Archives » Ancient Mounuments

Wideford Hill Chambered Cairn, Orkney (ii)

Cairn’s entrance ladder:-

Wideford Chambered Cairn Ladder

Entrance from inside. You can see it’s quite restricted. The woman in the picture was our travelling companion:-

Entrance to Wideford Chambered Cairn, Orkney, from Inside

There is some graffiti on the walls.

Interior side wall (i):-

Wideford Chambered Cairn, Orkney, Wall

Interior side wall (ii):-

Wall, Wideford Chambered Cairn, Orkney

Close up on graffiti:-

Graffiti, Wideford Chambered Cairn, Orkney

Original entrance from inside:-

Original Entrance, Wideford Chambered Cairn, Orkney

Chambers:-

Inside Wideford Chambered Cairn, Orkney

Inside Cairn , Wideford, Orkney

Inside  Wideford Cairn, Orkney

The side of Wideford Hill where the chamber sits overlooks an inlet of the NorthSea/Atlantic called the Bay of Firth. The settlement of Finstown lies to the far left of the Firth, beyond the islands as seen in this photo stitch:-

From Wideford stitch, Orkney

Wideford Hill Chambered Cairn, Orkney (i)

Wideford Hill Chambered Cairn, Orkney was one of the ancient sites in the Orkney Islands we didn’t visit in 2017. We tyook it in in June last year.

The approach is up a very steep – and winding – farm road till you reach the car park (grandiose description for two parking spaces) from which you can look down to Kirkwall. The photo also shows some of the road:-

Kirkwall From Wideford Hill

There is a view of Scapa Flow from there too:-

Scapa Flow from Wideford Hill

A notice at the car park said the chambered cairn was about half a mile away on a path round the hill. It was much longer than that.

You can see me walking the path here in a photo taken by the good lady. As you can see the cairn is nowhere in sight and we had been walking for about twenty minutes by this time:-

Bay of Firth from Wideford Hill, Orkney

Cairn from path. To the left you can see the box in which the key to the entrance is kept and the information board:-

Wideford Chambered Cairn, Orkney, neolithic

Information board:-

Wideford Hill Chambered Cairn, Orkney, neolithic

Original entrance (now gridded off):-

Wideford Chambered Cairn Original Entrance

Cairn from above. The modern entrance is the blue square on its top

Wideford Chambered Cairn, Orkney

free hit counter script