Orcadian landscapes

EVIE Set off from Orkney Blide Trust on the minibus on a lovely bright day. Arrived at Tingwall, that is thing-völlr 'thing-field'. The long mound has two peaks, the first the top of the broch that was used as the assembly place (with stonework exposed in various places top to base) and the second where a mill once stood. Walking between the houses the millstream ends in a culvert beneath a high drystane wall bridging the banks. There are various ruined buildings. At the cliff edge one of these is an old boathouse, just about distinguishable from the rest. Since this visit one of the other buildings has been renovated and dolled up as Betty's Reading Room, with an old mangle and a large mounted grinding-wheel outside. This was done by locals after the sudden death of Betty, and to commemorate her there are masses of shelves full of books - something to do whilst waiting for transport. Looking to my right towards Banks a shadowed heron could be made out on the shore in the distance. As the ferry left Tingwall I trained my binoculars on the mounds between Tingwall and Woodwick. The Knowe of Midgarth settlement (HY32SE 6 at HY39812361) is comprised of two sites - a long hillock that is a chambered mound (though thought by some to be a variation on a souterrain) adjacent to a circular mound. From the ferry at high magnification the disparity is plain to see, even clearer than from the farmroad to Tingwall. Previously I have seen similarities with the Howe of Hoxa, where a broch sits on the far end of a long mound (traditionally a Viking burial site), but if it isn't a settlement might it not be like the Head of Work where a circular cairn has been plonked on a long cairn later ?? The cairns are right at the edge of the low cliffs and from the ferry the material of the long cairn clearly extends down to the cliff base (or at least sea-level on the day). BRINIAN On arrival the first business of the day was a delivery of leaflets to the Rousay surgery, heading east and then down a steep short road to Brinian House. A fine two-storey house with pale lemon limewash walls below two pitched roofs (or a bayed roof). At least that is how the walls looked from the sea, where it resembles a rather tall kirk of the ordinary kind with a peedie pitch roofed portico centrally placed. There is an actual kirk close at hand. In fact there are two kirks, one no longer in use only a stone's throw away. You would think that the active kirk is the older one going by the arched windows but you can see from the tops that these are set into a rectangular space. Both are of the late kind, no great age to them, both with those [what I would call] porticos facing the sea [session houses ??] but with chimneys. The slightly older one has the graveyard behind it. This kirk took over the duties of the Swandro kirk when St Mary's Church became abandoned in 1815. Our first real stop is Trumland House. From May to September all of the grounds and gardens can be seen by the public, and part of the buildings. Near the entrance is an information point where you also pay for admittance, though this is unmanned and you pay how much you want to. The vista is magnificent, with a magnificent sweep of road taking you round to the grand mansion house. It is half-hidden by trees from here and there is a small woodland/copse right of the road, eventually giving way to heath and gorse at the edge of Green Hill. The next point of interest is the boundary wall, with a gateway sans gate. The gatepillars are square and of mortared stone. They are topped with concrete capped tall pyramids, the whole distinctly out of proportion. To the left is a devil's gate, three staggered slabs set into the wall. Raising your eyes there is a tomb under Historic Scotland's care on the horizon. In May 1898 workmen digging out a mound on Flag-Staff Hill, 300 yards west of Trumbland (sic) House, to make a summer seat found a 'vault' with bones etcetera (said to be similar to to a discovery near Hunclett farm described as unexcavated at the time, more than likely the Knowe of Hunclett). When the circle was almost done they came upon a well-finished wall and thin edgeset stones where the remains were found under a stone at the foot of one of these slabs along with rough pottery. Two more small 'kists' were found before they made the major discovery of the main body of the tomb under a 10" thick fallen lintel. This split-level tomb is now called Taversoe Tuick (HY42NW 2 at HY42572761). It dates to 2130~1740 BC. In the early 1990s the mid-morning sun was observed coming along the passage to the lower chamber on December 18th. Trevor Garnham thinks there may be an alignment involving the lower passage viz. burial cairn at top of Gairsay (HY42SW 15 at HY44112233) > the passage at HY42572761 > Holm of Huip cairn (HY63SW 4 at HY62823116) > Eday Church cairn (HY53SE 5 at HY56043344). At the house the first thing you see is a small museum and picture gallery attached to the side of the main building. Light and airy. What I love is the agricultural machinery, most especially the wood and metal wonder that is the ~1880 combined corn and seed-dressing machine. Actually, the first thing to greet us is the family pet, a white and light tan hound. The house has been given crow-stepped ends to the end of almost every roof. Its front is chock full of big bright windows. Of note are a bay window at ground level and two pedimented windows on the first floor on the left and on the right a narrow corner