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Archaeology Notes
Event ID 645801
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/645801
HY63NE 3 6765 3754.
(HY 6765 3754) Augmund Howe (NR)
OS 6" map, Orkney, 2nd ed., (1900).
A cairn, largely destroyed by robbing and by the sea, but may have been about 60' in diameter. It has a maximum height of 5'. No wall-faces or other signs of careful construction are visible but where core-stones are exposed they are laid on bed as if they had formed part of a built structure, which Wainwright, judging by the mass of stones at the centre, suggests may be a chamber. He also suggests that it may have been used as a noust. (Information contained in a letter from Dr Wood to OS).
According to the NSA the name 'Augmund's (locally pronounced 'Egmond's') Howe' properly belongs to HY63NE 1.
New Statistical Account (NSA) 1845; RCAHMS 1946, visited 1928 and 1935; F W Wainwright, Orkney Survey Mss 1960.
The E part of this cairn is eroded away by the sea. The surviving W half measures 23.0m N-S along the eroded face, by c11.0m transversely and 2.2m high. The stones "laid on bed", which are exposed in the excavated centre are corestones and there is no definite indication of a chamber. It is doubtful if it has been used as a noust. The name Augmund Howe is not known locally. The cairn is probably associated with a surrounding bank (See HY63NE 5).
(For a similar arrangement see HY45SE 19).
Re-surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (NKB) 9 July 1970.
The exposures do not suggest that the cairn was chambered. (Confirmed by A S Henshall).
Visited by OS (JLD) 14 May 1983.
HY 676 375 (centre) EDM survey was undertaken at this site near Quoyness in September 1996. The site comprises a large field of 18 mounds (including NMRS HY63NE 3, HY63NE 5, HY63NE 6 ), and a chain of 11 mounds linked by a dyke which surround the probable chambered cairn at Egmondshowe.
Since the survey was undertaken, the Scheduled area has been enlarged to take in the chain of mounds.
A survey report has been lodged with the NMRS.
Sponsor: Historic Scotland
J Downes 1998.
