Region : Orkney Home
Island : Eday Map
Town or village : Calfsound List
Grid Reference : HY 560 381 Glossary
Period : 3rd millennium BC Bibliography
Vinquoy

CHAMBERED CAIRN
Vinquoy image

 
This is a well preserved example of a Maes Howe type of chambered cairn. The entrance is on the south and the passage roofed by seven lintels. The passage is 4m long, 1m high and only 0.4m to 0.6m wide.
Four side-cells open off the central polygonal chamber. The low cells' entrances are in two pairs (in the photo the two eastern ones are visible).
The chamber's walls rise vertically to lintel height, after which they oversail to a surviving height of 3m, like a beehive.
The cairn was built on a hilltop, with magnificent views over Orkney. It is likely to have served as a burial place and to have been in use for several hundred years.
It was first entered in 1857 via a hole in the roof, but nothing is known of its original content. Then it was restored in 1985.