window with a curved projection a little distance above. The cluster of small buildings already mentioned make for a more cluttered east side, these entered by an 'archway' pointed on top but ogival beneath. Compared to the front the back of the house is not so imposing. Appearances deceive me as this is really the front of the house with a studded wooden door held by massive black hinges which sits inside a round arched decorative stone doorway edged with a rope effect. In an horizontal cartouche above this sits the original owner's initials in monogram form, the date 1873 and other letters. A steeped line, part of a horizontal stone one going across the whole face of the house, sits over it. Touching the top of that is the bottom of a window, and I have only just spotted that above the window is a vertical stone cartouche about the same size, with what appears to be a shield inside (sadly eroding). Centrally place in a large space on the right-hand side is the piece-de-resistance, a much larger stone cartouche containing Burrough's coat-of-arms with flourishes and a rectangular plaque with his medals in stone form. The west end is the east sans additions. Now I can see another of those corner windows, except at the actual corner of the house, and the 'cornice' above. Still cannot divine a purpose for that - all that I am reminded of is the same feature at e.g. the Clay Loan end of Victoria Street and Neukatineuks in Kirkwall, but those are (they say) designed for carriages to pass safely round and are at ground level, not two floors up !! Later, on leaving the natural wonderland behind and coming back round to the south side of the house, re-reading my photos taken from the north elucidates my former error as to the mansion house's orientation. What I like about this place is the almost unadulterated symmetry of it, not being a hostage to sterile balance. It certainly looks like the house only went as far as the two corner windows. But even within that the left is dominated by the two-storey bay window with two narrow windows below two triangles the same width topped by roses whilst the right is dominated by a twin-peaked crow-stepped roof that does not touch the upper windows. The right-hand side is what ordinarily would be a main entrance slap-bang centre. Two sets of stone steps lead from the stone path around the chief lawn up to the centre of its facade only to bring you up abruptly at the window - no sign a door had ever been intended even ! Of course the lower steps do take you to a similar path across in front of the house as if on a gallery with views down. Back to the day, and from the gallery we started for the gardens. Entry is under an arch set on pillars, the whole made from red sandstone now parti-coloured with pale lichen. Around Trumland House there are many items constructed from old ruins re-used. Whether this piece has been gathered together from scattered parts or is a (literally) monumental objet trouve I cannot tell. What first came to mind is the mediaeval St Olaf gateway sitting seulement in Kirkwall (transposed from its original setting). Yet it is nothing like, as I realised when I came back home. Oddly enough the remains of the Swandro kirk are amongst those used about the place. Secondly the arch struck me as a realisation of a whale's rib in stone. Nice curves carved along it. A few of the top stones supporting it are moulded and some with have horizontal grooves that may instead might be löwenkratzen 'lion-scratchings' similar to those att St Magnus Cathedral and at St Nicholas Chapel in Holm (kirk stone as medical treatment). There are some huge gunnera inside and a woolly-leaved plant with a gorgeous long lamb's-tail spike, flowers I assume. Another leguminous plant on steroids has rings of yellow flower at intervals up the stem. Then there's an IIRC shorter plant with pink flowers apparently composed only of overgrown pink stamens with no petals looking like a motion-stop photo of milk splashing up. Opposite the orchard where a lone gardener is working black-and-yellow liveried insects coat the flowers in a border. Amongst them are more hornets than I have ever seen, so busy that I can only mage to snap one breaking into the top of what I take to be an ornamental thistle's closed apical bud. The air hums. From here we move on to Burnside Walk to walk amidst and under shading trees. I now know that the path to Taversoe Tuick trails out of this woodland. Oh I would want to spend hours here with the dryades and naides inspiring me. One enticing spot is a shady pool. The furthest away sides have rocky faces and a streamlet trickles over in the corner, watering micro plants as it flows down them. At another more open place a wooden footbridge passes over the burn. This is comparatively modern I'm sure. It is a light brown symphony of diamond trellis and spiky posts. There are straight and smoothly curved top rails to trail the fingers behind you. This is quite a mature copse for a 'modern' creation, with long bare branches creating patterns below the sun-searching leaves. All too soon for me the time comes when our party must peradventure to pastures new - though I do take time out on my way back to join the rest to see the final side of the garden. WASBISTER Everyone gathered up again we returned whence we came and made a weodorshins circuit of the island, round below Cubbie Roo's Burden up into Sourin and the (slightly) lower slopes of Faraclett Head, then down the long steady incline of Leeon to the