Publication Account
Date 1996
Event ID 1016333
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016333
The Castle of Burwick is almost an island, for it is joined to the mainland only by a very narrow neck of land, although this may have been somewhat wider in iron-age times, and the cliffs are high and sheer. Three lines of rampart with ditches between them have been built on mainland to guard access to the fort, and a fourth rampart lies across the approach on the fort side; in the long grass within the forts, there are traces of structures, presumably houses, beneath the turf.
Preserved within St Mary's Church at Burwick is an oval boulder, known as the Ladykirk Stone, which is carved with a pair of footprints, but its original provenance is unfortunately unknown. Elsewhere in Scotland such carved foot-prints (always of shod feet) are thought to be associated with ceremonies surrounding the inauguration of Dark-Age kings, symbolising the idea that the new king will follow in the footsteps of the old. Although the powercentre of Pictish Orkney is thought to be the Brough of Birsay (no. 49), there may have been more than one such centre, and it is not impossible that Castle of Burwick was in use at this time.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Orkney’, (1996).
