Skaefrue

Skaefrue, Sandwick. Looking across the Stenness loch towards Hoy. (Sigurd Towrie)
By Sigurd Towrie
Lying around 110 metres (120 yds) downslope and south-west of the Ring of Bookan is the large Bronze Age barrow known as Skaefrue.
The flat-topped, sub-circular mound is on a slope leading down towards the Stenness loch and survives at 24 metres (78.7ft) in diameter and 2.4 metres (7.9ft) tall.
Little is known about Skaefrue. Described in 1852 as a “large conoid tumulus” [1], we know it was one of seven barrows to the west of the Ring of Bookan, all of which are now gone, and that it was the focus of an antiquarian excavation in August 1849.
This, however, was not the first investigation of the mound – an earlier cut into the south-western side had been abandoned after no structural remains were found.

A section of Captain Thomas’ 1852 map showing the Ring of Bookan and Skaefrue to the south-west.
Among the “ladies and gentlemen” present for the second attempt were Lieutenant Frederick Thomas, the visiting Royal Navy surveyor whose name will be familiar to regular readers, and Rev Charles Clouston, minister for the parish of Sandwick. It is thanks to them that any record of the operation to “lay open a tumulus of rather larger dimensions than the ordinary size” [2] exists.
On the afternoon of the second day, “after the part had partaken of a very excellent picnic on the green sward of the Druidical circle of Wasbuster [Ring of Bookan]” a cist burial was uncovered in the south-eastern section of the mound:

Lt Thomas’ plan of the three cist burials uncovered within Skaefrue in 1849.
A second cist was found in the north-western quarter, containing the disarticulated remains of what Thomas’ concluded was a large man:

Skaefrue from the south-east. (Sigurd Towrie)
On the eastern side of the mound, a third cist was said to be the final resting place of a child:

Skaefrue. (Sigurd Towrie)
The three cists, together with a speculated fourth – “the very large quantity of earth thrown on that side from the interior of the tumulus discouraged any attempt to search for it” – were, wrote Thomas “placed at the cardinal points of the compass”.
Thomas regarded the mound as a “family tomb for father, mother, and child” and considered the regularity of their layout purely coincidental:
Geophysics surveys of the area revealed a circular arrangement of anomalies around the base of the mound. Although these may relate to the 19th century antiquarian disturbances, “it is likely that at least some of them are associated with the construction and use of this monument during the Bronze Age” [3].
The archaeologists behind the ten-year project to survey the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site also noted the similarity between of the Skaefrue geophysics responses to those at Mound Seven at the nearby Lingafiold barrow cemetery, which excavation has confirmed as an arrangement of funeral pyres and cists. [3]
Notes
- [1] Thomas, F. W. L. (1851) XIII — Account of some of the Celtic Antiquities of Orkney, including the Stones of Stenness, Tumuli, Picts-houses, &c., with Plans, by FWL Thomas, RN, Corr. Mem. SA Scot., Lieutenant Commanding HM Surveying Vessel Woodlark. Archaeologia, 34(1), pp.88–136.
- [2] John O’ Groats Journal. August 10, 1849.
- [3] Brend, A., Card, N., Downes, J., Edmonds, M. and Moore, J. (2020) Landscapes Revealed: Geophysical Survey in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Area 2002-2011. Oxbow Books, Oxford.