Midhouse, Tenston

HY21NE 20 2782 1604.

(Group of five, centred HY 278 160) Tumuli {NR}

O.S.6"map, Orkney, 2nd ed.,(1903).

The westernmost and largest mound (A) is some 50ft in diameter and 5 1/2ft in height. A deep excavation has been made in its top but no structural features can be seen. Two mounds stand close together about 200 yds to the NNe of it. These are 39ft (B) and 27ft (C) in diameter and 3ft high. The larger of the two is composed mainly of clean forced soil, covered by light-coloured turf, and has a stone setting at its base.

Midway between the large mound and the other two are two hutcircles, about 16ft in diameter overall and outlined by a low turf-covered wall about 2 1/2ft thick. One is so much broken that the entrance is unidentifiable: the other, better defined though broken in parts, has been entered from the north through a gap approx. 2 1/2ft wide. There is a muchlarger enclosure a little to the north, about 48ft in diameter overall, with a wall-thickness of about 5 ft and an entrance 3 1/2ft wide in the SE, probably for stock.

Two, or possibly three, other mounds, apparently untouched, lie to the south of the first. The two are 22ft in diameter and 2ft high and appear to be artificial while the third, situated on what has been very marshy ground, looks more natural though it may quite possibly have been used for burial.

RCAHMS 1946.

A group of seven turf-covered barrows, composed mainly of earth but with a stony admixture, is situated in a fairly prominent position on almost level ground at c.50ft OD. A, B and C are as described by the RCAHMS: D, E F and G vary from 6.0m to 13.0m in diameter and from 0.4m to 0.9m in height.

H, alleged by the Commission to be a hut circle or enclosure, is almost completely ploughed out, but is traceable as a circle of lighter soil, 10.0m in diameter and 0.2m high, with a central depression and a possible entrance in the SE arc. There is no trace of the other alleged hut circles or enclosures.

Visited by OS (NKB) 20 May 1966.