Wideford Hill chambered cairn
By Sigurd Towrie
Just under three miles east of Cuween Hill, high on the steep western slopes of Wideford Hill, stands another of Orkney’s best-preserved Neolithic passage graves.
The Wideford Hill cairn bears a striking resemblance to the nearby Cuween cairn. Both belong to the Maeshowe-type class of chambered cairn and their entrances face one another across the landscape. Although the masonry at Wideford is generally considered less refined than that at Cuween, the similarities between the two monuments are undeniable. [1]
Almost circular in plan, the cairn measures approximately 14.5 metres north-south and 13.5 metres east-west. Its original entrance lay on the west side, where a narrow passage, just 50 centimetres wide and 60 centimetres high, led into the monument.
Oriented directly towards Cuween, the 3.5-metre-long passage must have been challenging to negotiate even in prehistory and is inaccessible today. Modern visitors instead descend into the chamber through an opening in the roof.
One of Wideford’s most distinctive features is that much of its exterior masonry remains exposed.
Unlike most Orcadian chambered cairns, whose outer stonework is hidden beneath accumulated material, Wideford displays a stepped, three-tier appearance formed by concentric retaining walls.
Part of the external cairn material was removed during nineteenth-century investigations, with the remainder cleared in 1935 after the monument came into state care.
Inside, a central chamber approximately three metres long and 1.4 metres wide survives to a height of around 2.4 metres.
Three passages branch from the northern, eastern and southern walls, each leading to a corbelled side cell measuring around 1.9 metres long, 1.3 metres wide and two metres high. [1]
Excavation
As regular readers will know, were it not for the antiquarian George Petrie many of the 19th century excavations across Orkney would have been woefully recorded, if at all.
Despite his extensive travels throughout the islands, Petrie remained unaware of the Wideford Hill cairn until October 1849, when he learned of its existence from someone who had “accidentally observed the knoll”. [2]
Petrie wrote:
Without delay, Petrie hired labourers and began excavating.
The timing was far from ideal. October weather in Orkney, combined with poor health and diminishing daylight, presented obvious challenges. One wonders whether the haste reflected Petrie’s determination to reach the monument before another investigator did.
Unfortunately, the only available details of the excavation is correspondence between Petrie and Lieutenant F. W. L. Thomas, the Royal Navy officer who, the year before, had surveyed the monuments on, and around, the Ness of Brodgar. [2]
Like Maeshowe to the west, Petrie described the Wideford Hill tumulus as being “of conical shape”. Approximately 4.3 metres high, the operation to cut into its north side was “both laborious and tedious, from the large stones and great quantity of clay used in the construction of the building”.
Entering through the roof, the excavators found the central chamber “nearly full of stone and rubbish, heaped up under the opening”.
Mixed in with this “rubbish” were “the bones of the horse, cow, sheep, swine etc., and some which were supposed to be those of deer.”
The side-cells, however, were “free from rubbish” and contained only “a few bones of domestic animals”.
Petrie noted a 50-centimetre-wide opening in the centre of the main chamber roof. This “regularly built hole … particularly attracted [Petrie’s] attention from its resemblance to the top of a chimney.”
He added: “The top of the hole was on a level with the stone structure and was merely covered with a layer of turf”.
To Petrie, the material almost filling the central chamber could not have been the result of structural collapse – there was no evidence that any part of the structure had fallen in.
Instead, he had no doubt that the filling “had the appearance of having been poured down through the opening at the top.”
Petrie took this as evidence that a structure “of a more temporary nature” had once stood on top of the passage grave. This, he suggested, had collapsed and “precipitated through the opening into the apartment beneath”.
Although we cannot say for sure, this seems unlikely given the volume of material within the chamber.
In addition, it is difficult to see how a collapsing structure could fall through a 50cm aperture without damaging the roof, not to mention leaving no trace above ground. In this case, however, I suspect the diggers were more interested in getting into the chambered cairn than investigating the exterior.
After clearing the central chamber, he turned to the entrance passage. Locating it from within, the excavators moved outside and attempted to trace it back towards the interior. Although Petrie seems to have found the outer section of the passage, it is not clear whether he excavated it, nor the state it was in:
3d model of the Wideford Hill chambered cairn. (📷 Historic Environment Scotland)
Re-excavation
Following Petrie’s work, the cairn remained undisturbed for 85 years.
