Gallow Hill
Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)
Site Name Gallow Hill
Classification Chambered Cairn (Neolithic)
Canmore ID 398
Site Number HU25SE 2
NGR HU 25818 50821
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/398
- Council Shetland Islands
- Parish Walls And Sandness
- Former Region Shetland Islands Area
- Former District Shetland
- Former County Shetland
HU25SE 2 2582 5082.
(HU 2580 5082) Cuml. (OE).
OS 6" map, Shetland, 2nd ed., (1903).
HU 257 508 A cairn (? chambered) about 84ft diameter, unusually large for Shetland. It has been greatly robbed and distrubed and is now reduced to a low mass of large irregular boulders.(RCAHMS 1946). The edge has been defined by a somewhat irregular setting of large blocks of stone generaly laid on their edges, a few 2ft 6ins. high, about half of which can still be traced. At the centre there is a pile of cairn material about 3ft high, amongst which it is possible to trace the tops of a number of larger stones set upright, which appear to form the NW half of a circular chamber about 8ft. diameter. The westmost stone, the tallest, is 3ft 6ins. high. On the NE there is a flat stone which might be a lintel and beyond it is a stone set on edge leading to the NE side of the cairn. These stones might suggest a passage on this side but this is conjectural.
A S Henshall 1963, visited 1957.
A cairn, probably chambered, as described and illustrated by Henshall.
Visited by OS (NKB) 16 June 1968.
Publication Account (1997)
Although its situation can be appreciated from the road, the cairn itself is now so low as robe difficult to pick out against a rock-strewn slope, for the stones of the cairn may well have been robbed in antiquity to build field-walls (see no. 55). Close to, however, it is still impressive, a huge round cairn with a kerb of massive boulders about 25m in diameter, in the centre of which there arc traces of very large stones enclosing a circular chamber. Nothing is known of its contents. Standing on the cairn, it is not difficult to ignore the modern road and to appreciate the sweep of the Voe of Browland and the landscapes on either side with their marvellously preserved early prehistoric settlements and field systems (nos 52, 54). Another chambered tomb at the head of the voe on the Ward of Browland at 100m OD (HU 267515) commands an even more extensive view over this beautiful land and seascape.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Shetland’, (1997).