east end of Saviskaill Bay. We then turned down by the east side of the Loch of Wasbister for our next stop lay on the low cliffs east of Saviskaill farm. By the fieldwall are several single-storey ruins. These are the Saviskaill structures (HY43SW 40 at HY40123340) about which the NMRS relates that on the 1st 6" map attached to the wall are 3 roofless structures but only one on the 1977 1:10,000. Really they are both right, as you can tell not only from the first 25" map but also by drilling down through RCAHMS own CANMAP ! In fact there may be another shown yet or the three includes this. At present it is a bit of a jumble. The definite single structure's doorway faces the end of the road. It looks fairly obvious that though they appear seperate stuctures the three are actually compartments, as it were, of one long continuous building. I think this started off with the central piece as this has the curving walls you normally associate with Orkney's late Viking / early Mediaeval period. This would probably go well with the Saviskaill settlement (HY43SW 24 from HY40153342 to 40133358). That the head of this shingle bay is called Nousty Sand, indicating a number of nausts for drawing boats up into, makes me hazard that this used to be a hope 'sheltered bay'. Leaving the others to their repast I walked along the clifftop with a stupendous view of Faraclett Head looming up in the distance. After the sands come the hard rocks of the Riff of Wasbister. At the sea's edge large boulders shone white in the sun. These showed themselves to be seals basking in a line on the edge of a finger pointing into the waters.. It is the same on the Loch of Stenness where near the Stones of Stenness circle, where the distinction between seal and rock is so blurred visually that those not in the know will insist against you that one is the other unless movement visibly happens ! In getting a little closer I wandered over rocky plates amid pools left behind by the tide. Turning back I walked the shore the rest of the way back to rejoin the others. Where the minibus stood there is a jumble of rocks and slabs that seemed like archaeology to me. I did put it down to modern JCB activity, only realising weeks later that this must be one of the places where the Saviskaill settlement shows in the low shore banks even if it doesn't appear to be on NMRS record no. HY43SW 24 (from HY40153342 to 40133358), tentatively assigned to Norse times too. Mr Yorston of Trumland Cottage first brought it to the attention of officialdom. In 1972 Ordnance Survey noted drystane walling traces under present-day structures, along with some kitchen midden material. Came 1979 and high under the banks of the farm buildings some more walling had [?become] exposed, this time made up of very large beach stones (bringing to my mind the Lamb Holm settlement, now [IIRC] swept away). In the same year both these remains and the drystane walling are briefly described again, but with the additional info that the latter lay exposed for 28m - not sure if that stretches to the piece I saw [and I'm crap judging distances] but the SMR reports the former at the shingly bay's southern end with the farm itself on the north end ! Saviskaill 'sea-Hall' itself is a large complex of big farm buildings shining a golden yellow because the farm is almost entirely covered by lichen. It seems abandoned, or at least uninhabited, but is the kind o' place you could see being an attraction or mebbe a museum if someone threw a ton o' money at it ! Part of it at least has been a mill at one point (the one building with no lichen) because there is a sluice shown on a large-scale map by the wall nearest to me and I can see a rusty millwheel resting against the wall, a frame that I think is a bucket-type wheel (there is another such leaning against a building on the south side of the Lyde Road near Stenso). It is just such a magnificent place I would surely go into raptures if left to peruse up close for any length of time. And again a monument with no monument record as with that mansion house on Damsay. A visit to the Orkney Room comes up with no new information. Returning to the party most of them decided to take a look for themselves, and I decided I would try and see if I could complete the foursquare circuit of road around the Loch of Wasbister 'loch-farm' before they finished and decided to move on. So I set off along the eastern side. About half-way along this side of the square-ish road surrounding the loch a tongue of land points into the water. The gently mounded promontory is called Bretta Ness, by tradition the site of a kirk - the 1880 Name Book says the stones from it were removed to the loch margins. It is almost completely artificial (though this is under dispute) but to my mind the rises in water levels make it unlikely to have been an isolated crannog as the neck would have been even more prominent in prehistory. A now underwater dump of stone is overlain by a masonry platform and then the whole covered by a mound 1.7m in height and ~30mD. This site has been used since at least Pictish times, possibly metalworking from what I've read (I'm minded on the Knowe of Verron in Sandwick). Exploratory digs found an E/W line of wall-footings with building rubble and lime plaster that could be taken for chapel remains. Over at the W end the site's first use may be signified by thick circular walls (aerial photography has also revealed a weed-covered feature in the loch west of Bretta Ness). Then there were what