Saturday, May 31, 2014
BARRIER No.1 TO ROSE NESS April 5th 2014
Took the bus to the start of the first Churchill Barrier. The driver was good enough to set me down quite close. As this counted as a Lamb Holm return I thought about crossing over the barrier. Not for the Italian Chapel, where I've been a few times with others, but for the Orkney Winery shop. Even then the draw for me isn't the wine itself, it is the like of chutneys, preserves and sweets that are made from them. A little too rich, in the monetary meaning, for my tastes alas.
My reason for going to East Holm was twofold; firstly that I had taken good views of it from Burray and wanted to return the compliment, secondly that having seen the recent storm-damage to the sea-wall I wanted to see if the nearest cliffs had given up anything (I had chosen low tide at St Mary's). In the bright light the coastal batteries opposite me resembled a landscape-sized art installation, surely intended as more than form following function. Too good not to photograph several times along the way. By the road are the Graemeshall properties. Here a 15th century dwelling was replaced in 1615 by Meil House, which after being sold on became Graham's Hall then Graemeshall (for what it's worth there is a Graemshall, one 'e', in Evie). And I imagine that the name Meil is an early designation for this whole area as we have the Muir of Meil between Hamly Hill and the B9052. A nice quiet road runs up between house and farm by Graemeshall Loch, which is well known to birders. However my attention was caught by the site to my right , two swans on the waters of Scapa Flow - obviously this near the burn outlet the sea is only slightly brackish. Loved the way they practically surfed the waves close inshore. A gentleman in a long motorhome was parked up with a huge camera pointed to the loch, but I still had the best of the deal from my view I think.
No damage looks to have been done to the cliff-section below Mass Howe, certainly the body of the mound must be accounted natural. Because of the name it is said that the structural remains on top are from a church, allegedly a local tradition, especially given the nearby Mass Road track. But it seems more likely to me that Mass=moss and refers to the once extensive Muir of Meil heath. Besides which Mass Road bypasses the mound - if anything the road goes up towards the nearer of the mounds below Hestakelda(y) 'horse well', now Hestimuir, and most likely went to the well as with the Tieve Well Road above St Nicholas Church. Took more photos of the coastal batteries. At the far edge of the nearer and larger one a roughly triangular piece of ground normally rather damp strucki me as positively parched this day. Here what is now marked as a burnt mound is below a wellspring (one of five Wells shown on this length of hillside on the 1882 O.S.). Not wishing to disturb the kie I moved on. Beyond and left of the burnt mound the long ruin roughly parallel to the coast is labelled Old School on the same very large scale map. Which is strange as at the roadside end of the trail the buildings to the left are also named Old School. Perhaps seperate schools for boys and girls (or children and sub-adults maybe). Alternatively as East Schoolhouse [in 1882 labelled as School (Boys & Girls)] lies over from Hurtiso they might be for the three Christian denomination hereabouts. Or more simply the lived-in Old School is named after the ruin. Does anyone know ? Still intrigued by an outpost of the wartime stuff. A narrow piece of land not many metres long sticks out of the body of the cliffs, with a rather precipitous neck at the end of which is a structure resembling the top of a pillarbox. In shape it is an hexagon with a hexagonal plug. There are two holes set close together, and my guess is that this had been a machine-gun post.
At the east side of the neck is what I take for a section of wall or walling composed of slabs. Eventually the coastal path section ends. Just beyond this point there is a long second wall, below the present fieldwall, that is either set into the cliff or hanging on grimly, made of the same material. Now the path runs straight up to the main road, running past Newark (wonder where the old Wirk had been). This is another usually sodden track. Which is hardly surprising as it is bordered by three of the wellsprings mentioned earlier ! If you can, use the Orkney Gate at the top of the track as the trail's style is a monster that is liable to swing you off. Across the road is Manse, which had been a manse for the Free Church. It is safe to assume that both mounds were used by the church but the Flagstaff Mound right of the building has no traces. On the other hand I have actually been on the Sundial Mound and there is a big scatter of stones on its top, though my theory is that some come from a previous structure re-used as I have seen no such remains on any other sundial sites and nor did they surmount big mounds.
Where the road turns to go to St Andrew's is the farm of Hurtiso. It is on Hurtiso land that the famous headgear came to light during peat digging. This appears to have been an antient heirloom, as what had started off life as a piece of neckwear was by stages transformed into a cozytrot, a kind of hooded shawl (except this item has half-metre long tassels on it. The Hurtiso Hood 'moved' into a Kirkwall collection, hence the next newspaper account gives it a St Ola origin instead of Holm. Someone must have pointed out it came from the next parish, because the third newspaper article places its finding in Tankerness, part of St Andrew's ! And so a tentative association with finds on Groatster/Grotsetter land has entered the record. Now that the truth is out the name has been changed to the Orkney Hood (to spare blushes I assume). I used to be puzzled by a niche in the roadside wall until I realised this space had been left by an old postbox ! There is a bench and viewpoint here. One day nearing sunset I photographed a beam of sunlight that from here ran straight across the Italian Chapel, truly wondrous to behold. Continuing over the green and going by East Schoolhouse and Vigga, the Cornquoy and Greenwall roads part just before the hill descends. From here I had distant views of the Burray brochs strongly illumined by the sun. A little too strongly for clarity but enough to show the proper distance between them (other views I'd had of them they had always appeared so close together I had imagined them in a much tighter framing of the chambered tomb that had lain just behind behind them on Northfield farm). Tried to make out St Lawrence's Church on Burray then and later to no avail. But my thinking at this vantage point was that whether brochs were for defence or lookout Laurenskirk plugged a gap that the East and West Brochs didn't cover, the other side of Burray having the Iron Age settlement on Hunda. Turned left onto the Greenwall Road and then down the Tieve Well Road to the Cornquoy Road. There are two mounds either end of the Howes Wick shoreline. Closest is the broch mound under the older section of St Nicholas' burial ground (there was also a well/wellspring beyond the northern well. formerly bounded by a ring of stones). In the late 50's a farmer took 40 trailers of stone from a drystone wall, including a cup-marked stone, and emptied them onto the shore. Near the eastern end of the wick is Castle Howe, where a small Viking wirk has been built over a D-shaped chamber. There are no reports of a circular structure here, but one could make a case for the lower chamber being [part of] one of those controversial IA structures labelled 'semi-broch' by some [no longer ??]. Perhaps I might compare it with North Taing on the Head of Holland that shows at the cliff edge as a dee-shaped bank with stones. There I have noted clumps of large stone coming up in the nearer side of a field during deep ploughing, indicating that the centre of a larger structure could have been removed. And this or an incomplete build are generally accepted as the origin of those 'semi-brochs'.
