Fruitless and forgotten – the 1861 excavation inside the Ring of Brodgar

Wednesday, March 5, 2025 (9:12 PM)

A view over the interior of the Ring of Brodgar. (📷 Jim Richardson)

By Sigurd Towrie

What, if anything, lay inside the Ring of Brodgar remains unclear – although the accumulated evidence does suggest that, unlike the Stones of Stenness, there was nothing substantial.

For decades, the notion that the stone circle’s interior remained unexcavated [1] has been cited as one of the reasons for this uncertainty. But that claim, it seems, is not correct.

According to the Orcadian antiquary George Petrie, partial, but fruitless, excavations were not only carried out at the ring’s centre in 1861, but also around some of the megaliths:

“The area enclosed by the circle of Stones presents a rough, uneven surface and has never been levelled, nor is there any trace of mound or terraced platform within the circle. Excavations were made in 1861 in the neighbourhood of several of the Stones and in the centre of the area in the hope of finding sepulchral remains, but none were found.”

George Petrie. (📷 Orkney Library and Archives)

Although the unpublished note does not name the excavators, it was undoubtedly the visiting MP James Farrer – “a notorious but sadly unmethodical antiquary” [1b] who was “scandalously casual in both method and publication” [1c] – accompanied, as usual, by Petrie himself.

To back up this claim requires a little digging through the archives, so we’ll begin with Petrie’s account of Maeshowe’s excavation [2]:

“On occasion of his visit in 1860, Mr. Farrer expressed a desire to open all the larger tumuli in the vicinity of the circle of standing stones at Brogar [sic], Stenness. Some of these had been previously excavated by him, and a large stone urn was found in one of them. [3]

“As it was then late in the season the work was postponed till the following summer, when it was arranged that a deputation from Edinburgh should be present at the opening of the tumuli.”

So Farrer returned to Orkney in 1861, his primary goal to enter Maeshowe. But over that July we know he also relocated workers to investigate other sites around the stone circle.

In the preface to his 1862 booklet on the Maeshowe runes, Farrer thanked the secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, John Stuart, for his urgent suggestion that:

“…the great circle of Stenness [Ring of Brodgar], and the tumuli around it, had not been sufficiently examined…” [4]

This academic nudge not only led to the documented 1861 excavations at Maeshowe, but also the Bookan cairn and the Brodgar tumuli. And given Stuart’s specific reference to the “great circle of Stenness” it seems highly unlikely that Farrer was not behind the brief foray into the Ring of Brodgar (and perhaps also the Ring of Bookan [5]).

The Ring of Brodgar around the time of the undocumented 1861 excavation.
(📷 George Washington Wilson/University of Aberdeen) — The Ring of Brodgar around the time of the undocumented 1861 excavation. The wheel-rutted track in the foreground was described as Lt Thomas in 1851 as ‘the road to Sandwick and Birsa[y]’
(📷 George Washington Wilson/University of Aberdeen)

How extensive the Ring of Brodgar investigations were is not clear but, given that Farrer’s eye was firmly affixed on Maeshowe and that work on the other sites amounted to little more than a few days [6], it is unlikely to have been more than cursory:

“Some days were devoted to excavations close to Stennes [sic] … but as several gentlemen of well-known antiquarian reputation from Edinburgh and Aberdeen were expected, and as I was desirous of having the benefit of their experience and advice, I determined at once to commence operations on the great tumulus of Maeshowe…” [3]

Reading between the lines it is difficult not to come away with the impression that lip-service was paid to the peripheral sites. Maeshowe was the ultimate prize but permission to dig it clearly came with other expectations.

After abandoning work on Salt Knowe and Fresh Knowe, it appears Farrer was expecting a backlash. In a letter to The Orcadian newspaper on July 27, 1861, he wrote:

“After a careful examination of the two great tumuli on the east and west sides of the [Ring of Brodgar], I have come to the conclusion that it is not expedient to continue the excavations at present. I say at present because it is just possible that the Runic inscription at Turmiston [Maeshowe] may throw some fresh light upon that subject.

“Perhaps some of your numerous readers may like to know my reason for discontinuing the works and should the opinion provoke criticism, they may, at the same time, be the means of eliciting information from those who are better able to handle the subject than I am.”

I have not found any documented evidence yet, but cannot help but wonder if eyebrows and hackles had been raised at the manner in which the other sites had been investigated. [3b]

Where discoveries were made at the other 1861 investigations, they were recorded and published in papers by George Petrie [2][6][7] and briefly summarised in a booklet produced by Farrer “for private circulation among friends and acquaintances” [4]. So why was the Ring of Brodgar left out?

