thing. Here there are two arcs of collapsed wall, perhaps an inner and outer section. Not that this necessarily means one or both had not been straight when still standing. Oh, I can barely wait for their investigation. And then maybe sometime they can go down to the Wall base here to see if the Lesser Wall might be part of some other structure yet.
On to the main Ness of Brodgar site a bit of height not only gains you perspective but also frees you of photographing beige stone against beige stone and having to decipher it later ! First up is the new to this season next-to-roadside observation platform with a long ramp for wheelchair access. Then there are the large spoil heaps by the northern and western sides, as long as you don't mind the shifting soil underfoot in places. The space between Lochview and the dig is too smaa for anything but a photographic tower for the bosses, and Joe Public can't use that. I thought that I hadn't been on the tower at the Howe of Howe but my memory plas me fause and I indeed took several shots from it. It amazes me that at first glance the site looks practically the same as last time. Up on the platform on this side of the site the bulk is taken up by Structure 10 on your left with its, ahem, standing stone. No work is ongoing in the 'cathedral' now. In front of the platform's near end Structure 8 is divine. Along the western edge are what I see as three sub-square interior cells but on plan I see are duplicated on the opposite side, forming two rectangular and one long oval sub-divisions of the whole. This is basically how it has looked since last year. But on my third visit of the season exterior to the northern wall at the trenches edge are (I think) three small strucures that make you think of mini-roundhouses. All this mixing of linear and circular or sub-circular forms throughout the site strike me as less a striving for a practical form [and/or effective ritual space] and more the search for an artistic vision, squaring the circle to put the art into architecture. Very nice, whatever. Next is the small Structure 7, pinned between 8 and the Structure 1+9 combo.
The latter can be seen from the first spoil heap. This is where I start. Today the weather lashed down from Lyde whilst I stood on top. Reminded me of the time when three seperate thunderstorms converged on Howe and I eventually went in to leave supervisor Stephen solitary like a tall lightning rod before he was finally ordered in. Up here the first thing you spot is a large circular wall arc [?9 - the structure plan on Orkneyjar is from the season's start] in front of which work has been going on in a linear structure apparently leading up and terminating before it with what I take to be either the wide facade of a forecourt or two flanking ?guard-cells. Looking left from this by the edge of the trench is a short length of low parallel orthostats that catch my eye but have been left behind for now.
From the top of the next spoil heap is a clear view of Structure 1, a large structure (oval or semi figure-of-eight) with rectangular niches or cells scattered along the interior edge. These are formed by the drystane walling (but multi-coloured) and tall thin orthostats. Near the trench edge to the right a double wall or pair of walls with pavement between them is nicely exposed. At the far end of the mound I look south to Structure 12, a large clean-looking oval with a couple of long cells. On my previous visit I only noticed the one nearest the spoil heap after I got back from an image taken near Lochview. That nearest the road looked as if someone had taken the Great Wall of Brodgar and removed the flesh to leave a rectangular skin.
The space between 12 and 10, or in 10, has three or four standing stones. I think they are roughly in a square. It is remarkable how many odd stones are scattered about the site, different in colour (red makes a change from beige) or shape (proper looking standing stones or blocky forms mostly). Not too much rhyme or reason for the most part, so I am thinking this is just a monumental version of picking up a pebble on a beach and taking it home.
All the above is only how I have this eclectic site in my mind's eye. Carefully as they excavate still there are different stages in any season's dig, structure's co-mingle and turn out to be part of other's. During an extended period of experimentation you can't even sort features out by materials used. And any single structure can be such a glorious mix of drystane walls, slabs, orthostats and standing stones, along with what I might call exhibition pieces.
By the time I am done with all three cameras there are still twenty minutes until the next tour and I give a moment's thought to tagging along for the display of new finds at its end. You are never sure what will be displayed or whether you will be able to take piccies, the latter depends on the group more than the presenter. When you're feeling faint walking is better than standing, for the former is merely a controlled fall biologically speaking. So straight on to Tormiston and the bus home.
Took the bus to Houton, which backs up opposite the lodge. Leaving the new ferry pier behind I decide to have another peek at the nausts down this side of the next pier. They still haul boats here and I see there is an exceedingly narrow path twisting down the bank a couple of metres high, so take myself down for more photos. The boat nousts are a mix of drystone walling and small and lengthy blocks. Don't know if this is handsome mishmash is the result of repairs or differing strengths needed. Certainly their origins lie before the old pier, as on the large-scale map the naust nearer to the pier shows as half lopped-off. Indeed though there may be more of it under the vegetation all you can see is a doubling of the wall with the remaining complete one. Close by the latter is a boatshed with two runners down to the sea, though it seems to be out of use as the doors' red paint is thoroughly fragmented.
Did think about taking the Scorradale road only to consider it a hill too far that day. So back up the ferry road and then left to the Clowally turn. Along the way I see two close steadings being demolished. If a replacement is being built I hope it will have suitably Orcadian features, not some wood monstosum that even on the mainland wouldna pass for traditional (come to that why do some drystane walls nowadays get Englished when re-built, this ain't The Peaks). At the rear of the large agricultural buildings Clowally has various lumps and bumps with stones sticking oot, including a big one, and even the O.S. shows no quaries this side. Perhaps a clue comes from its being named for a very old trackway going up to the ridge, according to Hugh Marwick's informant ("Orkney Farm Names" [sorely in need of a reprint and some sort of update, incomers would buy it in droves to name their new builds for instance]). Over from Clowally is the track I came up last time, likely part of said track (and possibly once going to Head Of Houton and the original kirk).