Turning left I continued all the way to the crossroads near the old St Nicholas Manse. Turned right here. Seems a long way from the church it serves, but the same is true of the Tankerness manse next to Northwood House and the North Church (that church now hosts the material worshippers of Sheila Fleet Jewellery). I felt fairly sure a track runs by the west side of the manse enclosure, but being uncertain from this end carried on to The Cottage. Alas the lawn seems to have taken over much of the track since my previous visit (when I walked the Sand of Cornquoy undisturbed) so I'll leave that for a weekday when I disturb none. Back up to the crossroads and decided to continue over to the Roseness trail. Before you reach the tiny car park Ducrow along the way is a perfectly lovely house and garden. My only intention had been to merely have a peek, but cresting the hill before Upper Cornquoy found me stunned by the clarity of Copinsay and the other Deerness on the distant horizon. A well-kept track runs between fields to a signpost marked for Stembister and Roseness paths. Take the right and it is a long way to Stembister in St Andrew's, with its standing stone moved slightly back from the cliffs edge to a drying green. Along the way the path sweeps down a steep decline before climbing equally steeply back up. From Stembister the road to the Deerness Road is only short by comparison, simpler the other way as you would need a lift ftom St Andrew's or know the few buses that way very very well ! Turn right at the signpost for Rose Ness. No, of course I didn't. Headed straight for the nearest cliffs to snap those islands. This is the Bay of Semolie. Nice place for a picnic. The cliffs are stupendous, the views likewise. Don't think you can get down to the beach at all. Here stands the King of Semolie. Sadly the Queen of Semolie passed about the midpoint of the last century. A rather bigger rock stack further along Rose Ness is nameless, so you wonder why they both had names - maybe some lost event took place in the vicinity involving a rig [or perhaps a tale like the "Queen of Morocco" relates]. Walked along the cliffs until I came upon a fence ending right at the cliff edge. Definitely low enough to swing over, but even I didn't risk it. Watched the waves down below crashing up and over the rocks of a small geo. Followed the fence up to the trail proper. The gate there is rather fiddly and most folk would find it quicker to climb the gate rather than open it. Be careful as this is not standing vertical.
Instead of going back to what I think is Tur Geo (whereabouts lies a Bruce's Hole) my feet took me a little further along to where there are rocky plates between the heath and the cliff edge, good for a bit of a clamber. Came upon Rosalind, one of the Orkney Blide Trust support workers. She had come here with a group of youths to do some actual rock-climbing. The day being very blustery they had had no look and contented themselves with scampering amongst the rocks in hope of a climb somewhere not dashed by the high spray. From there I went to the Hole of The Ness, simply The Gloup on the 25" maps. Imagine the gloup in Derrness turned ino a circle form. To my dismay this feature is now fenced in. And not narrowly at that, and in fact the fence struck me as more distant from the rim at its safest point. You can hear the the sea still rushing in and out, and walk over the arch at the cliff, but the most you can see sttod on tippy-toes is the top couple of metres of exposed rock. Didn't complete the walk as it became too overcast for the pictures I wanted. Anyway, the forecast had been for rain later, and fearing it earlier now went back to the start of the trail. Down on the main Cornquoy Road the climbing party soon approached behind me. Even though I had a return ticket I was only too happy to accept a lift back in the circumstances - seemed to take me half the way to Kirkwall before I had the safety belt gone, so I was obviously near the end of my endurance. Fortunately the Out and About planning of Orkney Blide Trust's trip gave me the opportunity to do the headland full justice a short time later. After leaving the gloup some of us kept closer than the others to the land's edge, and treated ourselves to peering down the sheer sides of long and narrow Pantie Geo. We reached the angular monument that I have seen from miles away at various places, a tall truncated pyramid topped by a cross. It sits on the site of one of two Rose Ness beacons. They both dated to the modern era, but at this one there is a large level mound of stones that speaks of an earlier vardr. Or something more, as during its construction in 1867 the men found a well-preserved skeleton and re-buried most of this under the stones dug up. Down near the far end of the ness the slightly later light beacon (1905) still stands. It is where we all finally fetched up.Long ago a neighbour took me here and, by prmission, let me up inside. These beacons are low affairs. Meant only to be seen in daylight they don't 'shout' at you like lighthouses, their human scale most appealing. By it are two concrete foundations that have to be wartime remains. Two of our party sat on the smaller one, about two metres square. A quick glance saw possible earlier stuff there too. The trail ends at The Riff, so there must be an obstacle between there and Roy [brief speculation - roy/roi. is the King of Semolie the Row/Roo 'rock' of Semolie]. Didn't go that far but returned by way of North Cairn. In the hollowed top of this cairn are a number of large stones and a single orthostat, a survivor. Further on we met a member who had arrived late on her own. We were all lucky enough to see a wader up omn the headland barely a small room's length away. The bird ran along the straight edge of a shallow ? peat cutting. Must have had a nest nearby we guessed as it made several passes. Lovely little thing. Jeff and I thought it could be a dotterel. Put rwa photos on the Facebook page of the Orkney Nature Festival and had it identified as a dunlin
Labels: brochs, Castle Howe, East Holm, gloup, Greenwall, Hestakelda, Hole of The Ness, Hurtiso Hood, King of Semolie, Mass Howe, Meil House, Mound, North Cairn, Rose Ness, St Nicholas' Church, Stembister, Sundial, Tieve Well