After entering state guardianship in 1934, it was re-excavated the following year by Howard Kilbride Jones. No dedicated excavation report was produced, but the work confirmed aspects of the cairn’s construction and yielded no significant finds. [1]
Dating Wideford Hill
The absence of material suitable for radiocarbon dating means there are no direct dates for the monument’s construction or use. However, the architectural similarities with Cuween, combined with the deliberate alignment between their entrances, led to the suggestion that Wideford was built around 3100-3000BC.
Excavation at the base of the hill in 2002-2003 confirmed the existence of another substantial Neolithic settlement. Initially made up of timber structures, the excavated section of the settlement was in use from around 3500-2900BC. [3]
Like Cuween, the cairn is not especially prominent in the wider landscape. Its position only becomes particularly noticeable when viewed from the settlement below, strengthening the impression that the two were linked.
In 2013, another Early Neolithic settlement was confirmed at the south-western base of Wideford Hill. Radiocarbon dates from the Smerquoy settlement suggests timber buildings were prevalent from around 3500BC until stone-built houses became the norm around 3300BC. [4]
Quarried from the hillside
It is generally believed that the Neolithic builders created their cairn by cutting into the hillside and quarrying stone directly from the exposed bedrock.
While excavating the northern side cell, Petrie discovered a gap in the eastern wall (marked C on the plan to the right) through which he could see a quarried rock face. Because this space contained no cairn material, he interpreted it as an unfinished eastern passage.
This passage, he wrote, had never been completed but “extends for six or seven feet and then terminates”. [2]
Although Petrie was sure he had encountered “the mouth of a passage”, he conceded that it was in a dilapidated state and unsafe to enter. [2]
Later investigators disagreed. A plan produced after the 1935 excavation labelled the feature simply as a “break” in the walling, a description repeated by Davidson and Henshall in 1989. [1]
Nonetheless, Petrie’s “thorough and careful investigation” convinced him that enough stone had been quarried from the hillside to construct the monument and that the cairn was erected within the “hollow or cavity thus formed.” [2]
Was the site chosen simply because it was a convenient source of stone?
Possibly, but there were perhaps other factors at play.
Throughout recorded history, the Orcadian landscape has been woven with stories, beliefs and traditions. Hills, lochs, streams and prominent landmarks carried meanings that extended far beyond their practical uses. There is little reason to think the Neolithic world was any different.
Until relatively recently hills were renowned to be the abode of supernatural entities and therefore somewhat feared. Hills existed outside the sphere of daily life – they were, and remain, places on the edge. The Wideford Hill cairn sits in precisely such a liminal position. High above the surrounding landscape, it occupies neither summit nor valley but a point between the two.
In the Neolithic, did the exposed rock face at this location already hold significance?
If, as has been suggested, Cuween and Wideford were constructed some time after the founding of their associated settlements [3], had the rock-faces, and others, been sources of building material long before the construction of the passage graves?
If so, the decision to build chambered cairns at former quarry sites may have carried symbolic meaning. Perhaps these places were regarded as more than sources of stone.
We know, for example, that different quarries were used for the megaliths within the Ring of Brodgar and Stones of Stenness and that the few confirmed Neolithic quarries were often marked by standing stones or massive horned cairns.
At Wideford Hill and Cuween, might the builders have chosen places that had provided the materials for their ancestors’ homes and then transformed them into enduring “houses” for ancestral spirits?
Wideford’s entrance passage adds another intriguing dimension. It is significantly lower and narrower than the passages at either Cuween or Maeshowe, being roughly 20 centimetres smaller in both height and width.
On paper this may seem a minor difference. In person, however, the scale of the entrance is striking.
Who was expected to enter such a confined space? Children? Or was the passage never intended for mortal use at all?
What distinguishes Wideford is not simply its architecture but its context. The cairn sits between multiple Early Neolithic settlement sites, faces the Cuween cairn across the landscape and occupies a position that appears to have been deliberately chosen.
Whether viewed as a monument to the dead, a place of ceremony, or something else entirely, it formed part of a wider Neolithic landscape that developed around Wideford Hill over many centuries.
A ‘tomb’ with no bones?
Interpretations of Neolithic chambered cairns have long been coloured by the term “tomb” – a label that implies a primarily funerary purpose. While human remains undoubtedly played an role at some, chambered cairns were probably far more complex than simple repositories for the dead.
