<< Our Photo Pages >> Taing of Beeman - Ancient Village or Settlement in Scotland in Orkney

Submitted by howar on Thursday, 16 December 2004  Page Views: 5957

Multi-periodSite Name: Taing of Beeman
Country: Scotland County: Orkney Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Kirkwall
Map Ref: HY53210914
Latitude: 58.966867N  Longitude: 2.815356W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 2 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 3 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 2 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 4

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Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : Southerly view main mound (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Village or Settlement in Orkney

RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50NW 1 is a scattered prehistoric settlement [possibly comparable to The Howie of The Manse, also in Tankerness] between the sea and a freshwater pool. The account on CANMORE is missing the info from Raymond Lamb's 1979 visit (Orkney Sites and Monuments Record 7): this is probably because of duplication, but does mean the interpretation is biased in favour of its being a broch (a decision backed by a 1946 aerial photo, it must be said).

In place of a dug out mound with a SSW circular annexe Raymond has a pair of conjoined houses [hut-circles or a figure-of-eight house ?] covering 11m. Peripheral slabs suggestive of another house are seen around an 8m mound about 50m to the NE (a dubious mound sits 20m to the north). Midway, a few vertical slabs break the turf, with walling eroding from the coast at a corresponding position.
Though I am sceptical of there being a broch in this area a more generic roundhouse may be present. Alternatively, the form of the structures may prove a better match for Late Iron Age II, in which case we could be dealing with a Christian settlement attached to a round church misread as a broch (there was an Saint Beeman).
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Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : Two-and-a-half year's erosion on longest exposed section (Vote or comment on this photo)

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : Shaped stone at wall break - ?quern. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : Back of wall break on way to site, possible quern lower right. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : structural evidence atop NE mound (Vote or comment on this photo)

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : largest of ?field-clearance cairn - obviously not from drystane walls (Vote or comment on this photo)

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : overall view of main mound

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : from water source by cliff over to main mound

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : Turf bank showing depth of an earthfast stone

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : Turf bank wall and earthfast stones at northern rim on seaward side

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : Looking along seaward side to NE mound

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : Southern circle/annexe [IIRC]

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : 'Hut circles'

Taing of Beeman
Taing of Beeman submitted by howar : Water course/gully, main & NE mounds

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 1.0km W 261° Grieves Cottage* Standing Stone (Menhir) (HY522090)
 1.0km W 278° Loch of Tankerness* Ancient Village or Settlement (HY522093)
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 4.2km ESE 123° Millfield* Artificial Mound (HY56700682)
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"Taing of Beeman" | Login/Create an Account | 4 News and Comments
  
