Orcadian landscapes

Alighted at Finstown and headed off down to Binscarth Wood, a plantation like every Orcadian wood except Berriedale on Hoy. You cross into the trees where the millstream exits the wood (having started life from the southern end of the Loch of Wasdale then taken a circuitous route) but can then take a farmtrack above them if in a grand hurry - this has a copse strip running alongside for interest. Fortunately this area was dry, as it does hold a lot of moisture that somtimed turns the track to mud. In times past this wood has been turned ito an ornament by the use of wall-lined paths wending their way hither and thither, and you can still follow these in parts. Right near the beginning in a clear space next the burn a tree stump played host to several large pale mottled toadstools. These are about a handspan and I think they might be beefsteak fungus. Some were turning an inky black as they themselves decomposed after these fruiting bodies had given their all for the great mother below. Next to the stump were further fungi, the yellow of chanterelles but not stuck together, flat-capped and utterly dwarfed by an ash key beside them. Bairns and the child-like enjoy a curve in the burn you can often cross, and where there is water furniture relating to its former use as a millstream. Down here the wood is well wooded and tree limbs can make you scramble. But as I head away from the burn and uphill the top corner is almost regimented, light and airy with trees well-spaced and straight trunked. This almost ornamental stand goes back to the mansion house heyday (there was a seperate greenhouse area east of Binscarth House) as the plants are not native - on the ground beneath there are long soft cones like the tip of a pangolin's tail. Coming out of this wood there is a walled 'garden' set back below the house. When NoSAS were based at Binscarth we would chop wood gathered here, but I'm fairly sure this piece isn't open to the public so I don't go there now - I wonder if the naturalists still rent it from the guv. The track now goes between hedgerows, and since the trail became official this has become rather churned up, forming big muddy puddles after bad weather (not quite as bad as the Seatter track though). This brings you out into Wasdale, which once hosted a market of sorts. Down in the loch the islet is enchanting as ever, softly curved with an off-centre pimple and having a penumbra of water-loving grass fanned about it like the rings around Saturn. Just relised the profile is like a shield-boss, I knew there was something niggling at me. As I see it there are two ways of looking at this site's watery ring, that the vegetation-less channel about the land is due to suppression by buried stonework or that it represents a stoneless gap between the islet and buried stonework (not wide enough to be outbuildings I feel). This day the causeway is underwater as per usual. It seems to me that the farm has been better in the past - as well as the market there is a disused quarry stretched across the hillside above. I have still been unable to find a name for the steading remains sitting above the Wasdale track at the junction with that going up to Setter. The Dyke of Setter marks the boundary between Firth and Harray, the Slap of Setter being where there was a gap (in Harray only Winksetter tunship lacks slaps). My next turning point is just beyond Rosebank (which has no age to it). At the junction with the Howe road a ruin on a slight rise is is down on the NMRS as Woodwyn- it isn't named on the 25", so I would place it with Boardhouse ? What isn't on NMRS is a longer building of several parts. further east at HY32931635. I would have thought it had once beem important because rather than drystone places such as the wall corners use carefully carved stone. Possibly the stone came from somewhere else though, or an earlier structure, as its use is a little random in parts. Only one small section of roof remains in place. At the southern end is what seems to have been a kiln - a kiln barn perhaps, or another walkerhouse. I imagine the ruin I believe to be Stoneywoo would have looked like this. This ruin is