Hoy, Pict's Well
Enclosure (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Well (Period Unknown)
Site Name Hoy, Pict's Well
Classification Enclosure (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Well (Period Unknown)
Canmore ID 1598
Site Number HY20SW 9
NGR HY 20902 01065
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/1598
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish Hoy And Graemsay
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY20SW 9 2090 0103.
(HY 2090 0103) Pict's Well (NR)
OS 6" map, Orkney, 2nd ed., (1903).
Pict's Well is the name given to a small pile of stones encircled by a meagre patch of green grass. There is no trace of a well.
Name Book 1880.
The Pict's Well is not a small pile of stones as stated in the Ordnance Survey Name Book but is a drystone circular well, 0.9m in diameter and 0.5m deep, filled with peat and vegetation, and now disused.
It lies adjacent to the vague remains of a fairly modern drystone-walled enclosure, 17.0m by 15.0m, to which it is connected by an overgrown track, and the two are almost certainly contemporary, although the name suggests the existence of an earlier well or spring.
Visited by OS (NKB) 16 June 1967.
Field Visit (August 1987)
Pict's Well HY 2090 0106 HY20SW 9
At the location on a steep and thickly heather-covered hillside overlooking Berriedale, the Name Book records only a heap of stones and a patch of green grass. but the 1967 OS report describes a shallow, drystone-lined circular well adjacent to an enclosure. In 1987, a long search failed to find it.
RCAHMS 1989, visited August 1987.
(Name Book, Orkney, No. 11, p. 34; RCAHMS 1946, ii, p.112, No. 391, OR 1924).
Project (14 May 2009 - 18 May 2009)
HY 2450 0050 (A), HY 2350 0060 (B), HY 2070 0100 (C), HY 2060 0170 (D), ND 2060 9990 (E), HY 2130 0230 (F)
A walkover survey was undertaken on 14–18 May 2009 in the Rackwick and South Burn valleys in Hoy to provide a baseline for future work.
Six areas or transects (A–F) were walked and 37 sites were recorded. These included 31 previously unrecorded sites mostly consisting of post-medieval peat tracks and banks and WW2 remains. Transects (B–D and F) were walked across the broad U-shaped valleys to investigate upland glens, the valley floor and NMRS sites.
D Lee 2009
Field Visit (14 May 2009 - 15 May 2009)
The Pict’s Well site was on the W side of Ward Hill (HY 20900 00910). It consists of a sub-rectangular enclosure and structural remains including a stone-lined well. A track leads up to it from the valley to the NW. The function and age of the site is unknown and it would benefit from detailed survey when the vegetation is low.
D Lee 2009
