Scottish island community to buy 5,000-year-old ancient monument

An island community is set to become the first in Scotland to buy a protected ancient monument.

The Tomb of the Eagles at Isbister in South Ronaldsay will open up once again after almost £358,000 was awarded to a community trust.

The Tomb of the Eagles at Isbister, South Ronaldsay , which is around 5,000-years-old, is to be bought by the island community and re-opened as a historic attraction. PIC: Contributed. | Contributed

The Neolithic tomb was where bones of around 300 different people were placed around 5,000 years ago, with the remains of several sea eagles later left at the site.

The monument has been closed since Covid, with the family who run the visitor attraction and access to the tomb, which sat on their land, then deciding to retire.

Steve Sankey, of the South Ronaldsay and Burray Community Trust, said islanders were “delighted” they had successfully secured funding from the Scottish Land Fund (SLF) to take over the historic site.

He said: “ We have been told this is the first time that a community in Scotland will buy an ancient scheduled monument, so we are pretty happy about that.

READ MORE: New Stone Age: Violence, ambition and a new world order in Neolithic Orkney

“The support from the community to do this has been unbelievable. On a small island you normally get one or two naysayers, but everybody, everybody has been so supportive.”

The SLF will cover 80 per cent of the cost of the visitor centre, the tomb, a nearby Bronze Age site and the farmhouse once belonging to Ronnie Simison and his wife, Morgan. Mr Simison personally excavated the tomb in the 1950s and the couple then spent much of their lives enthusing visitors with their finds and knowledge.

The couple’s daughters, Kathleen MacLeod and Freda Norquay, then took over the running of the Tomb of the Eagles, which has been described as being “crucial” to the understanding of Orkney’s Neolithic past.

All hopes are now pinned on reopening the tomb to visitors, which will be run solely by volunteers in the first year, on August 1.

A crowdfunding campaign is now underway to raise a further £30,000 to help get the doors open this year, with a total of around £500,000 required.

Mr Sankey said concern had grown locally about the closure of a number of attractions and services in South Ronaldsay, with a bistro and the foot ferry from John O’ Groats ceasing to operate in recent times.

“Everyone is retiring - it was getting to the stage that nothing was left,” he said.

Orkney Isles Council, following some research, concluded the best option for the Tomb of the Eagles was a community buy-out.

Following the closure of the Tomb of the Eagles, key artefacts were removed and then displayed at Orkney Museum in Kirkwall.

Mr Sankey said the originals would have to remain there given storage and insurance limitations, with replicas due to be made for the display at Isbister. They will include replica skulls of ‘Charlie and Jock’ - two main figures in the story of the tomb - as well as pottery, jewellery and the talons of the sea eagles later placed at the tomb.

A number of skulls left in the tomb showed evidence of people enduring blunt force injury, with both men and women, young and old, harmed in this way. The weapons used were possibly maces or carved stone balls at a time when a ‘New World Order’ of Neolithic society was taking root in Orkney from around 3,300BC.