Continuing I came to an old dwelling on my left which I wrongly assumed to be Coubister as this was much further along the road. My error arises because I am terrible at gauging distances from maps- every time that I come this way my brain says Sower is just over the hill from Clowally [I am interested in the Castle, Hillock of Hoorse-ha (most likely not Broch Age but a smaller version of whatever lies beneath The Cairns in Eyrland, further towards Waithe)]. This site is Park Cottage at HY31140457, though it seems probable to me the cottage designation is late as it is evident that the present road has prevented its proper development. For what we have are three sections going diagonally up the hillside, each on its own level, though the furthest one has two windows and is the only one with chimneys too [a chimbley either end in fact] and behind it a wall is built back against the hill. The structure nearest the road has remained in use longest as it has a woodbeam and corrugated iron roof, whereas the other two stll have the remains of large slab roofing (small slab roofs are later). The middle section has been two features/structures as there is a vertical 'line' down the side - the first half has a stoop before the doorway and the second has a lintelled square/rectangular hole at the bottom next to the far end. Most of this is in the photos from roadside as I saw no near entry point for the field to proceed further this time. N.B. as elsewhere in Orkney "park" in the mediaeval sense, as in well parks or the parks of Scapa
At one point I fancied there were archaeologists up near the hill ridge looking fer summat as there were two or three big vehicles in what looked an out of the way place. Either that or perhaps a field studies group. Anyway they seemed to disperse sharpish as I watched so probably neither. Shortly after the northern end of the Scorradale road a gentleman who was trying a new way back fron a Renault dealer offered me a lift. I had refused an earlier offer (when the weather is fine a car interior can be fiercesome hot to the walker) and, realising higher powers were at work, got in. Went as far as the smithy junction before the Brig o' Waithe.
The tide being about to turn I did briefly consider that shore walk to Stromness again. Need to look at Quoyelsh again as last time what I thought to be a natural rock line at shore level showed up very artificial on the photo I took of something [probably] else. From the far end I then saw that at the very least this comprises a flat narrow rectilinear face from which the stone swept back in an arc and having rectangular forms at the other, which would mean this is the structure Marwick saw. Two options, that from this wall the building goes to the Point or that it comes to the shore - a very faint third possibily is that this is actually a collapsed vertical. Dave Lynn was wondering about the origins of the name Quoyelsh and my initial thought was the meaning for Elsness. Here the first element is thought to refer either to cramp (vitreous material, usually cinerary) or a cave. Of course with the Vikings this could be a kening i.e. it may have meant both. However, from my researches in The Orkney Room in this case the element appears to be the dialect word for an awl, thus referring to the Point itself. Still too close to high tide for a repeat walk. So I did something as it turned out equally daft.
Decided to attempt reaching the Cummi Ness sites from the north. So headed back towards Orphir, stopping a liittle short of Vasmire where on the west side of the road there is a [?track-turned-] drain runs to the shore by the side of the first fence I encountered. Made my way carefully as near the shore third 'burn' disappears below tallish vegetation. So continued down to the shore. This is composed of turf with watery channels running through and about, rather dodgy stuff. Almost the first thing that happened was my foot slipped in between. I fell forward, and whilst one hand sunk into the grass the other buried itself in one of the myriad potholes. A few metres further on my walking shoe went whoosh down a covered hole and the grungy water soaked onto my foot (fortunately not the one whose ankle I had twisted recently). From hereon in I went exceedingly careful. But after about 250m a real burn finally defeated me, so not even as far as Harbasue, let alone Dead Sand. At least from here I could see that the low mound where an aerial photo has the Cummi Ness cropmarks there is a similar one close to. I would say this is Gorrie's house as distinct from Gorrie's Knowe, though rather than being to do with a?Viking called Gorrie it strikes me as a variant of the placenaname Gyre/Gears (referring, then, to the triangular ness). From further photos the ness itself might not be so bad if you only approach it from the north by way of the broch as I originally thought. At least I tried. Decided not to risk going back via the drain but go to the bridge along the shore as much as possible. Only another 300m, so 850m in all ! At least there were small pieces of more pasture-like grass to my grand hopscotch now. Of that three hundred the first O.S. shows a path above high tide mark from where I had come down then turning back onto land after passing between an irregular tapering feature [? pond] about 20m long by roughly 3m wide and a much peedier version, from which another 100m to main road. There's probably some interesting stuff this side as from a very cursory inspection the tiny channels in one spot held fragments of a decorated dinner set [19thC perhaps] and in another a beer bottle, date unknown. Tide brought ?? Darn dodgy even with the right footwear. And then I had to climb up at the bridge as new fences stopped me going up any further from the shore.
Went to Unstan tomb again as I only have a slightly shaky picture of the bird on the lintel of the west chamber. Seem to be more graffiti than on the occasion I shot that. Though there is no mention of it in the 1884 papers there is plenty of evidence for such observational 'failures' of more famous sites even in recent times [and straightforward omissions]. If it weren't for the fact that this had been an unopened mound one would be thinking in terms of Pictish art. The neck seems short and the beak rather stubby for a loom (Great Northern Diver) or a scarf (cormorant). The neck might suit some geese, especially as there is a knob/Neb at the back of the beak. But the knobby beak aside a duck might be a better suit. Ah, skeldro 'sheldrake'. Evidence of its age is the wavy diagonal line that respects the bird instead of crossing it - perhap the lintel engraving had been intended as part of a larger scene.
I came to Brodgar the day before end of dig, as though they have made lovely discoveries on last days much will be be going back under black plastic early on the day. The 'shack' that is Bridgend had two workmen on top painting the roof brightly (but eventually abandoned the last corner for the day because of the rain later).
Past Bridgend went around the back of the Kokna-Cumming mound to come upon the Lesser Wall of Brodgar from behind by a gentler slope. Glad they have realised that this is a late feature as otherwise what would one make of the Brodgar standing stone pair straddling its view eastwards and the tomb outside its supposed remit. To me the point of it is to face the Staneyhill Tomb - I forget what they call it in political science but it is like gardeners "borrowing a view" by bringing a further vista into the visitor's eyeline. What does this mean for the hypothesis that the Greater Wall of Brodgar was meant to form a northern boundary to the whole Ness assemblage ? It doesn't seem to have any similar alignment [and perhaps too thick to find a statistically valid one anyhow] but is it equally late, performing a non-liminal function yet to be identified. At the bottom of the Lesser Wall's southern side there is now a pavement just under the level of the Wall base by the remains of what is to my eye another wall at a slight angle to the later Wall. Near the bottom of the Wall it looks to me as if there are what is left of two cruder walls parallel to one another over and at right angles to my putative earlier wall, and hence
the pavement below. To my dismay the area of trench behind the Wall has still not been dug below the level of its top. Probably a "health and safety" thing. Here there are two arcs of collapsed wall, perhaps an inner and outer section. Not that this necessarily means one or both had not been straight when still standing. Oh, I can barely wait for their investigation. And then maybe sometime they can go down to the Wall base here to see if the Lesser Wall might be part of some other structure yet.