sound like beehive cells,. Subsequent buildings left very scant remains because of frequent robbing, but due to later re-use as part of a kiln setup a flagged floor and walls built into the earlier rubble did survive. Out in the water near the far side is what is thought to be a crannog (a large artificial island settlement), The Burrian, though the 1880 Namebook confusingly also gives this as the loch's chapel site, with finds of deer remains and coins and reference to possible earlier building. In 1912 "The Orcadian" tells us that this site (HY33SE 13 at HY39493338) was still connected to the west shoreline by the remains of a bridge (then a foot underwater) with a fault half-way. Later underwater features were observed where it met the shore but these are apparently buried now. A 1972 report tells us that the stepping stones start midway along the north-west side of a ?modern wall on the island and continued visibly in that direction for some thirty metres. This wall running around the island is sub-divided into two unequal enclosures, but salmonberry hides any internal remains there might be. There may be traces of sections of an earlier wall a metre or two outside this, and just above the waterline walling has been noted. The combination of an island, The Burrian, and a promontory, Bretta Ness, is highly reminiscent of the Loch of Wasdale in Firth where these features were seen as a kirk and its burial ground [the latter also shown on some earlier maps as an island]. A little futher along the loch meets the road. On the other side of the road here a 'drain' in an E/W aligned earthwork strikes off. Near where this ends at a field boundary there is a well/wellspring immediately south and a burnt mound no much further along but immediately to the north. The latter is called Everhaud (HY43SW 3 at HY40203310). This conical mound, also aligned E/W, is some fourteen metres by twelve metres and stands to a height of 1.1m. Projecting the line of the 'drain' brings you to the traditional site of St. Colm's Kirk (HY43SW 10 at HY40553307), by the shore near the NE corner of a field bearing the number 33 on the 1:25,000 map. All that can now be seen of this is a low rise on the shoreline beneath rubble placed to combat erosion, hiding the ?paving slabs and edgeset stones still visible as recently as 1972. One cannot but wonder if the worshipper left this kirk following the E/W line until they came to the Loch of Wasbister before finally taking a boat to The Burrian. Looking over to my left above the Loch of Wasbister there is a large graveyard (now with an extension) that in 1880 was still attached to the ruins of Corse Kirk (HY33SE 14 3948 3361), all traces of which are now gone. Left again, by the main road, is the old Cogar school. North of this there is (though I didn't see it myself) on the south shore modern dumping over an irregular shaped rise covered in vegetation called The Bleaching Knowe (HY33SE 6 at HY39573316). Already in 1935 little remained of the 'burnt mound' apart from edge-set slabs in box arrangements at the water's edge. In 1972 there was little left of even these structures, and ten years later these too were out of sight. I phrase it thus because it is possible these still survive buried by trash or submerged by further loch encroachment. Second leg of the road is the main road. Not enough time to check the knowe for myself, so I forged ahead in my bid to return to the party by the sea. Above this southern side of the road there is an old complex of farm buildings alongside the burn like a much reduced stature Saviskaill but without the lichen. I am especially taken by a long building, one half slightly taller than the other, with the two roofs formed purely from long flags (in an unusually good state for their age). This is Quoys. I had hoped to visit the graveyard just in case there is still something that relates to Corse Kirk (archaeologists can get 'hung up' on searching too tightly in a set locality). Before I could turn the next corner the Blide bus came haring along. Reluctantly I hopped aboard and we set off on the last part of our circuit of Rousay, heading off around the Mansemass and Ward Hills into Westness. STANDING STONES Rushing like the wind we left a line of houses bordering the road and I only just had time to glimpse of the Long Stone (Frotoft) above the road. I know that the Langsteen (HY42NW 7 at HY 40412750) is described as close to the road but it's real close ! At some time it lay broken (or ? had been deliberately smashed like the Stone Of Odin in Stenness) but has since been 'fixed'. And so the height of this NW/SE aligned stone can only be given as nearly 7'6". Also it may be one of those where the ground is eroding or building up about the setting. There it is 2'6" broad and a foot thick, reducing a little to under two foot at the top. There is a bit of a hollow five foot up and this is likely to have been seen as a giant's fingerprint, which makes it the Cubbierow/ Kubbie Row's Stone/ Cubbie Roo's Stone thrown from Fitty Hill in Westray to Lyra. Other such on Rousay are the Clet of Westness (according to the 1884 "Anderson's Guide to Orkney" above "the little water" - Peerie Water I assume), about which I can find no more, and Finger Steen or Byasteen (which is [or was] on a cliff near Wasbister shore). Which standing stones we officially remember, and identify as such, and which we 'lose' sometimes seems potluck. BLACKHAMMER Our final stopping point before journey's end on Rousay at the