WIDEFORD HILL CAIRN by summonedbyfells

On the seaward side of the hill overlooking Wide Firth and the startling views to Gairsay, Rousay and beyond to the Saint-making island of Egilsay (where Magnus was martyred), Wideford is another Maeshowe like burial cairn dating from somewhere around 3,800 & 3,000 years BC. The builders of this chamber were among the earliest of Orkney's farmers who lived down below on the shoreline levels where their farmstead dwellings have been excavated at Wideford and Stonehall on the edge of the Bay of Firth. These were settled and organised communities, they were good agriculturalists, house builders and in the later neolithic periods constructed the major monument sites at the Ring of Brodgar and Stenness. But while chambers like Wideford are much less spectacular they are undoubtedly very much more numerous. The original access here was through a low tunnel in the break of the outer wall, and could not have been easy. Today modern visitors can simply shin down a ladder though a trap-door in the roof. Wideford Hill Cairn is a good example showing the "skin" type of construction, first the inner chamber is completed then an outer wall is built over and around that one, and after that the final outer wall. I'm assuming Historic Scotland have exposed the walls to demonstrate this construction method.