On to the main Ness of Brodgar site a bit of height not only gains you perspective but also frees you of photographing beige stone against beige stone and having to decipher it later ! First up is the new to this season next-to-roadside observation platform with a long ramp for wheelchair access. Then there are the large spoil heaps by the northern and western sides, as long as you don't mind the shifting soil underfoot in places. The space between Lochview and the dig is too smaa for anything but a photographic tower for the bosses, and Joe Public can't use that. I thought that I hadn't been on the tower at the Howe of Howe but my memory plas me fause and I indeed took several shots from it. It amazes me that at first glance the site looks practically the same as last time. Up on the platform on this side of the site the bulk is taken up by Structure 10 on your left with its, ahem, standing stone. No work is ongoing in the 'cathedral' now. In front of the platform's near end Structure 8 is divine. Along the western edge are what I see as three sub-square interior cells but on plan I see are duplicated on the opposite side, forming two rectangular and one long oval sub-divisions of the whole. This is basically how it has looked since last year. But on my third visit of the season exterior to the northern wall at the trenches edge are (I think) three small strucures that make you think of mini-roundhouses. All this mixing of linear and circular or sub-circular forms throughout the site strike me as less a striving for a practical form [and/or effective ritual space] and more the search for an artistic vision, squaring the circle to put the art into architecture. Very nice, whatever. Next is the small Structure 7, pinned between 8 and the Structure 1+9 combo.
The latter can be seen from the first spoil heap. This is where I start. Today the weather lashed down from Lyde whilst I stood on top. Reminded me of the time when three seperate thunderstorms converged on Howe and I eventually went in to leave supervisor Stephen solitary like a tall lightning rod before he was finally ordered in. Up here the first thing you spot is a large circular wall arc [?9 - the structure plan on Orkneyjar is from the season's start] in front of which work has been going on in a linear structure apparently leading up and terminating before it with what I take to be either the wide facade of a forecourt or two flanking ?guard-cells. Looking left from this by the edge of the trench is a short length of low parallel orthostats that catch my eye but have been left behind for now.
From the top of the next spoil heap is a clear view of Structure 1, a large structure (oval or semi figure-of-eight) with rectangular niches or cells scattered along the interior edge. These are formed by the drystane walling (but multi-coloured) and tall thin orthostats. Near the trench edge to the right a double wall or pair of walls with pavement between them is nicely exposed. At the far end of the mound I look south to Structure 12, a large clean-looking oval with a couple of long cells. On my previous visit I only noticed the one nearest the spoil heap after I got back from an image taken near Lochview. That nearest the road looked as if someone had taken the Great Wall of Brodgar and removed the flesh to leave a rectangular skin.
The space between 12 and 10, or in 10, has three or four standing stones. I think they are roughly in a square. It is remarkable how many odd stones are scattered about the site, different in colour (red makes a change from beige) or shape (proper looking standing stones or blocky forms mostly). Not too much rhyme or reason for the most part, so I am thinking this is just a monumental version of picking up a pebble on a beach and taking it home.
All the above is only how I have this eclectic site in my mind's eye. Carefully as they excavate still there are different stages in any season's dig, structure's co-mingle and turn out to be part of other's. During an extended period of experimentation you can't even sort features out by materials used. And any single structure can be such a glorious mix of drystane walls, slabs, orthostats and standing stones, along with what I might call exhibition pieces.
By the time I am done with all three cameras there are still twenty minutes until the next tour and I give a moment's thought to tagging along for the display of new finds at its end. You are never sure what will be displayed or whether you will be able to take piccies, the latter depends on the group more than the presenter. When you're feeling faint walking is better than standing, for the former is merely a controlled fall biologically speaking. So straight on to Tormiston and the bus home.
Labels: Clowally, Cummi Ness, Gorrie Knowe, Hoorse-ha, Houton, naust, Ness of Brodgar, noust, Onston, Park Cottage, Quoyelsh, Unstan
Thursday, August 19, 2010
ONSTON & COASTAL WAITHE-HAMLAVOE August 6th 2010
Took the bus to the shelter at the Brig o' Waithe and then turned back to Onston Point. Climbing up near the fishermen's watery enclosure could see a line of stones (HY28271140) in a peedie inlet to its south. These looked to be part of an old wall a foot or three offshore made from small stones. In the same area of water are a few larger boulders, without pattern as far as I could discern. The fishermen's private piece is a mini harbour formed by steep banks of grassy soil, a modern item. My reason for going back to the Unstan Tomb was that my recently acquired camera does the equivalent of 26mm compared my old one's 38mm eq. Neglected to take another photo of the fish depiction on the west chamber's lintel (my other being shaky) but IIRC there are many more modern graffiti since my last visit. Unfortunately this chamber has no lighting, nary a skylight. Fortunately a couple that came in then lent me a slim torch and on full wide the Casio's flash done good (they had used the torch on small recesses in Portuguese churches). Clambered on top of the mound to take shots of distant archaeology, because when you have a new and greater zoom that's what you do. Brodgar, Seatter, Deepdale [darn, forgot Maes Howe which probably hidden this far back]. At home saw that from Unstan one of the largest Broidgar knowes is framed by two of the remaining stones. Probably accident rather than design. I'm fairly sure if other stones still stood full height this would not be so. But what if this were intentional and how the stones are now isn't simply the product of erosion and some vandalism ??? Makes you think.
Back on the main road thought about taking the hillside road through Clouston for further distantly viewed archaeology, maybe see if the stake marking a proper standing stone is still in sight. This is the Kethesgeo Stone (a.k.a. Kethisquoy), pronounced Keithesgeo on the evidence of the first 25" O.S. map. Instead decided to see if I could gain a new perspective on Cummi Howe from the coast across the way over the brig. On the way looked at the stuff on the north side of the bridge. Perhaps they are to do with a quarry marked on the first 25" map. Later on the map I saw saltings marked there and thought "aha" but then noticed saltings down either side of The Bush (as the 'burn' running from the loch into the Bay of Ireland is called) as far as an islet/eyot called Harbasue, whence they continue on the east shoreline into Dead Sand. Though the only saltings I have seen are those in Waulkmill Bay the standing wall remains don't look like anyway.