seperated from Tufta by a field called Bruntquina. IIRC quina is a variant of quoys, which would give Bruntquina as 'burnt enclosure'. Tufta is (I gather) the plural of toft and meant a collection of ancient buildings. Would be nice if the ruin had been the original Tufta but it is equally close to Appiehouse. When I saw stones eposed in a mound south of it in the same field I thought I had found that Howe was named after, only a year later do I know I confused Tufta with Howe, though it is the only mound before reaching Winksetter to show likely evidence for being other than a grass-covered earthen hillock it ain't much. The level (well, kind of level) piece of my walk ended just beyond Winksetter a little further on from where you start north for the Knowes of Trotty (the seperate mounds of the barrow cemetery almost visible to the unaided eye). At this part you are several metres above the valley floor. I go to the edge of a big bend and below me see another unmarked little ruin, perhaps a shieling for a seasonal farm labourer. This bit of the farmtrack has been cut into the hillside more laterally than vertically. Coming around the corner of the bump/hillock I could see something behind and climbed up over it to investigate. There is a long mound with a stepped profile like a low-backed settee viewed from the front and a bump by one end. Unlike the nearby heathery slopes it has a covering of bright green grass. There are large stones scattered liberally on and in it, a few with square corners. When I went back nearly a year later going by the fences and walls I made it out to be roughly at HY343167 (it lies between one of each). The sceptic in me said it might be an old quarry, but though the area is peppered with disused quarries on the maps it is well away from all the quarries shown on the 1st O.S. and subsequently. Coming back I decide to extend my walk by going up the Howe road to the Lyde Road, a lovely rolling farmroad, a dark ribbon. Past Manse I turn left over to the main road. That is when my body announced my exhaustion ! The track on the other side goes around the top of the hill and can be used to avoid a tricky corner. Going down the main road there is a single-storey stone building with a slight L-shape, 18th/19thC I would guess by the small roof slabs the size of tiles. This is down as Brough smithy, HY31NW 65 at HY3197917216, described as rubble-built. The L bit at the left has a piece blocked off by red bricks. This was the access to the hearth within this gable end, which has two peedie windows and a broad chimney (this now with a strong-ish lean) as if the ground floor had been taken off of your average two-storey house. What I myself find cute is small rubble-built enclosure abutting the north end, built of stones of much more variable sizes than the smithy - and no mortar either IIRC. Must have gone down the Stoneyhill Road and across to the north leg of the Grimeston road as I took another picture of the summit (HY323157) of Grimeston tunship. This is in the same field as the standing stone. I have a feeling that what I picked out at the summit relates to the Henge site in the field across the road (now on record as HY31NW 114 at HY32201565). Still looks like a tiny tump from the road, but in April 2013 discovered this to be highly deceptive as well as it's having an even closer association with the henge (rather than simply being up high overlooking the site). Once more back onto the main road, and down the final straight to the junction, I saw again two wartime remains in the corner of a field on the east side of the road. Surely I will have snapped them from roadside before and no energy left to enter for more now. Coming to the junction there are lovely views of Bincarth's wood and hedgerows, strung out with Wideford Hill visible in the far distance. Took a couple of pics of the Bincarth Farm complex and one of the buildings I could see had a strange piece on one side with two parallel lines of horizontal slabs leaving a space as if some long large billlboard had been taken away. So a year later I made a point of examining the farm more closely and thoroughly. And then I took the bus home.