roadside took us to where we went a little uphill to the Blackhammer tomb (HY42NW 3 at HY41422761), named for a farm that once stood on the terrace above - the steading can be easily made out from the air but has not survived as well (though on the ground my eyes could still trace where it once stood). It is highly likely that the farm buildings were where material from the upper part of the cairn went. Prior to excavation the chambered mound itself (a grass and heather covered oblong 78'x34'x5') had been thought merely the ruins of another peedie farmhouse. Eventually the stone cairn stood revealed as a sub-rectangle with sides incurving a little, aligned NW/SE and measuring 72'6" by 27' at its broadest. The eastern end still stood above ground to 1'8" the western end from 2' to 2'3, the northern side mostly 1'6" high (though falling to 6" at a point near the eastern end) and the southern side 2' to 2'6" rising to 3'6" by the west end. Its outer wall's foundation course formed a plinth like that of the Knowe of Yarso a kilometre west of here. For the first time antiquarians found walls fashioned to look like Unstan ware decoration, with sides built of slabs face down obliquely and set alternately slanting left-right and right-left to form hatched triangles. For the second time on Rousay they found a tomb's mouth deliberately closed, in this case blocked by well-built masonry whose outer face was flush with the cairn's outer wall. Animal bones were found throughout the debris inside the tomb, mostly with signs of burning. In the upper levels This included not only sheep, cattle and deer but also the remains of pink-footed geese and cormorant. Much of the bone lay in the first cell. In the bottom layer the birds were gannet, perhaps indicating a different season. Two very fragmented men's skeletons were found at the lowest level along with most of a carinated bowl and a splintered leaf-shaped flint knife burnt white, with only the upper face dressed. Low says one skeleton came from the passage and the other from the compartment furthest west. In cells 1 and 3 at the lowest level two scrapers and five flint splinters were found. One of the scrapers and a partly-worked splinter came from behind the walling sealing the entrance passage mouth under a step. At this same level a foot from cell 1's SW corner a fine-grained grey-green polished stone axe came to light, sealed by animal bones above and below it. Sometime after the tomb was built two large chucks of masonry were placed inside for purposes unknown. One stands in the angle between the 2nd-3rd stall partition and the chamber's north wall. The second, much cruder in appearance, makes an ogee across the chamber and starts in the south wall a little to the west of the entrance. Some folk object to the concrete capping given in 1955 to protect the tomb - perhaps we should shroud the inside with moss and lichen ;-) Really unless you filled the remains in and so kept everyone out this is the kind of compromise one has to come to. Nowadays the way into the tomb is topside, uphill, but at the front is a window that allows you to see down onto the original original [sic] entrance. Except today the sun shone straight down and all was glare. Or perhaps if I had been given a little more time… On the coast below is the Knowe of Hunclett, HY42NW 15 at HY41442722. This site or its predecessor would, I imagine, lay strong claim to being the settlement that went with the tomb. This is a ten-foot high turf-covered broch mound, apparently excavated (slight depression on summit), with extensive outbuildings to the south showing as many areas of exposed stonework. Thirty metres from the tower there is a shingle beach rather than the usual rocky Rousay shore, with further archaeology in the shore banks themselves . A rough, unploughable section of the next field west continues the five-foot high broad platform on which the broch sits. An exposed inner broch wall-section a yard long and a foot high has been extrapolated to give a diameter of 30-33' (with walls at least 10-12' thick) and its platform extends about two-hundred feet from the fieldwall. The whole broch is bounded at the west by a curving ditch 3-4m wide by 2.2m deep, on whose inner lip a possible fortification is indicated by a stone wall. And an outer wall can be read from more stonework west of the ditch itself. BRINIAN 2 Coming back to the pier I had a pootle around and the others whiled away their time outside the tearoom with refreshments. In the small harbour were two catamarans, a peedie one and a muckle one, comparatively speaking that is ! Side by side I believe they belonged to the same person. The Speedbird was large, white and modern, with a proper size cabin. Its yellow companion directly alongside looked more the original type i.e. twa small boats lashed together and definitely unpowered. I enjoyed the view over to Trumland Home Farm as I wandered over to the small museum, a cosy intimate place with enough to whet the appetite. Home Farm is a jumble of styles. With buildings of contrasting form it is as if someone had had the same idea as the fella who cobbled together the Hall of Tankerness but used a much later starting period for his design. The latest, and tallest, bit feels vaguely like a castle and also puts me in mind of an Italian hillside. Quaint. Soon enough the ferry came. On board and looking back towards Brinian Kirk my eye was caught again by Ivy Cottage to the right, a bonnie wee hoose dating back to1878 and