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Westray, Powdykes
Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)
Site Name Westray, Powdykes
Classification Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)
Alternative Name(s) Howa Tower; Netherhouse; Bay Of Kirbist
Canmore ID 2842
Site Number HY44SW 4
NGR HY 43435 43627
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/2842
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish Westray
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY44SW 4 4343 4362.
(HY 4342 4363) Howa Tower (NAT)
OS 6" map, Orkney, 2nd ed, (1900).
Powdykes: An Orkney-Cromarty type round cairn, now grass-grown, but which can be seen to be composed in one part of small stones and earth. The edge of the mound is well defined, but it may have been reduced in area by ploughing.
It is slightly pear-shaped in plan measuring 60' ESE- WNW by 52' SSW-NNE. The height has apparently been some-what reduced and in the centre the tops of four thin slabs, which must be 4' to 5' high,can be seen, presumably the division stones of a chamber oriented ESE-WNW. The Ordnance Survey Name Book (ONB) gives no reason why the site should be called 'Howa Tower' except the assumption that a building may have stood on the mound.
Name Book 1879; A S Henshall 1963, visited 1957.
A chambered cairn as described and planned by Henshall and still known locally as 'Howa Tower' (ORK 42)
Surveyed at 1/2500
Visited by OS (RL) 2 July 1970.
Field Visit (June 1981)
Howa Tuo HY 4343 4362 HY44SW 4
This tautologically-named monument ('mound mound') stands on the skyline, at the edge of a pasture field. Measuring some 18m ESE-WNW by 16m, it was recorded by RCAHMS in 1928 as 1.2m in height, but this had been reduced by 1957 when it was seen by Henshall. Three slabs, now protruding about 0.3m above the top of the mound, appear to represent the divisions of a chamber of Orkney-Cromarty type, on the same alignment as the major axis of the mound.
RCAHMS 1983, visited June 1981.
(RCAHMS 1946, ii, p. 357, No. 1051; Henshall 1963, 226; OR 909).
