Papa Stour, Housa Voe

HU16SE 24 1802 6032

(Scheduled as Housa Voe, stone ring, Skurdins, Pap Stour). The monument consists of an open ring of boulders, locally believed to be a meeting-place of Norse date. The ring is a horseshoe-shaped setting of close-spaced rounded boulders set upright. It is open to the E and is not clearly visible to the S, although this may be the result of burial by sand, as stones have been detected below the turf here. About 45 boulders are visible, plus a group of 4 set just within the W arc. A low grassy bank has built up around the stones, particularly on the W side. The ring measures about 35m N-S by the same E-W. The site is not obviously a stock enclosure or a field. Its survival in the middle of damp but fertile farmland and the associated traditions, including one recorded by Low (1773) of a duel fought between two men, one called "Lord Terwill" (? Torcuil), may tend to support its popular interpretation as a "doom-ring", a place for local gatherings of a consultative and judicial nature during the Norse-medieval period.

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 6 November 1995.