Sunday, June 26, 2011
SOUTH SANDAY AND TOLHOP June 11th 2011
Another trip left to the Fates, giving myself only enough time to reach the top of Palace Road before the Deerness bus did. As it was I had several minutes to spare. The BBC said there would be infrequent showers in the afternoon instead of which this morning there had been barely a break in the weather since I got up. Still raining when I reached the Stembister junction and for some time after. This part of St.Andrew's is called Upper Sanday (Sandi Sands are Sanday Sands originally) with Sanday here meaning south [as with ? Sandy Howes in Tankerness inland]. At least the moody atmospherics gave a few decent landscape shots when I timed them right. A lady offered me a lift but despite the rain I explained I wanted to continue walking to the stone. Saw a lovely bird on the wall of a concrete holding pen but even with one decent photo I am not sure if a warbler or a bunting, thought I had it when Springwatch showed a hen stonechat less sure when I compared with a coffee-table bird book. Basically a D-shape with long tail and fairly stubby beak, light grey head and shoulders, folded wings upper half light chestnut (top edge white) and lower half darker with some black and white, underside light sand in colour, tail white from side view, legs red. There were a few others flying in the drizzle. After I passed a farmtrack junction I looked back and saw a bloke with binoculars, presumably an ornithologist. Think I saw him again later as I waited for the bus back so not a 'twitcher'.
On reaching Stembister/Stembuster Farm you cross a millstream. A track goes to the right and looking up on the horizon there is a long metre high mound simply called the Cairn. Today bright grass hairily covers its flanks. The silhouette resembles two mounds of different heights lodged together, which shape is thought to be from its being quarried for stone. In 1964 the OS called it a mound of earth with burnt stones, though Mr Skea in 1979 told RCAHMS he had never seen any burnt material and neither did the Royal Commission when they looked. Certainly an unusual placing for a burnt mound. Having looked for myself previously and found none either I am inclined to call this a mound that had burning, possibly crematory, as distinct from a burnt mound proper.
Left the the farmtrack runs between the burn and a likely millpond. The farmyard is surprisingly small, and though I walk tight to the side the ducks and geese still run in front of me. You don't expect that of geese either, not very Roman ! There is cottagey farmhouse facing the sea. In front of that is a drying green with the standing stone over to one corner. Safety concerns in the 60's led to its being moved slightly from its former cliff-edge site with the packing stones lost during the move or a little before - fortunately the NMRS photographed the orignal placing before that time. This north-south aligned stone sits, facing the sea, a tad over six feet high and varies in width from 28" to just under half that. The best views are looking along the sides at the cliffs fore and aft. Delightful. Not having bought a return ticket I could have gone south into Holm for another look at North Cairn near Roseness ('ware the muckle Hole of The Ness going there, a mighty inland gloup). However between here and there is a steep funnel of a cliff where the path above unfairly invites you to rush down and up the other side, and it had been raining.
Decided to do photoessay on the mill (HY50SW 18) for Orkney Live. As I returned to the milldam I suddenly noticed for the first time a long thin depression running along the top of the burn bank parallel to the modern fence, and then a straight edged ridge alongside like trunking. This must be a lade like those at Tormiston and Tankerness mills. Even though the upper side of the dam is much higher than the downstream side I can't see these waters having fed the lade, more likely from the pond surviving on the opposite side of the farmtrack. The stream being low enabled me to see that on the downhill side it passed through a small built passage with lintel. Near the top of the dam is a rectangular hole two courses high on the downstream side a block high on the other (I do not know its purpose but there is one in the Sand of Wideford bridge at the height of the [present] track over it). About mid-height there is a tall passage running through the dam at the south side, also lintelled. Downstream it emerges in an unroofed channel with built walls from which the water issues onto the burn. There is the remains of a stone construction on the north side upstream. Leaned on the wall for a photo and received an electric shock (delish) from a fence I failed to spot, my ain fault. There are two large horizontal slabs that may overlie a wall (though these too big for a fieldwall) and a few more slabs and several stones in front of them - perhaps an earlier mill feature.
Fortune favoured me in that the fieldgate of the field opposite the mill itself lay open, allowing me to progress along the edge for a closer view of that. From here I could not see the concrete channel in which the iron-framed breast-shot waterwheel with its small buckets sits, only the drystone structure supporting the exposed shaft and the passage in the main building (now a storehouse) into which the shaft goes. If it weren't for the narrow grassy gap between that structure (or should I say wall ?) and the larger one uphill I would have said that they were of a piece. This structure has a staggered appearance on the downhill side, though that could be put down to deterioration. In it is a narrow lintelled rectangular opening with an angled slab floor. From the main building above a large timber projects out of the bottom of a narrower opening (the timber only occupying the bottom) in the same position. The structure is continued back until the side against the building is level with the top of the bank, which is why I think this version of the mill fed from the pond on other side of farm road. There do seem to be differing alignments in what I saw.
