Archaeology Notes

Event ID 646035

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/646035

HY63NE 1 6766 3779

(HY 6766 3779) Quoyness Brough (NR)

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

A Maes-Howe-type chambered cairn, measuring 67' by 56', the intact chamber being enclosed within a complex cairn and surrounded by a platform. It was excavated by Farrer and Petrie in 1867, in the belief that it was a broch, but was subsequently recognised as a chambered cairn and re-excavated by Childe in 1951-2 for the MoW in whose guardianship it has been placed.

The roughly rectangular chamber, with six cells, is enclosed within an ovoid cairn, supported by two retaining walls, the whole being covered with cairn material supported by a third wall, standing on a raised platform.

Sherds of Neolithic pottery found on the floor show affinity with the Rinyo (HY43SW 20) and Skara Brae (HY21NW 12) settlements; while a slate disc found in the chamber is comparable with finds in western Scotland, Wales, Spain and Portugal.

Childe envisaged the complete cairn as a domical mound like Maes-Howe (HY31SW 1) and it must have stood at least 14' high. MoW have exposed the upper part of the innermost encircling wall, and short sections of the two outer walls on either side of the passage. The outer half of the passage is without lintels so that the sides above the original wall-head have been faced with walling up to the level of the cairn surface, and the present entrance is by modern steps through the outermost wall.

According to the NSA the name 'Augmond's (or as it is locally pronounced, Egmund's) Howe' applied to the neighbouring site (HY63NE 3) properly applies to this cairn.

New Statistical Account (NSA) 1845; J Farrer 1870; J Anderson 1886; RCAHMS 1946, visited 1928 and 1935; V G Childe 1954; A S Henshall 1963; R W Feachem 1963.

A chambered cairn as described and planned by Henshall. Neither the name Quoyness Brough or Augmund Howe is known locally.

Re-surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (NKB) 6 July 1970.

Scheduled as Quoyness, chambered cairn, Els Ness, Sanday.

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 25 April 1994.