Labels: Binscarth, Brough smithy, Bruntquina, causeway, Grimeston, Henge, Staney Hill, Tufta, Wasdale in Firth, Winksetter

The above is the name of this advertised trail, though the section walked only just comes into Swartland itself (and in the end our little party stopped just short at the Burn of Clett, not finishing on the B road). I do not know the start and end points of the full drovers road, thought the southern end would seem to be the Loch of Bosquoy. The only other Orkney drovers road that I know of started at Groundwater in Orphir and ended at Walliwall quarry in St Ola, though being a carters road may not be the same thing (there is a Carters Park in Kirkwall itself - park 'enclosure'). After all this time this blog is all archaeology, as with one exception (proving that day's rule) that is all that I photographed. Flowers there were I'm sure, even pointed one out to the others, but all I have is a vague memory of violets in the track that may be from this. Heading north to Skaebrae/Skeabrae, first off a reminder of modern times. Very obvious west of the track are the remains of Second World War RAF Skeabrae. Later NATO considered combining what remained of RAF Skeabrae and RAF Tern (Twatt airfield) into one grand new airbase - back in the sixties I believe, perhaps later. All that remains standing of NMRS record no. HY22SE 59 are a couple of perimeter huts, the bomb store and a combined cinema-gym, and several air-raid shelters. The runways survive as distinct entities, as do the dispersal bays (some of these have been converted for agricultural use and others are stripped of their protective banks). Furthest from me is an imposing two-storey rectangular building that I took for a control tower. but that is reduced to only a depression. There are windows, so obviously not the bomb store. That will be the gmnasium-cum-cinema then. Much closer to me are some big squat buildings of brick. Though all records appear to show the airfield only west of this road I did find a solitary building on the east side southwards of the main surviving buildings, a beautiful red brick construction (with a few blue bricks). Not rectangular, either six or eight sides, more likely eight. No sign of there having been a roof. There is a gap in one of the sides and a (now leaning) wall of the same material faces this side, having at the top the remains of a vertical slot six to eight courses deep. All the walls I make to be of the same height at some 24 courses high [good camera]. Where the track meets the modern road the group leader chose to go back, though the 'official' route is not long past this point, finishing level with Swartland Farm. I would like to have checked to see if the marked Burnt Mounds are really gone, but most disappointed not to have been able to look for the Quinni Moan tumulus. At some point the record for this has erroneously attached to itself the 1869 report of a series of excavations that properly belongs not with this Queenamoan (Quinni Moan) in Sandwick but with Quoynamoan in Stenness ('behind' Tormiston) - I take "The Orcadian" over Petrie's Notebook as no-one wrote in to say the parish had been wrong. Coming back down on the east side a long rectangular field by the 28 on the 1:25,000 map is the Benzieclett site, HY22SE 54 at roughly ~HY279206, where in 1903 an underground passage turned up on the property of Vola owned by a John Kirkness. It is uncertain from the article whether a roof had been removed in the past or this had been done when found. The considerably curved 30' long passage, aligned N/S, looked to have been entered from the south (that end was filled with earth though). It measured roughly 4' high by 2'9"-3' wide and is described as having at least one of the sides built using large stones, with small niches, and having at the other end some edgeset stones. The less substantial side had suffered greatly at someone's hands since finding. In the passage were shaped stones "used for certain purposes". If the airfield extended to both sides of the drovers road could this have been the Skeabrae souterrain, HY22SE 3 at HY27272013, removed in making the aerodrome ?? Thought that would mean the local had it wrong and his location does go nicely with the broch on the airfield (with the Quinni Moan burnt mound as the third member of the trio maybe). Further along the east side are the remains of Nether Benzieclett. This long house with all its parts is said to be one of the best representations of its type. Unfortunately its appearance has deteriorated since the photos and the roofs have gone. Just a few metres eastward of Nether Benzieclett at HY28152054 is the Sandwick Congregational chapel. This was founded in or before 1812 by George Reid of Lerwick but didn't hold meetings after about 1882. There are two buildings here. The church had four rectangular windows on the side I can see, and at the end a narrow doorway with a semi-circular arch. The smaller building has its entrance facing the far end of the chapel and has a slanting roof, so of its time (in Kirkwall they used slates). Yet further east is the Burn o' Roo boundary dyke, which I could not detect for certain from the road. Near the sewage works the Burn of Hourston empties into Muckle Water, nowadays known as the Loch of Harray. Where the drovers