There is a path runs from near the bridge but from memory it doesn't go far enough, ends with a choice of dropping down onto the shore or going through a field. So partway along I went onto the shore. Past the big bulge (opposite the Howe complex, everything from longhouses back to a Neolithic tomb, of which only the latter survives under the flattened ground) on the east shore (which surely hides unknown archaeology - I may have seen a small mound if it wasn't a far-off Cummi Howe, being bad at perspective and direction) lies the promontory of Cummi Ness between Dead Sand and The Bush, with its southern end at the Cummi Howe broch. There are actually two other known sites on it. Cummi Ness (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 101 at HY28201061) appeared on an aerial photo as the cropmarks of two structures of dissimilar sizes aligned E/W parallel to one another but has yet to be located on the ground. Gorrie Knowe (HY21SE 76 at HY28091508) is traditionally named after a farmer whose house on it was still pointed out in 1882. The report has the site as including a partial wall arc of an oval or sub-circular structure. Walking along I could see a mound in line with one of the telegraph poles, initially appearing as if smack up against it. To me it looked straight-sided and what I might expect from a ruined house foundation in spite of rising to the southern end [from where I walked profile same as Cummi Howe in the distance]. Gorrie Knowe is lower yet, though perhaps longer, almost at the land's edge overlooking a shingle beach. In the low cliff by its southern side the camera shows me the collapsing remains of a wall underneath the turf that is tumbling over the edge of the cliff - could it be the last of the Gorrie Knowe house, the rest eaten away, as it looks straight in my distant view. In my final image of it I can see a building to its right with a corrugated iron roof but I think that could well be Vasmire near Cumminess Farm as the latter appears on other shots. In my opinion it still seems possible that the
Cummi Ness structures are Gorrie's house as otherwise we have them not appearing on the 1st 25" whilst the Gorrie Knowe house did survive then to be mapped, albeit as a single unroofed structure on the knowe as stated. Wish now I'd used the camcorder I
carried, forgot to use it at any time. Hey ho !
Now I found myself drawn onwards to essay as much as possible, perhaps even to Stromness all by shore. I was lucky to have chosen a good low tide as high tide would have stopped me short of the Bu of Cairston. However it must be do-able often enough than in the old days folk would regularly walk the whole way, and it is even longer than the walk to the Head of Work that some Kirkwall folk still considered a normal Sunday outing even in recent years [my old landlord from Eryldene as a lad walked from the Bloomfield road to school in Kirkwall every day]. Of course for this one you have to have a liking for rocky shores and slippery taings. One place mushy ground tends to swallow your feet - I then moved towards the cliffs where there are the grassy remains of an older shoreline. Usually you hop between the standing clumps through which the new shore thinly winds, but this time even on top one had a hidden hole. So be careful following in my footsteps. Fortunately it wasn't the leg whose ankle I twisted last month that shot down. Advice over I'll get back on track.
I found the Sands of Congesquoy ['King's enclosure'] rather a disappointment - I had expected so much more after finding out that a few of my fellow volunteers at Howe used to come here dinnertimes. From the shore I could see Congesquoy (a.k.a.
Konizquoy) itself. Once upon a time this was a manse with associated glebe land. The building I saw is all done up and not sure how much survives of its heyday. In 1909 a N/S aligned short cist, containing the bones of a ?doubled-up young person with head facing S, was found by farmer John Paplay about 10m from the cliff-edge. He recollected a mound having been removed from over the find-site and that the same field had also produced primitive tools and weapons [the Konisquoy flints HY31SW 68] and in one spot ashes (ashes were also found on the now vanished farm of Kettlun between Congesquoy and Feawell to its SW).
At both Skatelan Skerry and Black Skerry there were big (for Orkney) packs of seals in varying shades of grey and brown. Far away as I was coming in sight of each some would dash off. Before I knew they were there I heard the tremendous splooshes as they splashed into the sea, like snipe that would pass unnoticed did they not fly off straight before you. At the back of the larger Black Skerry pack a handsome bull lay resplendent in his grey and white spottedness, eyeing me up, safe in his majesty.
This brings me opposite the Bu of Cairston complex, best known for the castle (site, now a chicken run, was a piggery-cum-henhouse when excavated in 1927). The Norse fortification, HY20NE 10 at HY27200956, dates back to the 12thC but in 16thC the NW corner was updated to make it into a mansion house. More resolutely mediaeval are the burial ground (a drystane enclosure centred HY27240970) and in the stackyard the site of the old Stromness parish kirk (HY27220965), both HY20NE 16. However in 2002 the burial ground at HY27250950 was excavated (HY20NE 294) and besides the mediaeval there was also a Neolithic gully with postholes, somewhen 3360-3530 BCE. Dave is inclined to see the remains of a small chapel in a "solid paved stone platform ...running back into the cliff" from the rounded gully between the northern limit of farm dumping and the S end of a broch mound. The ?solid-based broch with settlement [not to be confused with the Bu (Navershaw) broch in the region] was built practically onto the natural (HY20NE 71 at HY272096). An area close by the paving yielded M.I.A. pottery (though two earlier sherds were amongst those found on the site) but the broch is thought to have been short-lived as a thin occupation level is in its turn succeeded by rubble infill and the central court was much overlain by unrelated walling that that finished it off in antiquity. As well as the settlement surrounding it to the N there is later complex of features eroding out to the broch tower's south. A track through the cliff and a modern drain damage much of the southern continuance of the extended broch, which has to be the 'geo' I saw and possibly the hollow noted during the castle dig. Whilst this broch lies mostly under the barn but extends to the cliff-face 50m N of the present Bu of Cairston where it was first noticed in 1985. There are much overgrown structural remains along over fifty metres of coast, and the 3m high section includes orthostats and domestic midden. Two wells are shown by the cliff E of the Bu of Cairston and in 1937 Marwick relates hearing from a local about "a passage on the face of the shore near their well into which he had crawled ever so far". Could it be the drain takes that route ?
