Unst, Harold's Grave

HP61SW 19 6308 1108.

(HP 6306 1111) Cairn (NR): Harold's Grave (NAT)

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

A very low, grass-grown cairn of small loose stones thus differing considerably in character from the two heel-shaped cairns on the same hill (HP61SW 2 and HP61SW 12 ).

It has been dug into without any structural plan being revealed. It measures some 50' long and 25' broad by about 1ft high, but the material has been so scattered that the original dimensions cannot be determined. It was opened some years before 1822 (Hibbert 1822), and again in 1865 when there were no indications of its being a place of burial, nor of the treasure reputed to be buried there with Harold (Tate 1866). Two beautiful bronze ornaments, which are commonly reported to have come from Harold's Grave, were at one time preserved in the Museum at Lerwick (Hunt 1866). But since the dispersal of that collection, their whereabouts are unknown.

The monument is certainly not a Neolithic long cairn. Apart from the causually scattered material, it resembles in general character the "Viking Grave" at King's Cross, Arran (NS02NE 3) - a Viking boat grave; and if the bronze ornaments really were found on this site, they would constitute further evidence in favour of a Viking origin.

S Hibbert 1822; R Tate 1866; J Hunt 1866; RCAHMS 1946, visited 1930 and 1935.

'In one of the graves opened on the Meikle Heog (but it is uncertain which) two beautiful circular bronze brooches of the Scandinavian form were found. They are now in the Museum at Lerwick.'

J Anderson 1874.

The Lerwick Museum was dispersed in 1882.

Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1882.

This site falls on a wet hillock amongst prolific outcropping rock. What remains is a kidney-shaped stony hollow measuring c.15.0m by c.5.0m with banks of heaped stones around its perimeter, obviously debris from the excavation. Not a boat burial. Unable to classify.

Visited by OS (RL) 29 April 1969.