road meets the burn there are a large footbridge, big enough to have four decent size spans, and a ford. The ford is obviously of late construction. A wide 'path' of long rectangular stones (presumably edgeset) lead down into the water on either side, rather than only embedded in the stream-bed like others I have seen in Orkney - definitely an England-shire feel to it. On the works side the bridge base to the road has a straight wall but on the north side there are two slightly curved offset walls one above the other. Had a look at the west side of the bridge and vertical drystone walls form the banks. Coming back from there I held tight onto the fence and moved carefully along, only for my foot to disappear into a hole. There I fell backwards and hung over the burn whilst a tree root neart the top of the hole held me in an ankle lock. With the others not near took a while for the others to hear me - strangely, though I had no control over my full-blooded screams there was no pain involved ! Eventually after a few attempts they were able to release me. Felt like ten minutes all told but in actuality a little under five minutes between taking photos of the bridge and of Wasum. The ligaments still haven't healed. When I mentioned it to a doctor 11 months later the advice given was "keep on walking, and if it hasn't healed in a while go see a specialist". Like I'm a millionaire !! South-west of the sewage works, between its legend and the stepping stones one is the former site of a tumulus, HY21NE 50 at HY28841971. Wasum (wass 'water' - don't know the second element and that u to me is simply the a with additional short lines) is in the Orkney Name Book as a burial mound, but even the first 25" map at about the same time merely shows "site of Wasum". Of course like a lot of things labelled as site of Wasum does just about survive (visually near the water's edge), and I could see a few stones in the rise. The record says farming has further reduced what had been a large mound and that ploughing often brings up large edgeset stones Next I picked out a small unnamed holm that I had spotted lying off the shore on my way up. This is one of several items going under the name Hourston. HY21NE 93 at HY28891957 as an NMRS record only goes back to 2010. It is allocated the site types of causeway and island, though the narrow causeway is shown on maps from 1882 to present as stepping stones. Comparing it on the map with the Wasdale islet ("causewayed island dun") in Firth and it is roughly the same length but only half the width, giving as very approximate dimensions 35m by 12m. It is not anywhere nearly as high and one would assume the site type is interim as it is surely a crannog as much as those recently so listed in the Voyatown and Swannay districts ? I see a level mound or platform occupies the central half, with the sides gradually going down to loch level. On top I can make out inmy photos at least three large stones (one erect) and a couple more at the back (perimetar wall ?). What I take to be the stepping stones seem to start near or at the mound platform. On the old 25" map the stepping stones are running NNW, and following that line it shows what appears to be the remains of a circular stone cairn offshore at HY28881965 (say halfway between this holm and Wasum). At the farm of Howaback there is a tumulus by the garden wall that goes under that name and Hourston. HY21NE 32 at HY29341955 appears on the present 1:25,000. In 1928 this earth and small stones barrow stood nearly 6' high and 40' across, in 1966 barely 4' in height but only about 5' smaller - either way I didn't (AFAIK) see it. At some time the top and sloping sites were excavated and a mix of partially and wholly burnt bones found in a short cist, small and square, not visible in 1928. Another barrow I didn't see (hidden on the other side of the Howaback hill, ~130 yards almost due south of the farm) contained a similar cist, found whilst farming. HY21NE 34 at HY29381942 is now much spread out, so only shows as an ill-defined rise (though 1966 report made whilst area under crop). But in 1928 the size was estimated to have been about 45'D, possibly more. This site goes under the names of Hourston and Cogeraback/Gogeraback Confusingly another site also bears the names of Howaback and Hourston. HY21NE 33 at HY29551935 is the tumulus marked on the 1:25,000 close to Grut Ness. This grassy barrow sits on a slight rise, stands nearly a yard high and is some ten yards across. My attention was brought to it by twa rabbits running onto it, bringing it into focus whilst also giving me an idea of size. The present record opines that it is a chiefly earthen barrow, with a few protruding stones. But in 1928 RCAMS felt differently, noting a number of rather large stones lying in [sic] the hollowed top and more sticking out of its slopes at intervals, which indicates a more structured composition. Near the junction with the Russland Road I noticed a few interesting lumps and bumps. Perhaps the Knowes of Coynear do actually exist as a seperate thing from the Conyar mounds east of the main road despite not showing on the 25" maps ?? I must point out neither do those ! We didn't get to do the final stretch to the Merkister Hotel, instead decamping to the Standing Stones Hotel for a proper tea meal.