Because these monuments shared architectural features, it has been assumed they all served the same function. Consequently, any cairn lacking human remains, such as Maeshowe or Wideford Hill, was presumed to have been cleared out in antiquity. The result may be an overemphasis on the role of the dead within these monuments, particularly when relatively few Orcadian chambered cairns have produced human remains at all. [5]
At Wideford, poor bone preservation seems an unlikely explanation. Animal remains were clearly surviving within the monument when Petrie excavated it in 1849. [2]
Instead, it was assumed that the chambers had been carefully, and completely, emptied. While this may well be the case, the possibility remains that the structure was not used for the interment of corpses or a temporary repository for disarticulated skeletal material. Perhaps it had an entirely different role – one that left no archaeological trace.
Whatever its role, there is little doubt that the Wideford cairn, like Cuween, was deliberately filled in, via the roof, at the end of its life.
At Cuween this appears to have taken place in the Early Bronze Age, while the monument was still receiving human and animal remains. No comparable evidence for later activity was found at Wideford.
Cuween’s entrance was also blocked by masonry when the monument was closed. Whether the same happened at Wideford remains uncertain, although Petrie’s 1849 plan appears to show an obstruction across the outer section of the entrance passage.
Embellished entrances
Following Richard Bradley’s discovery of incised markings in Cuween [6], he returned in 1999 to search for other examples in Orkney’s other well-preserved chambered cairns. [7]
Although Petrie had written, in 1849, that there was no sign of “any sculpture” on the fabric of the passage grave [2], Bradley found markings within the Wideford cairn. Like those at Cuween, these were very ephemeral and difficult to see without the use of artificial light.
Again, familiar motifs were noted – criss-crossed lines and paired triangles [7], one of which is very similar to the design cut into a large rock at the Bay of Skaill, which was found in January 2021.
In 1999, the incised motifs found across Orkney were “so inconspicuous that they may have been simply sketches for designs in another medium. One obvious possibility is that the tomb walls had originally been painted.” [7]
Infrared photographs of incised areas inside Maeshowe at the time identified a section, to the right of the entrance passage, that may have retained traces of pigment. [7]
Until the excavation at the Ness of Brodgar, this was the only indication of pigment use within Neolithic structures.
Within the Wideford Hill cairn, the incised motifs were cut into the lintels above the entrances of the side cells. Their inclusion around entrances was noted elsewhere – and since at the Ness of Brodgar – suggesting they marked “important thresholds within the structure of the tombs”. [7]
What did these markings represent? That we do not know…and undoubtedly never will.
But just as the Wideford cairn itself perhaps marked a boundary between two “worlds”, the incised markings inside – and other examples now known from Neolithic Orkney – do seem to suggest a particular significance placed on crossing thresholds and moving from one space to the next.
Notes
- [1] Davidson, J.L. and Henshall, A.S. (1989) The Chambered Cairns of Orkney: an inventory of the structures and their contents. Edinburgh University Press.
- [2] Petrie, G. In Thomas, F.W.L. (1851) 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).
- [3] Richards, C. and Jones, R. (2016) The Development of Neolithic House Societies in Orkney: Investigations in the Bay of Firth, Mainland, Orkney (1994–2014). Windgather Press.
- [4] Crozier, R., Richards, C., Robertson, J. and Challands, A. (2016) Reorientating the dead of Crossiecrown: Quanterness and Ramberry Head. In Richards, C. and Jones, R. (2016) The Development of Neolithic House Societies in Orkney: Investigations in the Bay of Firth, Mainland, Orkney (1994–2014). Oxford: Windgather Press, 196-223)
- [5] Crozier, R., Richards, C., Robertson, J. and Challands, A. (2016) Reorientating the dead of Crossiecrown: Quanterness and Ramberry Head. In Richards, C. and Jones, R. (2016) The Development of Neolithic House Societies in Orkney: Investigations in the Bay of Firth, Mainland, Orkney (1994–2014). Oxford: Windgather Press, 196-223)
- [6] Bradley, R. (1998) Incised motifs in the passage-graves at Quoyness and Cuween, Orkney. Antiquity, 72(276), p.387.
- [7] Bradley, R., Phillips, T., Richards, C. and Webb, M. (2001). Decorating the houses of the dead: incised and pecked motifs in Orkney chambered tombs. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 11(1), p.45.
