To the Orkneys!

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Saturday 14th June

Today we are to begin a 2½ day tour of the Orkney islands. The Orkney islands are about 7 miles (at the nearest point) off the north coast of Scotland at a latitude of around 59o N. (By comparison, Edinburgh is at 55o N, and is around 400 miles distant). The Orkneys are a group of 70 or so islands, 17 or 18 of which are inhabited. (The residents of one island are in the process of abandoning it.) The inhabitants of the islands refer to themselves as Orcadians.

We left the B&B in Edinburgh prior to breakfast being served since our plane was leaving Edinburgh at the 9.40 am. We left all out large cases behind with Elaine who had kindly offered to store them while we were in Orkney. We drove down the A8 to the airport which was about 30 minutes away.

The roads within the airport formed a labyrinth, as they seem to do within all airports, but we eventually located a long term carpark and caught a bus to the airport terminal.

When passing through the security barrier to enter the area containing the flight gates Owen and I were singled out.

For reasons I cannot explain, my CPAP pump (a version of this model went to America and was flown all around Alaska and from Seattle and Narita (Japan), this one has been with us and had had no trouble being flown from Australia, Fiji, Thailand, Venice and Switzerland) was singled out and subjected to various tests (maybe the security guys don't have enough to do in Edinburgh!). First the actual pump was re-scanned by x-rays, the unit was then subjected to radioactivity tests and finally the inside of the case was swabbed with cotton pads and subjected to particulate tests.

Owen had picked "a lucky number" and he was checked over with the hand held scanner and his shoes subjected to intensive scrutiny. Of course nothing untoward was discovered in either instance. .

After catching a quick bite of breaky, we found our way to the outskirts of the airport where our plane waited. It was a small plane and even our normal roll-on luggage was taken to be stored in the hold. We were given a tag, which we were warned not to lose, to allow us to claim the cases at the other end of the flight.

It had started to spit rain when we had arrived at Edinburgh airport, and although it had stopped raining the airport had complete cloud cover. As a consequence most of the short 1hr 20m flight was fairly boring as our only view was the sunlit tops of billowy white clouds as far as the eye could see. As we approached the incorrectly named Mainland, the largest of the Orkney Islands, the clouds cleared and I could see some cliffs and large breakers far below and the aircraft began to bounce around under buffeting winds. After 4 or 5 minutes of this Marion proclaimed that at the end of our stay in Orkney, she was returning to Edinburgh by bus.

The plane landed at the Orkney airport with a small bounce. Alighting from the plane we were almost blown off Mainland by the massive winds. We found our roll-on bags standing all on their lonesome on a luggage trolley near the terminal; so much for requiring the tags to reclaim them!

We called a cab to take us to our hotel, Ayre, in Kirkwall (The "capital" of the Orkneys). The cab driver had, we thought, a unique solution to the problem of not wanting to wear a seatbelt but the car having a built-in alarm if the seat belt is not being worn. He had simply fed the belt down behind the back of his seat and then clipped it. (We quickly discovered that this wasn't unique as we found two other Orkney cabbies doing the same thing.)

We found the Orcadian speech a little hard to understand on occasion as they are very softly spoken. Their accent is a soft burr, a cross between Scottish and Welsh (with perhaps the Welsh slightly dominating).

We quickly booked into our hotel, grabbed a bite to eat and freshened up as our tour was to begin at 1.30pm.

We were going to remain on Mainland, the largest of the islands throughout our stay. Mainland is almost two separate islands with the capital, Kirkwall, sited at the thin neck that joins the two parts. Because they are almost two discrete islands many maps refer to West Mainland and East Mainland. West Mainland is by far the larger being about 22km wide (East-West) and 25km long (North-South). It contains two large lochs, a number of smaller ones and the majority of the more interesting archaeological sites. East Mainland is much smaller, around 12km x 10 km, but there are also two large bays on the Northern side, eating chunks out of the land mass; as a consequence the land area of East Mainland is less than a quarter of the West. Both islands are extremely flat and have very few trees.(Early settlers {500BC!} cut down the trees on the islands and due to the constant strong winds there is great difficulty finding a sheltered spot where the saplings are likely to survive to maturity.)

We met our guide Caz Mamwell, from Orkney Archaeology Tours, in the foyer. She was fairly short and slim with close-cropped hair, wore a black polo fleece jacket and no-nonsense, tough trousers. She drove a dark blue/grey people-mover which we would become very familiar with in the next couple of days.

Caz began by taking us to Cuween Cairn which was a communal tomb from about 3000 BC. Leaving the car proved that the wind we had experienced on alighting from the plane had not abated.

The cairn is placed on the top of a fairly steep hill. From a distance it simply looks like a grassy mound but as we struggled up the sharp rise a small opening built from concentric bands of stones became visible. This entrance was a single low, narrow passage which required crawling to negotiate (Caz provided knee-pads for our comfort). Once inside we were within a rectangular room of drystone walls (no mortar, just each rock carefully placed on another rock) which, from eyelevel upward, sloped inward as they rose forming a capping "pyramid" to the room. The cairn was originally sealed at the top with a large flat stone. Since these cairns are almost always broken into through the apex (as the original entrance is often sealed off and is almost always grown over by grass and hard to locate from outside), the initial capping rock was no longer in place, but had been replaced with a replica.

