Publication Account
Date 1997
Event ID 1017097
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017097
The focus of this group of monuments is an astonishing structure known as the Stanydale 'temple', a house so large and so clearly related in design to heel-shaped tombs that it must be allowed a special status, perhaps as the hall of a chieftain, a tribal assembly-house, or a temple (colour photograph on p.29). It is accompanied by four smaller houses of the normal oval type, a system of field-walls and many clearance cairns; given the blanket of peat that has developed in this relatively low-lying pocket of land, the complex may well be more extensive than is visible on the ground today. The 'temple' and one of the smaller houses have been excavated, though only the ' temple' has been partially restored, and the excavated house is the first monument encountered along the footpath.
It lies beside the third route-pole, and its plan is very clear, with walls surviving to a height of about 1m; the entrance is downslope at the south and, entered through a porch, which would provide extra storage space as well as acting as a windbreak. Within the thick walls, which have an earthen core between stone faces, the house interior consists of a large room with a small cell at the far end, two alcoves built into the east wall, an almost central hearth and a stone bench along the west wall.
Some very large boulders were used at the base of the house wall, but in comparison the architecture of the 'temple' is on an altogether more massive and truly megalithic scale. It presents a daunting facade, a smooth curve of drystone walling broken by a central entrance passage. The wall has been restored to a height of about 1.5m, and the internal face includes some huge boulders estimated to weigh over 300kg. The entrance passage is furnished with substantial inner and outer sillstones, and it is likely that a portable wooden door would have been barred against the inner or outer end of the passage as required. Inside there is a single large hall, with two large axial post-holes for timbers supporting the ridge-beam of the roof, probably a turf-covered timber-framed roof. Fragments of wood surviving from one of these posts proved to be spruce and must have been driftwood borne across the Atlantic from North America. The wall is oval, and its inner half is furnished with six alcoves, symmetrically arranged and separated by stone piers; there is no central hearth but a series of small peripheral hearths (no longer visible). Stone tools and pottery were found, but no real hint of the purpose for which the building was designed apart from a pile of burnt sheep bones, which might perhaps point to some ritual activity (bone does not normally become charred in the cooking process).
The clearest section of field-wall is crossed by the footpath just downslope from the 'temple'; it leads away to the south-west where a series of enclosures are visible. Stanydale is separated from the Gruting School settlement (no. 52) by a high ridge known as The Hamars, on the crest of which, and visible from Stanydale, there is a large cairn surrounded by a megalithic necklace of boulders. Many stones have been robbed to build the adjacent sheep stell but the site remains impressive (HU 284500).
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Shetland’, (1997).
