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Publication Account
Date 2002
Event ID 585684
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/585684
HY50 6 RIGGAN OF KAMI
HY/593074
This probable ground-galleried broch with wheelhouse in St. Andrews and Deerness, consisted of a stony mound at the head of the geo (inlet) 400 m north of Sandside Farm; the site is on the landward end of a triangular cliff promontory [2]. Excavations began in 1981-82 but were cut short by the death of the director, Peter Gelling; the exposed parts of the building remain open and disintegrating (visited in 1987).
Visible is a long segment of curving wall which contains a ground level gallery (with a few lintels in position over it) and an entrance passage. There also is what looks like a raised void in the inner wall face and at least two radial piers in the interior suggest that a wheelhouse had been inserted into the building at some stage. The plan of the remains was made in 1984, not long after work ceased, and suggests that the site is a ground-galleried broch. The excavator apparently thought that its design, as well as its position on the edge of a low cliff, indicated that it was D-shaped semibroch of the type otherwise found only on the west coast and in the Western Isles (MacKie 1980: 2002). The site is particularly interesting for this reason, but also because it contains what is so far the only known example of a proper wheelhouse of Shetland type (with built radial piers) in Orkney. No information about any finds made is available to the writer.
Sources: 1. OS card HY50 NE 20: 2. Lamb 1987, 24.
E W MacKie 2002