Three of the walls had a small square opening at some point near their base. The wall containing the entrance had two apertures; one was the passage we had crawled through, whereas the other opening in this wall, as well as the three identically sized holes in the other walls, led to a small rectangular burial chamber.

Remains of at least eight human burials were found in the cairn, along with the bones of ox, birds and the skulls of 24 small dogs. Most of the human remains also consisted of skulls. The local tribe may have had the dog as their symbol or totem, or, they may be connected with some concerned with hunting.

No one is too sure how such tombs were used, suggestions include that, from the small number of burials present, that the tomb may have been cleared periodically with only the skulls of recent (or important) individuals on "display".

When the cairn was discovered in recent times the entrance had been found to be carefully blocked up. This probably indicates that either that these types of tombs were closed regularly between periods of use or that this burial place had been sealed since the community had stopped using it.

Our next port of call was the Corrigall Farm Museum. This is an example of an ordinary farm from the late 19th Century. The farmhouse is built from stone which has been mortared into place. The roof consists of a wooden frame on which large (about a metre square) slabs of slate have been positioned with each row overlapping the one below. The floors within were also comprised of similar sized slate squares. The house comprises four reasonable sized rooms. One is set up as a sitting/dining room and another as the bedroom; one of the other rooms is really just an entrance way and the final room is the sales area/gift shop.

Outside the house there were fish drying and a frame on which three cheeses were maturing. The entrance hall had an exhibit of some 19th Century farm equipment, mainly set up for school groups, but Chris, the farm's manager, demonstrated how the hand powered grain grinder (called a quern) worked. (Wheat doesn't grow in the Orkney climate but a grain called bere (pronounced "bear") does.)

He then took us into the dining room which contained an open fire and hearth which was used as "the kitchen" for cooking. There also dried fish and a ham being smoked as well as chairs, a cradle, a number of farm tools and a spinning wheel. The most surprising room, however was the bedroom which contained a box bed. This was an actual large box (about 1.5 metres on a side) with four "shelves". These were actually bunks on which some of the family slept, as well as on the "floor" of the box. Due to its size a full grown adult would have to sleep "curled up". The box had an actual door that could be closed to retain as much heat as possible.

Chris told us that one feature of the house was not authentic and that was the size of the windows. These had been enlarged so that the interior of the house could be more clearly seen by visitors.

Inside the small barn we saw a pile of peat which had been quarried to use as fule for the coming 4 months or so (peat is partially solidified plant material, part way to becoming coal, that is the main source of fuel in Orkney). We also saw the chicken run.

The chickens here had strange "Beatle-like" mops of feathers on top of their heads. Chris said that it was claimed this breed of chooks were obtained from shipwrecked ships of the Spanish Armada. They are hard to breed as the hens rarely get broody and won't sit on their eggs, as well as having an alarming tendency to suddenly die for no apparent reason.

The larger barn contained a kiln which was used to dry out freshly cut peat.

We left the farm having a much better understanding of the life that people here would've had 100-150 years ago (and gave thanks that it wasn't us living it!).

As we headed for our last destination for the day, the Broch of Gurness, Eynhallow Sound came into view. This is a small strait between West Mainland (the island we owere on) and Rousay, another Orcadian island to the North. Eynhallow Sound sits between the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean and as we drove along we could see the water seething and broiling as it was tugged by the massive tides of these two huge bodies of water. The heaving and plunging of the water generating countless whitecaps was both a spellbinding and awe-inspiring spectacle.

Although we enjoyed seeing Eynhallow Sound , we were actually here to see the Broch of Gurness, which sits on the shore of the sound. The word broch (also spelt brough), which is pronounced the same way as the late racing car driver's name, is derived from the Norse word for castle. Brochs are round stone towers unique to Scotland (of which Orkney is part, although most Orcadians don't think of their islands in that way) and there are more than 500 known brochs of which about 100 are in Orkney.

Brochs developed from roundhouses which first appeared around 700 BC. They typically have a large central tower, up to 20m in diameter with hollow walls up to 5m thick at the base. The tower normally has an interior staircase and the tower wall could be up to 15m tall.

There are only a few excavated brochs and these provide a vivid demonstration of life in the Iron Age. Prior to excavation the Broch of Gurness was a large grassy- mound alongside the shore.

As we left the car, the wind clutched us anew, this time trying to barrel us up the island, away from the sea. We entered the Broch of Gurness via the visitor centre but the first point of interest is unrelated to the broch. You immediately come upon some stone foundations of a group of buildings that stood here in the late Iron Age, around 4 or 5 AD. These represent the most recent construction on the site. The largest and best preserved of the foundations is commonly referred to as the "Shamrock" house. This house had a small narrow entrance leading to a central room with a hearth. From this room four smaller chambers branch off. It is because of this four-lobed structure that it is known as the "Shamrock" house; nothing to do with the Irish.

