Archaeology Notes

Event ID 643767

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/643767

HY22NE 4 2537 2678.

(HY 2537 2678) Haughster Brough (NR) (Stone Cists, Deer Horns etc found A.D.1847)

O.S.6"map, Orkney, 2nd ed.,(1900).

Before excavation, Haughster, Okstrow or Oxtro broch was a pile of stones on a knoll. It was excavated by Mr Leask, of Broadhouse Farm, in 1847.

On removing the stones, many short cists, containing burnt bones and ashes, were found. One of the cists contained a large bowl-shaped stone urn, in which were ashes and fragments of bones, and another contained a bronze ring. The figure of an eagle was carved on one of the cist-covers but this stone was built into one of the farm offices at Boardhouse.(G Petrie 1859; J Curle 1932).

Beneath the cists were found the remains of a broch, 69 ft in diameter overall, the wall 12 ft thick. Since excavation, about three-quarters of the wall is visible, up to five courses high, and two ruinous chambers The excavation yielded a collection of finds covering most of the first millenium A.D. which included a Viking bronze ring-headed pin and penannular brooch, native pottery and Roman sherds, including 2nd or 3rd century Samian.

Much of this material is in the National Collection.(PSAS 1876)

RCAHMS 1946; Name Book 1880; S Grieg 1940; R W Feachem 1963.

Oxtro Broch is as described above, except that the remains of a third cell, possibly a guard chamber, can be seen on the NW side.

There is no trace of the inscribed cist-slab at Boardhouse.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS(NKB) 28 May 1967.

Classification of Roman material.

A S Robertson 1970.

Class I symbol stone (lost) bearing an eagle.

A.Mack 1997 p.143

'The Orkney Herald' and 'The Orcadian' mentioned the site a number of times in the 1860s.