Bu of Orphir Burnt Mound and Mill Dam 250m NW of Bu Farm Orphir, Orkney Islands, Scotland, UK

Scheduled Monument Description

© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.

The monument comprises a burnt mound (a cooking place, probably of Bronze Age date) and a disused mill dam of recent date but occupying an older site, together with their surrounding area.

The burnt mound is largely grass-covered, and is crescentic on plan, with the concavity facing NNW. This element of the monument is already scheduled. The mill dam takes the form of a sub-rectangular hollow aligned NNW-SSE, with the SW side and S corner excavated and the NE side and E angle embanked. The mill lade flowed from the dam SE to the now disused mill at Bu of Orphir Farm, and formerly fed this buildings' predecessors, which originated in a Norse period mill recently identified by excavation just S of the public road. Geophysical survey has indicated the presence of archaeological deposits, including traces of former structures, in the area to the S and SE of the mill dam and burnt mound.

The area to be scheduled is irregular, bounded on the W by a modern fenceline and on the NE by the W bank of a small stream. Its other boundaries are not defined by visible features on the ground. The area has maximum dimensions of 190m NNW-SSE by 110m, to include the mill dam, burnt mound and area of archaeological potential as defined by geophysical survey, and is marked in red on the accompanying map extract.