Labels: barrow, carters road, causeway, Cogeraback, crannog, drovers, Hangaback, Nether Benzieclett, Sandwick Congregational, Skaebrae, Skeabrae, souterrain, square cist, stepping stones, Swartland, Wasum. Hourston

CAUSEWAYS CELEBRE - gae watery or no'

The NMRS now has three records for Wadale in Firth. South of the loch HY31SW 126 at HY34281329 is down as a circular enclosure. Many times I have seen it as a water-filled depression. Perhaps it is connected with the millstream that came down from
the loch then turned to run below what is now Binscarth farm in order to reach Millquoy just short of The Ouse - there are sluices very close to the enclosure, at HY3418514507 and 3424514210. At the north end of the loch HY31SW 115 at HY34221516 is attributed to nature. This projection of land into the loch on the RCAHMS photos has a perfectly circular cropmark thereon, and on the 1882 map this feature is a distinctive islet. When a local natural historian waded out in 1985 she found edge-set stones at the lochward boundary. Tradition has it as a cemetery associated with the chapel on the islet that survives at the opposite corner of the loch. Loch of Wasdale, HY31SW 8 at HY34321473, is designated as a fort with possible chapel (but the kirk was documented by Dryden, who also shows a short cist that coud pre-date it).
The O.S. in 1966 likened it to the causewayed island duns of the Hebrides, then in 1985 Orkney archaeologist Raymond Lamb compared it to the gatehouse forts of Clickhimin and Huxter (Whalsay) in Shetland because the 'apron' where causeway meets
islet resembles their 'landing stages'. Tentatively in favour of the first is that Gaelic is reported as spoken in the South Isles, rather against the second that this type of fort thought pure Zetland. These gatehouse forts are a pre-broch settlement type. The main differences between duns and brochs is that they can be oval, they are (like most forts) settlement enclosures rather than buildings, and they are more often in a position high up than brochs are. In Orkney we also have plenty of brochs that have causeways too. Finally to the mix have recently been added crannogs with causeways, such as Park Holm on the Loch of Swannay and Hourston at the north end of Harray loch (though RCAHMS thesaurus involves the use of wood to build them, highly unlikely in late prehistoric Orkney).
The Hourston site only appears on the present 1:25,000 as stepping stones but you can see circular water contours to which this goes (the similar Loch of Isbister site still has its islet above water). Without close inspection it is surely rather difficult to tell the difference between a crannog and a broch/roundhouse/fort/dun, more so when we have little accurate knowledge of the water levels at the time they were built. Which also makes me wonder how sure we are that stepping stones and causeways actually acted as 'dry' fords ? Many of Orkney's other causewayed sites are in marshy areas or places that have been. Could they have had another or additional purpose - if there had been enough wood to build them with would we be talking of the possibility of their being used for making ritual deposits from ? Besides disappearing underwater might some causeways have simply gone underground, so that they much commoner in Orkney than presently thought. Also might the known dry causeways to brochs be an imitation of earlier watery sites ?
In the Loch of Swannay as well as the "causewayed crannog" of Park Holm we have the wadable possible crannog of Stoney Holm and the large islet of Muckle Holm (assumed to be natural). At the Voy end of the Loch of Stenness there is a causewayed crannog and a burnt mound, and The Ness has been suspiciously marshy. Down at Kirbister loch in Orphir there is the causewayed site of the Holm of Groundwater as well as the Holm of Westquoy. The now sunken causeway was until recent times rebuilt for fishing at times of low water levels but could have a natural base just as some of Orcadian ayres were maintained by the hand of man. I also wonder if any causeways exist as sites by themselves. The stepping stones of the Burn of Crantit near Nether Scapa would be too low for a ford now and there is no sign of an overground structure it might have led to [unless the Vikings buried this in one of the events where man pushed back the Bay of Scapa, where in Mesolithic times was a loch below Hillhead).

Labels: broch, causeway, gateway fort, Holm of Groundwater, Hourston crannog, Loch of Isbister, Loch of Kirbister, Loch of Swannay, Loch of Wasdale, Park Holm, Stoney Holm, Voy