I suspect the lack of anything the excavators considered (or recognised as) significant is the reason. Unfortunate, but typical of the period. On top of that we know that Farrer dug into other Orkney sites and documented nothing. Fortunately, Petrie often followed in Farrer’s wake, visiting “excavated” sites to record them after Farrer and his crew had moved on. Without these notes there would be no record.

For example:

“Mr Farrer opened a tumulus at Pickaquoy, near Kirkwall, in 1853, but this I did not see till some time afterwards, when it was in so dilapidated a state that I could not make out whether it had been a barrow containing two built cists or graves, or a Pict’s house…” [7]

And on at least one occasion Petrie politely urged Farrer to moderate his activities:

“Mr Farrer again visited Orkney last summer, and resumed the excavations in Burray. I accompanied him to the island, and suggested the propriety of leaving the building undisturbed, and of the careful removal of the rubbish, both outside and inside.” [7]

Returning to the Ring of Brodgar, the brevity of Petrie’s notes leaves me wondering whether, as in the Pickaquoy example above, he was actually present for the excavation work and only encountered the aftermath. Whatever the situation, it is, again, solely due to George Petrie that anything relating to the work was recorded.

That said, the lack of “sepulchral remains” in 1861 ties in with earlier accounts of the monument as well as the results of modern geophysical surveys carried out within the stone circle.

Hampered somewhat by the underlying geology of the area, geophysics did not detect anything conclusive within the Ring of Brodgar [8], mirroring Petrie’s 1861 remark and that of Lieutenant Thomas ten years before:

“There are now no indications of structure within the area, nor has it been either smoothed or levelled…” [9]

Lt Thomas' 1848 plan of the Ring of Brodgar (Account of some of the Celtic Antiquities of Orkney) — Lt Thomas’ 1848 plan of the Ring of Brodgar (📷 *Account of some of the Celtic Antiquities of Orkney*)

Thomas did, however, highlight the damage around, and inside, the ring:

“[It] must be observed that not only has the peat or turf been cut for fuel, but every layer of soil has been removed, as fast as it has formed, to serve as manure for the infield.

“The general appearance of the country is sufficiently uninteresting; but a barren and desolate aspect, not natural to the place, is produced by the practice of paring the soil from the outfield, that is, from all the land lying without the inclosures [sic]; and the Ring of Brogar has had no sanctity with these barbarous depredators, as the broken and scarified turf will witness.” [9]

It is doubtful that the centuries of disturbance and turf-stripping would have completely obliterated any major structures or features within the stone circle, but it is doubtful that evidence of smaller, more ephemeral, activity would have survived.

But, as always, it would take excavation to know for sure.

Notes

[1] Excavations, led by Professor Lord Colin Renfrew, focusing on the ditch, took place at the ring in 1973. In 2008, Renfrew’s trenches were re-excavated and extended by the UHI Archaeology Institute.
[1b] Vere Gordon Childe.
[1c] Davidson, J. L. & Henshall, A. S. (1989). The Chambered Cairns of Orkney. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
[2] Petrie, G., (1861). Notice of the opening of a tumulus in the parish of Stenness, on the Mainland of Orkney. Archaeological Journal, 18 (1), pp.353-358.
[3] This was the so-called Plumcake Mound, to the north-east of the Ring of Brodgar, and Fresh Knowe, to the east.
[3b] The damage caused during Farrer’s 1854 excavation of Plumcake Mound all but destroyed it and caused some unrest at the time, particularly the v-shaped gash left through the body of the mound (pictured here).
[4] Farrer, J. (1862) Notice of runic inscriptions discovered during recent excavations in the Orkneys. Private circulation.
[5] In the same unpublished note, it is clear Petrie surveyed the interior of the Ring of Bookan but makes no mention of any excavation work.
[6] Petrie, G. (1863) The Picts’-houses in the Orkneys. Archaeological Journal, 20(1), pp.32-37.
[7] Petrie, G. (1855) Description of antiquities in Orkney recently examined, with illustrative drawings. In Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (Vol. 2, pp. 56-62)
[8] Brend, A., Card, N., Downes, J., Edmonds, M. and Moore, J. (2020) Landscapes Revealed: Geophysical Survey in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Area 2002-2011. Oxbow Books, Oxford.
[9] Thomas, F.W.L. (1851) Account of some of the Celtic Antiquities of Orkney, including the Stones of Stenness, Tumuli, Picts-houses, &c., with Plans, by FWL Thomas, RN, Corr. Mem. SA Scot., Lieutenant Commanding HM Surveying Vessel Woodlark. Archaeologia, 34 (1).