Archaeology Notes

Event ID 646617

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/646617

HY62SE 12 6702 2115.

(HY 6702 2115) Ward of Housebay (NR)

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

A turf-covered chambered mound which rises to a height of about 8' and measures at least 65' in diameter.

Some years before 1928 the interior was partly explored by making a small opening but no plan was preserved. The opening was still there in 1928 and was found to lead to a passage varying in width from about 3' to 4' and seldom more than 2' high. In places this was partly choked with debris, but it was examined for a distance of 31'. It runs in a NW direction for about 21', and then turns west. Here it opens out and branches at right angles on either side, probably an indication of the proximity of the chamber or chambers proper. On the left, however, progress is soon barred by fallen material, while on the right a double entry, divided by a double pier of masonry, is blocked by a large slab behind it.

Not mentioned in A S Henshall 1963.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 1928; A S Henshall 1963.

A cairn, which from the RCAHMS description is undoubtedly chambered. Access to the interior is now blocked and there is no trace of the passage. On the SE side is a section of dry-stone retaining wall, forming an irregular curve for about 7.0m. A single earthfast stone is discernible on the NW side, which, if a facing stone, indicates a diameter of about 18.5m. The cairn appears to stand on a platform similar to the Quoyness chambered cairn (HY63NE 1) but this is too amorphous for survey action.

The name 'Ward of Housebay' is still known locally.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (NKB) 17 July 1970.

This probably Maeshowe cairn is beset with remains of slab-structures, midden and walling, which confirms the presence of a settlement secondary to the cairn.

R {G} Lamb 1979

The upper part of the entrance to a passage about 1m wide is exposed in the SE side. Above the front lintel a wall-face is exposed 0.9m high and extends for 6.5m to the E. It can be traced intermittently around the mound giving a diameter of 17m. In places there are traces of a second wall-face with a greater diameter. Its classification as a chambered cairn is feasible.

The indications of settlement on the S of the cairn is confirmed in cliff-erosion.

Visited by OS (JLD) 13 May 1982.

This mound some 2.5m in height, stands prominently on a headland and is known to contain passages. It is some 20m in diameter and could accommodate either a chambered cairn or a broch. There are slab structures on the surface, suggesting secondary occupation, and a midden deposit visible in a small shoreline exposure appears to be stratigraphically later than the main mound.

This midden has yielded some coarse pottery of Iron Age type. (Tankerness House Museum, 1979, 208-11).

D Fraser 1982; D Fraser 1983; RCAHMS 1984, visited July 1979.