Archaeology Notes

Event ID 656409

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/656409

ND49SW 1 42526 93962

(ND 4252 9396) The Howe (NR)

OS 6" map (1900)

The broch, Howe of Hoxa, lies in a conspicious and commanding position on a rounded eminence, 50-60ft above the beach, at the N end of a hog-backed ridge on the broad low-lying isthmus which divides the Bay of Widewall on the S frrom the Dam of Hoxa on the N. The site was cleared by Petrie in 1848 but was almost immediately obscured and mutilated by a well intentioned but misdirected effort at conservation. Although the building was unquestionably a broch, what has been "conserved" is only the much re-constructed inner wall of the tower; the external base is hidden by grass-covered debris. There is no longer anything to be seen of the outer wall-face, but Dryden allows for a thickness of 14ft and Wilson states that the greatest height of wall found standing was 8ft. Measured between the original wall-faces, the internal diameter is 29ft 8in but this has been reduced by a late facing which rises only 7ft 6in from the present floor level and ends under a scarcement formed by protruding stones. On the W side, a series of slabs, of which five remain, project as radial partitions towards the centre of the court. High up on the wall on the S side are two slabs embedded parallel in the wall like the joints of a door but the space between is built up and there is no sill or lintel. There is now no trace of the original entrance passage but a doorway constructed in the E arc may correspond to the position of the inner opening to the court. There is no sign of the mural-cell mentioned by Petrie or of the door-checks and barhole shown in an illustration of Wilson's account. In Petrie's original excavation note, some stone querns, a shallow stone mortar and pestle and two small circular stone vessels, both 4 1/2m deep and 5" x 7" in diameter respectively, lay in the recesses between the "radial slabs" and there seem to have been one or two stone troughs in the floor. Finds in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) include a stone pounder, a ball of serpentine, a tooth of a sperm whale and a boar's tusk.

D Wilson 1863; RCAHMS 1946, visited 1935.

"The Howe", the remains of a broch on a flat topped ridge, mainly as described by RCAHMS.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

The ridge on which the broch stands has the ill-defined remains of a wall along part of its W side. The remains are so slight that it is a matter of conjecture as to whether the wall continued around the northern end of the ridge or descended to the flat ground to the West. It does, however, curve in towards the narrow part of the ridge SW of the broch but is then lost by ground disturbance at this points. There are indications of small rectangular buildings having stood along the ridge to the SW and old field banks which ascend the ridge from the flat ground to the West. The whole complex is unlikely to be associated with the broch and is probably comparatively recent.

Visited by OS (ISS) 25 April 1973

ND 425 939 The Howe: broch, disturbed and partially altered, also remains of settlement outwith broch, prehistoric.

Sponsors: Historic Scotland, Orkney Archaeological Trust

G Wilson and H Moore 1997.

The Howe

Broch [NAT]

OS (GIS) MasterMap, April 2010.