Fetlar, Vord Hill

Cairns, Vord Hill. On the highest part of Vord Hill, at an elevation of 522 ft. above sea-level and about 150 yds. apart, are two cairns of large stones, very much dilapidated. The more northerly seems, when complete, to have covered an area 65 or 70 ft. in diameter, but it has been partly removed to furnish material for the building of a small shelter which adjoins it on the W. No features of interest were noticed. The second, which lies S.S.W. of it, has likewise been much disturbed. It appears to have been originally smaller than its neighbour, for its present diameter is approximately from 40 to 45 ft. A hut or shelter was erected on its southern margin during the late war, when the hill-top was used for military purposes. Older, but in all probability also of comparatively recent date, is a rude enclosing wall, now much ruined, which runs out from the N.E. side of the cairn and curves W. at an average distance of 35 ft., rejoining the outer edge of the cairn on the E.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 8 September 1930.

O.S.6"map, Shetland, 2nd ed., (1900).

The two cairns described in the Inventory p. 57, art. 1215, are reported as very dilapidated heaps of large stones with no features of interest except that of size. Respectively the areas covered by the remains are noted as being 65 or 70 ft. and 40 to 50 ft. in diameter, and by inference from these dimensions they may be thought to have a subcircular periphery. The notice was made before heel-shaped cairns were known and a closer inspection in 1958 revealed the fact that both undoubtedly belonged to this category. In each case the curved backs and straight or slightly concave frontages, which looked towards the SE., were observed in the mass of debris. No internal features were noticed in the larger of the two cairns but in the other a passage entering from the middle of the concave face and the outline of a chamber could be made out. The chamber was of cruciform shape with two squared lateral recesses and a rather triangular terminal one. Two circular enclosures bounded by the foundations of a stone dyke running from the ends of the concave façade impinge on the cairn on the E. and W. sides and are no doubt later constructions erected with stones taken from the original monument.

Near the Ordnance Survey bench-mark to the SE. of these a large heap of stones showing the curved outer and inner faces of a wall and what look like horns extending for several feet from the main body, may represent, though doubtfully, the remains of a third cairn.

Calder 1965 p.54-5, No. 13