Orkney Smr Note

Event ID 620517

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Orkney Smr Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/620517

1/2 mile S of Birsay Parish Church this mound has a diameter

of about 168ft and stands 14 -16ft high. Finds include: Human

skull, small clay urn, portion of small clay urn, portion of skull

and lower jaw of pig and leg bone of ox, two cut bone pins, a

portable whetstone, Iron Bell and numerous full length graves. The

bell was in all likelyhood the bell of the Celtic church of Birsay

and had been buried deliberately to save it from the invading

Norsemen. Some years later a well built wall was found enclosed

with what appears to have been a flagged yard. There is nothing

apart from the relics to suggest a broch. All that can be safely

inferred is that some large building stood here at an early date.

The site became a Christian cemetry. Known locally as Saverough

Information from Orkney SMR [n.d.]