Thought about walking up to the mound. Rather too overgrown to video at this time. Also I saw the farmer having bother that way herding animals and didn't choose to risk making his work even harder. Just upstream of the dam twa ducks played on an islet a few metres across, though I'll wager it has been a long time since this split the burn's waters even at full spate as they're high and dry now. Perhaps this was the burnt mound, unlikely though I think it. At the top of the hill a side-branch strikes off for the isthmus seperating St.Andrew's fro Deerness. I had forgot this at the time but still went along it as the track further along that does the same would be a little damp mebbe. This is the Biggings road. On my right I noticed a farm with the intriguing name Rubiquoy - my first guess that it might be from roeberry 'red rock', my second that it might be the equivalent of Bloody Quoy, but from research in the Orkney Room rubi means simply 'depression'. Not often places in Orkney have the name dispayed where you can see it - have always pitied the poor posties. Further down greeted by a young woman coming from the buildings at Greens. Felt like saying hello, but only waved back. Here in December 1923 a Pictish symbol-stone was uncovered whilst drain-digging, by M.D. Laughton, about a foot underground a mere six yards from an outhouse corner at the north side of house. Perhaps this came from Dingy's Howe or even Castle. Greens has the same meaning as Gears down by the road, both presumably referring to the same triangle of land [that between Stembister road and the isthmus methinks].
Before this road heads to the isthmus you look down on a hammocky shaped mound, just what you expect of a broch. This 25' high circular mound is Dingyshowe (with naming variations. Also called Duncan's Height until at least 1842), first excavated in August 1860. It proved to be a broch that only stood six foot high, though with an external diameter of 57' and walls twelve foot thick that had been built directly onto a grass covered sandy hillock. Debris filled this Burg - potsherds, animal bones, a human skull, and between an edgeset slab and the wall a heap of water-worn stones like a celt workshop - and on the floor was a layer of red clay with an ash and charcoal deposit containing more animal bone. A mix of unburnt and burnt bones came from under parts of the wall. Beneath the floor evidence of a strong fire came in the form of clay and semi-vitrified sand, possibly cremation cramp. Sometime in the 1920's an amateur excavation in the south side revealed a short length of simple drystone wall/walling and a small kitchen midden, from which latter in 1929 the Royal Commission retrieved hammerstones (Petrie's celts) and degraded potsherds. The O.S. in 1964 saw several small trenches and noted shell deposits on the mound's south and west slopes. Other shell middens can be found at the remains of Peerie Howe close by and near the cliff base close to the Sandaiken site in Taracliff Bay next door (just before you reach the seps up to the new trail). In 1986 the Royal Commission paid another visit, finding a possible bank and ditch at the north and north-west but noting that this could be the result of quarrying for sand. It has been asserted that there are further levels of the broch unexcavated but six foot is all that was found. This is not a greenfield site. Beneath the floor they found clay, vitrified sand and Neolithic potsherds (Grooved Ware and rough Rinyo-Clacton), and the Royal Commision found similar pottery in the kitchen midden [Grooved Ware has been found at Evie Sands by the Broch of Gurness]. The description of a tumulus
somewhere back on a hill south of the Toab road, HY50NW 9, excavated by George Petrie in March 1850 (a 2m cutting from the east edge to the centre) might give us some idea of what preceded the broch. This conical barrow stood five feet high and thirty feet across inside a three foot wide shallow ditch. A ring of large burnt stones ran about the periphery of this clay mound. Halfway in the clay darkened and hardened. In the centre Petrie found a "considerable heap" of burnt bones and charcoal bits embedded in the clay in a three inch thick layer. He found no stones there and no tools in the barrow. Perhaps the five vanished Howies of Bossack (at the quarry that is now a tip) were similar. Petrie also dug one of the low flat-topped mounds a few feet away, of mostly large stones and measuring 22' diameter and 2' high. A foot down found a NNE/SSW short cist (2' by 18" by 1' deep) containing earth and clay with some burnt bone at the bottom, with a ?whetstone deposited outside the NNE end. Could this be the nature of the presumed dwellings between Dingishow and the Deerness shore - they have been dismissed as the results of sand quarrying but the 1798 Statistical Account specifically refers to them as "hillocks of stones".
A pity there is no suitably near high spot to look down from the other side. The top left of the 'hammock'[?N] is a peedie bit higher than the right [?S]. A linear trench comes from partway up the left [?S] diagonally up into the depressed centre. I go onto the main road to start my videoing from the northern side deosil. On the east side there is a large gouge that seems to have been done in a one-er, a likely candidate for any sand quarrying there may have been. With a magnifying glass I can make it out on the 1:25,000 eating into the outer broch area ! There are at least two tracks up the side of the mound, one of which I assume the excavators took. From the Taing of Beeman (with its double Bronze Age house) at high enough zoom you can see clear over to this broch. The broch's tower is now a big bowl providing shelter from the winds. Near the bottom of the bowl there are some stones exposed in what I think is the SE corner. Going down and coming round to the west side away from the mound there are still bumps, including a gently curved broad one alongside with that could cover an outer broch wall [in my estimation]. That diagonal trench may skirt the outer wallface of the broch tower or even be the space between it and outworks, though I would have thought Petrie would have looked for an associated settlement after being disappointed by the tower's lack of height.
