Wasbister Burial Mounds and Settlement 650m SE of Buckan Cottage Sandwick, Scotland

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

The monument comprises two burial mounds and a prehistoric settlement dating probably to the 2nd millennium BC (Bronze Age) and earlier. The burial mounds and a pair of roundhouses are visible as upstanding features, but most of this extensive site survives below ground and has been identified by geophysical survey. The monument is situated in pasture on slightly sloping ground below Wasbister Hill, between the Lochs of Stenness and Harray at around 1m above sea level. It lies close to the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site, some 750m NW of the Ring of Brodgar. The monument was first scheduled in 1998, but the area was not adequate to cover the extent of the monument: the present scheduling rectifies this.

The southernmost burial mound appears to be a disc barrow. Lying on the E shore of the Loch of Stenness, it is a prominent, circular grass-covered mound of earth, some 15m in diameter and standing 0.8m high, surrounded by a ditch and external bank, about 6m wide in total with the bank standing 0.6m high. The northernmost burial mound lies some 275m NNW of the disc barrow; it measures around 8m in diameter and stands up to 0.6m high. The upstanding remains of a pair of adjacent roundhouses (a 'double roundhouse') lie between the burial mounds. The NW roundhouse is approximately 19m in diameter with wall-banks 0.6m high and an entrance to the SE, while the SE roundhouse is smaller at around 11m in diameter with wall-banks 0.5m high. Several earthfast stones are present in the banks of both structures. The buried remains of a complex and extensive prehistoric settlement have been detected by geophysical survey around the upstanding houses. The geophysical results have been interpreted as representing: a range of stone-built structures; a series of curvilinear and rectangular ditches, probably representing the remains of further structures; extensive spreads of midden and/or occupation debris; and a range of other features, including field systems and enclosures. A seasonal pond towards the SE of the scheduled area is likely to preserve important palaeoenvironmental evidence.

The scheduled area is irregular on plan to include the remains described above and an area around them within which evidence relating to the monument's construction, use and abandonment is expected to survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map. The scheduling excludes the above-ground elements of all post-and-wire fences to allow for their maintenance.