Field Visit

Date June 2012

Event ID 992972

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/992972

HY 40715 18796 In June 2012 brief visits were made to several scheduled sites on the S-facing slope of Enyas Hill to test their value as viewpoints for wind farm planning assessments. Varme Dale is a dispersed scheduled collection of six mounds and barrows and the visit focused on an unscheduled outlier mound at HY 40716 18792 added to the group from a 1981 account (HY41NW 2), and the highest altitude mound at 49m OD. A second smaller outlier mound, c3.5m wide by 0.3m high was noted c18m W of the first at HY 40699 18786.

The various clusters of monuments are almost certainly parts of general Bronze Age activity planned to exploit the extensive panoramic outlooks across the Bay of Firth. The modern nomenclature and protective zoning tends to artificially divide the traces into segments which underplay the full spread. At a detailed level, there are differences in recognisable size, the probable content of contained cists and maybe variations in construction, but the overall pattern is a series of low earth burial mounds, 5–15m in diameter and 0.3–2.0m high. The RCAHMS records suggest Verme Dale has at least seven recognisable mounds, whilst nearby Knowes of Euro has two mounds, and West Puldrite four mounds. This gives a total of at least 13 surviving mounds, and has increased significance when the full group is viewed as a single landscape phenomenon, which may originally have contained many more elements within its zonal spread.

The various hillslopes around the Bay of Firth have a very high distribution of Bronze Age mounds and tumuli and this specific Enyas hillslope gives an unexpected sightline beyond the encircling horizons to the hills of Hoy through the Finstown gap. It seems very probable that this view was a selection factor for their location, as this landscape window is only available from a restricted portion of the hillside.

David Lynn,

2012