Down on the shore without this knowledge I saw less. What first caught my attention first was a large square drystane 'gatepillar' atop the cliff-edge on its lonesome without even a stone gatepost for company. This show signs of having had the top portion rebuilt, but even so it surely post-dates the 16thC rebuild of the 'Castle' and as the graveyard fell out of use in the middle of the 17thC I would tentatively place it in the 18th. Throughout the cliff below this for metres to either side are lots of horizontal stones peeping from behind grass and verbage, at least some of which are parts of closely fitted drystane walls, especially to the south of it where a rather better piece of fieldwall ends by twa bushes. Directly below the pillar at the base of the cliff are two courses of an especially fine wall with thin slabs above them, one of which is rounded. Seeing a thin white line running across I am momentarily deceived into thinking it the mortar between the stones, but it is part of one of the stones itself. At the south end of all this there looks to be a way up to the Bu of Cairston. However this piece is all hidden by vegetation and I didn't fancy tackling what I might find underfoot. On the south side of the gap there's a patch of one tall grass which might have concealed a burn but starting through it all stays out of sight, so I back down. Tried to find a burn and/or geo on any map to help with a grid ref. except nothing like is shown here. Now I know this has to be Dave's gully and the broch excavator's track+drain, probably the antiquarian's hollow too.
Also I wondered if there might not have been a naust here. Perhaps not, but not too far away on the 25" Muckle Noust was still shown between the Bu and Bu Point as a rectangular feature ending at the cliff/shore. NGR approximately HY27340936 with
eastern end a little NNE of the wellspring above the high tide mark at HY2731809371. Peedie Noust also still appears as a legend below the high tide mark but will have been swept away as only the name appears even on the earlier map.
A path ran between Congesquoy and the Bu of Cairston. A narrow one ran due west from Bu of Cairnston and then south to a sub-rectangular marshy area called Brimhouse before a short section ran nearly SSE to the coast by a piece of non-rocky shore at HY26930921. Brimhouse would seem to include the knoll on which a cairn lay even though it wasn't shown. Then an emergency excavation revealed it as a broch settlement, Bu (Navershaw). After this broch (HY20NE 11 at HY26979933) went out of use a souterrain was inserted. After a quick and dirty dig the site was levelled. Which isn't to say there may not be earlier stuff under the soil as Dave thinks most brochs are not greenfield sites ("Is Howe of Howe an inconvenient aberration for broch excavations?" unpublished ms).
The Bay of Navershaw cliffs looked stunning, sawtoothed with triangular projection like the piers of an old bridge like some giant's barcode. At the near end the rocky shore includes thin slabs. For an instant I mistake one for portable rock art, then close up see it is a fossil negative heavily covered with, not cupmarks, but the depressions where some antient group of molluscs hunkered down. Wishes were horses I would had taken it with me for the Stromness Museum. Many of these rocks at the east end are dark gray crazed with light brown, from a muddy beach drying up in the geological past I would hazard. Going by these I think nature came up with the Celtic knot first. Took a photo of a slab of this and the fossil, both about a foot across. A week too late I discover that near the eastern end of the bay from 1985-90 a likely Neolithic settlement produced various bits of pot (including a rim sherd of ? Unstan Ware) and a worked flint. This started in 1985 with the discovery of five single-faced walls and midden in a cliff exposure and finished with the flint being found in the section 10cm above natural roughly three-and-a-half metres E of a passage (HY20NE 24 at HY268092). Must have passed and not taken it in, for sure I had a quick gander at some gaps in the low cliff under the drystane fieldwalls.
Noticed a line of animals going up along a fieldwall going uphill from the middle of the bay. Couldn't be 100% sure they were dark cattle and whether they were moving or not. Only after a few more sightings as I 'swung in' did I realise it were folk. Must have been a big field trip or summat, using the track to Garson Farm. A few in diving suits had stayed behind larking about (or so it seemed). The other end of the bay Quoyelsh sticks out. In 1941 Marwick speaks of a wave-lashed structure of square stones on the Point of Qu'elsh [sic]. In visit's 1979-80 D.Lynn and B.Bell found pottery and stone finds at Quoyelsh, with a body sherd giving the site a date likely to be no later than the Iron Age, and found the surviving corner of a ?domestic structure (RCAHMS NMRS record no.HY20NE 73 at HY265089). Dave describes the site as about two-thirds of the way up a cliff section below a slight surface rise, adding that there is also grassed mound set back from the cliff edge nearby. The site was easy for me to see high up in the cliff directly as I rounded the point. If you come here there is a rocky shelf smack in front of it you can clamber up on for a closer look. A triangle of grass divides the cliff section as if the rise is tipping over, with most of the remains next to its LH side and along the RH side of the section. The left is a few horizontal slabs and small rocks jutting out, mostly horizontal. The other side of the turf ?collapse there are few spaces and the rocks are chunkier and very obviously set one on another. From my photos Dave believes that the deeper masonry at the LH end of the grass triangle is new and suggests better survival than originally thought - his original opinion of its survival owing to the bedrock below - suggesting much erosion since his last observations.
Looking back at the spine of the Point itself I notice a couple of feet of erosion near shore level with some nice looking stones. Fairly certain it wasn't archaeology (surely too low to have been part of anything like the official stuff), and not wanting to risk my legs again even in case I was wrong, I satisfied myself with a single distant shot. Then when I viewed the digital negative later no longer so sure. Besides the bright rocks like the natural also some mid-brown, and the "eye of faith" might possibly discern a very slightly sagging horizontal of three or more incomplete courses and a possible vertical. Might the apparently natural below and before it relate to Marwick's square stones ?? Not my field, needs a Dave really. Have to go again I guess.
There's a lovely stone wall this side of the inner end of Inner Holm. A little pool of water nearby remembers a pump nearby. The visible mound on Outer Holm is also where there was a pump. The circular arc I see from this side is part of a circular feature best seen from up on the Point of Ness. I had wondered whether it might mark the position of maybe a broch but a recent newspaper article shows it to owe its existence to a mill, even though this is not showing on the 1st 25" O.S.