minding me on a country cottage plonked on a hillside. There's a garden with lines of low 'bushes' and a low drystane wall. The central wooden door is a faded green, pale anyway, with a split window above the same and then the inscribed date on a shallow arched stone. It has been very sympathetically updated with small symmetrical skylights and below them twa narrow door-height windows. OTHER ISLANDS IN VIEW Took a few shots of Egilsay at maximum telephoto (520mm equivalent). Amazing how knobbly the hill's skyline looks, as if peppered with cairns or mounds. Time for a final view of Wyre. North of the pier, over at Rus Ness, there are what appear to be drystane seawalls. In a ?broken' section there are much heftier stones at the base and loose ones in an exposure behind. If they were part of structures they are definitely un-mortared. Part is now used for sewage discharge with a couple of large stone-lined tanks behind on the cliff-top. At the top of the island you can just make out the dark shape of Cubbie Roo's Castle and its surrounding banks. Though this had been built for the Viking called Kolbein Hruga the author Gregor Lamb has shown that the giant Cubbie Roo /Cuppierow must have been before the 12thC chieftain i.e. the giant assimilated the man, the Wyre man did not beget the Orkney-wide tales. As the ship passes the Bay of Whelkmulli (surely a cognate of Waulkmill Bay in Orphir - waulkr 'fuller of cloth', with Walkerhouses in both Evie and Birsay) there are no Wyre Skerries above water for the seals now as there were on the forward leg. EVIE AGAIN Trained my binoculars on the Evie coastline, around to Eynhallow [which I usually confuse with Egilsay !] and then Rousay, and took photos in a sequence in the hope that I would see more sites popping out, and idenifiably so, when I returned home. From the ferry looking north of the Woodwick woods the remains of the Ness of Woodwick broch in Evie (NMRS record no. HY42SW 9 at HY40072487) loomed large in my binoculars. Hedges notes that the rocky outcrops and sand below would be a good place to haul up a boat. This site is between the Loch of Vastray, a freshwater lochan, and the Rendall-Evie parish boundary at Woodwick's sea inlet. Though the site is called the Ness of Woodwick, after the headland, this is very obviously the Craig of Ritten. The 'crag' is an impressive mound with dimensions estimated as 50-60 feet with an inner diameter about half that - in 1946 at the seaward side to the NE about 20' of outer wall (thought to be the outer wall-face) could be observed. No midden was seen. Twenty years later most of this outer wall was overgrown like the rest of the mound. On a wider view there are two stone-walled enclosures running south of the mound that feel old, though post-broch they are in the right situation to replace outbuildings if this were a broch settlement like Gurness. I wonder if ritten could possibly be an error for pitten to give us a name Pict's Crag but a ret is an enclosure used during sheep-shearing and fits those enclosures equally well (Vikings are fond of giving placenames a double meaning too). An aerial Google image shows the broch's outer wall and others besides equally plainly.

Labels: Blackhammer, Bleaching Knowe, Bretta Ness, Brinian, Corse Kirk, Hunclett, Knowe of Midgarth, Ness of Woodwick, Savaskaill, Saviskaill, St Colm’s, Taversoe Tuick, The Burrian, Trumland, Wasbister

WARBUSTER NORTH
There is much confusion over these tumuli remnants north of Skae Frue (the antiquarian's Skeldro, probably the true Orcadian name) on the map. What appear to be three reports in the NMRS are one. Captain F.W.L. Thomas in 1851 is the earliest note of them and isn't one of those. Several bowl-barrows in an era in on a moor north of that mound with a scatter of many lumps of cramp, some incorporated in the Warbuster hill-dyke. Petrie in September 1850 excavated one and found a crude hammerstone at the back of a small kist (P.S.A.S.VII).In 1928 RCAHMS came to call (Howan Wasbuster, RCAHMS reord no. HY21SE 40) but gave bad directions - fortunately they did tell us they were the ones on the map ! A group of 6/7 mounds all under 2½' high with large quantities of cramp. Special note was taken of one some 34 foot across having a few stones of decent size about its north margin with a NW/SE aligned 20"x18" cist near the centre in which the inspector found a bit of calcined bone. Next to it was a 21'D probably natural mound but then a similar sized mound to the first also with earthfast stones about the base [like Bookan Cairn HY21SE 19 had]. The latter had signs of excavation too, as had a fine-turf covered 25'D mound some 200~300m north. In the mid-1930's J.G. Callander saw them (HY21SE 4 at HY280145) but similarly muddled up the directions, referring to the Ring of Brodgar rather than the Ring of Bookan. He refers to the notable mound as having the stones of a cist cover visible at the top and covered by cramp. By 1966 the O.S. sees a total of seven mounds 4-10mD by 0.2-0.7m high which it correctly equates with those seen by Callander. At HY28031459 they found a mound without cist. The explanation would be that Callander mistook the cist base for a cover and these fragments were lost in the intervening decades. All of which leaves one anomaly. In 1964 the farmer at Howan had levelled the field adjacent to the north three years previously but still had a 5mD 0.7m high earthen mound (also HY21SE 40) to show the O.S. (at HY27921466), though this is most likely natural anyway.