Near the west side a modern track cuts deep into the earth. On the 'platform' betwen this and the mound varied stones have been made into stool sized garden features. Going up onto the older track to Turnpike a garden on the clifftop has been sub-divided by low drystane walls. If not for the colour I would have believed they came from the much reduced burnt mound showing in the cliff below. All that is left can be seen below a tyre and beneath a corrugated iron sheet - a short line of shells in red earth and a few flat stone fragments. This is known as Peerie Howe. Further along the beach there is a rough line of flat and rounded boulders in the cliff-face barely above the shore.
Now I betook me along the road towards Toab. In Sandi Sands three lines of concrete work go out into Peter's Pool, staggered half way along. These are WWII defences, HY50SW 26, made up of anti-tank blocks/pimples. They are a mix of cylinders, probably metal encased, and truncated pyramids. Beside the road there are few of the latter sitting in a grassy depression to prevent access to the road if those lines were breached. I considered wandering the shore for an easterly view of the broch settlement above St Peter's Bay, passing by Comely (cuml 'mound', the low coastal cairn directly ahint the farm perhaps) and the St Peter's Kirk Burnt Mound, but was wary of the seaweed and kept to the road. HY50SW 8 at HY53680422 lies above the shore and is a roughly circular turf-covered mound, barely reaching eighteen inches in height, with a few large stones sticking out. What it is exactly is uncertain because though RCAMS reported this as a mound of burnt stone Corrie in the same year mentions no such material.
As I continued to the Campston junction I kept taking photos and shooting videos of the two sites in the distance. There is a third, which is now supposedly a prominent grassy knoll (with a black earth patch) though I've never spotted it. Campston Burnt Mound, HY50SW 5 on the 1:25,000 at HY53420428, was only 0.8m high anyway. However this N/S aligned mound did, and presumably still does, cover an area 11 by 9 metres. The nearer site is St Peter's Kirk (Campston), showing as foot high grass-covered footings on an 18" high trapezoidal mound some 35 by 25 yards across. A 1798 reference to a roofless St Peter's Church in Deerness is actually for its parish church of St Ninian. I would suggest that this kirk was actually a private chapel attached to a Viking hall - RCAHMS put it atop a steep rise with a maximum two metre height on the north that they put down to probable settlement debris at that part. The Royal Commission in 1985 noted massive square blocks exposed along the edge in various places around the 21 by 25m enclosure edge, I could see masonry but spotted seperate blocks along or next to the furthest uphill and downhill corners. They did not find the 10 by 5m foundations to be definitively the kirk remains.
A little further away is a site not shown even on the latest map. A collection of sites under the umbrella of St Peter's Bay, record HY50SW 21 to be exact; mound, ditch, ?settlement. It was as late as 1979 that RCAHMS found a five foot high turf-covered mound measuring 16m by 18m from the top of which slab stumps protruded. Level platform traces to the south were investigated in 2001 when a section of ditch (with a likely SE entrance or other break) about the mound estimated at 6-8m wide gave an estimate for the site, likely a broch, being some 55m across. Geophysics also found anomalies outside of this area. More detailed geophysics on the mound and platform in 2006 confirmed the ditch and suggested associated banks as well as further settlement, this especially beyond the putative entrance. The resistance survey found several concentric rings, with the innermost believed to be a broch tower and the rest ditch revetment, and radar indicated a 3m deep ditch 8m wide. In between the survey dates the farmer had managed to uncover passages and walls in which he found saddle querns and decorated stones. If not for this I would have minded on that when geofizz found concentric rings on investigating the supposed broch at the end of the Ness of Brodgar this had been used to change its designation to chambered cairn.
The road to Ness of Campston is part of a crossroads, with the Stembister junction on the other side of the main road. There is an intriguing dyke on the farmroad's west side as you come up to Campston, not aligned to the fieldwalls. Moments after I passed the farmhouse a mannie came out and asked what I was doing. On explaining about photographing the two sites he found it strange to take pictures from the road, being sure that I must be about going into the fields to do so. After several repeatings he finally believed me to be content merely using the zoom to compensate, and I left this bemused landowner behind. Last time on this piece I had noticed you could only go so far before the broch mound dipped finally out of site, but somehow failed to spot the kirk. In fact the kirk stays in view for a few minutes more. Only from the farmroad can you see the uppermost corner too.
From the Ness road junction I could see all the way over past the Campston mound (along the track to Venikelday, a broch in a ringwork saith the blessed Raymond) to the Bay of Suckquoy 'muddy quoy' between Tolhop (hop=hope 'sheltered harbour') and
Sebay. On the Toab coastline before you reach the pow of Grandag ('beach above water at ebbtide' perhaps the Norn for ouse/oyce) there is a large mound covered in bushes that remains a mystery to me, unless it be connected to the extensive old saltings
hereabouts, as I have found no mention or depiction anywhere. Southwest of Holiday Cottage a larger map than the 1:25,000 (i.e. drilling down on CANMAP) shows stepping stones at HY,525,0418. Considered going to Campston Broch again. Much better to
go back to Dingieshowe and its loos though. Having gained the bay again almost thought to go on to Newark [and the Mussaquoy 'burnt mound' - another that isnae] and catch the last bus back, but health took precedence - having started off with a couple of hours of rain (predicted for the late afternoon of course) I had caught the rough end of the day had become a bit of a roaster. Back to Kirkwall in time to visit the jobshop. Phew !
