(Mill Sheed)
| Type: | Uncertain. |
| Location: | Map |
| Notes: | A possible chambered cairn, lying around 180 metres to the north-west of the farm of Hermisgarth, in a field locally known as Mill Sheed. Little is known about the site, other than the fact agricultural work before 1928 revealed a chamber within the mound with possible passages radiating north and south. Nothing remains of the mound/chamber today and the site was not included in Davidson and Henshall’s list of chambered cairns in 1989. In 1980, county archaeologist Raymond Lamb classed it a souterrain/earthhouse, which fits with the scant surviving evidence. The chamber was discovered when farm machinery broke through its roof, suggesting there was no cairn around/over the structure, which appears to have been subterranean. However, in April 1998, the Crantit cairn, outside Kirkwall, was found the same way. Crantit was undoubtedly a subterranean Neolithic tomb, although unlike the majority found in Orkney. The excavators concluded it represented a transition – a change from the Neolithic chambered cairns to the cist burials of the Bronze Age. However, it is also possible that Crantit represented a style of chambered cairn that, although atypical in the current archaeological record, was more common in the Neolithic. |
| Links: | Canmore |
| References: | Davidson, J. L. & Henshall, A. S. (1989). The Chambered Cairns of Orkney. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Lamb, R. (1980) Archaeological sites and Monuments of Sanday and North Ronaldsay. |