Labels: Bookan, F.W.L. Thomas, George Petrie, Howan, J.G.Callander, Wasbister, Wasbuster

THEM'S THE BRECKS MARCH 10th & 16th 2010

The new digital camera zooms out to a 26mm equivalent so I set out to try and 'capture' the Wasbister Disc Barrow whilst it was still early enough in the year to use a low sun at a reasonable time of day. A short time ago the site was covered in a blanket of snow that brought out the curves wonderfully, enhanced enough to make an image [or so I hoped]. And then the old camera went kerplunk and [probably] it was too cold for the batteries to work, either of them. Unfortunately I finished work only in time for the half-ten bus. A slightly overcast day for the most part. Which allowed me to grab a smart shot of the lochward side of the Watch Stone. Wonder if there are better shots of Kokna-Cumming to take, especially now I don't have to show a broch profile when it isn't. If there was an avenue between the circles it would have had to go around this tomb, my betting would be the more sinuous side of the ness here, that on the west. More importantly where did this pass the the Great Wall and Lesser Wall of Brodgar ? The latter they excavated on the other side of the Lochview car track from the mound. Still seems strange to me that as yet no-one else has wondered what its relationship might be with the pair of Brodgar Farm standing stones there. At last I have pictures of these from the western side other than over the dig site. The southern one looks rather clunky in some views, made me think of all those squarish erect stones that even I normally reject as s.s. material. Are they truly co-eval. Perhaps they are simply posts for
an 'Orkney gate', simply much bigger than the ones elsewhere and not so well aligned. Or did the drive animals between them - might there have been a needfire hereabouts ? {On my next visit I did take other views of the mound. On the hill back of the excavation scar the field has no sign of the mound continuing, so either its a half-mound set well back into the hill or the site came first and then became buried under this artificial rise}.
My destination is a simple field to find - after the Ring of Brodgar go past the Dyke of Sean and its the first gate you come to. Now the difficult bit, because this is chained and once you climb over you also have to duck under the electric wire that goes diagonally from the roadside fence to that going across the hill. Looking up slightly right there's the Bookan Tomb on the hill outline. I headed left for the Bookan Cairns, which are now believed to be the remains of a double Bronze Age house. Along the way I passed a bank running across the hill bottom, the western end perhaps marked by the curves of an old burn that shows [on an image] as a deeper green. There's a few lengths where the composition is exposed as mostly earth with small stones and a few middling ones. Not totally unlike a more even topped Dyke of Sean against the hillside. Probably degraded natural, though the lower part of the east end terminates with tightly packed vertical stones on end. When I looked at my images later you could see a bright green patch above that end of the proposed bank, but I'm virtually certain it is nowt.
The Bookan Cairns run very roughly N/S and the two 'cairns' are connected by a stone-lined passage of modest length (no longer readily obvious). Its a rather unequal hourglass with the two halves presenting very differently. The northern half is more obviously circular with a concave top. Standing on this the impression is of a large depression occupying most of it with a few slabs set in a small grassy hump split in two. The southern half is more or less level on top and the slabs have an air of purpose. Some cut across the mound but it is uncertain whether these belong to this half and/or mark the division between the two. One slab aligns what looks like north-south and would appear to be matched by another in the northern half. Its possible another stone in between a few inches off this ?alignment. If a genuine axis it is even more off-centre [as the mound is left now of course]. A large piece of exposure on the western side of the northern half has a few small slabs but a lot of earth. In the area surrounding the obvious mound are visible some more stones, some flat in the surface and others buried erect. Unfortunately as I circled the mound weodorshins from the north the NiMH batteries went low then out as I went to take a few looking north, though the digital camera still worked a few times more. Darn fine I had another set charged up. Heck if I could find them where I put them though. Spent several minutes at several places, digging my hands into my bag and hoicking everything out. Must have been pisgies because after several more fruitless searches back home I found them eventually where I had put them, had 'em wi' me all along.