Bur far more impressive, and demanding our attention, off to the south-east, stood the remains of the central curved tower,the broch, now about 3m tall (probably originally 8 to 10m in height), and about 20m in diameter. These ruins are from between 500 and 200 BC, probably closer to the latter date. The broch was originally surrounded by a village which was ringed on three "sides" (it's roughly circular) by a protective wall. On the fourth side is a small cliff which leads to the sea. The whole village is built on a slightly raised platform about 45m in diameter.

Beyond the outside wall is a curious construction of 3 concentric ditches. The purpose of these is unknown; some archaeologists have surmised that they were defensive structures, but if so it seems curious that they grow shallower as the entrance to the broch is reached. Also the fact that the very last periods on construction here have walls extending into the largest of the ditches would suggest that they are something other than defensive arrangement of banks and gullies.

Originally all the structures here were composed of drystone walls, but for the reconstruction after excavation Historic Scotland have employed mortar and (in places) steel beams to give the walls some solidity and allow people to visit the site without doing damage to either it or themselves.

At the front of the village there is a causeway across the ditches and through two gateways followed by a straight path which runs directly to the "front door" of the tower; clearly the original entrance was a "processional way" designed to impress. Once within the village the maze-like tangle of walls on the platform outside of the broch resolves itself into a series of small houses, each with at least one hearth. Some of the building technique shows "advanced" features such as pivot holes for swinging doors.

The entrance to the broch is flanked by upright stones with a truly massive lintel stone above. There may have been a wooden doorframe within but time has totally rooted it away if one did exist. The doorway also features a pivot stone on which the door swung and square holes in the passage that may have held stout wooden bars denying entrance.

The interior of the broch would have been a busy place with hearths, wall cupboards, storage pits, a well and a stone stairway leading up the inside of one of the exterior walls. Only fragments of these features survive today. The stairway may have led to a second level with a raised wooden floor. The outer ends of this flooring may have extended and have been supported on a ledge or scarcement running around the inside of the broch walls. Access to this level may have been supplemented by the use of wooden ladders. Above all would have been a conical thatched roof.

The well is probably one of the strangest items in the broch interior. It was not just a hole in the floor but featured steep stone steps but also contained some underground side chambers branching off part way down. Experts are not sure whether the well was just built for collecting water or whether it had other uses as it has similarities to Mine Howe, another site we will visit in a day or two, The well is sealed off as the steep steps and the fact that there is water in the bottom mean it is too dangerous.

We returned to the hotel and found it was a pleasure to be out of the wind. Dinner had been booked at a nearby hotel as Marion wanted to try a local delicacy; seaweed eating sheep!

These come from the island of North Ronaldsay. In 1832 a 12 mile long drystone wall, a sheep dyke, was built across the island to keep the sheep off the agricultural land. The hardy North Ronaldsay sheep graze seaweed off the shore as well as grass on the small areas outside the dyke. Later generations of the sheep have evolved to the point where they die if all seaweed is removed from their diet! The lamb from these sheep is reputed to have a special distinctive taste due to lean meat produced by their unique diet. The Ayre hotel where we are staying did not offer this dish on their menu, but the nearby Lynnfield Hotel did.

We were offered bread at the start of the meal and Marion opted for the other Orkney specialty: bere bannock. This is a roll made from the bere grain I mentioned earlier. Marion's verdict: rock-like and tasteless. On the other hand she found the lamb appetizing, but considered she had had better in Australia.

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Photos

Orkney
This picture, taken while driving, gives you some idea how flat the Orkney islands really are!

Orkney Islands
This photo was taken from the top of Cuween Hill, again to give an idea of the Orkney Island landscape.

Cuween Hill
Cuween Hill Cairn; our first destination with Cazm our archaelogical guide in the Orkneys.

Cuween Cairn
The entrance tunnel we had to crawl through to enter Cuween Cairn.

Capstone
The roof of Cuween Cairn slopes gently upwards until it reaches the flatstone shown in this photo.

Corrigall Farm
One of the authentic buildings at Corrigall Farm - stone, and quite cold inside.

Roof
The roof in the corrigall hill farm was composed of flat rock, held up by wooden beams.

Smoked Fish
A large number of fish were hung up around the fireplace to be smoked, as earlier people would have done.

Chickens
The strange spanish chickens that Corrigall Farm breeds.

Broch of Gurness
The Broch of Gurness, seen from a short distance. The circular building is what remains of the tower.

Broch of Gurness
These stone enclosures built into the ground were once small huts around the main tower.

Tower Remains
These ruins are all that is left of a circular tower that would once have been the centre of a small community.

Broch Doorway
This crude doorway was the only visible entrance to the tower ruins.

Supports
The Scottish Heritage archaelogists excavated the Broch until it looked good, then added thick steel bars to support rocks that may later topple.