Grain Earth House

  • Swordfish Road, Hatston Industrial Estate, Orkney

 

Overview

Climb down into an underground Iron Age chamber supported on stone pillars. 

Grain Earth House is an exceptionally well-built and well-preserved example of an earth house. Its original entrance survives today, leading to a 5m-long passage winding its way to an oval chamber. 

Like other earth houses in the north of the country, it probably dates from the end of the first millennium BC. It’s part of a larger settlement of stone roundhouses, though we don’t know the settlement’s full extent. 

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Opening times

Open year-round.

Please collect key and torch from Judith Glue Shop, 25 Broad Street, Kirkwall.

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