--- Though it would be useful to find Petrie's 'Tob' sites his Toab road seems likely to include as far east as the Twiness junction. An 1880 find of a foot-carved block (HY50NW 22) near various mounds including Stoney Howe (Mine Howe) refers to this locale as [within the] region of Toab [analogy with the Ladykirk Stone would connect the sandstone carving to St.Ninian's Chapel]. In similar manner we now refer to his Toab road as 'the Deerness road' past 'the airport road'.
Another trip left to the Fates, giving myself only enough time to reach the top of Palace Road before the Deerness bus did. As it was I had several minutes to spare. The BBC said there would be infrequent showers in the afternoon instead of which this morning there had been barely a break in the weather since I got up. Still raining when I reached the Stembister junction and for some time after. This part of St.Andrew's is called Upper Sanday (Sandi Sands are Sanday Sands originally) with Sanday here meaning south [as with ? Sandy Howes in Tankerness inland]. At least the moody atmospherics gave a few decent landscape shots when I timed them right. A lady offered me a lift but despite the rain I explained I wanted to continue walking to the stone. Saw a lovely bird on the wall of a concrete holding pen but even with one decent photo I am not sure if a warbler or a bunting, thought I had it when Springwatch showed a hen stonechat less sure when I compared with a coffee-table bird book. Basically a D-shape with long tail and fairly stubby beak, light grey head and shoulders, folded wings upper half light chestnut (top edge white) and lower half darker with some black and white, underside light sand in colour, tail white from side view, legs red. There were a few others flying in the drizzle. After I passed a farmtrack junction I looked back and saw a bloke with binoculars, presumably an ornithologist. Think I saw him again later as I waited for the bus back so not a 'twitcher'.
On reaching Stembister/Stembuster Farm you cross a millstream. A track goes to the right and looking up on the horizon there is a long metre high mound simply called the Cairn. Today bright grass hairily covers its flanks. The silhouette resembles two mounds of different heights lodged together, which shape is thought to be from its being quarried for stone. In 1964 the OS called it a mound of earth with burnt stones, though Mr Skea in 1979 told RCAHMS he had never seen any burnt material and neither did the Royal Commission when they looked. Certainly an unusual placing for a burnt mound. Having looked for myself previously and found none either I am inclined to call this a mound that had burning, possibly crematory, as distinct from a burnt mound proper.
Left the the farmtrack runs between the burn and a likely millpond. The farmyard is surprisingly small, and though I walk tight to the side the ducks and geese still run in front of me. You don't expect that of geese either, not very Roman ! There is cottagey farmhouse facing the sea. In front of that is a drying green with the standing stone over to one corner. Safety concerns in the 60's led to its being moved slightly from its former cliff-edge site with the packing stones lost during the move or a little before - fortunately the NMRS photographed the orignal placing before that time. This north-south aligned stone sits, facing the sea, a tad over six feet high and varies in width from 28" to just under half that. The best views are looking along the sides at the cliffs fore and aft. Delightful. Not having bought a return ticket I could have gone south into Holm for another look at North Cairn near Roseness ('ware the muckle Hole of The Ness going there, a mighty inland gloup). However between here and there is a steep funnel of a cliff where the path above unfairly invites you to rush down and up the other side, and it had been raining.
Decided to do photoessay on the mill (HY50SW 18) for Orkney Live. As I returned to the milldam I suddenly noticed for the first time a long thin depression running along the top of the burn bank parallel to the modern fence, and then a straight edged ridge alongside like trunking. This must be a lade like those at Tormiston and Tankerness mills. Even though the upper side of the dam is much higher than the downstream side I can't see these waters having fed the lade, more likely from the pond surviving on the opposite side of the farmtrack. The stream being low enabled me to see that on the downhill side it passed through a small built passage with lintel. Near the top of the dam is a rectangular hole two courses high on the downstream side a block high on the other (I do not know its purpose but there is one in the Sand of Wideford bridge at the height of the [present] track over it). About mid-height there is a tall passage running through the dam at the south side, also lintelled. Downstream it emerges in an unroofed channel with built walls from which the water issues onto the burn. There is the remains of a stone construction on the north side upstream. Leaned on the wall for a photo and received an electric shock (delish) from a fence I failed to spot, my ain fault. There are two large horizontal slabs that may overlie a wall (though these too big for a fieldwall) and a few more slabs and several stones in front of them - perhaps an earlier mill feature.
Fortune favoured me in that the fieldgate of the field opposite the mill itself lay open, allowing me to progress along the edge for a closer view of that. From here I could not see the concrete channel in which the iron-framed breast-shot waterwheel with its small buckets sits, only the drystone structure supporting the exposed shaft and the passage in the main building (now a storehouse) into which the shaft goes. If it weren't for the narrow grassy gap between that structure (or should I say wall ?) and the larger one uphill I would have said that they were of a piece. This structure has a staggered appearance on the downhill side, though that could be put down to deterioration. In it is a narrow lintelled rectangular opening with an angled slab floor. From the main building above a large timber projects out of the bottom of a narrower opening (the timber only occupying the bottom) in the same position. The structure is continued back until the side against the building is level with the top of the bank, which is why I think this version of the mill fed from the pond on other side of farm road. There do seem to be differing alignments in what I saw.
