Archaeology Notes

Event ID 642088

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/642088

HU34NW 6 3377 4606.

(HU 3377 4606) Ruins (LB)

OS 6" map, Shetland, 2nd ed. (1903)

The buildings are alleged to have been erected by survivors from the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Name Book 1878; New Statistical Account (NSA) 1845

The foundation mounds of eight or nine structures, oblong in shape, but having rounded corners. Six lie close together so near the edge of the cliff on the east side of the island that the ends of some of them have disappeared through erosion. Each has been about 40' long by 18' 6" broad. Although no stonework is visible, they suggest the foundations of houses.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 1931

The footings of eight buildings generally as described by RCAHMS. They vary in size from 13.5m long by 4.7m wide to 10.0m long by 3.9m wide with turf covered walls 1.0m average thickness. The entrances are all in the N sides. The remains of another house, now mostly destroyed by cliff erosion, are attached to the northerly end of the most northerly house. Tradition of shipwreck still known locally.

The houses are similar to the medieval settlement on the Brough of Birsay (Orkney), although the name of the island Kirk Holm suggests a religious establishment.

Visited by OS (RL) 11 June 1968

(Scheduled as Kirk Holm, monastic settlement). The monument consists of the remains of a settlement, almost

certainly a monastic establishment of early medieval date, located on the E side of the small islet called Kirk Holm.

It consists of the foundations of eight rectangular structures, each having rounded corners. They vary from 13.5m by 4.7m overall down to 10.0m by 3.9m. Their walls are about 1m wide and turf-covered. Six of the houses lie close together and are aligned NNE-SSW, with entrances towards the sea. A further house, severely eroded, lies just to the N, and another some 40m beyond this. The two last-mentioned have been subject to erosion, as have the seaward ends of the group of six. There are no visible traces of any associated structures or boundaries. The location, nature of the remains and the placename suggest an ecclesiastical origin, presumably as an eremitical establishment. The likely date would be 11th or 12th century AD, on analogy with other monastic settlements in Shetland and beyond.

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 22 February 1993.

Nine unroofed buildings annotated Ruins are depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Orkney & Shetland (Shetland) 1882, sheet li). Three unroofed buildings are shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1973).

Information from RCAHMS (SAH) 4 June 2001