Publication Account
Date 2007
Event ID 586486
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/586486
ND34 8 OLD STIRKOKE ('Cairn Hill') ND/3275 4928
Probable solid-based broch in Wick, Caithness, which was originally a mound with a diameter of 24-27m (80-90ft), but two thirds of it had been removed on the north side by 1871 when Joseph Anderson visited the site and recorded what he could of the vanishing building. "Owing to the way in which the operations were conducted, no plan of the building could be obtained; but the farmer gave every facility for the preservation of such relics as happened to be noticed during the progress of the work, and collected most of them himself." [5, p. 143].
The broch wall was about 3.97m (13ft) thick and the diameter of the central court about 9.15m (30ft). It was possible to detect one long, oval-ended intra-mural chamber, and a square drain ran under the floor of the court. A cist-like construction 51cm (20in) deep was found near the middle; it had a stone slab for a base and four similar slabs for sides, and measured 1.22m (4ft) long and 76cm (2ft 6in) broad in the middle. It was completely full of ashes, with no earth, lacked a lid, and was covered by a layer of ashes 30cm (1ft) thick. Some years later the building was still being quarried, and in 1882 a long cist with a skeleton was discovered [3].
Finds [2, 5] included the following.
Iron: a fragment like the hilt end of a sword with a broad, double-edged blade.
Bronze: a fragment of a rod.
Bone and antler: 1 bodkin 20cm (8in) long, 1 polished needle with a round bevelled eye, several cut and sawn pieces of deer antler.
Stone: 2 sandstone whorls, 2 whet-stones, several hammerstones, 1 lamp, several thin discs of slaty stone (pot lids?), half of a thin disc of polished garnetiferous mica schist, several stone 'pestles', and a block of red sandstone with two intersecting hollows in its upper surface.
Sources: 1. NMRS site no. ND 34 NW 4: 2. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 9 (1870-72), 247-8 (finds): 3. The Antiquary 5 (1882), 228: 4. Anderson 1883, 232: 5. Anderson 1890, 142: 6. RCAHMS 1911b, 144-5, no. 499: 7. Anderson 1866.
E W MacKie 2007