So had to content myself with using the SLR for the 'disc barrow'. Going towards the bottom of the hill looking up I saw a bright green patch of grass in profile up the hill and dismissed it as natural. Shows even I can miss out on notes as this is on record or rather its neighbour as you will read further on]. Against the downhill side of the top end of the fence running up from the road NMRS record no. HY21SE 19 at HY28811397 is a small mound of earth and stones on the SE slope of the hill between the Ring of brodgar and Bookan farm. There was a stone setting around the base and its present dimensions of ~8mD by 0.6m high accords well with 27x1.5' then, though I make the diameter of the Wasbister Cairn as varying between six point four and six point five metres. Once there I could see a few horizontal slabs dotted about its surface. Only a few yards away is a rough mound,very very ragged and disjointed but definitely of a piece. This is the green space I had seen on the skyline. It could have formed part of the course of a burn, however despite the fact that these two are not connected it is quite like the Bookan Cairns disparate pairing - from some views the ragged mound is so big that this and the cairn could even possibly be a single item subjected to different fates at E and W. But I only found a single flat stone on the whole of it's surface. Though there are some loose stones around the base of the cairn of my measurements there are no signs that these have ever been embedded. On the other hand from the position of stones embedded in the cairn it does seem to be the remains of a circular structure. I know it is a lot to hang a theory on but there is one particular stone exposed on the top edge that looks for all the world to be the remains of walling and the face of it seems roughly curved.
After taking digital images of the Wasbister Disc Barrow six days later I walked east from the barrow to look for the Wasbister Burnt Mound, more in faint hope than any expectation. The way it's described made me think it a vague report passed on. Either there wasn't anything or it could be submerged. So I was delighted to find that as I came towards the large pool [I would term it a pow rather than a lochan or "small loch"] the site came into clear profile against the water. RCAHMS record no. HY21SE 20 at HY28961378 is a possible burnt mound 6mD by 0.3m high some 100 yards E of the 'disc barrow', though I myself was only certain of five metres of that and by using the lower land about the base I therefore came up with a height of point six metres. I saw a comparatively large piece of erosion at the highest point showing earth and a smallish stone and a small possible slab, both at one edge of this exposure. As to its being a burnt mound there are bodies of water either side of the Dyke of Sean and the one this side has a couple of very straight edges which made me think it artificial in contrast to the one the other side [where at some times there has been a small companion - since 1882 there have been between one and three pow/lochan of varying sizes]. But the maps make it very certain there are a whole rew of straight lines under and around these muckle pow. Not much like drainage. Perhaps there were once buildings, walls at the very least, either side of the dyke - as mentioned the water levels as elsewhere in Orkney show great fluctuations over time, and Caroline Wickham-Jones in a GMB Fellowship talk said that Wasbister is likely the next bit of land to disappear under the loch. My final act on the second visit was to make a beeline for the gate. In doing so I climbed over a rise of large area. It has no record and there are no distinguishing features. Nevertheless in passing over this plain grassy feature I had a feeling of settlement mound.
It had been my intent to visit those of The Brecks sites that stood by the quarry but a touch of diarrhœa put paid to that [these are as prominent from below as the Bookan Tomb, look to be an obvious triple grouping from the valley floor and have been split into two records with not enough reason to my mind]. Failing to hitch a lift, and there being no public toilets on the Ness of Brodgar [scandalous], I was fortunate to find Tormiston Mill still open at dinnertime (the ones by Stenness School are further I think). Despite my desperation still took more photos along the way. My super-duper camera easily made out the Standing Stones Hotel barrow [aka Little Barnhouse]. In one photo its profile made a good match for a hill in view behind it but you don't know whether this was the same before the excavation [recorded by the local paper - there is apparently also an Irish society's account somewhere, however that's all Tommy wrote].
The 19thC mill is very well preserved, even better than the fractionally earlier Tankerness Mill - rather than running along the ground the dog-legged lade (stone-lined open topped water channel) is carried additionally on a high stone aqueduct, and there is an impressive dam upstream [though the bridge downstream is more functionally situated]. I walked along the other side of the burn and for the most part the lade was dry enough to walk in. It has a high-sided sluice at the uphill end.There has been a drystane wall set back either side of the burn (though starting where I began on the farmward side only) all the way up to the dam then continuing over the other side of the dam all the way up to the next farm road. This dam has had at least one set of alterations, likely from the mill being taken out of commission. It is almost entirely of drystone construction. The burn sides are further apart than the present small stream, being mostly on the southern side i.e. away from the road. The middle section above the present stream has very straight edges and the water passes through a channel composed of three small slabs. Behind this section is a dam-high stone sluice with two attached vertical timbers ?2" square in cross-section. This is set back from the other side of the dam - probably because this is hollow internally. I walked along the top of this dam and on the
broadest section you step down for the space of a couple of yards. This is covered by roofing-type stone slabs (like rough thin paving slabs, used before the ones the size of large tiles and often seen in Orkney stacked vertically beside old buildings). At one end there has been a collapse and you can see inside the dam.

Labels: Bookan, Kockna-cumming, The Brecks, Tormiston, Wasbister