Stronsay, Lamb Ness

HY62SE 16 6890 2125.

(HY 6890 2125) Brough (NR)

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

Two denuded cairns lying about 20 ft apart, the larger having been 45ft in diameter and the smaller 30ft.

The remains, now levelled, in no way suggest a broch. They were classified as such in the Ordnanace Survey Name Book (ONB) because they looked 'like the remains of some ancient building, probably a brough'.

Name Book 1879; RCAHMS 1946, visited 1928.

Two cairns (A and B) surviving as denued turf covered mounds.

'A' measures c10.5 m in diameter and c0.5m in height. The tops of several slabs protruding through the turf, are suggestive of an Orkney- Cromarty type stalled chamber.

'B' measures c14.0m in diameter and c0.4m high. A few slabs protruding through the turf form no recognisable pattern and only one or two are earthfast.

About 15.0m SW of 'A' is another slight stony mound c9.0m diameter and 0.2m maximum height, which may be a cairn, but is too reduced for positive classification.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (NKB) 17 July 1970.

'A' is probably an 0rkney-Chambered tripartite or stalled cairn measuring 12.5 x 9.5m and 0.5m high. The stumps of 5 slabs lie transversely to the E-W axis - 3 pairs and a back-slab, although the N partners of the E and centre pairs are not visible. The compartments are 1.5, 1.35, and 1.8m long.

Two parallel stones to the S of the chamber are probably displaced. Mound 'B' seems to contain a structure of a later period, and the third mound is uncertainly a cairn.

Visited by OS (JLD) 12 May 1982.

On the lower slope of Lamb Ness are two denuded cairns up to 0.5m high. The W one is 14m across with some earthfast slabs on it, but the E, which is rather larger, has erect slabs arranged in such a way as to suggest a stalled chamber. A third mound, almost destroyed, may exist to the SW.

D Fraser 1982; D Fraser 1983; RCAHMS 1984, visited July 1979.