Publication Account
Date 2002
Event ID 585650
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/585650
HY45 1 ST. TREDWELL'S CHAPEL
HY/49645088
Possible broch on Papa Westray inside a mound on which stands the 12th century chapel of St Tredwell. It was dug into in 1883 by Traill [2] who found a curved underground passage which apparently was traced to the point where it entered a circular building. There was a door to a corbelled cell in the right wall of this passage just before that point and appeared a pair of door-checks immediately before this cell. A heap of charred grain was found in the passage, together with an iron spear-head and a ball of serpentine [4]. A bone die from the site is in the collections of the Museum of Scotland [5], as is a bone playing disc and a bone ring [1]. On the SW side of the mound a 11.6 m (38 ft.) length of curved and battered dry stone wall is exposed; it has a maximum height of 1.80 m (6 ft.) but its curvature is irregular and it could be part of the outer wall of a broch.
In 1992 further survey work was carried out and the remains of the broch were recorded again [7].
Sources: 1. OS card HY 45 SE 4: 2. W. Traill in Proc Soc Antiq Scot 17 (1882-83), 137-38: 3. Proc Orkney Antiq Soc 3, 34: 4. RCAHMS 1946, 2, no. 523, 181-82 and figs. 75 and 267: 5. Clarke 1970, 231: 6. Lamb 1983, 19, no. 30: 7. Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1992, 82.
E W MacKie 2002
