Category: Around the Ness
During the Bronze Age, people gravitated towards the sites of already ancient monuments to bury their dead. As a result, clusters of barrow mounds can often be found around chambered cairns and other Neolithic monuments.
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Lying around 110 metres downslope and south-west of the Ring of Bookan is the large Bronze Age barrow known as Skaefrue.
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Until the winter of 1814, the holed monolith stood to the north-west of the Stones of Stenness. But although its special place in the customs, traditions and folklore of the people of Orkney is well documented, we know remarkably little about the stone itself.
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Although visitors can’t come to Orkney at present due to the Covid pandemic travel restrictions, we’re all looking forward to a time when things get back to some semblance of…
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Although the Ring of Brodgar dominates the surrounding area, the stone circle is but the tip of an archaeological iceberg.
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A solitary lichen-crowned megalith stands in a field about half a mile to the south-east of the Stones of Stenness.
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Head north along the road south-west of the Stenness loch and a single standing stone will be clearly visible on high ground to the north-west. Located in the parish of Stromness, the Deepdale Stone stands 1.8 metres (6ft) high.
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Around 3000BC, some 200 years after the founding of the Barnhouse settlement, a “building of monumental proportions” was erected on the site of a meeting area on the village outskirts.
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For three centuries the Barnhouse settlement was dominated by a structure unlike any of the others in the village. Labelled House Two, it was also unique among Neolithic buildings in Orkney until the Ness of Brodgar complex appeared on the scene in 2003.
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In December 1984, evidence of a Neolithic village was found 150 metres (164 yards) to the north of the Stones of Stenness, at the southern end of the Harray loch.
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The earliest account of Maeshowe is found within the pages of the Orkneyinga saga, which says Viking warriors sought shelter in the chamber in 1153.
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Back in 2016, a nineteenth century sketch had us pondering whether there might be more to Maeshowe than we see today.
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With its south-westerly facing entrance, Maeshowe’s best known attribute is its orientation towards the setting sun around midwinter.
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The solstice, an earlier building and standing stone and Norse runes.
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Probably the best-known Neolithic chambered cairn in Orkney, Maeshowe stands less than a mile to the east of the Ness of Brodgar complex.
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In December 1814, disaster struck the Stones of Stenness when a tenant farmer took it upon himself to obliterate them.
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The second stone circle in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage site is now most commonly known as the Stones of Stenness.
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In the late 19th century, the Knowe of Onston was opened and found to contain the remains of a Neolithic stalled cairn.
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We finished last week with George Marwick’s claimed “old name” for the Ring of Brodgar – Howastedgarth. I first stumbled across it in 2012, in a transcription of a talk given by Marwick.
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With a diameter of 103.6m (340ft), the Ring of Brodgar is the larger of the two stone circles in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site and one of the biggest in the British Isles.
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Just outside Stenness village, and opposite the Standing Stones Hotel, is a large oval mound. The tumulus was given scheduled monument status in 2002 and assigned the name “Little Barnhouse”.
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On low ground 140 metres (153 yards) east of the Ring of Brodgar is the monolith now commonly known as the Comet Stone.
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