HES Skaill Farm Survey

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Date 13 June 2017 - 26 April 2018

Event ID 1040006

Category Project

Type Project

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1040006

At the request of Dan Lee of Orkney College, HES agreed to provide survey and recording assistance to the Landscape of Change: Archaeologies of the Rousay Clearances at Skaill Farm, Rousay, in 2017 and support for the community engagement. HES produced a measured survey of the upstanding structures at 1:50, a ground plan at a scale of 1:250 and a photographic survey. Drawings were also made of Swandro church and the Wirk, and two of the architectural fragments. The community engagement extended to children and adults, including site tours and explanations of the survey processes. Vegetation conditions in June 2017 precluded ground survey, which was completed in April 2018.

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Related Event(s)

Event	Type	Subtype	Notes	Date
1040200	RECORDING	FIELD VISIT	Swandro Church [...]	June 2017
1042282	RECORDING	FIELD VISIT	The farmstead of Skaill is situated on the shore to the S of the graveyard of St Mary’s Church of Westness; it extends for about 100m from N to S and occupies three small drystone enclosures between the pebble storm beach on the W and the improved fields to the E (Fig 1). It comprises at least two periods of occupation. The later one dates to the 19th century and includes two upstanding ruins, a domestic range and a kiln-barn and dairy, and the drystone-walled enclosures; the earlier one is likely to be medieval or post-medieval in date and includes two possible buildings, one of which may be another kiln-barn reduced to footings, with various other platforms and field boundaries defined by terraces and earthen banks. In both phases the main axes are roughly east-west and north-south which suggests a continuity of settlement. At least one earthen bank runs under the drystone dyke of the field on the E of the site to indicate that the settlement once extended further to the E into the field beyond. Geophysical survey by University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) in 2015 indicated ‘earlier boundaries on a different alignment to the present’ ones (Lee et al. 2015, 131) that coincide with many of the earthwork features identified during field survey, and there is a strong anomaly in the field to the E.	June 2017
1040199	RECORDING	FIELD VISIT	The remains of a small tower and attached range known as the Wirk stand outside the NE corner of the burial ground at Swandro. The buildings were exposed by excavation in the early 20th century and the results were described and illustrated in some detail in 1931 (Storer Clouston 1931, 27-33) and again by RCAHMS who provided a clear architectural description (1946, 191-2, visited 1929). The site and associated architectural fragments were the subject of a detailed discussion by Raymond Lamb in 1982 (RCAHMS 1982, 9-12) and Chris Lowe in 1984 (1984c). The present project included a new survey of the surviving remains in plan and section and a photographic survey. [...]	June 2017

HES Skaill Farm Survey

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