Sower

Also known as:
Castle of Sooer and Hillock of Hoose-ha
Nearest town:
Stromness (5km WNW)
OS reference:
HY294062
OS sheets:
6, 7
Latitude:
58° 56' 15.13 N
Longitude:
3° 13' 36.44 W
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Sower

wideford
wideford Aug 2, 2021

Coming down the road I first thought it to be the large mound I saw first, but this is a Great War battery. Further downhill a slightly lower mound is the castle A few have proposed this a a possible broch, but it lacks the usual outline. There was a cow with calf in the field and so I contented myself with photos taken with my ultrazoom camera. Fortunately this showed me a couple of the exposures of mound material. And it appears to me that there are two levels to the mound. Probably nothing, but I was minded on of one of the mounds in the site of The Cairns up the coast at Ireland. This too had been given a military designation, that of ‘Danish fort’. Whence came Hoose-ha ? Perhaps some modern fancied it as being a house platform ‘house hall’ ? Likely to remain an enigma forever and a day.

Miscellaneous

Sower
Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork
wideford
wideford Aug 2, 2021

RCAHMS NMRS record no.HY20NE 5
Close to the shore on the north side of the Sower Road is a large unopened mound of earth and stones which the Name Book states locals called an old castle and appears on the 25” as a castle site. By 1928 it was known locally as the “Hillock of Hoose-ha” and a visit by the commission records “traces of a large indeterminate structure”. Nowadays thought to be a settlement mound, it is roughly rectangular – some 24m E/W by 19m – and about 2m high. No walling has been seen but stone is exposed in places around the periphery and cairn-like material shows in two “mutilations” at the centre.

Sites within 20km of Sower

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