Hatston field trip

Today we went on a field trip around the school, Peedie Sea and Hatston area.

We researched what we could before we went about a few specific sites in the area.

The future swimming pool site.

 First we noted where St Duthac's Chapel would have been, now the building site for the new pool.

Then we went on to the Pickaquoy Mound.

Sitting on the burnt mound.

 The Picky Mound is sited where two burns meet and was excavated in the middle of the 19th century but had already been excavated for stone - maybe for St Duthac's chapel. A stone with cup and ring marks was found here. The best place to go look at what it might have been like is Liddle in South Ronaldsay on the way to the Tomb of the Eagles.

The burnt mound and the building there has been excavated and its easy to see the structure. No one is quite sure what burnt mounds were used for. It may have been Bronze Age cooking, wool processing, a sauna.....

The Grain Earth House at Hatston was our next stop. We met our expert there - James Moore, an Iron Age specialist. He told us that there were other similar settlements in the area. The entrance to the souterrain would have been inside the house. James showed us where the door and the hearth would have been.

Entering by the steps in the modern extension.

Back out in the sunshine.

 We carried on to the Hatston slip. We had found out the types of airplanes which are in Kirkwall Bay and why the slip is so wide.

On Hatston slip - the airfield would have been nearby.

At Ayre Mills, having passed the old bridge and the site of the ford.

The Peedie Sea has changed a lot since the end of WW2.

We finished our journey back to school by walking across the new path on the reclaimed land, imagining what it might have been like when the sea went right up to the cathedral and before that when the old broch (where the RBS bank is today) looked out from the shore.