Auskerry

HY61NE 2 6741 1637 and 6729 1634

(HY 6741 1637 and HY 6729 1633) Monkhouses (NR).

(Undated) OS map.

See also HY61NE 3.

Simple heaps of debris from which emerge a few slabs set on edge. Without excavation nothing definite can be said.

The name is that given by the local authorities - a schoolteacher and two farmers.(Name Book 1879)

(See also HY61NE 3)

RCAHMS 1946, visited 1930.

The name Monkshouses still applies to two turf-covered mounds.

The more westerly is a crescentic burnt mound about 1.3m high, adjacent to a marshy area. The other, about 22.0m in diameter, is stony and amorphous.

Unable to classify.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (NKB) 20 July 1970.

A (HY 6741 1637): A conspicuous stony heap, some 22m in diameter and 2m high, with many large loose slabs and some erect earthfast ones. Nettle-grown, it looks more like a settlement-mound, possibly of Iron Age date, than a burial-cairn. The site is mentioned only in passing in the Inventory, but it had been accurately described by Corrie in 1928.

B (HY 6729 1634): On the edge of a bog at the foot of a sharp slope is a fine burnt mound of the classic crescentic form, measuring some 22m along its longer axis and 1.3m high. The application of the name 'Monkshouses' to these mounds is questionable.

RCAHMS 1984, visited August 1983.