Thought about walking up to the mound. Rather too overgrown to video at this time. Also I saw the farmer having bother that way herding animals and didn't choose to risk making his work even harder. Just upstream of the dam twa ducks played on an islet a few metres across, though I'll wager it has been a long time since this split the burn's waters even at full spate as they're high and dry now. Perhaps this was the burnt mound, unlikely though I think it. At the top of the hill a side-branch strikes off for the isthmus seperating St.Andrew's fro Deerness. I had forgot this at the time but still went along it as the track further along that does the same would be a little damp mebbe. This is the Biggings road. On my right I noticed a farm with the intriguing name Rubiquoy - my first guess that it might be from roeberry 'red rock', my second that it might be the equivalent of Bloody Quoy, but from research in the Orkney Room rubi means simply 'depression'. Not often places in Orkney have the name dispayed where you can see it - have always pitied the poor posties. Further down greeted by a young woman coming from the buildings at Greens. Felt like saying hello, but only waved back. Here in December 1923 a Pictish symbol-stone was uncovered whilst drain-digging, by M.D. Laughton, about a foot underground a mere six yards from an outhouse corner at the north side of house. Perhaps this came from Dingy's Howe or even Castle. Greens has the same meaning as Gears down by the road, both presumably referring to the same triangle of land [that between Stembister road and the isthmus methinks].
Before this road heads to the isthmus you look down on a hammocky shaped mound, just what you expect of a broch. This 25' high circular mound is Dingyshowe (with naming variations. Also called Duncan's Height until at least 1842), first excavated in August 1860. It proved to be a broch that only stood six foot high, though with an external diameter of 57' and walls twelve foot thick that had been built directly onto a grass covered sandy hillock. Debris filled this Burg - potsherds, animal bones, a human skull, and between an edgeset slab and the wall a heap of water-worn stones like a celt workshop - and on the floor was a layer of red clay with an ash and charcoal deposit containing more animal bone. A mix of unburnt and burnt bones came from under parts of the wall. Beneath the floor evidence of a strong fire came in the form of clay and semi-vitrified sand, possibly cremation cramp. Sometime in the 1920's an amateur excavation in the south side revealed a short length of simple drystone wall/walling and a small kitchen midden, from which latter in 1929 the Royal Commission retrieved hammerstones (Petrie's celts) and degraded potsherds. The O.S. in 1964 saw several small trenches and noted shell deposits on the mound's south and west slopes. Other shell middens can be found at the remains of Peerie Howe close by and near the cliff base close to the Sandaiken site in Taracliff Bay next door (just before you reach the seps up to the new trail). In 1986 the Royal Commission paid another visit, finding a possible bank and ditch at the north and north-west but noting that this could be the result of quarrying for sand. It has been asserted that there are further levels of the broch unexcavated but six foot is all that was found. This is not a greenfield site. Beneath the floor they found clay, vitrified sand and Neolithic potsherds (Grooved Ware and rough Rinyo-Clacton), and the Royal Commision found similar pottery in the kitchen midden [Grooved Ware has been found at Evie Sands by the Broch of Gurness]. The description of a tumulus
somewhere back on a hill south of the Toab road, HY50NW 9, excavated by George Petrie in March 1850 (a 2m cutting from the east edge to the centre) might give us some idea of what preceded the broch. This conical barrow stood five feet high and thirty feet across inside a three foot wide shallow ditch. A ring of large burnt stones ran about the periphery of this clay mound. Halfway in the clay darkened and hardened. In the centre Petrie found a "considerable heap" of burnt bones and charcoal bits embedded in the clay in a three inch thick layer. He found no stones there and no tools in the barrow. Perhaps the five vanished Howies of Bossack (at the quarry that is now a tip) were similar. Petrie also dug one of the low flat-topped mounds a few feet away, of mostly large stones and measuring 22' diameter and 2' high. A foot down found a NNE/SSW short cist (2' by 18" by 1' deep) containing earth and clay with some burnt bone at the bottom, with a ?whetstone deposited outside the NNE end. Could this be the nature of the presumed dwellings between Dingishow and the Deerness shore - they have been dismissed as the results of sand quarrying but the 1798 Statistical Account specifically refers to them as "hillocks of stones".
A pity there is no suitably near high spot to look down from the other side. The top left of the 'hammock'[?N] is a peedie bit higher than the right [?S]. A linear trench comes from partway up the left [?S] diagonally up into the depressed centre. I go onto the main road to start my videoing from the northern side deosil. On the east side there is a large gouge that seems to have been done in a one-er, a likely candidate for any sand quarrying there may have been. With a magnifying glass I can make it out on the 1:25,000 eating into the outer broch area ! There are at least two tracks up the side of the mound, one of which I assume the excavators took. From the Taing of Beeman (with its double Bronze Age house) at high enough zoom you can see clear over to this broch. The broch's tower is now a big bowl providing shelter from the winds. Near the bottom of the bowl there are some stones exposed in what I think is the SE corner. Going down and coming round to the west side away from the mound there are still bumps, including a gently curved broad one alongside with that could cover an outer broch wall [in my estimation]. That diagonal trench may skirt the outer wallface of the broch tower or even be the space between it and outworks, though I would have thought Petrie would have looked for an associated settlement after being disappointed by the tower's lack of height.
Near the west side a modern track cuts deep into the earth. On the 'platform' betwen this and the mound varied stones have been made into stool sized garden features. Going up onto the older track to Turnpike a garden on the clifftop has been sub-divided by low drystane walls. If not for the colour I would have believed they came from the much reduced burnt mound showing in the cliff below. All that is left can be seen below a tyre and beneath a corrugated iron sheet - a short line of shells in red earth and a few flat stone fragments. This is known as Peerie Howe. Further along the beach there is a rough line of flat and rounded boulders in the cliff-face barely above the shore.