And now I'm at Copland's Dock, the site of Whitehouse (HY20NE 8 at HY25860907) where the pirate Gow lived after wedding a local lass (they handfasted at the Stone of Odin). Dave says the OS 1902/3 1:2500 shows both boatyard and house, with a cross
symbol for a (private) chapel next the house and a slip runnig over the cross - a total of six structures. He has half a mind that George Mackay Brown referred to the house as Whiteladies. Basically what you see now is a large enclosure formed by high stone walls with several pillared gateways (mostl on the N side) of differing entrance widths. Most of the interior, going by my feet, is a grassy platform with a couple of items of abandoned machinery. At the SW corner attached to the walls are the remains of a square stone 'hut' behind the gateway there. Along the S wall close to the SW corner a long plank sits lintel-like in the lower third with the gap underneath mostly plugged with thin slabs (apparently subsequent to going out of use). Inside the E wall near the SE corner another stone structure survives almost intact - a fireplace or kiln. This is square with a thick lintel just over half-way up, sitting on a slightly shorter iron plate, these supported by an angled inner wall of brick. The interior is also brick. The N side of the dock in the main gateway you can see huge square sockets for the gate. Either side are narrower gateways. The shore here is horrible and squidgy and the shore path from Stromness stops short of passing through. There is talk of developing this site for the town's needs. They clearly haven't thought it out - first you excavate the boatyard, next any remains of Whitehouse, and I'm certain that wouldn't be the last of the archaeology. Stay with the other options I say.
The coastal path takes me all the way to the lorry park although I think it only used to go as far as the farmtrack to the Garson farmroad. Some of the fieldwalls bounding the houses of the new estate are being attacked in the name of convenience, probably without permission. On the hillside up above Stromness a line of cattle creep along the (I think) East Brae. Don't know what it is about animals on the skyline that is so attractive, doesn't matter if their livestock or geese the sight appeals (to me at least). Getting to the Stromness Travel Centre so pooped I decide not to go for a shop or tea in Julia's Coffeee Shop. Bus arrives shortly. Waithe to Stromness only three-and-a-half hours. Wowsers !
Took the bus to the shelter at the Brig o' Waithe and then turned back to Onston Point. Climbing up near the fishermen's watery enclosure could see a line of stones (HY28271140) in a peedie inlet to its south. These looked to be part of an old wall a foot or three offshore made from small stones. In the same area of water are a few larger boulders, without pattern as far as I could discern. The fishermen's private piece is a mini harbour formed by steep banks of grassy soil, a modern item. My reason for going back to the Unstan Tomb was that my recently acquired camera does the equivalent of 26mm compared my old one's 38mm eq. Neglected to take another photo of the fish depiction on the west chamber's lintel (my other being shaky) but IIRC there are many more modern graffiti since my last visit. Unfortunately this chamber has no lighting, nary a skylight. Fortunately a couple that came in then lent me a slim torch and on full wide the Casio's flash done good (they had used the torch on small recesses in Portuguese churches). Clambered on top of the mound to take shots of distant archaeology, because when you have a new and greater zoom that's what you do. Brodgar, Seatter, Deepdale [darn, forgot Maes Howe which probably hidden this far back]. At home saw that from Unstan one of the largest Broidgar knowes is framed by two of the remaining stones. Probably accident rather than design. I'm fairly sure if other stones still stood full height this would not be so. But what if this were intentional and how the stones are now isn't simply the product of erosion and some vandalism ??? Makes you think.
Back on the main road thought about taking the hillside road through Clouston for further distantly viewed archaeology, maybe see if the stake marking a proper standing stone is still in sight. This is the Kethesgeo Stone (a.k.a. Kethisquoy), pronounced Keithesgeo on the evidence of the first 25" O.S. map. Instead decided to see if I could gain a new perspective on Cummi Howe from the coast across the way over the brig. On the way looked at the stuff on the north side of the bridge. Perhaps they are to do with a quarry marked on the first 25" map. Later on the map I saw saltings marked there and thought "aha" but then noticed saltings down either side of The Bush (as the 'burn' running from the loch into the Bay of Ireland is called) as far as an islet/eyot called Harbasue, whence they continue on the east shoreline into Dead Sand. Though the only saltings I have seen are those in Waulkmill Bay the standing wall remains don't look like anyway.
There is a path runs from near the bridge but from memory it doesn't go far enough, ends with a choice of dropping down onto the shore or going through a field. So partway along I went onto the shore. Past the big bulge (opposite the Howe complex, everything from longhouses back to a Neolithic tomb, of which only the latter survives under the flattened ground) on the east shore (which surely hides unknown archaeology - I may have seen a small mound if it wasn't a far-off Cummi Howe, being bad at perspective and direction) lies the promontory of Cummi Ness between Dead Sand and The Bush, with its southern end at the Cummi Howe broch. There are actually two other known sites on it. Cummi Ness (RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY21SE 101 at HY28201061) appeared on an aerial photo as the cropmarks of two structures of dissimilar sizes aligned E/W parallel to one another but has yet to be located on the ground. Gorrie Knowe (HY21SE 76 at HY28091508) is traditionally named after a farmer whose house on it was still pointed out in 1882. The report has the site as including a partial wall arc of an oval or sub-circular structure. Walking along I could see a mound in line with one of the telegraph poles, initially appearing as if smack up against it. To me it looked straight-sided and what I might expect from a ruined house foundation in spite of rising to the southern end [from where I walked profile same as Cummi Howe in the distance]. Gorrie Knowe is lower yet, though perhaps longer, almost at the land's edge overlooking a shingle beach. In the low cliff by its southern side the camera shows me the collapsing remains of a wall underneath the turf that is tumbling over the edge of the cliff - could it be the last of the Gorrie Knowe house, the rest eaten away, as it looks straight in my distant view. In my final image of it I can see a building to its right with a corrugated iron roof but I think that could well be Vasmire near Cumminess Farm as the latter appears on other shots. In my opinion it still seems possible that the
Cummi Ness structures are Gorrie's house as otherwise we have them not appearing on the 1st 25" whilst the Gorrie Knowe house did survive then to be mapped, albeit as a single unroofed structure on the knowe as stated. Wish now I'd used the camcorder I
carried, forgot to use it at any time. Hey ho !
