Ord Hill

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Ord Hill

The Ord Hill (also The Ord ( Scottish Gaelic Cnoc na Croit Maoile is called)) is a hill in the Parish of Lairg in the Scottish Council Area Highland in the traditional county of Sutherland . The numerous legacies from the Neolithic are evidence of early settlement in the area and are accessible to tourists via an archaeological path to the top of the hill, which towers over the surrounding area by around 60 meters.

In addition to a burnt mound, there are dozens of foundations of beehive huts of different sizes , as well as the remains of Bronze Age chamber tombs. The cairns Ord North and Ord South are the main attractions.

Ord South

The remains of the burial mound on the top of the mound consist of a few slabs that mark the position of the passage and the chamber. Ord South was probably the first burial mound here. Later it may have been dismantled in order to build a successor less than 80 m away.

Ord North

A little below Ord South, on a terrace, lies the cairn excavated by John Corcoran in the 1960s , the chamber and corridor of which have been backfilled for safety reasons. What remains visible is the massive fall above the entrance under the rubble stones that form the hill.

The excavations revealed a low, narrow, approximately 4.5 m long corridor divided by side dividers. It leads to a polygonal antechamber and a slightly larger, also polygonal main chamber. The cantilever vault of the chamber must originally have been around three meters high. The passage was blocked after the Neolithic use.

A wide variety of Neolithic pottery pieces including an almost complete bowl of the Unstan ware have been found inside. A number of worked flint stones , a decorated shaft made of bones and the evidence of at least two cremations complete the picture. No unburned bones have survived in the acidic soil.

Archaeological Trail on Ord Hill

The signposted path starts at the Ferrycroft Countryside Center, which is south of the village, on the other side of Loch Shin . The center explains the history of Sutherland's forests and their use by humans from prehistory to the present day.

Geographical demarcation

The hill should not be confused with Ord Hill at North Kessock in Ross-shire near Inverness . The municipality of Muir of Ord , which is also located in the Highland Council Area and has a henge from the Neolithic and Bronze Age with the Muir of Ord Fort, has a similar name . But it is around 50 kilometers from The Ord.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Ord . Canmore, Official Website of the Royal Commission of Ancient Monuments Scotland, Topographic Survey, permanent link, accessed January 26, 2020.
  2. ^ A b Caroline Wickham-Jones and Jill Harden: The Ord, Lairg, Archaeological Trail . Guided tour of the Archaeological Path, (English), no year. ( Download link to PDF, 2.1 MB, (English) ), accessed on January 26, 2020.
  3. ↑ Entry on Ord Burnt Mound  in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)
  4. ↑ Entry on Ord South  in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)
  5. ^ Caroline Wickham-Jones: The Ord, Lairg: A Journey Back in Time , Southerland District Council 1994, p. 4
  6. ↑ Entry on Ord North  in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)
  7. ^ A b Caroline Wickham-Jones: The Ord, Lairg: A Journey Back in Time , Southerland District Council 1994, p. 5

literature

  • Robert Gourlay: Sutherland. An Historical guide . Birlinn, Edinburgh 1996, ISBN 1-874744-44-0 pp. 27-28
  • Caroline Wickham-Jones : The Ord, Lairg: A Journey Back in Time . Southerland District Council 1994. (readable online, English)
  • Caroline Wickham-Jones and Jill Harden: The Ord, Lairg, Archaeological Trail . (undated) (Guided tour of the Archaeological Path, English)

Web links

  • The Ord . Canmore, Official Website of the Royal Commission of Ancient Monuments Scotland, Topographic Survey, permanent link, accessed January 26, 2020.
  • Ord North . Stonepages, private website with description and picture
  • Ord South . Stonepages, private website with description and picture

Coordinates: 58 ° 1 ′ 0 ″  N , 4 ° 24 ′ 52 ″  W.