Now I betook me along the road towards Toab. In Sandi Sands three lines of concrete work go out into Peter's Pool, staggered half way along. These are WWII defences, HY50SW 26, made up of anti-tank blocks/pimples. They are a mix of cylinders, probably metal encased, and truncated pyramids. Beside the road there are few of the latter sitting in a grassy depression to prevent access to the road if those lines were breached. I considered wandering the shore for an easterly view of the broch settlement above St Peter's Bay, passing by Comely (cuml 'mound', the low coastal cairn directly ahint the farm perhaps) and the St Peter's Kirk Burnt Mound, but was wary of the seaweed and kept to the road. HY50SW 8 at HY53680422 lies above the shore and is a roughly circular turf-covered mound, barely reaching eighteen inches in height, with a few large stones sticking out. What it is exactly is uncertain because though RCAMS reported this as a mound of burnt stone Corrie in the same year mentions no such material.
As I continued to the Campston junction I kept taking photos and shooting videos of the two sites in the distance. There is a third, which is now supposedly a prominent grassy knoll (with a black earth patch) though I've never spotted it. Campston Burnt Mound, HY50SW 5 on the 1:25,000 at HY53420428, was only 0.8m high anyway. However this N/S aligned mound did, and presumably still does, cover an area 11 by 9 metres. The nearer site is St Peter's Kirk (Campston), showing as foot high grass-covered footings on an 18" high trapezoidal mound some 35 by 25 yards across. A 1798 reference to a roofless St Peter's Church in Deerness is actually for its parish church of St Ninian. I would suggest that this kirk was actually a private chapel attached to a Viking hall - RCAHMS put it atop a steep rise with a maximum two metre height on the north that they put down to probable settlement debris at that part. The Royal Commission in 1985 noted massive square blocks exposed along the edge in various places around the 21 by 25m enclosure edge, I could see masonry but spotted seperate blocks along or next to the furthest uphill and downhill corners. They did not find the 10 by 5m foundations to be definitively the kirk remains.
A little further away is a site not shown even on the latest map. A collection of sites under the umbrella of St Peter's Bay, record HY50SW 21 to be exact; mound, ditch, ?settlement. It was as late as 1979 that RCAHMS found a five foot high turf-covered mound measuring 16m by 18m from the top of which slab stumps protruded. Level platform traces to the south were investigated in 2001 when a section of ditch (with a likely SE entrance or other break) about the mound estimated at 6-8m wide gave an estimate for the site, likely a broch, being some 55m across. Geophysics also found anomalies outside of this area. More detailed geophysics on the mound and platform in 2006 confirmed the ditch and suggested associated banks as well as further settlement, this especially beyond the putative entrance. The resistance survey found several concentric rings, with the innermost believed to be a broch tower and the rest ditch revetment, and radar indicated a 3m deep ditch 8m wide. In between the survey dates the farmer had managed to uncover passages and walls in which he found saddle querns and decorated stones. If not for this I would have minded on that when geofizz found concentric rings on investigating the supposed broch at the end of the Ness of Brodgar this had been used to change its designation to chambered cairn.
The road to Ness of Campston is part of a crossroads, with the Stembister junction on the other side of the main road. There is an intriguing dyke on the farmroad's west side as you come up to Campston, not aligned to the fieldwalls. Moments after I passed the farmhouse a mannie came out and asked what I was doing. On explaining about photographing the two sites he found it strange to take pictures from the road, being sure that I must be about going into the fields to do so. After several repeatings he finally believed me to be content merely using the zoom to compensate, and I left this bemused landowner behind. Last time on this piece I had noticed you could only go so far before the broch mound dipped finally out of site, but somehow failed to spot the kirk. In fact the kirk stays in view for a few minutes more. Only from the farmroad can you see the uppermost corner too.
From the Ness road junction I could see all the way over past the Campston mound (along the track to Venikelday, a broch in a ringwork saith the blessed Raymond) to the Bay of Suckquoy 'muddy quoy' between Tolhop (hop=hope 'sheltered harbour') and
Sebay. On the Toab coastline before you reach the pow of Grandag ('beach above water at ebbtide' perhaps the Norn for ouse/oyce) there is a large mound covered in bushes that remains a mystery to me, unless it be connected to the extensive old saltings
hereabouts, as I have found no mention or depiction anywhere. Southwest of Holiday Cottage a larger map than the 1:25,000 (i.e. drilling down on CANMAP) shows stepping stones at HY,525,0418. Considered going to Campston Broch again. Much better to
go back to Dingieshowe and its loos though. Having gained the bay again almost thought to go on to Newark [and the Mussaquoy 'burnt mound' - another that isnae] and catch the last bus back, but health took precedence - having started off with a couple of hours of rain (predicted for the late afternoon of course) I had caught the rough end of the day had become a bit of a roaster. Back to Kirkwall in time to visit the jobshop. Phew !
--- Though it would be useful to find Petrie's 'Tob' sites his Toab road seems likely to include as far east as the Twiness junction. An 1880 find of a foot-carved block (HY50NW 22) near various mounds including Stoney Howe (Mine Howe) refers to this locale as [within the] region of Toab [analogy with the Ladykirk Stone would connect the sandstone carving to St.Ninian's Chapel]. In similar manner we now refer to his Toab road as 'the Deerness road' past 'the airport road'.
Labels: anti-tank defences, broch, Campston, Dingieshowe, footprint, Greens, mill, Peerie Howe, Pickaquoy burnt mound, St Peter's Bay, St Peter's Kirk, standing stone, Stembister