Now I found myself drawn onwards to essay as much as possible, perhaps even to Stromness all by shore. I was lucky to have chosen a good low tide as high tide would have stopped me short of the Bu of Cairston. However it must be do-able often enough than in the old days folk would regularly walk the whole way, and it is even longer than the walk to the Head of Work that some Kirkwall folk still considered a normal Sunday outing even in recent years [my old landlord from Eryldene as a lad walked from the Bloomfield road to school in Kirkwall every day]. Of course for this one you have to have a liking for rocky shores and slippery taings. One place mushy ground tends to swallow your feet - I then moved towards the cliffs where there are the grassy remains of an older shoreline. Usually you hop between the standing clumps through which the new shore thinly winds, but this time even on top one had a hidden hole. So be careful following in my footsteps. Fortunately it wasn't the leg whose ankle I twisted last month that shot down. Advice over I'll get back on track.
I found the Sands of Congesquoy ['King's enclosure'] rather a disappointment - I had expected so much more after finding out that a few of my fellow volunteers at Howe used to come here dinnertimes. From the shore I could see Congesquoy (a.k.a.
Konizquoy) itself. Once upon a time this was a manse with associated glebe land. The building I saw is all done up and not sure how much survives of its heyday. In 1909 a N/S aligned short cist, containing the bones of a ?doubled-up young person with head facing S, was found by farmer John Paplay about 10m from the cliff-edge. He recollected a mound having been removed from over the find-site and that the same field had also produced primitive tools and weapons [the Konisquoy flints HY31SW 68] and in one spot ashes (ashes were also found on the now vanished farm of Kettlun between Congesquoy and Feawell to its SW).
At both Skatelan Skerry and Black Skerry there were big (for Orkney) packs of seals in varying shades of grey and brown. Far away as I was coming in sight of each some would dash off. Before I knew they were there I heard the tremendous splooshes as they splashed into the sea, like snipe that would pass unnoticed did they not fly off straight before you. At the back of the larger Black Skerry pack a handsome bull lay resplendent in his grey and white spottedness, eyeing me up, safe in his majesty.
This brings me opposite the Bu of Cairston complex, best known for the castle (site, now a chicken run, was a piggery-cum-henhouse when excavated in 1927). The Norse fortification, HY20NE 10 at HY27200956, dates back to the 12thC but in 16thC the NW corner was updated to make it into a mansion house. More resolutely mediaeval are the burial ground (a drystane enclosure centred HY27240970) and in the stackyard the site of the old Stromness parish kirk (HY27220965), both HY20NE 16. However in 2002 the burial ground at HY27250950 was excavated (HY20NE 294) and besides the mediaeval there was also a Neolithic gully with postholes, somewhen 3360-3530 BCE. Dave is inclined to see the remains of a small chapel in a "solid paved stone platform ...running back into the cliff" from the rounded gully between the northern limit of farm dumping and the S end of a broch mound. The ?solid-based broch with settlement [not to be confused with the Bu (Navershaw) broch in the region] was built practically onto the natural (HY20NE 71 at HY272096). An area close by the paving yielded M.I.A. pottery (though two earlier sherds were amongst those found on the site) but the broch is thought to have been short-lived as a thin occupation level is in its turn succeeded by rubble infill and the central court was much overlain by unrelated walling that that finished it off in antiquity. As well as the settlement surrounding it to the N there is later complex of features eroding out to the broch tower's south. A track through the cliff and a modern drain damage much of the southern continuance of the extended broch, which has to be the 'geo' I saw and possibly the hollow noted during the castle dig. Whilst this broch lies mostly under the barn but extends to the cliff-face 50m N of the present Bu of Cairston where it was first noticed in 1985. There are much overgrown structural remains along over fifty metres of coast, and the 3m high section includes orthostats and domestic midden. Two wells are shown by the cliff E of the Bu of Cairston and in 1937 Marwick relates hearing from a local about "a passage on the face of the shore near their well into which he had crawled ever so far". Could it be the drain takes that route ?
Down on the shore without this knowledge I saw less. What first caught my attention first was a large square drystane 'gatepillar' atop the cliff-edge on its lonesome without even a stone gatepost for company. This show signs of having had the top portion rebuilt, but even so it surely post-dates the 16thC rebuild of the 'Castle' and as the graveyard fell out of use in the middle of the 17thC I would tentatively place it in the 18th. Throughout the cliff below this for metres to either side are lots of horizontal stones peeping from behind grass and verbage, at least some of which are parts of closely fitted drystane walls, especially to the south of it where a rather better piece of fieldwall ends by twa bushes. Directly below the pillar at the base of the cliff are two courses of an especially fine wall with thin slabs above them, one of which is rounded. Seeing a thin white line running across I am momentarily deceived into thinking it the mortar between the stones, but it is part of one of the stones itself. At the south end of all this there looks to be a way up to the Bu of Cairston. However this piece is all hidden by vegetation and I didn't fancy tackling what I might find underfoot. On the south side of the gap there's a patch of one tall grass which might have concealed a burn but starting through it all stays out of sight, so I back down. Tried to find a burn and/or geo on any map to help with a grid ref. except nothing like is shown here. Now I know this has to be Dave's gully and the broch excavator's track+drain, probably the antiquarian's hollow too.
Also I wondered if there might not have been a naust here. Perhaps not, but not too far away on the 25" Muckle Noust was still shown between the Bu and Bu Point as a rectangular feature ending at the cliff/shore. NGR approximately HY27340936 with
eastern end a little NNE of the wellspring above the high tide mark at HY2731809371. Peedie Noust also still appears as a legend below the high tide mark but will have been swept away as only the name appears even on the earlier map.
A path ran between Congesquoy and the Bu of Cairston. A narrow one ran due west from Bu of Cairnston and then south to a sub-rectangular marshy area called Brimhouse before a short section ran nearly SSE to the coast by a piece of non-rocky shore at HY26930921. Brimhouse would seem to include the knoll on which a cairn lay even though it wasn't shown. Then an emergency excavation revealed it as a broch settlement, Bu (Navershaw). After this broch (HY20NE 11 at HY26979933) went out of use a souterrain was inserted. After a quick and dirty dig the site was levelled. Which isn't to say there may not be earlier stuff under the soil as Dave thinks most brochs are not greenfield sites ("Is Howe of Howe an inconvenient aberration for broch excavations?" unpublished ms).