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Re: Taing of Beeman by howar on Sunday, 23 March 2008
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Returned to loko for a possible four-slab cist reported by an Orney Field Club member in the 60's, parallel to the coast with the seaward side fallen in a mudslide. From the Tankerness road a track goes to the shore where the cliff has three distinctive layers (including peat) and "Countrywoman" mentions it just after describing this. I was myself unable to find definite evidence for it (this area erodes quickly and I'm no expert) but this area is only two fields from the Hall of Tankerness near which Petrie excavated several cists, and this seems a likely spot. I went on to the settlement site and found that livestock had caused little problem, the most exposed section is still hanging on in there [photo included for comparison]. I am more sure than ever that the chief mound is a double house. Previously undecided on a BA double house or a LIA figure-of-eight, I have heard that the latter are often surrounded by a circle, which accords with the aerial photo which first led to this site's discovery. The stone setting on the further mound is unaffected and so must be deeply embedded.
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Re: Taing of Beeman by howar on Thursday, 20 July 2006
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There looks to have been either another settlement in the area or an extension of this one. Taking the farmtrack from the road continue until the left-hand wall near the coast, then instead of turning left for the Taing of Beeman carry on down to the shore. I could easily term this Taing of Beeman East, but cannot prove a relationship to that Bronze Age settlement. But the clearer features are along the short stretch of sandy beach between that taing [low-lying strata of rocky shore] and the one coming from the Hall of Tankerness. Only on my last visit did I observe the seam of homogenous(?) black earth that runs about a foot deep in the low cliff for quite a few meters (HY529091). Though it looks too deep for man's remains it does seem strange that the triangle of land behind lays outside the present fields still. Perhaps it shows where there was once another lochan - the settlements of Tankerness Loch and Beeman are similarly placed. A meter (say) below the present ground surface and just past the dark earth's right-hand end by a few feet is a passage ined with thickish slabs, rather large for how I remember the Barnhouse culvert and surely too small for a souterrain but nowhere abouthands the modern drains. Moving further along there is a place where a few stones on edge are visible at the cliff edge in a piece under a foot wide, the tops level with the present ground surface. At this point the cliff goes back slightly. And directly behind the former stones is an orthostatic wall, one course high as far as one can tell. There is a thicker slab across the wall at the back that looks to be another part. Certainly this is not the remains of a drystane wall, though I cannot tell which part of what structure I am unsure - a cell or a chamber is my guess. There is nothing like that wall beyond here but at intervals in the clifftop are several more sets of upright stones in the cliff face that indicate more lay still hidden. It all has the feel of something long lost. Perhaps it is a part of the Taing of Beeman settlement much reduced by being lower lying. On the other hand there is a short gully near the latter that may have been a demarcation before erosion set in.
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Re: Taing of Beeman by howar on Tuesday, 05 April 2005
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Went back to look for more to photograph and to shoot video. Beside the drystane fieldwall that faces the coast a whole line of saplings has been planted. The earth is dug up in a line and large boulders are exposed within all over the shop - do hope that these are simply an older fieldwall of bigger material rather than archaeology disrupted. Where a stone in the sub-rectangular feature atop the mound had the whole of one edge within the mound 'visible' the hole was now covered by a mass of fine soil. I assumed this to be the work of rodents. But then in the outside of the mound that side I found several cubic holes about six inches across dug into it. A family doing amateur archaeology maybe (or were the small shoeprints I had seen on the track coming down only from the tree planters). Couldn't be a 'proper' archaeologist's pits as these diggings had not been filled or covered, not even the one with the turf flap and its soil still attached.
This time I looked for the walling Raymond mentioned as being exposed in the coastline opposite the two main features. To my relatively untrained eye there was not enough to confirm this - what there was the cynical could be put down to geology and boundary walls.
Next task I failed to do last visit was to locate the NE mound. The NE mound is described as 50m away from the main mound. So, reading the N mound "20m N of this" as referring to its placing vis-a-vis the main mound it cannot refer to that immediately left of the N mound (which anyway shows none of the peripheral upright slabs), this would seem to refer to a great pile of slabs just beyond the top of the freshwater pool. Not much of a mound if my identification be correct, and the 'rockery' would have to arrived there after Lamb's visit. Only its size sets it apart from the several such assemblages hereabouts in a very rough line and the further heaps along the coastline referred to in my previous fieldnotes.
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Re: Taing of Beeman by howar on Saturday, 19 February 2005
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Pass the Hall of Tankerness junction and on your left go one fieldwall, two fieldwall. Second wall, third field side (nearly opposite top 'end' of loch) a farmtrack goes down to the coast and ends just before. Turn left. Something odd going one with last fieldwall. There is a standing stone jammed between two wall sections as tall orthostat. At its foot lies another standing stone of simlar size but irregular shape. And there is a rectangular gap in the wall getting on for wall height, with a slab across the front of it. First though fallen bit of wall cleaned out. But sides straight and has a long stone acting as a lintel. Distinctly odd.
Large scale on CANMAP makes you think you'll find site and then see lochan diagonally, but you actually see them both at the same time. Definitely not feeling like a broch, though base roughly dimensions of a smallish tower. Could be two hut circles within one mound. The linear structure is at the back rim of the further one. Between two oval hollows a shorter line of stone facing seaward could be an entrance (singular). Resembles broch in association with stream going down to sea, more than one such in this area though. About the stream dip possibly more structural remains.
A stone in top of second mound noted by Raymond might be an indicator of something beneath. Not much further along is a stretch of coast filled almost consecutively with stone heaps - first thought drystane wall demolished, but these stones are far larger than the components of such a wall. If these are from a field clearance it would have to have been either from a sizeable structure or several dwellings.
A propos these heaps I am reminded that the Howie of The Manse, a rather indeterminate site with which Raymond Lamb compared the Taing of Beeman one, is around the lochside from the Loch of Tankerness (burnt mound and) submerged Bronze Age house.
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