Earl's Bu, Orphir

Work has been undertaken in recent years on a drystone structure previously identified as a souterrain. This can now be identified as the underhouse, lade and leat of a horizontal mill, with the chamber surviving up to 1.5m in height. The outgoing water channel is slab topped and the incoming one slab lined.

No wooden features survive, but there is evidence for an upright timber support for the wheel. Traces of a surface building are also lacking. The chamber was infilled by very rich late Norse Middens and the structure itself is set on deposits containing Viking artefacts.

This structure is unique in the British Isles for this period. Immediately adjacent to this structure is a burnt mound, cut through by the mill wall, and containing the remains of a Bronze Age pottery vessel. Extensive on-site processing of the midden material has taken place. Geophysical survey confirmed the extensive nature of adjacent Norse buildings.

C E Batey 1990.

Geophysical survey confirmed the extensive nature of adjacent Norse buildings.

C E Batey 1990.

A short season of excavation was commissioned on the site of the watermill, by Orkney Islands Council. Work took place between 13 and 30 July 1993. Although the main elements of the archaeology of the site were well defined, lack of resources in 1990 meant that there were still questions to be answered before a full interpretation of the structural and chronological sequences could be put forward when the site is consolidated and opened to the public. Work established the possibility of two 'ponds' and two lades (or head races) leading to the mill in the original layout, then to be modified with a series of infills, and narrowing of the lade(s) to the wheel set in the underhouse. It also established that earlier burnt mound material was used in the infill of the construction trench for the leat or tail race on the N side, and that to the S; the mill buildings are built into a mound of clay over rubble deposits. Midden deposits that post-dated the mill-race were also examined, along with a feature that may well be the 'water-tank' associated with the burnt mound of Bronze Age date, into which the mill was cut. Because of the imperatives of display, there were limitations to what could be excavated, and, without dismantling the mill-structure itself, earlier phases of activity at the site cannot be fully explored.

R C Harry 1993.

HY 334 045 Excavations were carried out in the vicinity of the saga centre, Orphir during February and August 1995. The work was undertaken to facilitate the construction of various elements of the saga centre, such as a patio area and a pipe trench.

Excavation of a pipe trench uncovered a sequence of deposits probably spanning the prehistoric to the Norse period. These included burnt mound material and fragments of walling. To the W of the pipe trench a large pit dug for a septic tank was recorded by the Orkney Archaeologist, Dr Raymond Lamb. More burnt mound material was seen here, and probably Norse structure(s).

Excavations in the patio area, thought only deep enough to insert paving, uncovered a series of deposits, including a large stone-lined subterranean feature provisionally interpreted as being related to the previously excavated horizontal mill nearby.

Excavations were also undertaken adjacent to the horizontal mill in order to allow a building to be underpinned, however the previous excavations here had already examined the archaeology (Harry 1993).

Sponsor Orkney Islands Council.

EASE 1995.