The Bay of Navershaw cliffs looked stunning, sawtoothed with triangular projection like the piers of an old bridge like some giant's barcode. At the near end the rocky shore includes thin slabs. For an instant I mistake one for portable rock art, then close up see it is a fossil negative heavily covered with, not cupmarks, but the depressions where some antient group of molluscs hunkered down. Wishes were horses I would had taken it with me for the Stromness Museum. Many of these rocks at the east end are dark gray crazed with light brown, from a muddy beach drying up in the geological past I would hazard. Going by these I think nature came up with the Celtic knot first. Took a photo of a slab of this and the fossil, both about a foot across. A week too late I discover that near the eastern end of the bay from 1985-90 a likely Neolithic settlement produced various bits of pot (including a rim sherd of ? Unstan Ware) and a worked flint. This started in 1985 with the discovery of five single-faced walls and midden in a cliff exposure and finished with the flint being found in the section 10cm above natural roughly three-and-a-half metres E of a passage (HY20NE 24 at HY268092). Must have passed and not taken it in, for sure I had a quick gander at some gaps in the low cliff under the drystane fieldwalls.
Noticed a line of animals going up along a fieldwall going uphill from the middle of the bay. Couldn't be 100% sure they were dark cattle and whether they were moving or not. Only after a few more sightings as I 'swung in' did I realise it were folk. Must have been a big field trip or summat, using the track to Garson Farm. A few in diving suits had stayed behind larking about (or so it seemed). The other end of the bay Quoyelsh sticks out. In 1941 Marwick speaks of a wave-lashed structure of square stones on the Point of Qu'elsh [sic]. In visit's 1979-80 D.Lynn and B.Bell found pottery and stone finds at Quoyelsh, with a body sherd giving the site a date likely to be no later than the Iron Age, and found the surviving corner of a ?domestic structure (RCAHMS NMRS record no.HY20NE 73 at HY265089). Dave describes the site as about two-thirds of the way up a cliff section below a slight surface rise, adding that there is also grassed mound set back from the cliff edge nearby. The site was easy for me to see high up in the cliff directly as I rounded the point. If you come here there is a rocky shelf smack in front of it you can clamber up on for a closer look. A triangle of grass divides the cliff section as if the rise is tipping over, with most of the remains next to its LH side and along the RH side of the section. The left is a few horizontal slabs and small rocks jutting out, mostly horizontal. The other side of the turf ?collapse there are few spaces and the rocks are chunkier and very obviously set one on another. From my photos Dave believes that the deeper masonry at the LH end of the grass triangle is new and suggests better survival than originally thought - his original opinion of its survival owing to the bedrock below - suggesting much erosion since his last observations.
Looking back at the spine of the Point itself I notice a couple of feet of erosion near shore level with some nice looking stones. Fairly certain it wasn't archaeology (surely too low to have been part of anything like the official stuff), and not wanting to risk my legs again even in case I was wrong, I satisfied myself with a single distant shot. Then when I viewed the digital negative later no longer so sure. Besides the bright rocks like the natural also some mid-brown, and the "eye of faith" might possibly discern a very slightly sagging horizontal of three or more incomplete courses and a possible vertical. Might the apparently natural below and before it relate to Marwick's square stones ?? Not my field, needs a Dave really. Have to go again I guess.
There's a lovely stone wall this side of the inner end of Inner Holm. A little pool of water nearby remembers a pump nearby. The visible mound on Outer Holm is also where there was a pump. The circular arc I see from this side is part of a circular feature best seen from up on the Point of Ness. I had wondered whether it might mark the position of maybe a broch but a recent newspaper article shows it to owe its existence to a mill, even though this is not showing on the 1st 25" O.S.
And now I'm at Copland's Dock, the site of Whitehouse (HY20NE 8 at HY25860907) where the pirate Gow lived after wedding a local lass (they handfasted at the Stone of Odin). Dave says the OS 1902/3 1:2500 shows both boatyard and house, with a cross
symbol for a (private) chapel next the house and a slip runnig over the cross - a total of six structures. He has half a mind that George Mackay Brown referred to the house as Whiteladies. Basically what you see now is a large enclosure formed by high stone walls with several pillared gateways (mostl on the N side) of differing entrance widths. Most of the interior, going by my feet, is a grassy platform with a couple of items of abandoned machinery. At the SW corner attached to the walls are the remains of a square stone 'hut' behind the gateway there. Along the S wall close to the SW corner a long plank sits lintel-like in the lower third with the gap underneath mostly plugged with thin slabs (apparently subsequent to going out of use). Inside the E wall near the SE corner another stone structure survives almost intact - a fireplace or kiln. This is square with a thick lintel just over half-way up, sitting on a slightly shorter iron plate, these supported by an angled inner wall of brick. The interior is also brick. The N side of the dock in the main gateway you can see huge square sockets for the gate. Either side are narrower gateways. The shore here is horrible and squidgy and the shore path from Stromness stops short of passing through. There is talk of developing this site for the town's needs. They clearly haven't thought it out - first you excavate the boatyard, next any remains of Whitehouse, and I'm certain that wouldn't be the last of the archaeology. Stay with the other options I say.
The coastal path takes me all the way to the lorry park although I think it only used to go as far as the farmtrack to the Garson farmroad. Some of the fieldwalls bounding the houses of the new estate are being attacked in the name of convenience, probably without permission. On the hillside up above Stromness a line of cattle creep along the (I think) East Brae. Don't know what it is about animals on the skyline that is so attractive, doesn't matter if their livestock or geese the sight appeals (to me at least). Getting to the Stromness Travel Centre so pooped I decide not to go for a shop or tea in Julia's Coffeee Shop. Bus arrives shortly. Waithe to Stromness only three-and-a-half hours. Wowsers !
Labels: Bu of Cairston, Congesquoy, Copland's Dock, Cummi Ness, Garson, Gorrie Knowe, Konisquoy, Navershaw, Onston, Qu'elsh, Quoyelsh, Unstan, Whitehouse
